SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Caribbean National
Forest Wilderness Act of 2002’’.
SEC. 2. WILDERNESS DESIGNATION, CARIBBEAN NATIONAL
FOREST, PUERTO RICO.
(a) EL TORO WILDERNESS.—In furtherance of the
purposes of the Wilderness Act (16 U.S.C. 113 et seq.),
the approximately 10,000 acres of land in the Caribbean
National Forest/Luquillo Experimental Forest in the
Commonwealth of Puerto Rico that were proposed for wil-
derness classification in the revised land and resource
management plan for the Caribbean National Forest/
Luquillo Experimental Forest, approved April 17, 1997,
are hereby designated as wilderness and, therefore, as a
component of the National Wilderness Preservation Sys-
tem. The designated lands shall be known as the El Toro
Wilderness.
(b) WILDERNESS BOUNDARIES.—The El Toro Wil-
derness shall consist of those lands that were proposed for
wilderness classification in the management plan referred
to in subsection (a), except that the Secretary of Agri-
culture shall locate the boundaries of the wilderness area
so that existing municipal water intakes will not be within
the wilderness boundaries and the boundaries shall be lo-
cated at least 600 feet west of Highway PR 191 from Kil-
ometer 6.5 to Kilometer 12.0.
(c) MAP AND DESCRIPTION.—
(1) PREPARATION AND SUBMISSION.—As soon
as practicable after the date of the enactment of this
Act, the Secretary of Agriculture shall prepare a
map and a boundary description of the El Toro Wil-
derness and submit the map and boundary descrip-
tion to the Committee on Resources of the House of
Representatives and the Committee on Energy and
Natural Resources of the Senate. The map and
boundary description shall be on file and available
for public inspection in the office of the Chief of the
Forest Service.
(2) TREATMENT.—The map and boundary de-
scription prepared under paragraph (1) shall have
the same force and effect as if included in this Act.
The Secretary may correct clerical and typographical
errors in the map and description.
(d) ADMINISTRATION.—Subject to valid existing
rights, the Secretary of Agriculture shall administer the
El Toro Wilderness in accordance with the Wilderness Act
(16 U.S.C. 1131 et seq.) and this Act. With respect to
the El Toro Wilderness , any reference in the Wilderness
Act to the effective date of the Wilderness Act shall be
deemed to be a reference to the date of the enactment
of this Act.
(e) SPECIAL MANAGEMENT CONSIDERATIONS.—Des-
ignation of the El Toro Wilderness, and the applicability
of the Wilderness Act to the wilderness area, shall not be
construed to prevent any of the following activities, subject
to such conditions as the Secretary of Agriculture con-
siders desirable, within the boundaries of the wilderness
area:
(1) Installation and maintenance of hydrologic,
meteorological, climatological, or atmospheric data
collection and transmission facilities, or any com-
bination of such facilities, when the Secretary deter-
mines that such facilities are essential to the sci-
entific research purposes of the Luquillo Experi-
mental Forest.
(2) Construction and maintenance of nesting
structures, observation blinds, and population moni-
toring platforms for threatened and endangered spe-
cies.
(3) Construction and maintenance of trails to
such facilities as necessary for research purposes
and for the recovery of threatened and endangered
species.
Passed the House of Representatives November 15
(legislative day, November 14), 2002.
Attest:
Clerk.
107TH CONGRESS
2D SESSION
H. R. 3955
AN ACT
To designate certain National Forest System lands
in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico as compo-
nents of the National Wilderness Preservation
System, and for other purposes.