If John Muir were still alive, documentary filmmaker Ken Burns surmised the pioneering environmentalist would argue that Pinnacles National Monument is a “grand geological library” that deserves the same level of recognition as the country’s most renowned parks.
Congressman Sam Farr also ventured to guess that Muir, an early wilderness preservationist, would appreciate the rocky spires formed by millions of years of volcanic and geologic activity, movement of tectonic plates in a region neighboring the self-proclaimed “earthquake capital of the world” here in Hollister. Pinnacles has come to represent a “geological wonderment,” Farr noted, but it also is home to one of few California condor preservation sites and a vast breadth of species.
Farr was citing Burns’s letter of support – to rename Pinnacles as a national park – in conjuring thoughts of Muir while illustrating the diversity of ecology and geologic history that, he contends, deems it deserving of the honor.
Farr is the Carmel Democrat who sponsored the bill in the U.S. House of Representatives to rename Pinnacles as the 59th national park. His legislation, co-sponsored by Merced area Republican Rep. Jeff Denham, received unanimous approval last week from the House Natural Resources Committee. Next, it heads to the House for a vote.
Farr, who recently also pushed through naming Ft. Ord as a national monument, isn’t expecting much debate on Pinnacles.
“It’s a non-controversial bill,” he said in an interview with the Free Lance. “It’s not an issue of the substance of the bill.”
Pinnacles was first set aside as a national forest in 1906. In 1908, President Theodore Roosevelt established 2,500 acres as Pinnacles National Monument.
Now, Farr and other local supporters of the Pinnacles park legislation hope it will boost tourism and San Benito County’s notoriety to the outside world. Farr introduced the latest Pinnacles park bill in 2011. He first introduced a bill to reclassify Pinnacles as a national park in 2009.
Any serious debate about the bill’s validity, he said, would have occurred at the committee level. He said it will be placed on a consent calendar for a House vote. For Farr, the only question left is whether it will come up for consideration, and likely approval, during this year’s legislative calendar.
To get to this point, the bill has received an array of support and little public dissent. The Wilderness Society last week praised its progress, despite it now excluding 3,000 acres of additional open space on top of the 26,000 acres set aside within Pinnacles National Monument. In June, San Benito County sent Supervisor Jerry Muenzer, who represents District 4 that includes Pinnacles, to testify before the subcommittee on National Parks, Forest and Public Lands in support of the House of Representatives bill 3641.
Farr also noted that critically acclaimed documentary filmmaker Ken Burns sent a letter of support – co-signed by Duncan Dayton, who wrote and co-produced the Burns film, “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea.”
Burns in his letter noted that other now famous national parks, such as the Grand Canyon and Petrified Forest, were once designated as monuments.
Burns wrote: “We also understand from our investigation of national park history that, while changing an area’s designation from ‘monument’ to ‘park’ does not necessarily change its crucial attributes, it nonetheless alters its place in the American imagination.”
Farr called the Burns series on national parks “wonderful” and said he appreciated the letter.
“His letter is probably the most beautiful letter I’ve received since I’ve been in Congress,” Farr said.
