Nevada senator prepares plan to protect pioneer trails, desert

Scott Sonner

Thursday, Jan. 20, 2000 | 3:53 a.m.

RENO, Nev. - A plan is being developed to extend federal protection to 600,000 acres of historic pioneer trail corridors in northwest Nevada and parts of nearly two dozen wilderness study areas in the High Rock Canyon and Black Rock Desert.

Sen. Richard Bryan, D-Nev., began circulating draft legislation to congressional offices and special interest groups on Thursday outlining general plans for the proposed Black Rock Desert Emigrant Trail National Conservation Area.

He has not made any final decisions about some pieces of the puzzle, such as the specific acreages that would be set aside or what areas would be off limits to off-road vehicles, his aides said Thursday.

But the draft does address some touchy issues. It indicates no future mining claims would be allowed in the proposed national conservation area, although existing valid claims would be recognized, spokesman Dave Lemon said.

It also suggests that neither livestock grazing nor large-scale permitted events - like the Burning Man festival - would be affected adversely by the establishment of the federal conservation area.

Hunting, trapping and fishing also would continue to be allowed, subject to federal laws and regulations.

Bryan has made the bill a priority before he retires next year at the end of his term. He is expected to introduce it in the Senate next month.

The High Rock Canyon and Black Rock Desert, stretching from about 120 miles north of Reno and northeast toward the Oregon border, contain "the last nationally significant, untouched segments of the historic California Emigrant Trails," the draft bill states.

The area includes wagon ruts, historic inscriptions "and a wilderness landscape largely unchanged since the days of the pioneers."

The ruts are from the Applegate-Lassen and Nobles trails, part of the most famous gold rush ever - an event that led to California's statehood in 1850 and forever linked the West with the United States.

Today, the desert is home to golden eagles, pronghorn antelope, bighorn sheep and free-roaming horses and burros as well as threatened fish and sensitive plants, Bryan said.

"The two large wilderness mosaics that frame the conservation area offer exceptional opportunities for solitude and serve to protect the integrity of the viewshed of the historic emigrant trails," the proposal said.

Bryan notes in the draft that public lands in the conservation area have been used for domestic livestock grazing for more than century.

"It has not been demonstrated that continuation of this use would be incompatible with appropriate protection and sound management of the resource values of these lands," he said.

The 10-page draft leaves blanks in the sections where it describes the approximate number of acres that would be included in the proposed wilderness areas.

Those would be in addition to the estimated 600,000-acre conservation area along more than 100 miles of trail corridors, Lemon said.

They would be drawn from 11 bordering, geographic sectors currently being studied by the Bureau of Land Management for possible inclusion as wilderness areas.