nWilderness or Not?

By Megan Hunewill-Wright

It is Wednesday morning and I am contemplating the Smith Valley Advisory Counsel Meeting that I face tonight. As far as regular board business we have only a few items, some routine approvals of mobile home housing for hired help on local farms, the cemetery board meeting, and routine reports from local officials. However, in the last two weeks a meeting that would have been lucky to have twenty in attendance is now been moved into the multipurpose room at the school which holds 250 people and then moved again into the gym because an even larger crowd is predicted. Wow, and I'm the lucky Chairperson!

In the last month the Lyon County Lands Bill with its proposed Wilderness area which impacts vast areas of Lyon County has gotten the attention of our community. The room was packed two weeks ago at the library when the Forest Service came to report on their involvement and the definition of wilderness. Steve Fulstone organized this meeting so that the community and all the various entities who have historically used this land ( permittees, equestrians, woodcutters, etc.) are aware of what is happening. From this meeting, in a few short weeks, Emery Thran has started an organization called Coalition for Public Access which is well over a hundred strong already and is ready to fight this bill and represent our area.

Some of the things I took away from the meeting organized by Steve Fulstone: a) It seems that Harry Reid wants to leave a legacy and adding the wilderness section to the bill makes it more attractive to environmentalists who have a strong lobby in Washington D.C. No Eastern Congressman cares very much about some obscure lake like Walker, or piping water from Gerlach to Fernley, but add huge tracts of wilderness to the bill and you've got a winner. So it is all about politics. b) Another interesting thing that occurred at this meeting was a Mineral County citizen came to our meeting and was so upset about the lands in Mineral County that will be made into wilderness that she said many Hawthorne residents were willing to give up the Walker Lake fight if that's what it would take to get this wilderness bill stopped. That was interesting to me. c) I'm not clear whether this bill is a done deal, or not. Can anything anybody does make a difference? I'm not sure whether anyone else is clear on this either, maybe I'll find out tonight. d) The definition of Wilderness is road-less and remote according to the Forest Service, however much of the Sweetwater area proposed is not road-less.

So tonight in little old Smith Valley at our town meeting, we are having a representative from Harry Reid's office, from Ensign's office, from the Forest Service, from the BLM, from the Coalition for Public Access, as well as many others. We are going to have a question and answer session and they will hear the concerns of our community. That is how a meeting that might have had twenty people present has turned into something much larger. By the time you read this it will all be over, I hope you were there, and if you weren't I'm sure you'll hear about it.