Hike On! Stewart Udall's Legacy, from Sea to Shining Sea

Stewart Udall, Secretary of the Interior under Presidents Johnson and Kennedy, passed away at the age of 90 on Saturday. Rather than repeat the biographic details found in obituaries, this post pays photographic tribute to his life's passion, our wild public lands.

Although a quintessential Westerner who began public life as an Arizona member of Congress, one of his first successes in Washington in 1960 was in New Jersey. He championed citizens who wanted to replace Newark Airport with a larger one, and the creation of the Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge was the result.

As Secretary of the Interior, Udall is credited with helping to pass the Wilderness Act in 1964. Legalese can make for dry, dusty reading, but the Wilderness Act's definition verges on poetry:

A wilderness, in contrast with those areas where man and his own works dominate the landscape, is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.

During the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, public lands expanded immensely, with more than 60 additions to the park system totalling 3.85 million acres, thanks to Stewart Udall. He oversaw the creation of remote Guadalupe Mountains National Park, the highest point in Texas, featuring stark contrasts between mountain and desert and the world's finest example of a fossilized reef.

North Cascades National Park, with its high cold peaks and glowing turquoise lakes, is part of his legacy. So are the misty, mystical Redwoods National Park in California, home of the world's tallest trees (below). He also deserves credit for expanding types of units (beyond national parks and monuments), such as the National Trails System (including the Appalachian Trail) established in 1968; the country's national seashores, including Point Reyes, Cape Hatteras, Padre Island, and Cape Cod National Seashores; and national recreation areas such as the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area in Los Angeles (which keeps me sane). The Land and Water Conservation Act of 1965, which funds parks as big as the Grand Canyon and as small as your kid's soccer field from federal oil lease money, shows legislative ingenuity.

The vast, gorgeous, rugged labyrinth of Canyonlands National Park was established with his help.


The next time you take a whitewater rafting trip on the Rogue River in Oregon, salute Stewart Udall. If you'd prefer to fish for sturgeon on the Wolf River in Wisconsin (shown) or float the Verde River in Arizona or the Merced River in Yosemite Valley, thank him too for his role in passing the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act.

Not content with reshaping the great wild lands of the United States, he also helped to save Carnegie Hall from destruction.

He played a role in the National Wildlife Refuge System Administration Act of 1966, arguably the most significant refuge law since the Migratory Bird Act of 1929 first codified refuge administration. Without that law, there would be no Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, no Key West National Wildlife Refuge, nor 56 refuges between, all established during his tenure.




President Obama's statement:

For the better part of three decades, Stewart Udall served this nation honorably. Whether in the skies above Italy in World War II, in Congress or as Secretary of the Interior, Stewart Udall left an indelible mark on this nation and inspired countless Americans who will continue his fight for clean air, clean water and to maintain our many natural treasures. Michelle and I extend our condolences to the entire Udall family who continue his legacy of public service to this day.

In honor of work by him and his brother Morris Udall, both patriots who loved their country from sea to shining sea, the easternmost and westernmost points in the country bear their names.

Two details stand out from the New York Times obituary on a life well lived, priorities in order, optimistic, resilient and relevant to the end. From his last Grand Canyon whitewater trip, he hiked from the river to the canyon rim, refusing a mule, 10 strenuous miles uphill, to enjoy a well-deserved martini. At the age of 84. And a recent letter to his grandchildren urged them to focus on "trying to transform our society to a clean energy and clean job society."

A tiny bit of good news

Late last week, I heard that Senator John McCain (R-AZ) would propose, as early as today, an amendment to an unrelated bill that could increase the number of helicopter flights over the Grand Canyon and deprive the public of input into the noise management plan being developed by the National Park Service. I put together a quick DailyKos/FDL diary, John McCain's temper vs. Grand-Canyon: quick action alert!, asked others to call their Senators, and sent the diary to a few people, notably Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM). I also called and emailed my one Senator who might consider voting for this amendment, to be told that she was still reviewing. Later on today, I learned that Senator Bingaman gave a great speech, McCain withdrew the amendment, the unrelated bill passed 93-0, and all's well with the Grand Canyon (until the EIS will be released, in which case the noise battle can be fought all over again).

