It took six years, but the Wild Sky Bill has finally made it through the senate.   Amongst the sixty-two bundled land-use proposals, Oregon gets its first protected desert wilderness, the Badlands, fifteen miles east of Bend.  Mike Matz is president of the campaign for America’s wilderness…

Matz:  “Well it’s pretty rugged country, the original earth and it’s got some fairly nice natural attributes, not only from the landscape itself, but some amazing plants and obviously some wildlife too.”

Matz says that unregulated vehicle use in the badlands is the biggest threat to the area.

Also included in the bill, a section of the Willamette National Forest has been designated the “Jim Weaver Loop Trail” in honor of the six-term Oregon Congressman.

President Bush is expected to sign the bill into law within the next twenty days.