House approves Hastings' Ice Age Floods Bill

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The House of Representatives approved a plan authored by Congressman Doc Hastings, R-4th Dist., to establish an Ice Age Floods National Geologic Route.

The route would be designated as a path through parts of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana.

"I am pleased the House has approved my plan to share the story of the Ice Age Floods," said Hastings. "Not only does it represent an important part of the Pacific Northwest's history it will also help to bring visitors and create new economic opportunities in our communities."

Under Hastings' bill, the Route would be managed by the National Park Service in partnership with the Ice Age Floods Institute and other local entities. Interpretive centers, signs and markers, exhibits, waysides and roadside pullouts would be used to tell the story of the Ice Age Floods, according to Hastings' Press Secretary Jessica Gleason.

Approximately 12,000 to 17,000 years ago, a series of cataclysmic floods swept across the Pacific Northwest, fundamentally changing the geography and way of life in the region leaving coulees, buttes, boulder fields, lakes, ridges and gravel bars defining the landscape.

Differences between the House and Senate approved bills must now be resolved before the final plan can be sent to the President to be signed into law, noted Gleason.

—Staff report