Archive | February, 2019

CORE Wilderness Proposal – Curecanti NRA

Congressman Joe Neguse
Att: Bo Morris
1419 Longworth HOB
Washington DC 20515

Re: CORE Wilderness Proposal – Curecanti NRA

Dear Congressman Neguse;
Please accept this correspondence as the comments of the above referenced Organizations vigorously opposing the Curecanti NRA portions of the CORE Wilderness Proposal hereinafter referred to as “the Proposal”. After a detailed review of the Proposal, the Organizations have concluded that every area expanded or created in the Proposal would result in significant lost recreational opportunities for the overwhelming portion of visitors to the Proposal area, both currently and in the future. While there are significant lost opportunities, there is also no additional protections for multiple use routes that might remain outside the Wilderness areas and no new areas are designated or released for multiple use recreational opportunities.

Even areas, such as the Curecanti NRA, where diverse recreational opportunities are alleged to be protected, fail to recognize the wide range of recreation provided in the area which have been previously recognized by Congress. This failure would be evidenced by the fact the NRA characteristics fail to mention camping and any form of trail-based recreation. The Organizations vigorously assert that the designation of the Curecanti NRA would result in significant additional costs as the Curecanti area is managed under one of the newest RMP in the state and that planning process would need to start from scratch and the area has been managed as an NRA for an extended period of time.
While these comments will center on the Curecanti NRA portions of the Proposal, we have enclosed copies of our comments on Continental Divide and San Juan portions of the Proposal that were previously submitted. Each of these comments provides site specific maps comparing current management and opportunity to closures in the Proposal and a detailed explanation of our basis for opposition.

1a. Characteristics of Curecanti NRA conflict with previous Congressional conclusions that Curecanti possessed high quality multiple use opportunities.

The Organizations are deeply troubled by the wide range of high-quality low impact recreational opportunities in the Curecanti NRA area that receive no additional protection in the Proposal and could actually be put at risk of loss as many of the large existing recreational uses are not identified as a characteristic of the Curecanti NRA in the CORE Wilderness Act. Even more troubling is the fact that the Curecanti NRA designation is frequently identified as a large win for multiple use recreation in the CORE Wilderness act. After reviewing the provisions, the Organizations can find utterly no basis for such an assertion. It is frustrating that no basis or reason for this change is even mentioned in the CORE Wilderness proposal, making substantive comments on the issue challenging at best.

Prior to addressing these usages specifically, we would like to address our experiences around designating SMA, NRA, Monuments and similar designations and the critical need to clearly identify all usages to be protected as a characteristic of the area in the Legislative actions creating the area. Our Organizations were heavily involved in the development of the Hermosa Watershed legislation that was passed into law addressing management of more than 100,000 acres of public lands between Durango and Silverton in 2014.1 As part of this legislation, an SMA was created to protect all forms of recreation, and specifically identified both motorized and non, summer and winter in the SMA. Even with these specific Congressional protections in the Hermosa Legislation, alternatives in planning were provided that closed extensive portions of the area to protected usages and some members of the public still sought to close opportunities despite their support of the legislation. We have also become aware of numerous permitted activities being put at risk after the designation of National Monuments, despite the fact the permitted event had occurred with diverse support for decades and was using resources specifically protected in the designation of the Monument. Despite recognition of the usage and resource in the Monument proclamation, permits that had been issued for decades were subjected to much higher scrutiny and public comment than ever before. Our experience has been that the characteristics of any area designated by Congress are critically important to the future management of the area.

It is our experience that clearly stating all actions to be protected in the designation is a critical step and this simply has not been done in the Curecanti NRA portions of the Proposal. There is a long history of diverse high-quality recreational opportunities being provided without controversy in the proposed Curecanti NRA. These high-quality multiple use opportunities have been specifically recognized when Congress passed legislation exploring a possible Congressional designation for the area in 1999. These are recreational opportunities that the Organizations and its members have enjoyed in the area including use of the 10 campgrounds located throughout the proposed NRA some of which are approaching 100 sites in size. When Congress mandated review of the Curecanti area for possible designation as an NRA, Congress specifically recognized that:

“Congress finds that….
(8) land in and adjacent to the Black Canyon of the Gunnison Gorge is—
(A) recognized for offering exceptional multiple use opportunities;”2

As a result of Public Law 107-76, the NPS undertook an extensive review and analysis of the recreational usage on the Curecanti NRA. This research specifically identified the wide range of important recreational opportunities on the Curecanti as the NPS identified the following breakdown of visitation to the area:3

 

Activities on this visit

 

While there is a long history of high-quality multiple use recreation occurring in the Curecanti NRA with Congressional recognition and approval, the CORE Wilderness act seeks to greatly reduce the scope of these opportunities without discussion. Currently, the CORE Wilderness Act requires that the Curecanti NRA is to be managed for:

“(A) AUTHORIZATION. —Except as provided in subparagraph (B), the Secretary shall allow boating, boating-related activities, hunting, and fishing in the National Recreation Area in accordance with applicable Federal and State laws.”4

The wide range of recreational opportunities and diversity simply is not supported or protected when the characteristics of the Curecanti NRA are hunting, fishing and boating. In a troubling turn of events, hunting, which is identified as the reason less than 5% of visitors are using the Curecanti NRA is identified as a characteristic of the NRA, while other uses such as camping and trails-based usages, which are some of the highest visitations of the area are omitted. This simply lacks any basis in logic or fact and simply must be resolved to ensure that the current usages of the area are reflected as the Curecanti area is an area where all recreational usage exists with minimal conflicts and identified as one of the big wins for multiple use. Our position on that assertion is exactly the opposite.

1b. Despite trails being one of the major uses of the Curecanti, this resource is not even mentioned as a characteristic of the NRA.

It is also significant to note that all forms of trail-based interests (hike, bike, ATV, motorcycle, horseback riding) are a major driver of recreational visitation to the area and this usage and resources needed to provide these opportunities is again omitted from identification as a characteristic of the proposed Curecanti NRA. The strength of this usage is the result of the extensive legal trail network in the proposed Curecanti NRA, which is reflected on the USFS MVUM map for the Gunnison South portion of the GMUG, which is below.5

legal trail network proposed Curecanti NRA

This legal trail network has provided highly value recreational opportunities for all visitors to the Curecanti NRA area for decades without opposition and the Organizations submit this factor alone warrants inclusion of all forms of trail recreation as a criterion of any proposed Congressional designation. This is entirely unacceptable to the Organizations.

The value of the trail network on the Curecanti NRA is not limited to just the Curecanti geographic boundary area as the trails on the Curecanti NRA also serve as the sole access point for trails that access significant portions of BLM and USFS lands outside the NRA for a variety of other recreational activities. Some routes can be accessed with only lengthy road travels to other trailheads outside the Curecanti and access to some areas would be lost entirely if access through the Curecanti was lost. This trail network was just the basis of an EIS from the National Park Service in 2013, and as a result the Organizations believe that any resource issues should be minimal with the network. Loss of the Curecanti trail network would effectively close large tracts of land outside the NRA to public access for all usage. This is unacceptable.

2. Designation of the Curecanti NRA is an example of how not to cost effectively manage areas.

The Organizations would be remiss if the complete lack of factual basis in other asserted benefits of the Congressional designation of the Curecanti NRA was not raised, such as the economic benefits for designation. This benefit at best needs significant more information to be factual supported as the NPS specifically recognizes that:

“Over time, the area became known as Curecanti National Recreation Area (NRA). Although the NRA has not yet been legislatively established, and does not have a legislated boundary, Congress provides annual funding for operations.”6

Given that Congress is already funding the Curecanti NRA directly we are unable to understand how this benefit is achieved. While the Organizations share the frustrations of multiple agencies attempting to manage small areas with conflicting management standards and goals and objectives, the Organizations assert this issue is not resolved with the NRA as each agency involved in management of the area is still involved after the NRA is designated.

The lack of factual basis for the position that the Curecanti NRA provisions of the CORE act will save money is completely conflicted by the fact the Curecanti and Black Canyon areas are the basis of some of the most recent planning efforts in the region. The RMP for the area was completed in 1999 and planning related to the RMP on specific issues was only completed in 2012. The Organizations have no theory how reentering planning efforts, that were so recently completed, could be seen as efficient. The Organizations submit this situation is an example of an impact of the CORE Wilderness act that should be avoided at all costs as this is a perfect example of administrative inefficiency rather than a cost savings.

3. Conclusion.

After a detailed review of the Proposal, the Organizations have concluded that every area expanded or created in the Proposal would result in significant lost recreational opportunities for the overwhelming portion of visitors to the Proposal area, both currently and in the future. Rather than streamlining the management of these areas, the Proposal would create a major management barrier and greatly increase the costs of any management activities that might be undertaken in these areas. This will negatively impact recreational access both in the Proposal area and in areas that are outside the new management standards in the Proposal. While there are significant lost opportunities, there is also no additional protections for multiple use recreational opportunities such as camping and trail networks in the Curecanti NRA area. The Organizations still fail to understand the management concerns or perceived threats that are driving the discussion around the need for additional protection of these areas and after a review of previous Congressional action and NPS research addressing the Curecanti area the Organizations can find no basis for the Legislation as the Proposal would provide a major barrier to the utilization of recreational facilities in the planning areas.

Please feel free to contact Scott Jones, Esq. if you should wish to discuss any of the issues that have been raised in these comments further. His contact information is Scott Jones, Esq., 508 Ashford Drive, Longmont Colorado 80504; phone 518-281-5810; email Scott.jones46@yahoo.com

Respectfully Submitted,

Scott Jones, Esq.
COHVCO/TPA Authorized Rep.
CSA President

Don Riggle
Director of Operations
Trails Preseravation Alliance

 

CC: Senator Bennet (w/o enclosures)

 

 

  1. Final version of this legislation is available as §3062 of S1847 also know as the National Defense Authorization Act of 2014.
  2. See, Public Law 107-76 at §2.
  3. ee, National Park Service; Curecanti National Recreation Area- Visitor Study- Summer 2010 at pg. 34
  4. See, §402(c)(4) of the CORE act proposal.
  5. A complete version of this map is available here: https://s3.amazonaws.com/ClubExpressClubFiles/266593/documents/Gunnison_South_GEO_PDF_426849723.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAIB6I23VLJX7E4J7Q&Expires=1550245772&response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%3DGunnison_South_GEO_PDF.pdf&Signature=fgPJSLCVegBogm0grw7pz5YUUUs%3D
  6. See, National Park Service; Curecanti National Recreation area; Background Slide Show; August 2008 at slide 3. A complete version of the presentation is available here. https://www.nps.gov/cure/learn/management/rps.htm
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Action Alert: The Core Wilderness Proposal Needs Your Opposition!

 Action Alert: The Core Wilderness Proposal Needs Your Opposition!

Our Quick Thoughts:

Senator Bennet and Representative Neguse recently proposed the CORE Wilderness Act and it prohibits motorized usage of almost 400,000 acres of public lands. We lose legal trails and riding areas right now and even more long-term expansion opportunities in the future. Many areas proposed to be designated have been previously released for non-wilderness multiple use by Congress. Rather than the strong community support that is being asserted, there is a complete lack of consensus on the CORE Wilderness Act. Our requests on the CORE Wilderness Act component proposals have been very reasonable and have been consistently stonewalled.

The CORE Wilderness Act is simply a combination of two of the usual Wilderness suspects we have been fighting for a decade or more. They are: 1. The old San Juan Wilderness Proposal; 2. The old Continental Divide Wilderness Proposal. CORE also includes the Old Thompson Divide Proposal and a boundary for the Curecanti National Park around Blue Mesa Reservoir. Despite the assertions this is a recreation bill, CORE Wilderness Act does not improve recreation access for most users but rather closes trails, put far more trails at risk in the long term and closes open areas to future usage. This is a Wilderness bill!!

We also would like to recognize Senator Gardner and Congressman Tipton Office’s for resisting the immense pressure being applied regarding this legislation and recognizing the negative impacts to public access to public lands that would result and continuing to work towards a legislative proposal that protects all forms of recreation and multiple usage of these lands.

Quick Summary of the San Juan Wilderness impacts to motorized recreation:

  1. The San Juan portion of CORE Wilderness closes approximately 55,000 acres to motorized usage with 32,000 of Wilderness and 23,000 acres of management areas prohibiting motorized usage. No releases or protections for motorized are in the San Juan portion of the CORE Wilderness.
  2. The CORE Wilderness closes the Sheep Mtn area outside Telluride to snowmobile usage, which is currently legal and has been under the GMUG management plan since 1983.
  3. While the San Juan proposal does not close trails it brings the Wilderness within 50ft of where boundary trails are thought to be. USFS MVUM are simply not accurate for this type of management and we would lose with any inaccuracy in mapping. More room is needed to perform maintenance and reroutes on the trails to keep them open. We have proposed 300 ft buffer and a Congressional protection (similar to National Scenic or National Motorized Recreation Trail) for these trails for years – they have fallen on deaf ears
  4. We are unable to determine the exact origin of the 50ft buffer standard but by comparison the US Forest Service recommends a half mile buffer around trails designated under the National Trail System Act. Why is the buffer so much smaller here?
  5. Many of the areas now sought to be designated as Wilderness were specifically released by Congress for Non-Wilderness Multiple Use as part of the 1980 Colorado Wilderness Act. Many of the current Wilderness boundaries were put in the specific location to avoid conflict with trails in the area, and the San Juan Proposal would put the boundaries in the locations Congress already found unacceptable in 1980.

