Wild And Scenic Rivers Of The United States
National Wild and Scenic River is a designation for certain protected areas in the United States.
The National Wild and Scenic Rivers Act was an outgrowth of the recommendations of a Presidential commission, the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission (ORRRC). Among other things, the commission recommended that the nation protect wild rivers and scenic rivers from development that would substantially change their wild or scenic nature. The act was sponsored by Sen. Frank Church (D-Idaho) and signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson on October 2, 1968. A river or river section may be designated by the U.S. Congress or the Secretary of the Interior. As of 2004, a total of 156 rivers have wild and scenic status.
Selected rivers in the United States are preserved for possessing outstandingly remarkable scenic, recreational, geologic, fish and wildlife, historic, cultural, or other similar values. Rivers, or sections of rivers, so designated are preserved in their free-flowing condition and are not dammed or otherwise impeded. National wild and scenic designation essentially vetoes the licensing of new hydropower projects on or directly affecting the river. It also provides very strong protection against bank and channel alterations that adversely affect river values, protects riverfront public lands from oil, gas and mineral development, and creates a federal reserved water right to protect flow-dependent values.
Designation as a wild and scenic river is not the same as a national park designation, and generally does not confer the same level of protection as a Wilderness Area designation. However, wild and scenic designation protects rivers and related resources even in non-federal areas, something the Wilderness Act and other federal designations cannot do.
Federally-administered National Wild and Scenic rivers are managed by one or more of the four principal land-managing agencies of the federal government. Of the 156 National Wild and Scenic Rivers, the most are managed by the U.S. Forest Service, followed by the National Park Service. Thirty-eight are managed under the Bureau of Land Management's National Landscape Conservation System while the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service manages several rivers in Alaska.
State-managed wild and scenic rivers are subject to the same protections as federally-administered rivers. These state rivers are added to the National System by the Secretary of the Interior following an application by the governor of the state the river flows through.
Wild and scenic rivers are assigned one or more classifications: wild, scenic, or recreational. These classifications are based on the developmental character of the river on the date of designation. Wild rivers are the most remote and undeveloped while recreational rivers often have many access points, roads, railroads, and bridges. A river's classification is not related to the value(s) that made it worthy of designation and that must be protected and enhanced by the river manager. For instance, recreation may not be an outstanding value on a river with a recreational classification nor scenery on a river classified as scenic. Notably, wild and scenic rivers receive the same standard of protection regardless of classification.
Read more about Wild And Scenic Rivers Of The United States: See Also
Famous quotes containing the words wild and, united states, wild, scenic, rivers, united and/or states:
“We follow where the Swamp Fox guides,
His friends and merry men are we;
And when the troop of Tarleton rides,
We burrow in the cypress tree.
The turfy hammock is our bed,
Our home is in the red deer’s den,
Our roof, the tree-top overhead,
For we are wild and hunted men.”
—William Gilmore Simms (1806–1872)
“... it is probable that in a fit of generosity the men of the United States would have enfranchised its women en masse; and the government now staggering under the ballots of ignorant, irresponsible men, must have gone down under the additional burden of the votes which would have been thrown upon it, by millions of ignorant, irresponsible women.”
—Jane Grey Swisshelm (1815–1884)
“What a prodigious growth this English race, especially the American branch of it, is having! How soon will it subdue and occupy all the wild parts of this continent and of the islands adjacent. No prophecy, however seemingly extravagant, as to future achievements in this way [is] likely to equal the reality.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“Hence from scenic bacchanal,
Preshrunk and droll prodigal!
Smallness that you had to spend,
Spent. Wench, whiskey and tail-end
Of your overseas disease
Rot and rout you by degrees.”
—Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917)
“It is easier to move rivers and mountains than to change a person’s basic nature.”
—Chinese proverb.
“... while one-half of the people of the United States are robbed of their inherent right of personal representation in this freest country on the face of the globe, it is idle for us to expect that the men who thus rob women will not rob each other as individuals, corporations and Government.”
—Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906)
“Action from principle, the perception and the performance of right, changes things and relations; it is essentially revolutionary, and does not consist wholly with anything which was. It not only divides States and churches, it divides families; ay, it divides the individual, separating the diabolical in him from the divine.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)