An Open Pit Visible from the Moon: The Wilderness Act and the Fight to Protect Miners Ridge and the Public InterestSituated among the North Cascade Mountains of Washington State, in the Glacier Peak Wilderness Area, Miners Ridge contains vast quantities of copper. Kennecott Copper Corporation’s plan to develop an open-pit mine there was, when announced in 1966, the first test of the mining provision of the Wilderness Act passed by Congress in 1964. The battle over the proposed “Open Pit, Big Enough to Be Seen from the Moon,” as activists called it, drew the attention of both local and national conservationists, who vowed to stop the desecration of one of the West’s most scenic places. Kennecott Copper had the full force of the law and mining industry behind it in asserting its extractive rights. Meanwhile the U.S. Forest Service was determined to defend its authority to manage wilderness. An Open Pit Visible from the Moon tells the story of this historic struggle to define the contours of the Wilderness Act—its possibilities and limits. Combining rigorous analysis and deft storytelling, Adam M. Sowards re-creates the contest between Kennecott and its shareholders on one hand and activists on the other, intent on maintaining wilderness as a place immune to the calculus of profit. A host of actors cross these pages—from cabinet secretaries and a Supreme Court justice to local doctors and college students—all contributing to a drama that made Miners Ridge a cause célèbre for the nation’s wilderness movement. As locals testified at public hearings and writers penned profiles in the nation’s magazines and newspapers, the volatile political economy of copper proved equally influential in frustrating Kennecott’s plans. No law or court ruling could keep Kennecott from mining copper, but the pit was never dug. Identifying the contingent factors and forces that converged and coalesced in this case, Sowards’s narrative recalls a critical moment in the struggle over the nation’s wild places, even as it puts the unpredictability of history on full display. |
Contents
The Wilderness | |
The Dance | |
The Summit | |
The Secretary | |
The Doctor | |
The Justice | |
The Park | |
The Student | |
The Trouble | |
The Stories | |
The Ends | |
Bibliography | |
Other editions - View all
An Open Pit Visible from the Moon: The Wilderness Act and the Fight to ... Adam M. Sowards No preview available - 2022 |
An Open Pit Visible from the Moon: The Wilderness Act and the Fight to ... Adam M. Sowards No preview available - 2020 |
Common terms and phrases
activists agency agency's American Archdruid Aspinall beauty Brock Evans Brooks campaign Cascades Conservation Council Cascades National Park Cascades wilderness Chriswell Cleator company’s Congress conservationists Crown Jewel Wilderness Darvill David Brower Division of Recreation Douglas economic environmental federal Folder Freeman George Marshall Glacier Peak Wilderness Goldsworthy hearings hike Image Lake industry Jackson Kennecott Copper Corporation legislative Lloyd Meeds McCloskey McConnell McPhee Milliken Miners Ridge mountains N3CR National Forest National Park Service needed North Cascades Conservation North Cascades National open-pit mining organizations Orville Freeman Peak Wilderness Area plans political president Primitive Areas profits proposed protection public interest public lands quotation Recreation and Lands-N regional forester Report represented road RUSFS scenic Seattle Senate Shaine Sierra Club story Study Team Suiattle River timber trail U.S. Forest Service USFS Washington Wild Cascades Wilderness Act wilderness advocates Wilderness Alps Wilderness Area Wenatchee Wilderness Society wrote York