A quick summary of Continental Divide Wilderness impacts to motorized:

  1. The Continental Divide portion of CORE Wilderness proposes 43,000 acres of Wilderness and 28,000 acres of management areas that prohibit motorized usage, while claiming to balance this with management of 28,000 acres for motorized (which is already open to motorized). Tough to claim that is a benefit to recreation.
  2. The Continental Divide portion of CORE Wilderness closes extensive legal trail networks in the Spraddle Creek and Williams Fork areas that were just supported by travel management planning in 2012.
  3. Almost every area proposed to be Wilderness in Continental Divide portion has been identified as a future motorized expansion area. This is simply unacceptable as only 7% of WRNF was suitable and available for snowmobile usage in the 2012 Forest Travel plan. By comparison almost 30% of the WRNF is already Wilderness and sees approximately 3% of all visitation.
  4. There is no balance in the Continental Divide as the Ten-mile Recreation area is closed to motorized along with wildlife areas despite the fact that much of these areas have legal motorized access currently.
  5. The Camp Hale provisions allowing motorized access to 28,000 acres we already have legal access to is simply insufficient to balance out approximately 400,000 acres of new Wilderness and closures.
  6. The “No Name” addition to the Holy Cross Wilderness puts the Holy Cross City trail at risk due to the proximity of the Wilderness impairing the ability to maintain the trail. This is a nationally recognized route

A more detailed analysis of site-specific impacts is available here:

2018 San Juan Wilderness Proposal Comments

San Juan Wilderness Proposal

2018 Continental Divide Wilderness Proposal Comments

Continental Divide Recreation Wilderness and Camp Hale Act

A draft of our counter proposal protecting public access to recreational opportunities

Conceptual paper on Continental Divide Wilderness and Recreation Act Proposal

Our asks from you is submitting comments around these issues:

  1. There is no consensus around the CORE Wilderness Proposal and previous Congressional decisions made by consensus must be honored. Pursuing consensus efforts that ignore previous consensus decisions is difficult to understand. A lot of work is needed to protect all forms of recreation in the CORE Wilderness act. Don’t close the public out of public lands.
  2. If we are protecting recreation, why are so many opportunities being lost? Legally designated areas should not be closed. Wider buffers for existing legal trails should be combined with Congressional designations protecting motorized usage of the route when Wilderness is immediately adjacent to the trail.
  3. Previous legal determinations regarding the utilization of areas for recreation in the future must be honored rather than having these areas designated as Wilderness.
  4. Outstanding commitments made in previous Wilderness bills such as Rollins Pass Road that Congress mandated be reopened in 2002 must be honored. There are also areas we would like to see released and protected for multiple use, such as the North Sand Hills.

Electronic Comments:
John.Whitney@bennet.senate.gov
https://neguse.house.gov/contact

US Postal Service:
Congressman Neguse
1419 Longworth HOB
Washington DC 20515

US Postal Service:
Senator Bennet
261 Russell Office Building
Washington, DC 20510

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San Juan Wilderness Proposal

Senator Michael Bennet
Att: John Whitney
835 East 2nd Ave
Suite 206
Durango, CO 81301

Senator Cory Gardner
Att: Betsy Bair
400 Rood Ave,
Federal Bldg.- Suite 220
Grand Junction CO 81501

Congressman Scott Tipton
Att: Brian Meinhart
225 North 5th Street
Suite 702
Grand Junction, CO 81501

Re: San Juan Wilderness Proposal

 

Dear Senator Bennet;

Please accept this correspondence as the comments of the above referenced Organizations vigorously opposing the San Juan Wilderness Proposal hereinafter referred to as “the Proposal”. After a detailed review of the proposal, the Organizations have concluded that every area expanded or created in the Proposal would result in significant lost recreational opportunities for the overwhelming portion of visitors to the Proposal area, both currently and in the future. While there are significant lost opportunities there is also no additional protections for multiple use routes that might remain outside the Wilderness areas and no new areas are designated for OHV recreation. Generally, the maps surrounding the Proposal are of low quality and make any meaningful review of possible impacts difficult if not impossible for the public to undertake. The Organizations also still fail to understand the management concerns or perceived threats that are driving the discussion around the need for additional protection of these areas.

Compounding our concern about the Proposal is the fact that many of the areas now proposed to be designated as Wilderness were specifically released back to multiple management as part of the 1980 Colorado Wilderness Act. This is highly frustrating as the Organizations were actively involved in the development of the Hermosa Watershed Legislation where large and diverse community support was developed around the Hermosa Legislation and a wide range of protections for a diverse group of users was achieved. The Organizations had hoped the Hermosa legislation was a new model for developing land use legislation but that does not appear to be 2

the case as the Proposal would immediately undermine protections of multiple use interests that were passed in 2014 and only recently implemented by the USFS.

Before the Organizations address the specific impacts of the Proposal to recreational access to areas previously released from possible Wilderness designation by Congress, the Organizations believe a review of four landscape level topics around Wilderness designations must be addressed as there is significant new research that weighs heavily against proposed designations and management restrictions. These four topics are:

  1. The imbalance of demand for Wilderness recreation with the opportunity provided in the planning area;
  2. The cost/benefit of providing recreational opportunities in the Proposal areas that have been heavily impacted by poor forest health;
  3. The inability to understand the management concerns that are driving the perceived need to designate these areas as Wilderness; and
  4. The significant negative economic impacts that result to local communities from Wilderness designations.

Prior to addressing our specific concerns around the Proposal, a brief summary of each Organization is needed. The Colorado Off-Highway Vehicle Coalition (“COHVCO”) is a grassroots advocacy organization advocating for the approximately 200,000 registered OSV and OHV vehicle users in Colorado seeking to represent, assist, educate, and empower all OHV recreationists in the protection and promotion of off-highway motorized recreation throughout Colorado. COHVCO is an environmental organization that advocates and promotes the responsible use and conservation of our public lands and natural resources to preserve their aesthetic and recreational qualities for future generations.

The Trail Preservation Alliance (“TPA”) is a 100 percent volunteer organization whose intention is to be a viable partner, working with the United States Forest Service (USFS) and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to preserve the sport of trail riding. The TPA acts as an advocate of the sport and takes the necessary action to ensure that the USFS and BLM allocate to trail riding a fair and equitable percentage of access to public lands.

Colorado Snowmobile Association (“CSA”) was founded in 1970 to unite winter motorized recreationists across the state to enjoy their passion. CSA advocates for the 30,000 registered snowmobiles in the State of Colorado. CSA has become the voice of organized snowmobiling seeking to advance, promote and preserve the sport of snowmobiling by working with Federal and state land management agencies and local, state and federal legislators. For purposes of these comments, TPA, CSA and COHVCO will be referred to as “the Organizations”.

1a. National trail opportunities and trail visitation are badly out of balance.

Prior to addressing the specific negative impact to all recreational opportunities that would result from the Proposal at a site-specific level, the Organizations believe it is important to establish a strong factual foundation for our concerns regarding recreational impacts from any Legislation that restricts multiple use access on public lands. The Organizations believe that any legislation must be based on best available science for management of the area to ensure that balance of goals and objectives and opportunities is achieved in the Legislation.

The first new piece of science and analysis that must be addressed in the Proposal is the imbalance in supply of trails in Wilderness when compared to the demand for these opportunities. The US Forest Service recently updated its National Trail mileage allocation, which is reflected in the chart below1:

Our concerns regarding the imbalance in miles of routes and possible impacts from any further expansion of routes in Wilderness are based on a comparison of the 20% of all trails are currently in Congressionally Wilderness, which is badly out of balance with the levels of visitation to these areas on the national level. In 2016, the US Forest Service research indicates that while 20% of all trail mileage is located in a Wilderness area, these routes are visited by only 4% of all USFSvisitors.2  The Organizations simply do not believe that expanding this imbalance any further makes sense from a management perspective as 96% of USFSvisitation is being forced to recreate on a smaller and smaller portion of forests (80%).  The Organizations believe this simply makes little sense as land managers should be seeking to provide the best opportunity for the largest percentage of visitors as all visitors to public lands should be treated equally. Additionally, with this inability to disperse use, impacts at developed sites will continue as more of the public will be forced to recreate on smaller and smaller portions of public lands in the Proposal area. Generally, the Organizations support allocations of resources based on demand for that resource and right now that relationship is simply badly out of balance with Wilderness based recreation.

1b. Local opportunities and visitation for trails is even more out of balance than nationally.

When USFS research is reviewed to determine recreational visitation to the land management offices involved in the Proposal area, it is determined that 6.7% of all visitors to the San Juan National Forest reported visiting a Congressionally Designated Wilderness area, 3 despite more than 700,000 acres of the San Juan NF 1.8 million acres (38%) being currently designated as Wilderness areas.4 This low level of visitation to the San Juan National Forest is compounded by the fact that the SJNF has several Wilderness areas that are experiencing comparatively high levels of visitation, such as the Weminuche. In order to balance this relationship, the Organizations submit there has to be large numbers of Wilderness areas designated on the SJNF that see almost no visitation throughout the year. As a result, the Organizations must question any factual basis that would assert recreational benefits from the Proposal, as currently there is almost twice the national average for Wilderness recreational opportunities but the usage of these opportunities is well below the national average.

Given the current imbalance of recreational demand with opportunities, both nationally and locally, the Organizations must question any assertion of a recreational benefit that could result from the Proposal, as currently these types of opportunities are horribly out of balance in the planning area when the supply of routes and trails is compared to the exceptionally low visitation overall. Rather that expanding opportunities for recreation on the forest, the Proposal would result in an even greater imbalance in usage than is currently on the SJNF.

1c. Forest Health, Recreation and Trails.

The Organizations are very concerned about the general scientific basis for the designation of any areas as Wilderness, as we are generally unsure of what management concerns are believed to be the basis for the special designations in the Propsoal. Without a clear management need, any discussion around the designations is difficult at best and the Organizations must question why such management changes would be undertaken. Our research indicates that the areas proposed for some type of Wilderness or Special Management Area type authority are some of the hardest hit areas in the nation when forest health issues are addressed. That weighs heavily in our position against the Proposal as it has been our experience that these are areas badly in need of active management for forest health issues. These treatments could quickly mitigate fire risks in impacted areas and speed restoration of these acres to healthy and vibrant habitat for a wide range of species. These negative impacts to treatment abilities should not be overlooked.

The Organizations are aware that both Senator Bennet has been very supportive of federal actions to address poor forest health conditions in Colorado, such as the Senator championing of wide revisions to USFS contracting authority to address forest health issues in the 2012 Farm Bill and his offices efforts to move firefighting budgets out of the USFS budget and into FEMA management. The Organizations vigorously support and appreciate these efforts but must ask why this issue and concerns expressed in other legislation have not been addressed with the creation of the Proposal in order to minimize possible conflict between management guidance that is provided in these pieces of legislation.

The scale of the management challenge surrounding poor forest health is an issue where significant new research has been provided by land managers seeking to address this issue, and the conclusions of this research provide a compelling basis to avoid further management complexity on this issue. In 2015, the USFS completed national level research projecting the impacts of poor forest health on the national forests over the next 25 years and unfortunately the federal resources in the state of Colorado did very poorly in this analysis as:

– the State of Colorado was identified as 5th in the country in terms of acres at risk due to poor forest health5;

– both Rocky Mountain National Park and Great Sand Dunes NP were both identified as two of the hardest hit national parks in the Country6; and

– Colorado National Forests dominated the list of those forests hardest hit by poor forest health in the country as 5 of the top 7 hardest hit forests are immediately adjacent to the areas to be designated as Wilderness.

It is unfortunate that Colorado does so well in these types of comparisons and analysis and the Organizations submit Colorado must be striving to resolve these issues rather than making these challenges more difficult. This type of research provides significant credible foundation for serious concern around a scientific basis for the Proposal and significant conflicts in national management standards implemented to address landscape issues and the site specific standards in the Proposal.

Newly released joint research from the USFS and Colorado State Forest Service research provides the following graphical representation of the poor forest health in the vicinity of the proposed Wilderness and management areas as follows: 8

Annual acres affected by spruce beetle in Colorado.
Figure 3. Annual acres affected by spruce beetle in Colorado.

