In going back to the boundary adjustments, we talked about Rare II being thrown out of court (38). Was the park expansion something that Senator Hatfield’s office initiated?
Well, yes. The senator concluded that the Forest Service would have unmanageable small tracts of wilderness under RARE II. That would not be of any value to them other than as wilderness. It would also cause an extra administrative burden for them. If these small tracts were next to the park boundary, and if they were going to be preserved as wilderness anyway, why not have them managed as part of the national park? He directed the supervisors of the three national forest around the park to meet with the Park Service. The park superintendent and three supervisors of the adjoining forest were to get together to recommend those lands in the area under study that would be suitable to be added to the national park. We met and there was some give and take. The supervisors were very knowledgeable and cooperative.
Ernie Borgman participated in this, too, didn’t he?
No, this was after Ernie retired. At any rate, it worked out pretty satisfactorily as far as I was concerned. I felt good about the resources that we were able to get into the park the ones we chose not to include. We may have missed a few good ones. There was, I think, a compromise on the southwest side. If you look at the boundary, there’s a diagonal line that goes from one corner to another. I remember when we were working on wilderness planning, part of the requirement was that the boundary that you developed has to be a manageable unit that you can describe. The preferred boundary of a wilderness would be natural terrain features, a hydrographic divide, a ridge, a stream or something like that. If that is not possible, then a second choice would be from known survey points. The natural terrain features were the preferred way, whereas a contour line on a topographic map was the least desirable. The only way I could get a manageable boundary in the particular case was to go from one section corner to another half section or something. That’s the reason for the diagonal but for the rest of the boundaries, we tried to work along natural terrain features.
Was the CPSU study of Sphagnum Bog helpful to make the case for all of it being inside the park?
I didn’t refer to it (39). We talked earlier today about these various land classifications. Planners and park staff probably defined the area of Sphagnum Bog as class four, which has unique natural features. I had the judgment of others to fall back on for that being of value and I knew there was some adjacent to the park. I wanted to get as much as I could for a buffer.
