14,000-Acre Gift to Joshua Tree Park Announced

President Clinton announced Saturday a gift of 14,000 acres to Joshua Tree National Park from the Wildlands Conservancy, while declaring war on Republicans in Congress for attempting to block government efforts to acquire wilderness in Southern California and elsewhere.

“It’s a major deal for Joshua Tree,” said Mary Risser, a National Park Service official who is assistant superintendent of the park. “It ensures that the land remains in its natural state.”

Clinton also issued an executive order tightening environmental reporting rules by requiring firms that handle even relatively small quantities of certain toxic materials to provide fuller public disclosure when they discharge potentially dangerous chemicals into the air or water.

The acreage being given to the park is within the current park boundaries, scattered through the southwestern part of the park in the Little San Bernardino and Cottonwood mountains. The rugged, austere landscape--a key habitat to the endangered desert tortoise and home to the cholla cactus--is part of the Colorado Desert, which is lower and more arid than the Mojave Desert to the north.

The conservancy bought the former railroad land in 1996 for $2.5 million to prevent it from falling into the hands of developers. The group decided to donate the land to Joshua Tree, but not before gaining what it considered adequate legal assurances that the government would never use it for other purposes.

“It’s through partnerships like this that we can protect vital pieces of our national endowment,” Clinton said in his weekly radio address.

The president also said he would veto the Interior Department spending bill, charging that it would jeopardize efforts to protect the Everglades, Civil War battlefields and the Mojave Desert and deprive communities of the help they need to save open space.

He took specific aim at several provisions of the bill that he said would have negative effects on the environment and public lands. These included postponing for at least six months a new formula for calculating payments by oil companies for extracting oil and natural gas, and allowing mining companies to dump more waste. The final form of the bill is being worked out in conference.

“While I’m taking action to save some of our most treasured places, Congress is putting other precious lands at greater risk,” Clinton said.

In the Republican response, Rep. J.C. Watts Jr. (R-Okla.) attacked the president for attempting to spend money on environmental projects that he said should be saved for Social Security. The Republican-led Congress voted last week to require a 1% spending cut for an array of domestic agencies, including those covered in the Interior Department spending package.

“The Republican Party has fought diligently to protect the environment without raiding the Social Security trust fund,” Watts said. “By eliminating 1% of waste, fraud and abuse from the Department of Interior, we will also protect 100% of [the] Social Security trust fund.”

The new environmental reporting rules, effective Jan. 1, will significantly reduce the amount of 27 dangerous chemicals that a company can use before it must publicly report discharges.

“By requiring industries to tell communities how much they pollute the air and water, we empower citizens to fight back and create a powerful incentive for industry to pollute less,” Clinton said.

The new regulations, for the first time, cover dioxin, a dangerous byproduct of many industrial processes, including waste incineration and chemical and pesticide manufacturing. Under the new requirements, companies producing as little as one-tenth of a gram of dioxin annually would be required to report potentially dangerous discharges to the public.

Under current rules, companies that handle more than 25,000 pounds or use more than 10,000 pounds of toxic chemicals annually are required to report discharges. The new rules will require reports by companies using 100 pounds yearly, or in the case of some particularly dangerous chemicals, 10 pounds yearly.

One of the president’s major objections to the GOP-drafted Interior spending bill is that it provides only one-third of the $1 billion he requested for a “lands legacy” to preserve natural treasures and help communities protect farms, forests, urban parks and other local green spaces.

Some of that money would have gone to help the Wildlands Conservancy purchase nearly half a million acres of desert wilderness in and around Joshua Tree and the Mojave National Preserve for preservation. Most of the land is scattered amid 4 million acres of public lands and includes lava flows, rock ranges, sand dunes and cactus gardens.

The conservancy has put down $5 million for an option on the land and plans to add $13.6 million if the federal government will allocate $30 million.

To encourage America’s expansion west, Congress in 1864 gave Southern Pacific Railroad alternating parcels of California desert, retaining the rest for public use. The Wildlands Conservancy bought the property from Catellus Development Corp., formerly the real estate arm of the Santa Fe Pacific Corp., and the largest private owner of California desert.

By adding the land to Joshua Tree, the group ensured that Catellus would not sell it to those who could restrict the movement of big horn sheep, desert tortoises, hikers and off-road driving enthusiasts.

Myers said was essential that the government acquire the land.

“They’re all puzzle pieces. If they sell individually, it’s almost impossible to put the pieces back together,” Myers said.

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Times wire services contributed to this report.