Spruce Beetle activity in Colorado 1996-2015
Figure 4. Spruce Beetle activity in Colorado 1996-2015.

The Organizations believe that the poor forest health throughout the western United States is the single largest challenge facing public lands in our generation. Given that the areas proposed to be managed as Wilderness or other special management designation are in the hardest hit areas in the state for tree mortality, the Organizations believe that the first question with any legislative action must be:

“How does this Legislation streamline land managers ability to respond to the poor forest health issues in the area?”

The Organizations vigorously assert that the Proposal is a major step in the wrong direction when addressing the ability of land managers to respond to the forest health concerns in these areas, as rather than streamlining the response to poor forest health issues, most areas are functionally precluded from management. Even where management is allowed the Proposal, the Proposal would result in another layer of NEPA analysis that would need to be completed prior to any management of the issue. Requiring yet another layer of NEPA from land managers who are seeking to address this issue makes little sense and the abnormally severe wildfires that result from poor forest health often render recreational access to burn areas unavailable for decades. 8

Many of the routes impacted by the 2002 Hayman Fire have only been recently reopened and many of the routes impacted by the 2012 Waldo Canyon Fire will remain closed for many years to come.

While the graphical representation of the poor forest health in the area of the Proposal is compelling, the scope of these impacts is even more compelling when reviewed in terms of the sheer scale of the issue. The scale of the challenge was clearly identified in new research from the 2016 Colorado State Forest Service’s annual forest health report. The highlights of the 2016 report addressing the sheer scale of impacts are as follows:

  • 8% of ALL trees in Colorado are dead and the rate of mortality is increasing;9
  • the total number of dead trees has increased 30% in the last 8 years;10
  • Research has shown that in mid-elevation forests on Colorado’s Front Range, hillslope sediment production rates after recent, high-severity wildfire can be up to 200 times greater than for areas burned at moderate to low severity.11 
  • A 2011 study involved monthly monitoring of stream chemistry and sediment in South Platte River tributaries before and after fire and showed that basins that burned at high severity on more than 45 percent of their area had streams containing four times the amount of suspended sediments as basins burned less severely. This effect also remained for at least five years post-fire.12
  • High-severity wildfires responsible for negative outcomes are more common in unmanaged forests with heavy fuel loads than in forests that have experienced naturally recurrent, low-intensity wildfires or prior forest treatments, such as thinning. It is far easier to keep water in a basin clean, from the source headwaters and through each usage by recipients downstream, than to try and restore water quality once it is degraded..13
  • During 2016’s Beaver Creek Fire, which burned 38,380 acres northwest of Walden, foresters and firefighters were given a glimpse into likely future challenges facing wildfire suppression and forest management efforts. These include longer duration wildfires due to the amount and arrangement of heavy fuels. Observations from fire managers indicated that instead of small branches on live trees, the larger, dead fuels in jackstraw stands were the primary driver of fire spread…. “The hazards and fire behavior associated with this fuel type greatly reduce where firefighters can safely engage in suppression operations”14

The concerns raised in the Colorado State Forest Service research are by no means an anomaly. Wilderness and improperly managed Roadless areas were previously identified by the Forest Service as a significant factor contributing to and limiting the ability to manage the mountain pine beetle epidemic and poor overall forest health. The 2011 USFS research prepared at the request of then Senator Mark Udall’s office on this issue clearly concludes as follows:

“The factors that limited access to many areas for treatments to maintain foreststands—steep slopes, adjacency to inventoried roadless areas, prohibition of mechanical treatments in designated wilderness—are still applicable today.”15

The Udall Forest Health report continues on this issue as follows:

“• Limited accessibility of terrain (only 25% of the outbreak area was accessible due to steep slopes, lack of existing roads, and land use designations such as wilderness that precluded treatments needed to reduce susceptibility to insects and disease).”16

This report is not discussed at length in these comments as previous comments have addressed this report. Since the release of this Forest Service report, additional Colorado Forest Service researchers have reached the same conclusions as the USFS Research Station did in the Udall Forest Health Report. The Colorado State Forest Service’s 2011 Forest Health report specifically identifies a major contributing factor to the spruce beetle outbreak as:

“Outbreaks typically occur several years after storms cause windthrow in spruce trees, which are susceptible to blowdown because of their shallow root system.Spruce beetles initially breed in the freshly windthrown trees, and subsequent generations attack and kill live, standing trees.”17

The lack of access to Wilderness areas to manage blow down areas is specifically identified as a major limitation in forest managers ability to address spruce beetle outbreak. These blow downs are directly identified as causing the spruce beetle outbreaks. The 2011 State Forest Service report specifically states:

“Many areas where spruce beetle outbreaks occur are remote, inaccessible or in designated wilderness areas. Therefore, in most cases, foresters can take little or no action to reduce losses caused by this aggressive bark beetle. However, individual trees can be protected on some landscapes.”18 

The Organizations must note the 2011 State Forest Service report extensively discussed how EVERY major spruce beetle outbreak in the state of Colorado was associated with a major wind event in a Wilderness area, which could not be managed by foresters due to Wilderness designations. Given the clear conclusions of best available science, that Wilderness and other management restrictions are contributing to and limiting the ability of land managers to respond to the single largest management challenge that will be experienced in our generation, the Organizations must question why such a decision to further limit the authority of land managers to respond to this challenge would ever be made. Such a position would not be based on best available science and could negatively impact a wide range of recreation opportunities both inside and outside the newly designated Wilderness areas.

1c. Wildlife habitat is degraded when management authority is restricted.

18 See, Colorado State Forest Service; 2011 Report on the Health of Colorado’s Forests; at pg. 11.

The Organizations are aware that generalized statements that the Proposal would improve wildlife habitat in the areas have been relied on previously, but the Organizations are not aware of any scientific basis for such a position. The Organizations are concerned about wildlife impacts due to the fact that many of our members are hunters and fisherman and directly benefit from healthy wildlife populations in the area. In addition to these consumptive wildlife concerns, many of the public are non-consumptive users of the large wildlife populations in the Proposal area and are provided a superior recreational experience from the large and healthy wildlife populations in the proposal area. The Organizations would also note that the delisting of any endangered or threatened species is often heavily reliant on a stable and healthy habitat for the species, and this is not provided by lands heavily impacted by poor forest health issues. Delisting of threatened or endangered species must also be considered in any management decisions as well, as degraded habitat will make species recovery more difficult both inside and outside any special management area designations.

The Organizations wish to highlight several new pieces of research that address the need for active management of public lands and the need for a healthy forest for wildlife in the planning area. In 2015, Colorado Parks and Wildlife released its State Wildlife Action Plan(“SWAP”), which provided a brief summary of the challenges facing species of conservation concern and threatened and endangered species in the State of Colorado. The SWAP provides the following summary of the impacts to wildlife at the landscape level from poor forest health:

“Timber harvesting within lodgepole pine at the appropriate sites and scale is needed to maintain pure lodgepole pine stands for lodgepole obligate wildlife species. Continuing to increase stand heterogeneity to reduce large, continuous even-aged stands will help reduce risk of uncharacteristic wildfire and large-scale pine beetle outbreaks in the future.”19

In addition to the above quote addressing the landscape level concerns around poor forest health, more than a dozen species are identified where the degradation of habitat due to beetle kill was specifically identified as a significant threat to the species.20 These types of concerns and impacts are simply not resolved with additional restrictions on the ability of land managers to respond to the forest health challenges. Management must remain on target in addressing these challenges in order to respond to these unprecedented tasks in the most cost effective and timely manner possible.

In addition to the newly released SWAP, significant new research has been provided that clearly identifies the need to address poor forest health concerns for many other species. Forest fires have been identified as a major threat to habitat for the Endangered Colorado Cutthroat trout, both during the fire itself and from the condition of riparian area after a fire. The Forest Service species conservation report specifically states:

“Lack of connectivity to other populations renders them vulnerable in the short term to extirpation from natural disturbances such as fire, post-fire debris torrents, or floods….”21

The Conservation Report also noted the significant impact that woody matter has on the cutthroat trout habitat. The Conservation Report notes the impact of fire and insect infestation are both major impacts on woody matters stating:

“large wood (also known as coarse woody debris) plays a dominant role in many montane streams where greenback cutthroat trout persist. Deposition of large wood affects sediment scour and deposition, energy dissipation, and channel form (Montgomery et al. 2003), and creates pools, stores spawning gravels, affords overhead cover, and provides refuge during high flows…… Inputs of large wood are controlled by a variety of processes. Mass mortality of riparian stands from fire, insect damage, or wind is important sources.” 22

Fire is specifically identified as a disturbance that results in trout habitat being unsuitable for centuries, stating:

“In particular, disturbances that dramatically alter channels or riparian zones—debris torrents…and severe fires—will change the discharge-sediment transport regime, re-set forest succession and large wood dynamics, and redistribute suitable and unsuitable habitat in a basin, sometimes for decades or centuries…” 23

This research notes the significant difference in impact to the cutthroat trout between conditions existing before the fire, during the fire and after the fires that are now occurring at unprecedented levels from the poor forest health existing in Colorado Forests. Given that the Colorado River Cutthroat Trout is one of dozens of fish species currently at risk due to the poor forest health on the SJNF, the Organizations submit best available science for species management weighs heavily against any expansion of Wilderness like management in the planning area.

2a. All recreational opportunities would be exceptionally impacted due to extensive restrictions on how basic maintenance of routes may be performed in new Wilderness areas.

Given the Proposal has asserted to be driven by recreational interests, the Organizations believe this issue warrants a more complete review and analysis of impacts and benefits from the Legislation at a more localized level than the national update on recreation that was previously provided. This is another issue where the benefits of the Legislation are unclear. While the benefits are unclear, the significant negative impacts are immediately clear as any efforts to provide basic maintenance and management of existing opportunities in the areas where Wilderness management is expanded become far more difficult and available funding is significantly diminished.

It has been the Organizations experience that land managers are struggling badly with providing basic maintenance and safe access to existing recreational opportunities in the planning area even when mechanical means and tools are available to maintain these areas. This is simply due to the large number of falling trees that block or otherwise impact recreational routes in the area. As the Organizations have previously noted, Colorado is some of the hardest hit areas in the Country in terms of poor forest health and logic would conclude that recreational management challenges would also be the largest in Colorado in allowing recreational usage of beetle kill areas. The challenge is immense even with the most advanced mechanical maintenance equipment available and is realistically beyond cost effective management without mechanical maintenance equipment. While the OHV/OSV community provides a large amount of maintenance resources for trails outside Wilderness areas, these resources are often matched with agency funding and the benefits are expanded on the ground. When agency resources are limited for maintenance, it impacts the entire management area regardless of Congressional designations.

While the Organizations are aware that stating the maintenance challenges facing managers relating to recreational routes and facilities are immense has some level of value, there is also no replacement for hard numbers when assessing impacts. New research has been performed by the USFS in the State of California regarding the scope of the challenges facing land managers in maintaining recreation on three Southern California Forests heavily impacted by poor forest health. The USFS conclusions on these forests are as follows:

 

graphic: Forest Service Response to Elevated Tree Mortality

The Organizations believe any assertion that maintenance of existing recreational opportunities and resources encompassing more than 4,000 miles of roads and trails and 141 recreational facilities impacted by poor forest health without mechanical assistance would lack factual or rational basis. This type of challenge is even more difficult in Colorado as research previously identified finds that Colorado forests are significantly harder hit than the three forests in California that are the target of the above research. The Organizations are intimately aware that existing resources for maintenance of recreation facilities and routes in Colorado struggle badly to maintain opportunities with mechanical resources and management being allowed.

In this situation the Organizations must question why streamlining the land managers ability to provide safe high quality recreational opportunities is not the priority of the Legislation. Instead of streamlining efforts, the Legislation provides a new and significant barrier to land managers responding to the issue. While these comments are centering on the maintenance impacts from poor forest health, there are numerous other challenges in providing basic maintenance such as rock removal, which in a Wilderness must be done by hand instead of mechanized equipment and simply transporting equipment to sites, which must be done by hikers or horseback instead of with trucks and trailers. This review is needed in order to fully understand the basis of our concerns around overall impacts to recreation and federal budgets that are required to fund maintenance with exceptionally expensive methods.

The most common manner of removing downed trees or hazard trees in a Wilderness based recreation area of Colorado is with a large cross cut saw operated by two people such as that pictured below: 25

two people sawing

Removing a tree such as that pictured above could be achieved in under an hour with mechanical means, but a similar removal could easily take all day without mechanical assistance. While a manual cross cut saw might be able to deal with isolated trees, such as these pictured above, the removal of hazard trees such as those photographed below are far more problematic.

