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Idaho's Bid For A National Park

Submitted by Kurt Repanshek on April 14, 2007 - 10:00am

Idaho has no national park to truly call its own.
Most of Yellowstone lies within Wyoming's borders, Craters of the Moon is a national monument and preserve, Nez Perce is a national historical park Idaho shares with Montana, Washington and Oregon, Hagerman Fossil Beds is a national monument, Minidoka Internment is a national monument, and City of Rocks is a national reserve.
And some Idahoans take exception to being without a full-fledged national park. Back in 1992 the state drafted a list of prospective park sites and shipped it off to the Interior Department, where it's wallowed. The problem, according to NPS officials, is that none of the sites has grassroots support.
Among the sites on the list were Craters of the Moon, the Hells Canyon National Recreation Area, and the Sawtooth National Recreation Area.
While I'd love to see the Sawtooth NRA with its jagged range of mountains, thick forests, many lakes, and sweeping bottom lands gain park status, there are some conflicting uses that would have to be addressed: logging, mining, hunting, and ranching.
That actually might not be too big of a hurdle, as some national parks carry the additional "preserve" designation that allows hunting and in some cases oil and gas exploration.

Comments

Submitted by Delawarians for a National Park (not verified) on April 14, 2007 - 9:12pm.
Kurt, before we focus on Idaho, let's try to make the National Park Service truly national and get a beach, river, historical site, something, for Delaware.
Submitted by Trish (not verified) on April 15, 2007 - 2:15pm.
The NPS can't take care of what it has...why take more land and lock it up for envirowackos & bad-science scientists?????
Submitted by Alan Gregory (not verified) on April 15, 2007 - 5:08pm.
Trish, you must be referring to the political hacks that infest the upper runs of the chain of command at the Interior Department these days. Perhaps you're thinking of Julie A. MacDonald. What's that you say? You never heard of Ms. MacDonald? Read about her here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/30/AR2007033001998.html
Submitted by matt (not verified) on April 15, 2007 - 8:50pm.
As incredible as SNRA is, it really is incompatible with being a "national park". Its current status seems to work just fine, no need to alter it just to make the NPS feel better. And COTMNM is halfsies with BLM, so they can't have that one either. They could take the NPS chunk and call it a 'national park', but I'm sure they don't want the somewhat incompatible uses that are found on the BLM-managed land. Again, change for change's sake doesn't make much sense. Idaho is a phenomenal state - having a 'national park' just to say they do won't change that. Besides, most of it is already managed by USFS and BLM. The NPS has to take a backseat occasionally.