Court Allows Maintenance of Structures in Wilderness Area

Finding that “Congress did not mandate that the [government] preserve the wilderness in a museum diorama,” a court recently approved the National Park Service’s efforts to repair several structures in designated wilderness areas within Olympic National Park.  An environmental group argued that NPS’s repairs of the structures violated the Wilderness Act because it perpetuated the existence of man-made structures.  The court, however, held that the agency’s position that historical preservation was a goal of the Wilderness Act was reasonable.

The case involved a historic cabin and four shelters, dating back as far as 1928.  The Park’s General Management Plan stated that historic shelters would be protected and maintained in a way that was consistent with preservation of the area’s wilderness character.  NPS repaired the structures to address their decay and deterioration, at times bringing in supplies via helicopter.  In response to the claims that this effort was illegal, the court focused on relatively recent case law which recognized that the direction in the Wilderness Act was both to preserve the area but also to promote the recreational, scientific and historical uses of the area.  The court held that these multitude of goals are “incompatible with a museum notion of wilderness.”   It therefore rejected the argument that promotion of these other goals was secondary to the goal of preserving the wilderness character of the area.  Because the Wilderness Act did not require the agency to “forfeit its other management values,” the court upheld the Park Service’s conclusion that “historic preservation furthers a goal of the Wilderness Act.”