DARRINGTON — A wilderness area that once was the subject of a protest by a sitting U.S. Supreme Court justice has now been preserved for good.
The U.S. Forest Service has gained control of 372 acres of Cascade Range wilderness once targeted for a giant copper mine. The land, nicknamed Miner’s Ridge, is located just inside Snohomish County. It will officially be added to the Mount Baker- Snoqualmie National Forest and the Glacier Peak Wilderness area.
The Chelan County Public Utility District, which has owned Miner’s Ridge in recent years, ceded the acreage to the Forest Service in exchange for a small site near property the utility manages that officials would like to use to measure snowpack.
In 1966, the Kennecott Copper Corp. proposed a large open-pit mine at Miner’s Ridge and a 15-mile road leading to it. Environmentalists decried the plan as “an open pit visible from the moon,” said Gary Paull, wilderness and trails coordinator for the U.S. Forest Service in Darrington.
U.S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, an outdoor recreation enthusiast, led a protest hike up the Suiattle River trail. Eventually, copper prices took a tumble, the Forest Service discussed severe restrictions on the project, and the company abandoned the plan.
“At some point they must have realized political pressure probably would keep them from doing anything up there,” Paull said.
Earlier in the ’60s, the Chelan County PUD flew helicopters to Forest Service land at Lyman Lake, just inside Chelan County, to measure snowpack. The Forest Service, however, later prohibited helicopters in the area.
In 1986, the PUD bought Miner’s Ridge from Kennecott for a nominal fee, Paull said. The utility used the area to measure snowpack but found the information gathered there was not as useful as that collected at Lyman Lake, said Scott Lynn, a realty specialist for the U.S. Forest Service in Wenatchee.
The PUD approached the Forest Service about the exchange and it was formally approved late last month, Lynn said.
In exchange for 1.8 acres at Lyman Lake, the Forest Service received the 372 acres at Miner’s Ridge.
“It’s permanently preserved,” he said.
Bill Sheets: 425-339-3439; sheets@heraldnet.com.
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