As inauguration day looms (tweet, you’re it Trump), the Obama admin has been blazing toward its finish line signing into effect an ambitious list of environmental protections. The latest pen stroke is being hailed as a win for Oregon and California salmon and steelhead, cementing a 20-year ban on any new mining across more than 100,000 acres of public lands in the Wild and Scenic Illinois, Rogue, and Smith River watersheds, and portions of Pistol River and Hunter Creek in Southwest Oregon.

The hold on fresh, headwater-fouling sites across the Klamath-Siskiyou Mountains was inked by the Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management. The action is jointly supported by the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management. The protected area is a part of an untrammeled, largely roadless environment. And the mining withdrawal has been pursued for years by environmentalists, politicians, local cities, and groups concerned with safeguarding salmon and steelhead habitat such as the Native Fish Society.

It’s also been opposed for years by the American Energy and Mining Association, which is now lobbying hard for a reversal. The association has already called on Congress, including a U.S. House that’s taken action to grease the way for the sale of public lands, to counter protections stemming from the public land order.

New protections are separate from the 48,000 acres added to the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument this month.

Tom Bie
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Tom Bie is the founder, editor, and publisher of The Drake. He started the magazine in 1998 as an annual newsprint publication based in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. He then moved it to Steamboat, Colorado (1999), Boulder, Colorado (2001), and San Clemente, California (2004), as he took jobs as managing editor at Paddler, Senior Editor at Skiing, and Editor-in-Chief at Powder, respectively. Tom and The Drake are now both based in Denver, Colorado, where The Drake is finally all grows up(Swingers, 1996) to a quarterly magazine.

Category: Daily Drake
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Author: Tom Bie

Tom Bie is the founder, editor, and publisher of The Drake. He started the magazine in 1998 as an annual newsprint publication based in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. He then moved it to Steamboat, Colorado (1999), Boulder, Colorado (2001), and San Clemente, California (2004), as he took jobs as managing editor at Paddler, Senior Editor at Skiing, and Editor-in-Chief at Powder, respectively. Tom and The Drake are now both based in Denver, Colorado, where The Drake is finally all grows up(Swingers, 1996) to a quarterly magazine.

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