Man by tree over creek

The ability to safely removal a tree blocking a route in the manner pictured above is difficult even with mechanized assistance but becomes far more concerning when hand tools must be used simply due to the extended amount of time sawyers must be in proximity to the hanging tree and the fact that twice as many sawyers are needed for the removal of the tree. Even when dealing with an isolated tree crossing a trail, costs and risks associated with basic maintenance are greatly increased with the prohibition of mechanical upkeep and this results in significant limitations on all maintenance activity in the planning area.

While there are concerns about the safety and cost of maintenance of Wilderness routes on a per tree level, concerns are expounded when maintenance is needed around larger wind events or larger scale tree fall issues such as those now commonly seen in beetle kill areas in the state. As a result of the serious limitations on how basic maintenance can be performed for major events like the blowdown that is currently blocking all public access to the Hunts Lake Trail on the Pike San Isabel photographed below are almost prohibitions on reopening routes:

Hunts Lake Trail Logout

Reopening of the Hunts Lake Trail would be a significant challenge with mechanized assistance but removing this number of downed trees without mechanical assistance would result in something that is a significant challenge to a project that might easily take months or years of effort if weather was uncooperative. These types of secondary impacts from Congressional action should not be overlooked as these impacts reduce funding available for any recreational management in the planning area.

Ignoring these types of on the ground impacts from expansion of management restrictions from the Proposal makes little sense and erodes any basis for claiming recreational benefits from the Proposal. There is simply limited funding available for recreation and that money must be applied in the most effective manner possible to protect existing recreational opportunities both inside and outside of Congressionally Designated Wilderness areas.

2b. Trail maintenance resources are greatly reduced in Wilderness areas.

As the Organizations have noted already, costs associated with basic maintenance of recreation facilities and opportunities are significantly increased with any Wilderness designations. Based on the Organizations experiences with the Colorado State Trails Programs grants, Wilderness Trial Maintenance costs are consistently identified as being something to a factor of 100x the cost of mechanized trail maintenance in grant applications to partner programs. The average mechanized maintenance crew can easily clear and maintain 100 to 200 miles of trail per year, while similar levels of funding and partner efforts utilizing non-mechanized means can only address 1-2 miles of trail per year. The cost benefit relationship is simply not comparable.

In addition to the exponentially increased costs of maintenance for recreational opportunities in Wilderness area, the amount of funding that is available for maintenance is greatly reduced. The USFS estimates the $4.3 million in funding available from the State of Colorado’s voluntary OHV registration program almost doubles the amount of funding available for summer recreational maintenance programs as follows:

Rocky Mountain Region Trails Budget

This disparity of funding is even more problematic when the more than $1.5 million in additional maintenance funding that results from the Colorado Voluntary Snowmobile Registration Program is included in this equation. Often winter grooming activities are maintaining routes throughout the winter that are used throughout the year and result in trees being removed throughout the year rather than only during the summer season.

The direct impacts of the voluntary OHV/OSV program funding are:

  1. EVERY Ranger District in the State of Colorado has access to a well-equipped trail maintenance crew funded by the voluntary OHV tax on a prioritized basis;
  2. Most ranger districts have a dedicated motorized trail crew for summer maintenance; and
  3. Most Ranger Districts also a winter maintenance crew from snowmobile registration funds.

The availability of these crews directly contrary to the national situation facing the forest service where most Ranger Districts have no maintenance crews at all. While these teams have been hugely successful, their effectiveness is restricted by available funding limits and when existing resources are used for maintenance in ways that are 100x less effective it impairs recreational experiences for all the public, not just those choosing Wilderness based recreation. The Organizations believe that any legislation addressing recreational access and maintenance must be looking at how to making existing funding go further, rather than making existing funding less effective by a factor of almost 100, as is the result of Wilderness recreation.

Why are the economic resources available for maintenance of Wilderness recreation a concern for the Organizations, as our activities have been prohibited? While the voluntary OHV and snowmobile funds greatly expand the resources that are available to land managers for maintenance of facilities outside Wilderness areas, these resources are often leveraged with USFS budgets for maintenance of these areas. When the match to the funds provided through the voluntary OHV funds is asked to become less effective by a factor of as much as 100 for the benefit of less than 4% of all visitors to USFS land, the Organizations are immediately concerned that the match to the OHV program funds will be reduced. This reduction is concerning as no additional benefit is achieved with these funds but resources being leveraged for maintenance outside Wilderness are significantly reduced and the Organizations are intimately aware that these funds are often stretched very thin already. This is simply unacceptable to the Organizations.

3. Economics Contributions of Wilderness Recreation.

The Organizations are aware that many counties in the planning area have moved away from the dark economic times that plagued them several years ago. Unfortunately many communities outside the direct influence of ski area-based revenue continue to struggle and overly rely on recreational opportunities to provide basic services to residents. Many of these communities might include Mancos, Placerville and Rico as examples. Given the importance of recreation to these communities and that many of our members that live in these communities, the Organizations believe a brief update of the economic impacts to these communities that resulted from the Proposal is warranted. Significant new information identifies the strong negative relationship between Wilderness designations and local economic activity involving recreation.

The first piece of new scientific research is the local economic information from USFS, as part of their “at a glance” summaries for the San Juan National Forest, which identifies the overwhelming importance that recreation plays in the success of local communities. The USFS summarizes their conclusions in the following graphs27:

Graph: Economic Contribution by Program - Labor Income

Graph: Economic Contribution by Program - Avg Annual Jobs

It is difficult to understate the importance of the economic contribution of recreational activity to local communities, as economic benefits of recreation and FS management of recreational facilities outpace all other activities combined on the SJNF.

New research highlighting the economic importance of multiple use recreation to the recreational spending benefits flowing to local communities comes from research from the Department of Commerce. This analysis was prepared at the request of Department of Interior Secretary Sally Jewel in 2012, addressing the importance of recreational spending in the Gross Domestic Product.28 This research clearly identified the important role that motorized access plays in recreational spending, which is summarized in the following chart:

Gross Output for Selected Conventional Outdoor Recreation Activities 2016

This research concludes that motorized recreation outpaces the economic contribution of boating and fishing at almost twice the rate and that motorized recreation almost outspends all other categories of recreation combined. Given that motorized usage plays major roles in both the hunting and fishing economic analysis, the three largest components of economic benefit from recreational activity would be prohibited in a Wilderness area. As a result of the overwhelming nature of these conclusions, the Organizations have to express serious concerns when the lion’s share of economic drivers are excluded from using any portion of public lands as clearly economic benefits are limited. The negative economic impact concerns regarding degrading multiple use access are immediately apparent.

The risk of negative economic impacts is also highlighted in newly released research from the US Forest Service, which estimates that recreation on National Forest Service Lands accounts for more than $13.6 billion in spending annually.29 Experts estimate that recreational spending related to Wilderness areas accounts for only 5% of that total spending or approximately $700,000 million nationally. 30 The limited economic driver of Wilderness based recreation is compounded by the fact that more than 20% of the trail network that is currently located on USFS lands is within Wilderness areas. Again, this type of underutilization of any recreational resource is concerning to the Organizations simply because of the allocation of the resources and funding.

The economic underutilization of Wilderness based recreational resources is easily identifiable when economic activity of recreational users is compared. This research is summarized below:31

Table 3. Visitor spending for high, average, and low spending areas by activity, $ per party per trip 2007

We will not be addressing this research at length as we have included this analysis in our previous comments on earlier versions of this legislation, other than to note the conclusions of this research are consistent with conclusions that high spending user groups, such as snowmobile and OHV users are consistently excluded from Wilderness areas, while low spending groups such as cross-country skiers and hiker are permitted in these areas. Given the fact that low spending profile users are often spending only 20% of higher spending profile groups, these conclusions are consistent with the conclusions of both the Department of Commerce and new USFS research.

While the imbalance in spending profiles is problematic, the fact that once Wilderness is designated the general public fails to use the limited recreational opportunities in these areas is even more concerning. Nationally, Congressionally designated Wilderness accounts for approximately 19% of USFS lands but results in only 3.4% of all visitor days.32 In the State of Colorado, there is approximately 22% of USFS lands managed as Wilderness33 but despite the expanded opportunity results in only 6.7% of visitor days on the San Juan National Forest.34 As we have noted in previous comments there are significant declines over time in the visitation to and demand for Wilderness based recreational experiences. Given the significant underutilization of Wilderness resources in the area of the Proposal, the Organizations must vigorously assert that any economic risk is significantly negative and must be addressed or at least recognized by the communities in the vicinity of the Proposal areas.

4a. Many of the areas now proposed for Wilderness designation have a long history of being found unsuitable for designation.

Many of the areas to be added to the Wilderness system in the Proposal have been the basis of ongoing discussions for possible Wilderness designations since the RARE inventories were conducted in the 1970’s. While many of these areas were found suitable for inclusion and added to the Wilderness System in 1980, the areas within the current Proposal have been consistently identified as unsuitable for designation for a variety of reasons and were specifically released from possible future designation by the same legislation. As a result, the Congressional standards addressing the need for multiple use management of these areas must not be overlooked as this was the balance that was struck for these areas previously. The rather systemic lack of regard for consensus positions could not be reflected more perfectly than by the fact that the Proposal seeks to overlook the 1980 Colorado Wilderness act and already seeks to alter the consensus position that was achieved with the Hermosa Watershed Legislation in 2014. This is exceptionally troubling as the USFS has only completed planning required for the Hermosa area less than a year ago.

In this portion of our comments, the Organizations wish to highlight the repeated exclusion of many areas now sought to be designated as Wilderness from lower levels of management inn previous administrative reviews mandated by Congress. The systemic conclusions that many of these areas were never suitable for inclusion in the Wilderness system started with the RARE and RARE 2 inventories due to the high levels of existing usages of these areas included high levels of recreational value. These areas would include the Wilson Mesa area, Sunshine, Whitehouse, Liberty Bell and many other areas.35 While the site-specific information is available for review if your office should desire such a discussion, these conclusions are not discussed at length in these comments as they are repetitive to the conclusions of the Colorado Roadless Rule development in 2012. The Organizations must ask why these areas, which have never been suitable for designation as Wilderness, despite almost 50 years of inventory, would now be thought suitable for designation as Wilderness? The question about the need for Wilderness designations becomes more concerning when Congressional action has previously returned these areas to multiple use management.

4b. Most areas proposed to be Wilderness was found unsuitable for designation as Upper Tier Roadless areas in the 2012 Colorado Roadless Rule Process.

The Organizations were heavily involved in the development of the 2012 Colorado Roadless Rule, where both additional management flexibility was to be provided in Roadless areas and additional protection of less developed areas was explored. Extensive site-specific inventories of areas were again provided as part of development of the Colorado Roadless Rule to ensure that current information about any area was relied on in the inventory process. As a result of this process, significant portions of the areas now proposed to be Wilderness or the subject of other exclusionary management standard were inventoried for possible inclusion in upper tier roadless designations under the 2012 Colorado Roadless Rule development. Similar to the RARE inventory conclusions almost every area proposed to be Wilderness was found unsuitable for management as upper tier only a few years ago. The Organizations must question why the heightened restriction of Wilderness management is thought to be warranted, when lower levels of protection have already been identified as unsuitable several times.

In the Roadless Rule process, generally two categories of management inventory were explored, which were Colorado Roadless areas and Upper Tier Roadless areas. In an Upper Tier roadless area, management was closer to a Congressionally Designated Wilderness and in Colorado Roadless Area management direction was moved towards higher levels of usage and flexibility.

Under Alternative 2 (preferred) the designation of Upper Tier Roadless management is reflected in areas highlighted in yellow on the map below and alternative 4 of the Proposal provided a more extensive acreage of areas for possible upper tier designation, which is reflected in the red freckled areas on the map below. The stark differences between the scope of alternative 2 and alternative 4 of the inventory are reflected in the map below:

Ncompahgre NF and Lizard Heart maps

The Organizations must note that almost EVERY area now proposed to be Wilderness was reviewed under Alternative 4 of the Roadless Rule EIS and found to be unsuitable for this lower level of protection and management of an Upper Tier management designation. In the site-specific descriptions of each of these areas, a detailed discussion of the reasons for designation of these areas either as CRA or Upper Tier was provided. The overlap of the CRA process and RARE inventories conclusions is significant and weighs heavily against the legislation.

The Organizations must question any assertion that these areas are suitable for Wilderness designations, when these areas were recently inventoried and found unsuitable for the lower level of protection provided by an Upper Tier designation. Any assertion of factual basis for such management would not be supported by the extensive site-specific inventory and review that was created as part of the Colorado Roadless Rule development. The Colorado Roadless Rule process was another administrative confirmation that these areas do not warrant heightened protections and should be managed for multiple use.

5a. Previous Congressional protections of multiple use must be honored.

Prior to addressing the site-specific impacts to trails and access currently within the expanded Wilderness and SMA boundaries the Organizations believe a review of the existing protections of usages in the planning areas is an important component of why the Organizations are opposing the Proposal. The specific release of many of these areas back to multiple use management by previous Congressional action is an important component of any balance, however limited, to the 1980 legislation that moved many areas into Wilderness management in the planning area. The Organizations are unable to identify any reason to review these previous consensus positions and actions of Congress.

