Keep Ten Lakes as a WSA
To the editor: The Lincoln County Commissioners, in their infinite wisdom, have sent Sen. Steve Daines a request to include our Ten Lakes Area in his proposed Senate Bill doing away with several Wilderness Study Areas in Montana.
Wouldn’t it be nice to see a logging road punched in to the Wolverine Lakes, and the big old growth spruce trees harvested? That’s the kind of thing that conceivably could happen if this bill succeeds. Winton Weydemier must be turning over in his grave!
Leaving Ten Lakes as a Wilderness Study Area has, in my mind, several advantages over either removing that designation or making it a full-fledged wilderness area. It should be left just as it is. Maybe the only change needed is new elected officials with better agendas.
A front page article in the Jan. 9 Western News quotes a Daines’ office news release as saying that the U.S. Forest Service has recommended the release of 449,500 acres of the Wilderness Study Areas in Montana from that designation. I researched that statement with Forest Service and from what they told me, it appears that the statement is a fabrication.
The bill being discussed is Senate Bill 2206. As it was conceived, the Ten Lakes Area was left out of it, but at the urging of our Commissioners it may be included.
If you don’t feel our Commissioners represent your interests, it might be good to tell Mr. Daines so before the cat gets out of the bag.
—Ray Jacobs
Eureka