MARQUETTE - U.S. Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Menominee, said he will introduce an amendment to the omnibus lands bill to remove a provision designating 11,739 acres at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore as wilderness.
"I have an amendment to strike out the wilderness designation for Beaver Basin area in the Pictured Rocks," Stupak said Friday during a taping of WNMU's "Media Meet" which will air next weekend. "Hopefully, I can get my amendment through. If not, I don't know what I'll do. It's a massive bill."
The Omnibus Land Management Act includes roughly 160 separate bills, including two affecting the Upper Peninsula, in addition to the Pictured Rocks Beaver Basin Wilderness designation.
One bill would benefit Keweenaw National Historical Park and the other would support the North Country National Scenic Trail, which snakes more than a thousand miles across Michigan.
The U.S. Senate recently approved the omnibus bill by a vote of 73-21. Stupak said the House is expected to vote on the bill next week.
Stupak said he is very supportive of Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, but he believes there are already enough wilderness areas where certain restrictions on activities may be enacted and enforced.
"I have a real aversion to restricting access to property. And when you start going from national park -there's some restrictions on you there - into a wilderness area, then they really do restrict trails, snowmobiles, four-wheelers, some kind of camping, no motorized vehicles," Stupak said. "I'm just not ready to go there. We have enough of those areas in the U.P. we don't need more."
The Beaver Basin wilderness area would comprise about 16 percent of the 71,000 acres at Pictured Rocks, and was proposed in the Senate by Sens. Carl Levin, D-Southfield, and Debbie Stabenow, D-Lansing, after five years of planning and public input.
Levin said previously the wilderness designation is responsive to many of the concerns expressed by citizens, and would ensure its continued recreational use.
Stupak said neither Alger County nor the city of Munising support the designation. Park officials insist nothing would change in how the Beaver Basin is managed if wilderness is approved, which can only be done by Congress.
But Stupak said he is concerned about future restrictive changes.
"This current supervisor of the park, I trust in his word and he would not do anything that would further restrict activity," Stupak said. "But when the management plan comes up next time - and they come up usually about every five years for review - and if there's a wilderness designation - different supervisor, different people - will view it differently and will restrict our access in that area. It's a beautiful part of the park. I don't want further restrictions on the access."
Pictured Rocks Superintendent Jim Northup was unavailable for comment Friday evening.
Often, in considering amendments, other lawmakers will defer to the judgment of local legislators.
Stupak said he will do what he can to get his amendment though, but he is not likely to vote against the bill if his amendment fails. He doesn't want to jeopardize other provisions in the bill, including the legislation he previously introduced supporting Keweenaw Historical Park.
That bill would "remove overly restrictive property acquisition requirements, change existing unfair matching requirements for federal funds and increase the authorized level of funding that could be appropriated for the park."
The third U.P. item in the massive lands bill would authorize the federal government to purchase land from willing sellers for the North Country National Scenic Trail.
The North Country Trail will be the nation's longest hiking trail, running through seven states From New York to North Dakota. Michigan has the longest trail segment of 1,150 miles.
The federal government has the authority to make land acquisitions from willing sellers for most of its national scenic and historic trails, but this authority has not been available for the North Country Trail.
Levin's staff said previously this provision would reverse that and allow for the eventual completion of the trail, giving more users the opportunity to enjoy scenic hiking in Michigan as well as the six other states along the planned route.
