OLYMPIC WILDERNESS: Dicks, Murray Announce Community Workshops
Washington, D.C—U.S. Representative Norm Dicks and U.S. Senator Patty Murray today released a draft proposal for Wilderness additions on the Olympic Peninsula in order to continue receiving input from the public and local communities on this critical issue. They also announced that they will be asking their local offices to hold a series of four public workshops next month to allow citizens and communities to provide additional feedback on the proposal.
The Olympic Wilderness proposal was crafted after more than a year was spent gathering input from local stakeholders and submitted to the offices of Representative Dicks and Senator Murray and would: • Designate roughly 130,000 acres of new wilderness on Forest Service Land. • Add 23 rivers within public land ownership to the Wild and Scenic River System. • Provide the opportunity for Olympic National Park (ONP) to purchase up to 20,000 acres through a willing buyer, willing seller process for addition as a preserve to the Park. Currently, ONP cannot purchase land within their General Management Plan without Congressional Action.
Public Workshop Schedule -Thursday, December 1, 2011. 5:00pm-7:00pm at the Chapel Building at Fort Worden State Park Conference Center. 200 Battery Way, Port Townsend, WA 98368 -Friday, December 2, 2011. 5:00pm-7:00pm at the Shelton Civic Center. 525 W Cota Street, Shelton, WA -Saturday, December 3, 2011. 3:00pm-5:00pm at the Museum at the Carnegie. 207 S. Lincoln St., Port Angeles, WA -Sunday, December 4, 2011. 3:00pm-5:00pm at the Central Elementary School Library. 310 Simpson Ave. Hoquiam, WA