[Denveraudubon] Fw: Protect Colorado's Roadless Areas!?

[Pauline P Reetz]

Help Protect Colorado’s Roadless Areas!
Your voice is needed to IMPROVE Colorado Roadless Task Force
Recommendations 
--- COMMENTS ARE NEEDED BY AUG. 25 ---
Colorado's roadless areas are treasured by hunters, anglers, and hikers
and are home to many imperiled species, including the northern goshawk,
Canada lynx, and cutthroat trout. Colorado's tourism- and
recreation-based economies, its residents' quality of life, and a range
of outstanding backcountry opportunities rely on the preservation of
these lands. 
On August 9th, Colorado’s Roadless Areas Review Task Force released its
draft recommendations for protecting Colorado’s roadless forests. While
they are on the right track, the recommendations need to be strengthened
to provide Colorado’s remaining intact forests the protection they
deserve.
The draft plan protects roadless forests from new roads for new oil and
gas leases, but it also creates sweeping exemptions for coal mining and
ski areas, and fails to provide interim protection until a final rule is
adopted.
If Colorado’s roadless forests are to win strong protections, the task
force needs to hear from you now. This will be the last opportunity for
you to shape the task force’s recommendations.
Please visit the task force web site and fill out the comment form here.
(Recommendations on what to include in your letter are below)


BACKGROUND. 
Under President Clinton’s 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule, almost
all National Forest roadless areas would have been protected from road
construction and logging, with emergency and common-sense exceptions.
However, President Bush never allowed the rule to take effect, and
instead issued a very different rule in 2005, under which Governors can
make recommendations to the Secretary of Agriculture (parent agency of
the Forest Service) on management of roadless areas in their respective
states. If the Secretary accepts a state petition, then formal rulemaking
begins, the result of which would be a Federal rule on management of
roadless areas for that state.
The Colorado Legislature passed a law in 2005 that established a task
force to recommend how Colorado’s National Forest roadless areas should
be managed. This Task Force held numerous meetings across the state in
2005 and 2006, and took testimony from resource experts and the general
public. By a large margin (~90%), the public continues to support full
protection of roadless areas. The Task Force has now issued a set of
recommendations that will be forwarded to Governor Owens after one final
round of public comment. 
TASK FORCE RECOMMENDATIONS  
The Task Force is poised to make some good recommendations for roadless
area management, including a prohibition on new roads for new oil and gas
leases. However, several proposed recommendations would allow activities
in many roadless areas that would damage their pristine resource
qualities:
Fire risk reduction: The allowance for road construction and logging for
fuels reduction is extremely broad and could easily be abused. Roads and
logging could occur almost anywhere in many roadless areas to “control”
tree-killing insects (a futile exercise), reduce fuels, and even to
improve wildlife habitat. Logging far away from homes would provide no
reduction in the fire risk, and would damage wildlife habitat and
watersheds. It would also be very costly. These activities should instead
be limited only to areas immediately adjacent to private lands, where
they would provide some fire protection for homes. 
Ski areas are exempted entirely from any protection of roadless areas.
That means we could expect to see roads and ski area facilities
constructed in roadless areas near Wolf Creek Pass and Breckenridge, at a
minimum, if this recommendation is retained. 
Coal Mining: Instead of granting a narrow exception to the prohibition on
road construction which would allow the construction of roads to install
vents for coal mines in the North Fork of the Gunnison River Valley, the
Task Force recommends that roadless areas above these coal mines be
exempted from protection altogether for as long as the coal leases are in
force. 
Hardrock mining:  the boundary of a roadless area near Westcliffe would
be adjusted to allow mining. 
Interim protection:  the Governor should insist that the Forest Service
allow no activities in roadless areas that would degrade or eliminate
roadless characteristics until Colorado has a rule for roadless area
management. Finalization of that rule is probably two years away, during
which time many roadless areas could be degraded by activities such as
natural gas exploration and production. The Task Force’s proposed
recommendations do not include interim protection. 
WHAT YOU CAN DO  
We need thousands of letters from citizens like you to improve the Task
Force’s recommendations. Send you written comments to:
http://tinyurl.com/lrrvp.  Your comments must be received by 5PM August
25. 
Include some or all of the following points in your letter:
All roadless areas should be protected, with only very narrow exceptions.
Note that the public has persistently stated its preference for strong
roadless area protection. 
Roads, logging, mining and ski area development should be kept out of
roadless areas. If you visit national forest roadless areas in Colorado,
describe your activities there, and also state how your enjoyment of them
would be harmed by above-named activities. 
Road construction and logging for fuel reduction and insect “control”
should be limited to areas within 100 yards of the boundaries separating
the roadless areas from private lands. Insist that any temporary roads be
fully obliterated upon project completion. 
Exceptions to protection of roadless areas above coal mines should be
limited to construction of the lowest standard and shortest length of
road possible, in order to minimize surface disturbance and require full
obliteration of any roads after the coal lease expires. 
Roadless area boundaries must not be adjusted to allow mining. 
The Governor should ask for interim protection of Colorado roadless areas
– prohibiting all activities that would degrade or destroy the pristine
character of these areas while rulemaking is ongoing. 
For further information, call Rocky Smith at 303-839-5900.

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