When both the Mt Sneffels and Lizard Head Wilderness Areas were designated as Wilderness in 1980, the following provisions were included in the preamble of that legislation:

“(3) the Department of Agriculture’s second Roadless Area Review and Evaluation of National Forest System lands in the State of Colorado and the related congressional review of such lands have also identified areas which do not possess outstanding wilderness attributes or which possess outstanding energy, mineral, timber, grazing, dispersed recreation and other values and which should not now be designated as components of the National Wilderness Preservation System but should be available for nonwilderness multiple uses under the land management planning process and other applicable laws.”36 

The Organizations must question why areas that have been specifically released by Congress for multiple use management and consistently found unsuitable for designation as Roadless areas would ever be found now available for Wilderness designation. The Congressional release of roadless areas, such as Sunshine, Wilson Mesa, Whitehouse and Liberty Bell is highly relevant due to the proximity of many of the new proposed Wilderness Area additions to both the Mt. Sneffels and Lizard Head Wilderness and that these areas were specifically excluded by Congress from Wilderness management previously.

In addition to the recognition of multiple use management standards for many of the proposed Wilderness areas, the 1980 Colorado Wilderness Act also specifically identified that there should be no buffer around any of the newly designated Wilderness areas as follows:

“SEC. 110. Congress does not intend that designation of wilderness areas in the State of Colorado lead to the creation of protective perimeters of buffer zones around each wilderness area. The fact that nonwilderness activities or uses can be seen or heard from areas within the wilderness shall not, of itself, preclude such activities or uses up to the boundary of the wilderness area.”37

In addition to the specific provisions of the 1980 Colorado Wilderness Legislation clearly returning many of the areas to multiple use management, the Proposal also seeks to amend the management prescriptions recently passed as part of the Hermosa Watershed Legislation. This is highly frustrating as the Hermosa Legislation was the result of many years of collaborative efforts across a wide range of community interests including Senator Bennet’s Office. The immediate desire to change the Hermosa Watershed management is astonishing and simply provides another troubling example were consensus positions simply are not honored by those that actively participated in the process. If consensus positions are changed immediately after consensus management is implemented, the Organizations would question the value of the consensus process and note that the community support would be difficult to reconvene in the future on other issues. This should be avoided.

Congress has spoken regarding the management of these areas and the Organizations are unable to identify any reason to disturb these conclusions with this legislation. The Organizations submit that these provisions were designed to end discussions around possible designations and the Organizations submit that instead of providing Legislation designating these areas as Wilderness, any Legislation should be clearly identifying and protecting existing usages of these areas through an SMA type designation.

5b. Sheep Mountain SMA closes opportunities and would overturn consensus management positions reached in the Hermosa Watershed legislation of 2014.

The Organizations are vigorously opposed to what is a legislative attempt to designate 21,620 acres where permittees and guides would be provided superior rights of access over the public. This position is simply offensive. This exclusionary management is exceptionally painful for the usage of the area, where outfitter/guides would be provided by Congressional action the right to always allow their clients to get first tracks in any powder in the SMA as public access to exceptional winter motorized opportunities in the area would be lost but permitted heli-skiing operations would be permitted to continue. The Sheep Mtn. area has also been the basis of ongoing conflict between snowmobile users, who have legally used this area for decades and permittees. This area has historically provided high quality recreational opportunities for intermediate and advanced riders, which have been the target of consistent harassment about possible private land incursions made by land owners who have historically misstated property boundaries and asserted the area was closed by the USFS. USFS has worked with those landowners to try and provide accurate information but these efforts have had marginal success. The Organizations believe that these landowners are affiliated with business interests that are now seeking to apply the arbitrary exclusion standards in the SMA to close the area to public access. This simply compounds the vigor of the Organizations opposition to the SMA, as bad behavior and intolerance should not be rewarded with passage of federal law.

The lack of any rational basis for the Sheep Mtn. decision is highlighted by the fact that previous versions of the San Juan Legislation asserted a benefit to big horn sheep that might be in the area with the added SMA management. Such a position was removed when the public noted that big horn sheep response to a helicopter landing in the backcountry to drop off skiers would clearly be higher than any dispersed snowmobile type impacts simply due to the volume of sound produced by the helicopter.

In addition to providing a Congressional preference for permittees in the SMA area, the SMA would significantly alter many of the designations and decisions that were made in the Hermosa Watershed Legislation that was passed less than 3 years ago with broad community support and sponsored by Sen Bennet, Sen Udall and Congressman Tipton38. The desire to overturn a broadly supported piece of legislation such as the Hermosa Watershed Legislation highlights the need for a complete review of existing Legislative protections of lands in the Proposal area. The Organizations are deeply troubled that the San Juan Legislation would seek to overturn the clear mandates made in the Hermosa Legislation so quickly.

 

In addition to providing an offensive preference against public access to the Sheep Mountain SMA, there is an extensive multiple use trail network in the area that would be lost with passage of the SMA. Protection of these routes and areas was a major concern in the Hermosa Legislation. These networks are identified in the maps below.

Map - 2014 Dolores Ranger District MVUM
2014 Dolores Ranger District MVUM 

 

Map: 2014 Summer MVUM – Columbine Ranger District
2014 Summer MVUM – Columbine Ranger District 

 

2104 GMUG Mountain MVUM

In addition to the Sheep mtn area having extensive legal summer trails available, the entire area is legally open to OSV travel pursuant to the 1983 GMUG RMP as it is managed as 2a areas (semi primitive motorized) or 6b (grazing where semi primitive motorized and roaded natural will be provided)

5c. Wilson Wilderness and Sunshine

The Organizations are opposed to the Wilson and Sunshine Area Wilderness additions due to the large number of trails and trailheads in this area that provide high quality multiple use recreational opportunities that would be lost. The previous Congressional action to protect these uses in these areas compounds the vigor of our Organizations opposition. These trail networks are represented in the Motor Vehicle Use Maps outlined below:

Map: 2014 Dolores Ranger District MVUM
2014 Dolores Ranger District MVUM 

5d. Whitehouse additions would close important trail networks in the area.

The Organizations are again opposed to the Wilson and Sunshine Area Wilderness additions due to the large number of trails and trailheads in this area that provide high quality multiple use recreational opportunities. The previous Congressional action to protect these uses in these areas compounds the vigor of our Organizations opposition. These trail networks are represented in the Motor Vehicle Use Maps outlined below:

Map: trail networks Motor Vehicle Use Map

5. Conclusion.

After a detailed review of the Proposal, the Organizations have concluded that every area expanded or created in the Proposal would result in significant lost recreational opportunities for the overwhelming portion of visitors to the Proposal area, both currently and in the future. Rather than streamlining the management of these areas, the Proposal would create a major management barrier and greatly increase the costs of any management activities that might be undertaken in these areas. This will negatively impact recreational access both in the Proposal area and in areas that are outside the new management standards in the Proposal. While there are significant lost opportunities, there is also no additional protections for multiple use routes that might remain outside the Wilderness areas and no new areas are designated for OHV recreation.

The opposition to the Proposal is based on the consistent conclusions of decades of administrative review of these areas of these areas for possible designation by Congressional mandate. These areas have been consistently found ineligible for designation and specifically released back to multiple use. The imbalance of the current Proposal is compounded by the fact that the Proposal would alter the management prescriptions previously provided by Congress for protection of multiple uses in these areas both in the 1980 Colorado Wilderness Legislation and only recently passed as part of the Hermosa Watershed Legislation. This is highly frustrating as 33

the Organizations were actively involved in the development of the Hermosa Watershed Legislation where large and diverse community support was developed around the Hermosa Legislation and a wide range of protections for a diverse group of users was achieved. The Organizations had hoped the Hermosa legislation was a new model for developing land use legislation but that does not appear to be the case.

The Organizations still fail to understand the management concerns or perceived threats that are driving the discussion around the need for additional protection of these areas and after a review of best available science the Organizations can find no basis for the Legislation as the Proposal would provide a major barrier to the maintenance of recreational facilities in the planning areas.

Please feel free to contact Scott Jones, Esq. if you should wish to discuss any of the issues that have been raised in these comments further. His contact information is Scott Jones, Esq., 508 Ashford Drive, Longmont Colorado 80504; phone 518-281-5810; email Scott.jones46@yahoo.com.

 

Respectfully Submitted,

Scott Jones, Esq.
COHVCO/TPA Authorized Representative
CSA President

Don Riggle
Director of Operations
Trails Preservation Alliance

 

1 See, USDA Forest Service; National Strategy for a Sustainable Trails System; December 30, 2016 at page 2.

2 See, USDA Forest Service; National Visitor Use Monitoring Survey Results –National Summary Report–data collected FY2012 through FY2016;December2016 at pg. 10.

3 See,USDA Forest Service; VisitorUse Report;San Juan NF; USDA Forest Service Region 2 National Visitor UseMonitoring Data; Collected through FY 2012 Last Updated June20, 2012 at pg. 9.

See,https://www.fs.usda.gov/recmain/sanjuan/recreation

5 See, USDA Forest Service; Tkacz et al; 2013-2027 National Insect and Disease Forest Risk Assessment; 2015 at pg. 36. Hereinafter referred to as the “USDA Risk Assessment”.

6 See, USDA Risk Assessment at pg. 50.

7 See, USDA Risk Assessment at pg. 51.

8 A complete review of this data is available here: https://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/fseprd490230.pdf

9 http://csfs.colostate.edu/2017/02/15/800-million-standing-dead-trees-colorado/

10 2016 Forest Health Report at pg. 6

11 2016 Forest Health Report at pg. 24

12 2016 Forest Health Report at pg. 24

13 2016 Forest Health Report at pg. 24

14 See, 2016 Forest Health Report at pg. 5.

15 See, USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station; Review of the Forest Service Response to the BarkBeetle Outbreak in Colorado and Southern Wyoming; A report by USDA Forest Service Rocky Mountain Region and Rocky Mountain Research Station at the request of Senator Mark Udall; September 2011 at pg. 5.

16 See, Udall Forest Health Report at pg. I

17 See, Colorado State Forest Service;2011 Report on the Health of Colorado’s Forests; at pg. 9.

18 See, Colorado State Forest Service; 2011 Report on the Health of Colorado’s Forests; at pg. 11.

19 See, Colorado Parks and Wildlife; 2015 Colorado State Wildlife Action Plan at pg. 279.

20 This list of species includes: Albert Squirrel; American Marten; Hoary Bat; Snowshoe Hare and Luck spine moth.

21 See, USFWS; Dr. Michael Young; Greenback Cutthroat Trout; A Technical Conservation Assessment; February 6, 2009 at pg. 3.

22 See, Young @ pg. 20.

23 See, Young @ pg. 21.

24 See, USDA Forest Service; Pacific Southwest Region Research Station; Forest Service Response to Elevated Tree Mortality; prepared at the request of California State Association of Counties; March 24, 2016 at pg. 14.

25 Photo included with application of Divide Ranger District application for maintenance in the Weminuche Wilderness to Colorado State Trails Program for maintenance funding.

26 See, USFS presentation of Scott Haas, Region 2 Recreation Coordinator at the 2016 Colorado OHV Workshop. Full copy of presentation available on request.

27 See, USDA Forest Service; “San Juan NF- Job and Income Contributions for 2014 at a glance”; September 2016 A complete copy of this research is available here https://www.fs.fed.us/emc/economics/contributions/documents/at-a-glance/published/rockymountain/AtaGlance-SanJuan.pdf

28 See, Department of Commerce; Bureau of Economic Analysis; “Outdoor Recreation Satellite Account: Prototype Statistics for 2012-2016”; February 14, 2018 at pg. 2.

29 See, USDA Forest Service; National Forest Support a Recreation Economy- a complete study copy is available here: http://blog.nwf.org/2014/07/national-forests-support-recreation-economy/

30 See, Holmes & White; National & Community Market Contributions of Wilderness; Society & Natural Resources; An International Journal; Volume 30 2017

31 See, UDSA Forest Service; White & Stynes; Updated Spending Profiles for National Forest Recreation Visitors by Activity; Joint venture between USDA Forest Service Pacific Northwest Research Station and Oregon State University; November 2011 at pg. 6.

32 See, USDA Forest Service, National Visitor Use Monitoring; “National Visitor Use Monitoring Survey Results; National Summary Report; Data collected FY 2012 through FY 2016”; 2016 at pg. 1.

33 See, USDA Forest Service; 36 CFR Part 294 Special Areas; Roadless Area Conservation; Applicability to the National Forests in Colorado; Final Environmental Impact Statement; May 2012 pg. 19

34 See, USDA Forest Service; National Visitor Use Monitoring Results; San Juan National Forest; Round 2; For data collected through 2011; last updated June 2012 at pg. 9.

