Rahall joined members of the West Virginia Wilderness Coalition to scout out new areas of the Monongahela National Forest to protect.

The West Virginia Democrat wanted to see firsthand some of the spots being considered for designation as wilderness areas. This particular hike took him through Big Draft, a 5,200-acre oak and hickory forest just five miles from White Sulphur Springs.

�It was a reaffirming experience, in that it underscored to me just how fortunate we are to still have such primeval settings like this in our state, and how, in the blink of an eye, they could disappear,� Rahall recalled last week.

If Rahall has his way, that won�t happen to Big Draft, or to six other areas that he proposes to give wilderness designations.

Rahall plans to introduce his �Wild Monongahela Act� on Wednesday. He�s billing the legislation as �A National Legacy for West Virginia�s Special Places.� Reps. Alan Mollohan, D-W.Va., and Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., are expected to be co-sponsors. Sens. Robert C. Byrd and Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., are also expected to support the plan.

The areas would become the first new wilderness areas in West Virginia in nearly 25 years.

�This is a battle over the heart and soul of West Virginia,� said Rahall, chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, which controls public lands legislation.

Under federal law, wilderness areas are those �where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.�

A wilderness area is �undeveloped federal land retaining its primeval character and influence, without permanent improvements or human habitation.�

In general, the Wilderness Act prohibits commercial activities, motorized access and roads, structures and facilities. Hiking is allowed, but logging is prohibited.

�Our southern mountains have been yielding their coal for generations and our northern ridgelines are being targeted by the merchants of wind power,� Rahall said. �More development is coming and, in most cases, it is welcomed.

�But as West Virginians, we are intimately connected to our land,� he said. �We know that we will be judged by future generations on our stewardship of this land that is West Virginia.

�And so I believe it is of paramount importance that we, once again, set aside some of God�s handiwork in our forests by preserving these federal lands in their pristine state,� Rahall said.

Rahall�s plan calls for expansion of three existing wilderness areas, Cranberry, Dolly Sods, and Dry Fork. It would also create four new wilderness areas: Big Draft, Cheat Mountain, Roaring Plains West and Spice Run.

By adding 47,000 acres to the Monongahela National Forest�s 78,000 acres of wilderness, the plan would increase the forest�s wilderness acreage by 60 percent.

The plan includes three additional areas covering nearly 20,000 more acres of wilderness than was proposed by the U.S. Forest Service in a plan issued in September 2006.

The Rahall plan is also less ambitious than wilderness expansions being promoted by various state environmental and conservation groups.

Matt Keller, spokesman for the West Virginia Wilderness Coalition, said his group supports the Rahall plan, but had hoped it would include additional areas.

�There are a few glaring omissions from the Wild Monongahela Act that represent some of the biggest and best candidates for wilderness,� Keller said Friday.

Keller noted that Seneca Creek and the north and east units of Roaring Plains in Capito�s district are not part of the plan. Neither is the East Fork of Greenbrier area in Rahall�s district, he said.

�These areas are home to some of the best wilderness quality outdoor recreation in the Eastern United States and a tremendous resource for West Virginia�s fast growing tourism economy,� Keller said. �These special places have no real protection currently and could face pressure from industrial energy development and logging in the future.

�Wilderness designation is the best way to ensure they stay just like they are, wild and wonderful,� he said.

The areas included in Rahall�s plan are all part of the Monongahela National Forest. They are managed without motorized access, and essentially treated as wilderness. A future forest plan could change that unless Congress designates them as wilderness.

�These few areas that we are proposing to conserve in their natural state represent a significant national resource,� Rahall said. �But more importantly to us, they constitute a fundamental right of West Virginians to retain a vital link to our heritage, and to know that, forever more, these lands will remain in their natural state as our Creator forged them.

�We cherish this as nothing less and nothing more than our birthright as West Virginians.