Senate Acts To Preserve Northwest Wild Places

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A Senate panel Thursday approved the creation of a new wilderness area in Oregon and the expansion of one of Washington's most popular wild places.

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee action moves forward the proposal for a Devil's Staircase Wilderness, a nearly 30,000-acre wilderness in the south-central Oregon Coast Range.

It also extends wild-lands protection to 22,000 acres, altogether, for the Alpine Lakes Wilderness and land along the Pratt and Middle Fork Snoqualmie Rivers. The Alpine Lakes area in the Washington Cascades was established by Congress as wilderness in 1976.