Shawnee National Wilderness Area? Not likely says Senator Durbin

HARRISBURG, Ill. (WJPF) — A recently announced review of the Shawnee National Forest for wilderness designation won’t result in many changes, says Senator Dick Durbin.

Sen. Durbin and Sen. Tammy Duckworth released a joint statement on Tuesday stating that they had sent a letter to the U.S. Forest Service requesting the lands of the Shawnee National Forest be reviewed to determine if areas of the forest meet the requirements to be considered for wilderness protection.

But Sen. Durbin says both he and Sen. Duckworth think the review as more of a necessary formality to keep the Shawnee National Forest the way it currently is.

In an interview Thursday with Newsradio WJPF, Durbin, a Democrat, said the review is really the result of a political spat of sorts between himself and Utah Senators Mitt Romney and Mike Lee, both Republicans.

“I have been working for as long as I’ve been in the Senate to declare a multi-million acre wilderness area in Utah in what’s known as the Red Rock area…and we’re moving in the right direction. We even got an agreement with Orrin Hatch as he retired from the Senate to declare some parts of it as wilderness area.

But, there is a resistance to it as well. There’s some county officials who have convinced the two U. S. Senators, [Mitt] Romney and [Mike] Lee, from Utah that they don’t want any wilderness areas in their state. It’s a controversial issue, so they’re a little upset with me, to be honest with you, that I pursued this. I think it’s important and the right thing to do. The retribution was to come back and say, ‘Okay, Durbin, if you want Utah areas to be wilderness area, we want the Shawnee National Forest declared as a wilderness area.’ They officially requested that and introduced legislation for it.

So Senator Duckworth and I know, and everybody else knows, this is not going to be declared a wilderness area, nor do we think it should be. There is some limited acreage that might be expanded into the current acreage that’s wilderness. So we said let’s have a formal request so there’s no questions about going through the process honestly and openly.

But it was instigated by these two Utah senators who were angry at me, just to be frank with you. And I like them both. I work with both of them all the time, but they are responding to a local political situation in their state.”