Did I influence the outcome? Almost certainly not. Bingaman didn't like the amendment before getting any emails from me. My Senators never voted on the amendment. Alerts from the Sierra Club and National Parks Conservation Association and on other blogs probably generated far more phone calls than my one humble effort. Still, it feels good to be a tiny part of the larger effort.

Hike On! On a clear day, can you see Four Corners?

The great national parks of the Southwest overwhelm visitors with a sense of space. The air is limitless, dazzling, so crystalline clear it pierces the lungs and the soul. On the rim of the Grand Canyon, you imagine you can see forever -- an average of 106 miles, and up to 160 miles on clearest days. Bryce Canyon, with its aptly named Farview Point, offers panoramic views of three states, visibility up to 200 miles, and "dark skies" night astronomy programs in which visitors can see up to 7500 stars. Red sandstone of Delicate Arch, in Arches National Park, frames a perfect blue sky.

Unless the haze obstructs the view.

One purpose of the Clean Air Act is "to preserve, protect, and enhance the air quality in national parks." Most national parks, wilderness areas, and certain national forests and national wildlife refuges are labeled Class I, giving the involved federal agency some obligation to prevent significant deterioration of air quality caused by outside sources within 300 kilometers.

An entire federal program, Interagency Monitoring of Protected Visual Environments, or IMPROVE, is dedicated to monitoring and protecting air quality in the national parks and wilderness areas. Many parks have webcams, showing not only a view of the park but also air quality, such as the informative Grand Canyon webcam. (True confession -- I use the Yosemite webcam page as a mental health break.)

The NPS' most recent 2008 report on air quality in parks shows that ozone levels at Great Basin (NV) and Mesa Verde (CO), both remote parks far from any large population center, are surprisingly high and are of particular concern.

The Bush administration proposed weakening the Class I rules by permitting coal plants and other haze-creators to be placed closer to national parks. The National Parks Conservation Association identified ten parks most threatened by coal plants in Dark Horizons (33 pg pdf), including Capitol Reef (UT), Great Basin, Mesa Verde, and Zion (UT) National Parks. Ultimately the Bush administration backed down.

Two notorious sources of haze in the Southwest are the Four Corners and Black Mesa coal plants.

The Four Corners plant, located west of Farmington, NM burns 10 million tons of coal every year. It's the largest single source of air pollution in the state of New Mexico, according to the Arizona Public Service's monitoring reports. And the NPS has found that Four Corners has the greatest visibility impact on Class I national parks of any coal plant in the country. The coal plant particularly threatens clean, clear air at Arches, Canyonlands, and Mesa Verde national parks. Last month, a coalition of environmental groups petitioned the DOI and USDA to declare that the Four Corners plant is violating the Clean Air Act by polluting the air at sixteen Class I national parks.

The Black Mesa power plant complex, no stranger to controversy, was set up with apparent sweetheart deals on Hopi and Navajo land in the 1960s. The complex consists of two separate strip mining operations: Black Mesa and Kayenta. Black Mesa was shut down in 2005 rather than comply with environmental regulations, while Kayenta kept going. As part of the Bush administration midnight anti-environmental regulations in December 2008, a permit to combine the two (effectively reopening Black Mesa) for the life of the mine was approved. However, in January 2010, an administrative law judge rescinded the permit, sending the reopening of Black Mesa back to the drawing board for a new environmental impact statement. Chalk this victory up for the good guys. (Note: the Black Mesa story has layers of tragedy, exploitation, and environmental injustice going far beyond haze over the Grand Canyon. Black Mesa Indigenous Support and similar websites have more information than can be covered in this diary.)

The casual national park visitor's view over the Grand Canyon is certainly not the only reason to shut down places like Four Corners and Black Mesa. However, it's another harm instigated by the burning of fossil fuels, another reason to convince your nonpolitical friends that we need to move to clean energy, and another reason why carbon pollution should not continue unchecked.