Test on Pesticides : Finally, a Park for Nevada

The Reagan Administration has been singularly reluctant to expand the National Park System. Money concerns often have been cited, but political philosophy plays a major role as well. Thus it was a pleasant surprise to parkland advocates when Secretary of Interior Donald P. Hodel recently endorsed a bill by Sens. Paul Laxalt and Chic Hecht (R-Nev.) to create a Great Basin National Park in eastern Nevada.

Hodel cautiously limited his support to the “carefully crafted” 44,000-acre park proposed by Laxalt and Hecht. A House-passed plan sponsored by Rep. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) would create a 129,000-acre park plus an adjacent preserve and more than 500,000 acres of new wilderness area. A House-Senate conference committee would resolve the differences once the Senate passed a bill.

The important point is this: The momentum is behind the creation of a park now, and a Great Basin bill should pass this Congress and be signed into law by the President. This is a case, by the way, in which election-year politics are providing a beneficial force. Reid is running for Laxalt’s Senate seat, and no one wants to be blamed for the failure of a park bill to pass.

But that is a side issue. The region clearly merits park designation. The terrain ranges, in just a few miles, from Great Basin desert country to the alpine heights of 13,000-foot Wheeler Peak. It includes Lehman Caves, already a national monument with a Park Service visitor center, and stands of bristlecone pine, possibly the oldest living things. Virtually all the area now is in federal ownership, much of it in the Humboldt National Forest. The Administration opposed the park until it discovered how popular the idea was with Nevada officials. Nevada is the only Western state without any national park, although Idaho has just a slice of Yellowstone.

The 44,000 acres (only 6% the size of Yosemite) in the Laxalt-Hecht bill would leave out important features that are incorporated in the Reid bill, including some bristlecones and access routes from the east. The logical compromise is to enlarge the park itself to the scope of Reid’s plan and leave the peripheral issues of the preserve and wilderness area for resolution by a later Congress.

The proposed Great Basin National Park has been kicking around Congress for more than 25 years. Its time has come.