35 See, USDA Forest Service; FEIS Roadless Area Review and Evaluation; Appendix E; January 1979 at pg. 216 & 220.

36 See, PL 96-560 @ §101(a)(3).

37 See, PL 96-560 @ §110.

38 See, PL 113-291 @ §3062.

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The Trouble With Legitimizing Mountain Biking’s ‘Pirate Trails’

Article reposted from WBUR OAG with permission – see the original post.

A mountain bike trail in Thornton, N.H. (Courtesy Sam Evans-Brown)

A mountain bike trail in Thornton, N.H. (Courtesy Sam Evans-Brown)

For years, mountain bikers have been kind of like the woodsy version of skateboarders in a city: using the landscape not built for them, carving their own paths into the hills. And that rogue culture — the fact that it was illegal and secret — was part of the allure.

But what happens when the evolution of a sport threatens the very thing that made it so attractive in the first place?

Pirate Trails

Jody Chinchen is the District Trails Manager on the Pemigewasset Ranger District. She and I are walking through the Smarts Brook trail system in the While Mountain National Forest in New Hampshire. In other words, federal property.

And we’re walking on some trails that aren’t exactly legal. And they’re pretty clearly defined.

Chinchen calls these trails incidental trails. User-created trails. Non-network trails. Bureaucratic euphemisms for what they are: trails that got built on federal land without permission. She estimates there are 35 or 40 miles of these trails just in her district of the national forest.

The Forest Service is trying to fold these pirate mountain bike trails into the official trail system. And the best people to help them do this are also the very people who built the off-the-map trails in the first place.

“Mountain bikers are obviously a biggie,” Chinchen says. “They do a lot of work. They have a lot of energy.”

It’s like how, for years, city officials used to put up signs that said, ‘No Skateboarding’ and would hassle kids who scraped up the new granite steps in front of the courthouse. But eventually, they gave up and built the kids a skate park.

Chinchen shows me a trail that has been designated for a redesign. They’ve put up markers designating a new, more erosion-friendly route — down a hill and around an apple orchard — that the wildlife likes. But as we follow the new trail, we notice the flagging has been pulled down off the trees.

Some mountain biker is trying to sabotage Chinchen’s work.

“There are some adversaries to this project,” she says. “There’s the people who want this trail to remain low use, and they want to maintain the character of the network just as it is.”

Why would mountain bikers not want people to get out and ride bikes? To understand that, we need some Mountain Biking History 101.

Mountain Biking History 101

Dave Harkless is a bike shop owner in Littleton, New Hampshire.

“I’m one of the guys in this town that make this town fun to live in,” he says.

Harkless is a connected figure in New England mountain biking. He’s kind of an ambassador for the sport — maybe a little scruffy, but he tucks his t-shirt in.

“As I’ve matured, shall we say, I try to stick to legit trails,” he says.

Gardner Kellogg is a surveyor in the same town.

“I’m 71 years old, and I’ve been doing this mountain biking for probably longer than I should have,” Kellogg jokes.

Kellogg bought one of the very first mass-produced mountain bikes back in the early ’80s, and he’s built a lot of trails in his day. And I think at the time, he saw it as a victimless crime.

“Earlier on, there just weren’t that many people riding, and it didn’t really matter that much,” he says.

Just like the early skateboarders who drained pools in uninhabited second homes in their California neighborhoods, the early mountain bikers found a place to take their new rigs.

“We’d just go into the woods and start clearing a way to get from one point to another,” Kellogg says. “By hook or by crook.”

Pirate Trail Perils

If you’ve ever been walking and turned onto a trail that suddenly is zig-zagging, maze-like, through the woods, winding crazily through the trees and doubling back on itself … that’s a mountain bike trail. Mountain bikers don’t want views or destinations — they want corners and obstacles to get over and downhills and to ride their bikes until they’re tired and wind up back where they started.

And they want it close to home. Which means, often, these trails were built in whatever woods were nearest by — no matter whose they were.

“A lot of landowners up here are absentee landowners,” Harkless says. “A lot of land is old land in old families, been handed down through generations. They don’t necessarily live on their land.”

But not asking for permission can be a recipe for conflict.

“Have you ever had the experience of a private landowner who didn’t know there was a trail on their land finding you to talk to you about it? And what are those conversations like?” I ask.

“There have been conversations,” Kellogg says. “And some are nicer than other conversations.”

A lot of these trails were built by experts who were looking for things that were fun and challenging. But that also made the trails horrendously difficult for new riders.

“And they were tight, they were twisty, they were extremely technical,” Harkless says. “You could have 24 inches between the trees. There’s still some trails like that around here, and we call them skinnies.”

Riding these lines is intense. You fall over. You crash on the downhills. You can hurt yourself.

“It can be extremely frustrating,” Harkless says. “If somebody is looking to get into riding, and this is their first experience, they’re going to have to be a very determined person to be successful. Send ‘em up there and like, ‘Go ride our trails. They’re really fun, they’re really awesome.’ They come back bloody and pissed.”

And, because these trails were built without permission, the people who built them wanted them to stay under the radar so they wouldn’t get kicked off.

So … no trail signs. Trail signs invite in outsiders. Trail signs bring attention. No trail signs.

man with mountain bike

Photo credit TAUSEEF MUSTAFA/AFP/Getty Images

Maybe you’re asking, “So what? Who cares if there are pirate trails?”

Well, let me tell you a story.

Abraham Hauer

“The Rabbi and his wife came to take a walk up the hill,” says Mark Taylor, who worked for 20 years as a police officer in Franconia, New Hampshire. “She didn’t want to go. She stayed in the car.”

Taylor may sound like he’s setting up a joke, but he’s not. He told me about a search and rescue that happened in 2001, when a Rabbi from Brooklyn named Abraham Hauer came up to the White Mountains.

“It’s a fairly well-defined trail here, and it basically forms this loop about a mile and half, all the way around,” Taylor says.

Abraham’s wife, Milka, waited for him. But then, it started to get dark.

“About nine o’clock, his wife calls the police,” Taylor says. “My chief shows up, talks to her, calls [the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department] out. They make a pass through, they make a quick walk up through. They didn’t find him.

“So they decided they would start the search the next morning. Rained all day. It wasn’t a hard rain, but it was cold. And it was damp. So it was really a tough day to be outside in the weather if you had to be out in the weather.”

Fish and Game kept searching. But by noon the next day, it was clear that Abraham Hauer was really, really lost.

“And that evening, apparently, the New York governor called the New Hampshire governor who in turn called our colonel of State Police and the major from Fish and Game and said, ‘We need to do something about this.’ ”

Apparently, Rabbi Hauer was kind of a big deal.

“Second day, they retraced their steps,” Taylor says. “And the second day, they found an article of his clothing where they had been the previous day.”

It was a vest.

“He was basically walking in circles at that point,” Taylor says. “At some point in time, the Hasidic Jewish community came up from New York with their urban search and rescue people. They had a mobile command post, which was basically out of an old Greyhound bus. All of your radio communications, all of your telephone communications, and their own ambulance — I would say by the end of the third day, there was probably 300 or 400 people here.

“We had enough people and we could put one person every 300 feet so that they could face into the woods and call the guy’s name.

In 2001, searchers arrived in New Hampshire to look for Rabbi Abraham Hauer. (Jim Cole/AP)

In 2001, searchers arrived in New Hampshire to look for Rabbi Abraham Hauer. (Jim Cole/AP)

“It was a little eerie. Because you could physically stand here, and you could be in the woods just a few feet, and you would hear, ‘Abraham, Abraham, where are you?’ ”

By this point, the governor’s resources had arrived: there were dozens of searchers from Fish and Game, local and state police and the National Guard.

“They had a Black Hawk helicopter out searching the area — and that’s when they found him,” Taylor says. “And he had passed away at some point in time — probably within the last past hours — just from the exposure.

“Where we found him is only, now, a few hundred yards, probably, from where the nearest backyard is.”

How does somebody get lost on a trail like this: a one-mile loop, super wide, well-defined trail — the most touristy of tourist hikes? Maybe you’ve already guessed the answer.

Near the top of the loop, at the intersection where Abraham Hauer needed to take a left to get back to his car and to his wife, there was another trail to the right. A mountain bike trail over private land. It’s a trail that a few years earlier had fallen out of use because the bikers had been kicked off after a rider swore at the landowner who was out walking his dog.

This particular wrong turn was a really strange one to make. When you’re making a circle of all left turns, why would you go right?

But Abraham Hauer wasn’t the only one to make this mistake.

“Several different tourists have taken this,” Mark Taylor says. “We actually had a school group, and the teacher got off course and took the whole group. And I actually found them over on 141. I actually got to a point where I could look down in the ravine, and I could hear them talking. And it was like, ‘Come up to here.’ ”

At least in this one spot, it seems pretty clear that a trail sign would have been nice. But when you’re building pirate trails, trail signs aren’t an option.

All of these pirate trail networks may have remained more or less hidden. Unmarked. Largely unnoticed, basically forever. But things have been changing.

A Changing Landscape

For one, the bikes have been getting better. And that, slowly, has drawn in new riders, who’ve suddenly been able to find trails. Because around 2010, people started to upload their rides to GPS smartphone apps, which made that ride data public.

In particular, there’s one app, called Strava. Strava has created a global heat map of all the places that people ride bikes — including all of the rides in places where there aren’t supposed to be trails.

It’s like the underground high school party that gets too big and gets busted by the cops.

“As I understand it, what happened is some of the local folks in the White Mountain National Forest offices were retiring — so these young folks were coming up through, and some of them were avid mountain bikers,” bike shop owner Dave Harkless says. “And they also were technologically savvy. And so they brought up the heat map, and everybody looked around. They’re like, ‘Holy cow, look at all these trails.’ ”

Now, for the first time, you could see all the pirate trails at once. And I think it became clear that this problem was only going to get worse. And also around the same time, the commercial side of the sport has started to really explode thanks to devices like the GoPro.

Mountain Biking has become big business. A study of the tourism to Kingdom Trails in Northern Vermont has estimated they bring $10 million a year to this very rural area.

And Burke, Vermont is just one of dozens of towns that have parlayed its mountain bike trails into million-dollar tourism industries — Moab, Utah. Sedona, Arizona. Pisgah, North Carolina. Bend, Oregon.

If, in the ’80s, mountain bikers were skateboarders riding in the neighbor’s pool that they’d pumped out while no one was home, in 2019, towns like Burke, Vermont and the places like it are the towns that built the skate park.

And not just any skate park — the best damn skatepark in the Northeast.

“Someone who’s really hard core can go get that technical riding,” says Abby Long, the executive director of the Kingdom Trails Association. “Someone who just wants to learn can go on some really fun greens, and then kiddos can learn to mountain bike with their striders on our little baby-pump tracks.”

But even inside a success story like Kingdom Trails, there are tensions.

“There’s a lot of folks who don’t want things to change,” Long says. “They want things to be exactly how they were — how they grew up and what they love.”

The popularity of the trails means they are crowded on weekends, which annoys local riders and has brought traffic to the village which annoys local drivers.

“It keeps me up at night, to be honest,” Long says. “I do know. It’s coming to a head.”

The Future Of Pirate Trails

Time and technology march on. And that’s what’s happening back at Smarts Brook, where Jody Chinchen is overseeing the proposed redesign of those pirate trails.

“I think all of these things have promoted a different kind of experience. It’s just matured over the years, maybe,” Chinchen says. “People are happier now with something that they can go home from with a little bit less blood at the end of the day.”

On our walk, Chinchen and I tried to follow their proposed trail redesign. This was where someone had torn down their flagging for where the trail would go. After a brief bushwhack, we popped back out onto a trail … only to find another pirate trail.

You can build them a skate park. But at least for a little while, until the culture changes, some of those kids are still going to to prefer to scrape up the courthouse steps.

longer version of this story originally aired on Sam-Evans Brown’s podcast Outside/In.

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Continental Divide Recreation, Wilderness and Camp Hale Act

Senator Michael Bennett
Att: John Whitney
835 East 2nd Ave, Suite 206
Durango, CO 81301

Congressman Jared Polis
Att: Nissa Ericson
PO Box 1453
Frisco, CO 80443

March 18, 2018

  Re: Continental Divide Recreation, Wilderness and Camp Hale Act

Dear Senator Bennett and Congressman Polis;

Please accept this correspondence as the comments of the above-referenced Organizations vigorously opposing the Continental Divide Recreation, Wilderness and Camp Hale Act hereinafter referred to as “the Proposal”. After a detailed review of the proposal, the Organizations have concluded that every area expanded or created in the Proposal would result in significant lost recreational opportunities for the overwhelming portion of visitors to the Proposal area, both currently and in the future.  While there are significant lost opportunities there is also no additional protections for multiple use routes that might remain outside the Wilderness areas and no new areas are designated for OHV recreation. Additionally, frustrating these efforts is the fact that previous commitments made in previous Wilderness legislation in Congressman Polis office remain unfulfilled. The Organizations also still fail to understand the management concerns or perceived threats that are driving the discussion around the need for additional protection of these areas.

