Flatside Wilderness expansion legislation honors former U.S. Rep. Bethune

WASHINGTON — Legislation expanding Arkansas’ Flatside Wilderness calls for the additional acreage to be named after former U.S. Rep. Ed Bethune.

The three-term Republican from Searcy fought to preserve the 9,541-acre wooded area in Perry and Saline counties, overcoming the resistance of timber companies and their political allies in Congress more than three decades ago.

U.S. Rep. French Hill filed HR5636, also known as the Flatside Wilderness Enhancement Act, in April; the House Natural Resources Committee approved the Little Rock Republican’s bill shortly before the election recess.

U.S. Rep. Bruce Westerman, a Republican from Hot Springs who serves on the committee, worked with Hill to add the language honoring Bethune.

The committee formally reported the amended legislation to the full House on Tuesday.

The legislation amends the Arkansas Wilderness Act of 1984, adding about 640 acres to Flatside. The extra parcel would be named the Bethune Woods-Flatside Wilderness.

Since the measure received the unanimous backing of the committee, its chances of passage are good, supporters say.

“I don’t see what would stop it,” Westerman said.

The existing statute, sponsored by then-U.S. Sen. Dale Bumpers and signed into law by then-President Ronald Reagan, set aside nine sections of Arkansas wildland, preserving 91,100 acres for the enjoyment of future generations.

That included what is now known as Flatside Wilderness, which is north of Hot Springs Village and west of Lake Maumelle in Saline and Perry counties.

Located in the Ouachita National Forest, the land is awash in pine trees and hardwoods. Cedar Creek and other small streams flow through it.

Visitors can scale its highest point — 1,650-foot-high White Oak Mountain. Or they can gaze upon Flatside Pinnacle, a 1,550-foot rock outcropping that lies just outside the wilderness boundaries.

Hill is among the thousands of outdoorsmen drawn to the Flatside Wilderness.

“I have hiked. Camped. There’s very few square inches of it that I don’t know about. It’s a beautiful place,” he said.

In 2005, the U.S. Forest Service recommended adding 640 acres along the western edge of the Flatside Wilderness because doing so “would establish more logical and manageable boundaries for these areas.”

Hill’s legislation would do just that.

The existing Flatside Wilderness and the 640-acre parcel are entirely in the 2nd Congressional District, which Hill represents.

Earlier this year, Bethune and Hill visited Flatside together. During the stop, Hill referred to Bethune, 82, as the “grandfather of all things wilderness of Arkansas.”

Bethune, who represented the 2nd District from 1979-85, said he supports the expansion. He’ll be pleased if the bill becomes law.

“I’d be honored to have Flatside bear my name. It was my signature achievement,” the lawmaker said in an email.

Anders Reynolds, an officer with The Pew Charitable Trusts’ U.S. public-lands program, said Flatside is awe-inspiring and accessible.

“It is right in Little Rock’s backyard,” he said.

Reynolds, whose hometown is Wynne, said the wilderness area is “pristine” and “untrammeled.”

“It’s a place where nature’s processes are allowed to proceed and where solitude can be easily found. Visitors to Flatside are free to choose their own path and to move at their own pace. Within the boundaries of the wilderness you can hunt, hike, camp, fish. … It’s really a spectacular, pristine place,” he said.

Bethune played a crucial role in preserving Flatside and the other Arkansas wilderness areas, according to Reynolds.

“Then-Congressman Bethune was a leader in convincing the delegation that the Arkansas Wilderness Bill, which was constructed with the input of on-the-ground advocates, was worth championing, and he and Sen. Bumpers showed great skill in growing that proposal from a single area of 9,000-10,000 acres to nine areas totaling … [91,100] acres that was signed into law by President Reagan,” Reynolds said. “Bethune was sort of the originator on the House side with the Flatside bill.”

Bethune had help with the project early on from a young Arkansan who shared his appreciation for Flatside.

“I worked on it with Ed Bethune when he was a member and I was on the Senate staff,” Hill said in an interview.

Hill’s boss at the time, U.S. Sen. John Tower, R-Texas, would go on to co-sponsor the legislation that ultimately became law.

The first draft of Bethune’s bill, filed early in 1983, designated only Flatside as wilderness, but it would’ve prevented development in the other areas pending a wilderness feasibility study.

An amended version, filed later that year, sought wilderness designation for Flatside and 10 other areas: more than 119,000 acres altogether.

Both proposals encountered vocal opposition. Then-U.S. Rep. John Paul Hammerschmidt, a Republican from Northwest Arkansas, was one of the sharpest critics.

Then-U.S. Rep. Beryl Anthony also worked to sabotage the legislation, introducing an alternative bill, favored by the timber industry, that protected roughly 44,000 acres and omitted Flatside entirely.

Anthony, a Democrat from El Dorado, came from a family that had “been in the forefront of the Arkansas timber industry for four generations,” the Arkansas Democrat noted at the time.

A House agriculture subcommittee eventually approved Anthony’s version of the legislation, rejecting amendments that would’ve added Flatside to Anthony’s slimmed-down wilderness bill.

Anthony portrayed Bethune’s setbacks as self-inflicted, saying the Republican’s failure to compromise proved that he wasn’t serious about passing anything.

Afterward, Bethune vowed to battle on, telling the newspaper he would “fight to the death” to preserve wilderness areas coveted by major timber companies.

“This was nothing more than a raw power play by Georgia Pacific and Weyerhaeuser and their servants on the committee to slow down the momentum we’ve built for this bill,” he said after the vote.

Wilderness advocates wouldn’t be stampeded into “settling for something far short of what we need and what we want,” he said at the time.

Asked this month why he had fought so hard to preserve Flatside, Bethune said: “My work to protect wilderness has been a labor of love. First and foremost: Flatside is beautiful, and deserves to be protected. … Second: Flatside is very accessible. It is the closest wilderness area to heavily populated central Arkansas. Third: There was a political justification for Flatside.

“The bill that I introduced in the House included ALL of [the] wilderness areas that are included in the Arkansas Wilderness Act of 1984. It was necessary for me, representing the 2nd District, for one of the areas to lie in my district. Flatside met that need.”

Although Bethune’s initial version of the legislation faltered, a subsequent measure backed by Bumpers and then-U.S. Sen. David Pryor ultimately passed.

At 91,100 acres, it preserved more than twice as much wilderness as the earlier bill championed by Anthony.

In his email, Bethune said the 1983 setbacks helped lay the groundwork for the 1984 victory.

“My introduction of a bill affecting the entire state gave me and the Arkansas Conservation Coalition the ability to begin an intensive grassroots campaign to garner support throughout the state. We were very successful at that, thus laying the foundation for Bumpers and Pryor to join the overall effort several months later. The rest,” he said, “is history.”