Nick Rahall: “Today, it is my privilege to bring to the floor of the House of Representatives the ``Wild Monongahela Act: A National…”

“Today, it is my privilege to bring to the floor of the House of Representatives the ``Wild Monongahela Act: A National Legacy for West Virginia's Special Places.'' This legislation is supported by the entire West Virginia delegation: In this body, my colleagues Representatives Alan Mollohan and Shelley Moore Capito, and in the other body, our Senators, Robert C. Byrd and Jay Rockefeller. The pending measure would designate 37,771 acres of Federal land as wilderness within the Monongahela National Forest. Included in this legislation is the expansion of three existing wilderness areas: Cranberry, Dolly Sods and Otter Creek. Additionally, three new wilderness areas would be established: The Big Draft, the Roaring Plains West, and Spice Run. The issue of wilderness has captivated many Americans since the passage of the Wilderness Act in 1964. According to this landmark statute, these are places ``where the Earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.'' To be in a wilderness area is, to me, truly a humbling experience. To be part of designating wilderness is even more humbling because wilderness is an effort to retain the landscape as God has created it.”