The Organizations have been visiting with your Office staff attempting to find some type of consensus position that we could support around these areas, but it appears those discussions have not been fruitful, as this version of the Proposal is the worst version of the Proposal the Organizations have seen in a long time.   This is highly frustrating as the Organizations were actively involved in the development of the Hermosa Watershed Legislation where large and diverse community support was developed around the Hermosa Legislation and a wide range of protections for a diverse group of users was achieved.  The Organizations had hoped the Hermosa legislation was a new model for developing land use legislation but that does not appear to be the case. 

Before the Organizations address the specific impacts from the Proposal to recreational access in the Proposal area, the Organizations believe a review of four landscape level topics around Wilderness designations must be addressed as there is significant new research that weighs heavily against proposed designations and management restrictions.  These four topics are:

  1.  The imbalance of demand for Wilderness recreation with the opportunity provided in the planning area;
  2. The cost/benefit of providing recreational opportunities in the Proposal areas that have been heavily impacted by poor forest health;
  3. The inability to understand the management concerns that are driving the perceived need to designate these areas as Wilderness; and
  4. The significant negative economic impacts that result to local communities from Wilderness designations.

Prior to addressing our specific concerns around the Proposal, a brief summary of each Organization is needed.  The Colorado Off-Highway Vehicle Coalition (“COHVCO”) is a grassroots advocacy organization advocating for the approximately 200,000 registered OSV and OHV vehicle users in Colorado seeking to represent, assist, educate, and empower all OHV recreationists in the protection and promotion of off-highway motorized recreation throughout Colorado.  COHVCO is an environmental organization that advocates and promotes the responsible use and conservation of our public lands and natural resources to preserve their aesthetic and recreational qualities for future generations.

The Trail Preservation Alliance (“TPA”) is a 100 percent volunteer organization whose intention is to be a viable partner, working with the United States Forest Service (USFS) and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to preserve the sport of trail riding.  The TPA acts as an advocate of the sport and takes the necessary action to ensure that the USFS and BLM allocate to trail riding a fair and equitable percentage of access to public lands.

Colorado Snowmobile Association (“CSA”) was founded in 1970 to unite winter motorized recreationists across the state to enjoy their passion. CSA advocates for the 30,000 registered snowmobiles in the State of Colorado.  CSA has become the voice of organized snowmobiling seeking to advance, promote and preserve the sport of snowmobiling by working with Federal and state land management agencies and local, state and federal legislators. For purposes of these comments, TPA, CSA and COHVCO will be referred to as “the Organizations”.

1a. National trail opportunities and trail visitation are badly out of balance.

Prior to addressing the specific negative impact to all recreational opportunities that would result from the Proposal at a site-specific level, the Organizations believe it is important to establish a strong factual foundation for our concerns regarding recreational impacts from any Legislation that restricts multiple use access on public lands.  The Organizations believe that any legislation must be based on best available science for management of the area to ensure that balance of goals and objectives and opportunities is achieved in the Legislation.  

The first new piece of science and analysis that must be addressed in the Proposal is the imbalance in the opportunity to use trails in Wilderness when compared to the demand for these opportunities. The US Forest Service recently updated its National Trail mileage allocation, which is reflected in the chart below[1]

Our concerns regarding the imbalance in miles of routes and possible impacts from any further expansion of routes in Wilderness are based on a comparison of the 20% of all trails are currently in Congressionally Wilderness, which is badly out of balance with the levels of visitation to these areas on the national level. In 2016, the US Forest Service research indicates that while 20% of all trail mileage is located in a Wilderness area, these routes are visited by only 4% of all USFS visitors.[2] The Organizations simply do not believe that expanding this imbalance any further makes sense from a management perspective as 96% of a USFS are being forced to recreate on a smaller and smaller portion of forests (80%).  The Organizations believe this simply makes little sense as land managers should be seeking to provide the best opportunity for the largest percentage of visitors as all visitors to public lands should be treated equally. Additionally, with this inability to disperse use, impacts at developed sites will continue as more of the public will be forced to recreate on smaller and smaller portions of public lands in the Proposal area.

1b.  Local opportunities and visitation for trails is even more out of balance than nationally.

When USFS research is reviewed to determine recreational  visitation to the land management offices involved in the Proposal area, it is determined that 3.4% of all visitors to the White River National Forest reported visiting a Congressionally Designated Wilderness area, [3] despite more than 750,000 acres of the White River NF 2.3 million acres (32%) being currently designated as Wilderness areas.[4] This low level of visitation to the White River National Forest is compounded by the fact that the WRNF has several Wilderness areas that are experiencing exceptionally high levels of visitation, such as the Maroon Bells. In order to balance this relationship, the Organizations submit there has to be large numbers of Wilderness areas designated on the WRNF that see almost no visitation throughout the year.  As a result, the Organizations must question any factual basis that would assert recreational benefits from the Proposal, as currently there is almost twice the National average for Wilderness recreational opportunities but the usage of these opportunities is well below the National average.

The imbalance in winter recreational opportunities on the White River National Forest are even more of a concern, as the WRNF recently concluded that only 7% of the forest was identified as suitable and available for OSV travel. As a result of the small portion of the forest that is even available, any lost opportunity areas are VERY difficult for the snowmobile community to accept as they only have a small portion of the forest even available.  While only 7% of the WRNF was available for OSV travel, significant portions of the WRNF are already unsuitable for OSV usage due to existing Wilderness designations on more than 34% of the WRNF.

Given the current imbalance of recreational demand with opportunities, both nationally and locally, the Organizations must question any assertion of a recreational benefit that could result from the Proposal, as currently these types of opportunities are horribly out of balance in the planning area when the supply of routes and trails is compared to the exceptionally low visitation overall.  Rather that expanding opportunities for recreation on the forest, the Proposal would result in an even greater imbalance in usage than is currently on the WRNF.

1c. Forest Health, Recreation and Trails.

The Organizations are very concerned about the general scientific basis for the designation of the areas as Wilderness, as we are generally unsure of what management concerns are believed to be the basis for the special designations.  Without a clear management need, any discussion around the designations is difficult at best and the Organizations must question why such management changes would be undertaken.  Our research indicates that the areas proposed for some type of Wilderness or Special Management Area type authority are some of the hardest hit areas in the nation when forest health issues are addressed. That weighs heavily in our position against the Proposal.  The expanded management restrictions that would result from the Proposal would prohibit the treatment of more than 7,000 acres of suitable timber that exist on slopes of less than 40%.  These treatments could quickly mitigate fire risks in these areas and speed restoration of these acres to healthy and vibrant habitat for a wide range of species.  These negative impacts should not be overlooked.

The Organizations are aware that both Senator Bennet and Congressman Polis have been very supportive of federal actions to address poor forest health conditions in Colorado, such as Senator Bennet championing of wide revisions to USFS contracting authority to address forest health issues in the 2012 Farm Bill and Congressman Polis vigorous support of efforts to move firefighting budgets out of the USFS budget and into FEMA management. The Organizations vigorously support and appreciate these efforts but must ask why this issue and concerns expressed in other legislation have not been addressed with the creation of the Proposal in order to minimize possible conflict between management guidance that is provided in these pieces of legislation.  

The scale of the management challenge surrounding poor forest health is an issue where significant new research has been provided by land managers seeking to address this issue, and the conclusions of this research provide a compelling basis to avoid further management challenges on this issue. In 2015, the USFS recently completed research projecting the impacts of poor forest health on the national forests over the next 25 years and unfortunately, the federal resources in the state of Colorado did very poorly in this analysis as:

  •  the State of Colorado was identified as 5th in the country in terms of acres at risk due to poor forest health[5];
  • both Rocky Mountain National Park and Great Sand Dunes NP were both identified as two of the hardest hit national parks in the Country[6]; and
  • Colorado National Forests dominated the list of those forests hardest hit by poor forest health in the country as 5 of the top 7 hardest hit forests are immediately adjacent to the areas to be designated as Wilderness.[7] 

It is unfortunate that Colorado does so well in these types of comparisons and analysis and the Organizations submit Colorado must be striving to resolve these issues rather than making these challenges more difficult. This type of research provides significant credible foundation for serious concern around a scientific basis for the Proposal. There appears to be significant conflicts.

Newly released Colorado State Forest Service research provides the following graphical representation of the poor forest health in the vicinity of the proposed Wilderness and management areas as follows:

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       [8]

The Organizations believe that the poor forest health throughout the western United States is the single largest challenge facing public lands in our generation.  While this outbreak has had horrible impacts to a wide range of activities on public lands, there is a small benefit to the current situation.  At least we are aware what the single largest management challenge for our generation should be, which is how to we respond to this issue in a cost effective and timely manner. Given that the areas proposed to be managed as Wilderness or other special management designation are in the hardest hit areas in the state for tree mortality, the Organizations believe that the first question with any legislative action must be: 

“How does this Legislation streamline land managers ability to respond to the poor forest health issues in the area?”

The Organizations vigorously assert that the Proposal is a major step in the wrong direction when addressing the ability of land managers to respond to the forest health concerns in these areas, as rather than streamlining the response to poor forest health issues, most areas are functionally precluded from management.  Even where management is allowed the Proposal, the Proposal would result in another layer of NEPA analysis that would need to be completed prior to any management of the issue. Requiring yet another layer of NEPA from land managers who are seeking to address this issue makes little sense and the abnormally severe wildfires that result from poor forest health often render recreational access to burn areas unavailable for decades.  Many of the routes impacted by the 2002 Hayman fire have only been recently reopened and many of the routes impacted by the Waldo Canyon Fire will remain closed for many years to come.

While the graphical representation of the poor forest health in the area of the Proposal is compelling the scope of these impacts is even more compelling when reviewed in terms of the sheer scale of the issue.  The new research was specifically addressed in the 2016 Colorado State Forest Service’s annual forest health report.  The highlights of the 2016 report addressing the sheer scale of impacts are as follows:

  • 8% of ALL trees in Colorado are dead and the rate of mortality is increasing;[9]
  • the total number of dead trees has increased 30% in the last 8 years;[10]
  • Research has shown that in mid-elevation forests on Colorado’s Front Range, hillslope sediment production rates after recent, high-severity wildfire can be up to 200 times greater than for areas burned at moderate to low severity.[11]
  • A 2011 study involved monthly monitoring of stream chemistry and sediment in South Platte River tributaries before and after fire and showed that basins that burned at high severity on more than 45 percent of their area had streams containing four times the amount of suspended sediments as basins burned less severely. This effect also remained for at least five years post-fire.[12]
  • High-severity wildfires responsible for negative outcomes are more common in unmanaged forests with heavy fuel loads than in forests that have experienced naturally recurrent, low-intensity wildfires or prior forest treatments, such as thinning. It is far easier to keep water in a basin clean, from the source headwaters and through each usage by recipients downstream, than to try and restore water quality once it is degraded.[13]
  • During 2016’s Beaver Creek Fire, which burned 38,380 acres northwest of Walden, foresters and firefighters were given a glimpse into likely future challenges facing wildfire suppression and forest management efforts. These include longer duration wildfires due to the amount and arrangement of heavy fuels. Observations from fire managers indicated that instead of small branches on live trees, the larger, dead fuels in jackstraw stands were the primary driver of fire spread…. “The hazards and fire behavior associated with this fuel type greatly reduce where firefighters can safely engage in suppression operations”[14]

The concerns raised in the Colorado State Forest Service research are by no means an anomaly.  Wilderness and improperly managed Roadless areas were previously identified by the Forest Service as a significant factor contributing to and limiting the ability to manage the mountain pine beetle epidemic and poor overall forest health. The 2011 USFS research prepared at the request of then-Senator Mark Udall’s office on this issue clearly concludes as follows:

“The factors that limited access to many areas for treatments to maintain forest stands—steep slopes, adja­cency to inventoried roadless areas, prohibition of mechanical treatments in designated wilderness—are still applicable today.”[15]

The Udall Forest Health report continues on this issue as follows:

“Limited accessibility of terrain (only 25% of the outbreak area was accessible due to steep slopes, lack of existing roads, and land use designations such as Wilderness that precluded treatments needed to reduce susceptibility to insects and disease).”[16]

This report is not discussed at length in these comments as previous comments have addressed this report. Since the release of this Forest Service report, additional Colorado Forest Service researchers have reached the same conclusions as the USFS Research Station did in the Udall Forest Health Report.  The Colorado State Forest Service’s 2011 Forest Health report specifically identifies a major contributing factor to the spruce beetle outbreak as:

“Outbreaks typically occur several years after storms cause windthrow in spruce trees, which are susceptible to blowdown because of their shallow root system. Spruce beetles initially breed in the freshly windthrown trees, and subsequent generations attack and kill live, standing trees.” [17]

The lack of access to Wilderness areas to manage blow down areas is specifically identified as a major limitation in forest managers ability to address spruce beetle outbreak.  These blow downs are directly identified as causing the spruce beetle outbreaks.  The 2011 State Forest Service report specifically states: 

“Many areas where spruce beetle outbreaks occur are remote, inaccessible or in designated wilderness areas. Therefore, in most cases, foresters can take little or no action to reduce losses caused by this aggressive bark beetle. However, individual trees can be protected on some landscapes.”[18]

The Organizations must note the 2011 State Forest Service report extensively discussed how EVERY major spruce beetle outbreak in the state of Colorado was associated with a major wind event in a Wilderness area, which could not be managed by foresters due to Wilderness designations. Given the clear conclusions of best available science, that Wilderness and other management restrictions are contributing to and limiting the ability of land managers to respond to the single largest management challenge that will be experienced in our generation, the Organizations must question why such a decision to further limit the authority of land managers to respond to this challenge would ever be made. Such a position would not be based on best available science.

