Bartholomew D Sullivan, and Zach Urness

Statesman Journal

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama expanded the Cascade-Siskiyou national monument by 48,000 acres Thursday evening, protecting the unique ecological features of the region over the objections of some local residents.

The decision creates a monument of rugged mountains and rich biodiversity east of Ashland with a total size of about 114,000 acres. President Bill Clinton first designated the area as a national monument in June 2000.

“Expanding the monument to include Horseshoe Ranch, the Jenny Creek watershed, the Grizzly Peak area, Lost Lake, the Rogue Valley foothills, the Southern Cascades area, and the area surrounding Surveyor Mountain will create a Cascades-Siskiyou landscape that provides vital habitat connectivity, watershed protection and landscape-scale resilience for the area’s critically important natural resources,” President Obama’s six-page proclamation says.

The expansion includes land in Jackson and Klamath counties in Oregon and Siskiyou County in California.

Dave Willis with the Soda Mountain Wilderness Society said he has been working on the designation of a monument there for 34 years.

“We’ve been working to protect the best and restore the rest,” he said by phone Thursday evening. He said the region has fantastic biodiversity which has been threatened by the effects of population growth, extractive land uses and climate change.

One change in the language pertaining only to the expansion areas is that motorized vehicles like snowmobiles may be permitted, Willis noted after studying the proclamation.

George Sexton, conservation director, Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center, said he can see part of the existing monument from his back porch in Talent, Ore. He noted that the city council and chamber of commerce of both Talent and Ashland supported the expansion of the monument. He said his initial reaction is that he is “heartened that those local voices were heard” and that economic and recreational values are now in concert.

The expansion has drawn opposition in a region where federal land use issues led to the armed standoff of armed occupiers at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. Opponents of the expansion have said a larger monument would harm Southern Oregon's economy due to limits on logging and cattle grazing.

Natural Resources Committee Chairman Rob Bishop, joined by U.S. Rep. Doug LaMalfa, R-Richvale, and others, wrote a letter to the president in November saying expanding the monument at a time of drought and wildfires was “utterly irresponsible.”

"Despite loud protests from citizens who actually live in these areas and whose private property rights would be infringed upon, Washington bureaucrats still think they know what is best for Californians," LaMalfa said Thursday. "This is a clear misuse of the Antiquities Act and I will work with the Trump Administration to rescind this decision."

Siskiyou County Board of Supervisors chairman Michael N. Kobseff said the county was officially opposed to the expansion just as it had been to the original designation 16 years ago because of its effect on wildfire-fighting and property rights.

“It creates a more volatile environment with the government on your back doorstep,” Kobseff added. “It’s not a win for liberty.”

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