Western Slope residents questioning proposed roadless rule for Colorado

MONTROSE — Western Slope citizens, including at least one Montrose resident, came together this week to call for the federal government to “close loopholes” in proposed protections for Colorado’s roadless areas.

The state is in the midst of a rulemaking process that would put in place state-specific regulations for roadless areas.

But the federal government’s proposed rule could threaten more than 80,000 acres in the Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre & Gunnison, White River and Routt National Forests, citizen groups say.

In an organized effort to highlight concerns about the proposed rule, the groups attended open houses this week as part of the process.

About 75 to 80 citizens attended Tuesday’s open house in Grand Junction, according to Paonia resident Pete Kolbenschlag, Colorado representative for Pew Environment Group. Another open house was held Wednesday in Glenwood Springs and one is scheduled for tonight (5 to 8:30 p.m.) at the community center in Steamboat Springs.

Kolbenschlag said there are a number of concerns about the proposed Colorado rule.

About 100 oil and gas leases, pushed through since the 2001 Roadless (Area Conservation) Rule, would open the areas to road building and surface development, said Kolbenschlag.

“If the Colorado rule goes forward it would basically allow new road building on most of those 100 leases, not all but most,” he said. “So it would allow for new road building in backcountry forest. That’s one of the big loopholes.”

Other concerns involve language that has been weakened significantly from both the 2001 rule and what Gov. Bill Ritter put forward in his petition, Kolbenschlag said. In 2007, Ritter formally asked the federal government to protect Colorado’s 4.1 million acres of forested roadless areas.

“Overall, the main concern is that if this goes forward, Colorado’s roadless rule areas will have less protection than roadless areas on national forests in any other state,” Kolbenschlag  said. “We’ll have a lower standard for our back country forest than every other area in the country and that’s unacceptable.”

Montrose resident Stephen Slade, 65, who has lived in Colorado for eight years, is an avid hiker who spends his time in areas such as the San Juan Mountains and Dominguez Canyon.

“To reduce protection here of all places — one of the most beautiful places in the country —doesn’t seem like a reasonable way to proceed with this (roadless rule),” Slade said. “It does, quite frankly, seem like an end run around the rules. They’re going to try to get this done in the short term because they know that the people, the governor and all of the interested parties in the state have wanted to preserve the forests in Colorado.”

The format of the government-hosted meetings, which Kolbenschlag said is not conducive to public dialogue and discussion, has also prompted concern.

“Procedurally, they’ve changed the way they went around to create the rules in 2001 with lots of meetings, with lots of information, with lots of people participating,” said Slade. “They’ve (government officials) reduced that to a mere fraction.”