After years of working to craft a bill that will preserve some of the best wild places remaining in Northern California, it appears that legislation is set to be signed by the president.

Much to the credit of Rep. Mike Thompson and California Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, the bill represents a set of compromises necessary to get those spectacular places protected. The St. Helena Democrat managed to get the bill through a Republican House, and the senators got it through a Republican Senate.

In part, that appears to be because they worked with groups like the Blue Ribbon Coalition and the International Mountain Biking Association to get 51,000 acres designated as recreation area that would allow off-road vehicles and biking. The bill also allows for some commercial surf fishing on the beach at Redwood National Park.

In then end, 273,000 acres of public land in Thompson's district will be deemed wilderness, and be guarded that way forever. It's the first wilderness named in California in a decade. Those wild places will be all the more valued as the state becomes more populated and crowded.

Future generations will undoubtedly be pleased that people today had the foresight to suggest that these areas be dubbed wild, and that the leaders of the day chose to work so hard to make that a reality.

We applaud our congressional leaders, and notably Thompson, for looking into the future while still working diligently on the issues of the present.