1c. Wildlife habitat is degraded when management authority is restricted.

The Organizations are aware that generalized statements that the Proposal would improve wildlife habitat in the areas have been relied on previously, but the Organizations are not aware of any scientific basis for such a position.  The Organizations are concerned about wildlife impacts due to the fact that many of our members are hunters and fisherman and directly benefit from healthy wildlife populations in the area.  In addition to these consumptive wildlife concerns, many of the public are non-consumptive users of the large wildlife populations in the Proposal area and are provided a superior recreational experience from the large and healthy wildlife populations in the proposal area. The Organizations would also note that the delisting of any endangered or threatened species is often heavily reliant on a stable and healthy habitat for the species, and this is not provided by lands heavily impacted by poor forest health issues.

The Organizations wish to highlight several new pieces of research that address the need for active management of public lands and the need for a healthy forest for wildlife in the planning area. In 2015, Colorado Parks and Wildlife released its State Wildlife Action Plan(“SWAP”), which provided a brief summary of the challenges facing species of conservation concern and threatened and endangered species in the State of Colorado. The SWAP provides the following summary of the impacts to wildlife at the landscape level from poor forest health:

“Timber harvesting within lodgepole pine at the appropriate sites and scale is needed to maintain pure lodgepole pine stands for lodgepole obligate wildlife species. Continuing to increase stand heterogeneity to reduce large, continuous even-aged stands will help reduce risk of uncharacteristic wildfire and large-scale pine beetle outbreaks in the future.”[19]

In addition to the above quote addressing the landscape level concerns around poor forest health, more than a dozen species are identified where the degradation of habitat due to beetle kill was specifically identified as a significant threat to the species.[20] These types of concerns and impacts are simply not resolved with additional restrictions on the ability of land managers to respond to the forest health challenges. Management must remain on target in addressing these challenges in order to respond to these unprecedented tasks in the most cost-effective and timely manner possible.

In addition to the newly released SWAP, significant new research has been provided that clearly identifies the need to address poor forest health concerns for many other species.  Forest fires have been identified as a major threat to habitat for the Endangered Colorado Cutthroat trout, both during the fire itself and from the condition of riparian area after a fire.  The Forest Service species conservation report specifically states: 

“Lack of connectivity to other populations renders them vulnerable in the short term to extirpation from natural disturbances such as fire, post-fire debris torrents, or floods….”[21]

The Conservation Report also noted the significant impact that woody matter has on the cutthroat trout habitat.  The Conservation Report notes the impact of fire and insect infestation are both major impacts on woody matters stating:

“large wood (also known as coarse woody debris) plays a dominant role in many montane streams where greenback cutthroat trout persist. Deposition of large wood affects sediment scour and deposition, energy dissipation, and channel form (Montgomery et al. 2003), and creates pools, stores spawning gravels, affords overhead cover, and provides refuge during high flows…… Inputs of large wood are controlled by a variety of processes. Mass mortality of riparian stands from fire, insect damage, or wind is important sources.”  [22]

Fire is specifically identified as a disturbance that results in trout habitat being unsuitable for centuries, stating: 

“In particular, disturbances that dramatically alter channels or riparian zones—debris torrents…and severe fires—will change the discharge-sediment transport regime, re-set forest succession and large wood dynamics, and redistribute suitable and unsuitable habitat in a basin, sometimes for decades or centuries…” [23]

This research notes the significant difference in impact to the cutthroat trout between conditions existing before the fire, during the fire and after the fires that are now occurring at unprecedented levels from the poor forest health existing in Colorado Forests. Given that the Colorado River Cutthroat Trout is one of dozens of fish species currently at risk due to the poor forest health on the WRNF, the Organizations submit best available science for species management weighs heavily against any expansion of Wilderness like management in the planning area.

2a.  Existing recreational opportunities would be exceptionally impacted due to extensive restrictions on how basic maintenance of routes may be performed in new Wilderness areas.

Given the Proposal asserts to be driven by recreational interests, the Organizations believe this issue warrants a more complete review and analysis of impacts and benefits from the Legislation at a more localized level than the national update on recreation that was previously provided.   This is another issue where the benefits of the Legislation are unclear.  While the benefits are unclear, the significant negative impacts are immediately clear as any efforts to provide basic maintenance and management of existing opportunities in the areas where Wilderness management is expanded become far more difficult and available funding is significantly diminished.

It has been the Organizations experience that land managers are struggling badly with providing basic maintenance and safe access to existing recreational opportunities in the planning area even when mechanical means and tools are available to maintain these areas. This is simply due to the large number of falling trees, that block or otherwise routes in the area.   As the Organizations have previously noted, Colorado is some of the hardest hit areas in the Country in terms of poor forest health and logic would conclude that recreational management challenges would also be the largest in Colorado in allowing recreational usage of beetle kill areas.  The challenge is immense even with the most advanced mechanical maintenance equipment available and is realistically beyond cost effective management without mechanical maintenance equipment.

While the Organizations are aware that stating the challenges facing managers relating to recreational routes and facilities are immense has some level of value, there is also no replacement for hard numbers when assessing impacts.  New research has been performed by the USFS in the State of California regarding the scope of the challenges facing land managers in maintaining recreation on three Southern California Forests heavily impacted by poor forest health. The USFS conclusions on these forests are as follows:

[24]

The Organizations believe any assertion that maintenance of existing recreational opportunities and resources encompassing more than 4,000 miles of roads and trails and 141 recreational facilities impacted by poor forest health without mechanical assistance would lack factual or rational basis.  This type of challenge is even more difficult in Colorado as research previously identified finds that Colorado forests are significantly harder hit than the three forests in California that are the target of the above research. The Organizations are intimately aware that existing resources for maintenance of recreation facilities and routes in Colorado struggle badly to maintain opportunities with mechanical resources and management being allowed.

In this situation the Organizations must question why streamlining the land managers ability to provide safe high-quality recreational opportunities is not the priority of the Legislation.  Instead of streamlining efforts, the Legislation provides a new and significant barrier to land managers responding to the issue. The Organizations are aware of the arguable authority for the Secretary to allow for mechanized treatment of forest health issues in the small portion of new Wilderness areas to be designated in §3c of the Proposal. The Organizations concerns on this issue are twofold:

  1.  This type of analysis will require at least a round of environmental analysis to be performed and based on discussions around this type of management flexibility the Organizations can say with a high level of certainty that the environmental review process will be exceptionally difficult; and
  2. We are not aware of a single acre of Wilderness in Colorado that has been mitigated under similar provisions of the Wilderness Act. 

As a result, the Organizations are opposed to the designations of areas under §3c and related provisions of the Proposal, despite the arguable authority to act, as the action would be both more expensive and has functioned as a complete barrier to action as this authority has never been used in Colorado.  

Given the poor track record of mechanical treatment being allowed to protect recreational opportunities in Colorado Wilderness areas, the Organizations believe a review of the means of maintenance actually on the ground is warranted.  While these comments are centering on the maintenance impacts from poor forest health, there are numerous other issues in providing basic maintenance such as rock removal, which in a Wilderness must be done by hand instead of mechanized equipment and simply transporting equipment to sites, which must be done by hikers or horseback instead of with trucks and trailers.  This review is needed in order to fully understand the basis of our concerns around overall impacts to recreation and federal budgets that are required to fund maintenance with exceptionally expensive methods.

The most common manner of removing downed trees or hazard trees in a Wilderness based recreation area of Colorado is with a large crosscut saw operated by two people such as that pictured below: [25]

two people sawing

Removing a tree such as that pictured above could be achieved in under an hour with mechanical means, but a similar removal could easily take all day without mechanical assistance.  While a manual crosscut saw might be able to deal with isolated trees, such as these pictured above, the removal of hazard trees such as those photographed below are far more problematic.

Man by tree over creek

The ability to safely remove a tree blocking a route in the manner pictured above is difficult even with mechanized assistance but becomes far more concerning when hand tools must be used simply due to the extended amount of time sawyers must be in proximity to the hanging tree and the fact that twice as many sawyers are needed for the removal of the tree. Even when dealing with an isolated tree crossing a trail, costs and risks associated with basic maintenance are greatly increased with the prohibition of mechanical upkeep.

While there are concerns about the safety and cost of maintenance of Wilderness routes on a per tree level, concerns are expounded when maintenance is needed around larger wind events or larger scale tree fall issues such as those now commonly seen in beetle kill areas in the state.  As a result of the serious limitations on how basic maintenance can be performed for major events like the blowdown that is currently blocking all public access to the Hunts Lake Trail on the Pike San Isabel photographed below are almost prohibitions on reopening routes:

Hunts Lake Trail Logout

Reopening of the Hunts Lake Trail would be a significant challenge with mechanized assistance but removing this number of downed trees without mechanical assistance would result in something that is a significant challenge to a project that might easily take months or years of effort if weather was uncooperative. Ignoring these types of on the ground impacts from expansion of management restrictions from the Proposal makes little sense and erodes any basis for claiming recreational benefits from the Proposal. There is simply limited funding available for recreation and that money must be applied in the most effective manner possible to protect existing recreational opportunities both inside and outside of Congressionally Designated Wilderness areas.

2b.  Trail maintenance resources are greatly reduced in Wilderness areas.

As the Organizations have noted already, costs associated with basic maintenance of recreation facilities and opportunities are significantly increased with any Wilderness designations.  Based on the Organizations experiences with the Colorado State Trails Programs grants, these costs are consistently identified as being something to a factor of 100x the cost of mechanized trail maintenance in grant applications to partner programs.  The average mechanized maintenance crew can easily clear and maintain 100 to 200 miles of trail per year, while similar levels of funding and partner efforts utilizing non-mechanized means can only address 1-2 miles of trail per year.  The cost-benefit relationship is simply not comparable.

In addition to the exponentially increased costs of maintenance for recreational opportunities in Wilderness area, the amount of funding that is available for maintenance is greatly reduced. The USFS estimates the $4.3 million in funding available from the State of Colorado’s voluntary OHV registration program almost doubles the amount of funding available for summer recreational maintenance programs as follows:

Rocky Mountain Region Trails Budget [26]

This disparity of funding is even more problematic when the more than $1.5 million in additional maintenance funding that results from the Colorado Voluntary Snowmobile Registration Program is included in this equation.

The direct impacts of this funding are:

  1. EVERY Ranger District in the State of Colorado has access to a well-equipped trail maintenance crew funded by the voluntary OHV tax on a prioritized basis;
  2. Most ranger districts have a dedicated motorized trail crew for summer maintenance
  3. Most Ranger Districts also a winter maintenance crew from snowmobile registration funds.

While these teams have been hugely successful, their effectiveness is limited by available funding limits and when existing resources are used for maintenance in ways that are 100x less effective it impairs recreational experiences for all the public, not just those choosing Wilderness based recreation. The availability of these crews directly contrary to the national situation facing the forest service where most Ranger Districts have no maintenance crews at all.  The Organizations believe that any legislation addressing recreational access and maintenance must be looking at how to making existing funding go further, rather than making existing funding less effective by a factor of almost 100, as is the result of Wilderness recreation.

Why are the economic resources available for maintenance of Wilderness recreation a concern for the Organizations, as our activities have been prohibited? While the voluntary OHV and snowmobile funds greatly expand the resources that are available to land managers for maintenance of facilities outside Wilderness areas, these resources are often leveraged with USFS budgets for maintenance of these areas.  When the match to the funds provided through the voluntary OHV funds is asked to become less effective by a factor of as much as 100 for the benefit of less than 4% of all visitors to USFS land, the Organizations are immediately concerned that the match to the OHV program funds will be reduced. This reduction is concerning as no additional benefit is achieved with these funds but resources being leveraged for maintenance outside Wilderness are significantly reduced and the Organizations are intimately aware that these funds are often stretched very thin already.  This is simply unacceptable to the Organizations.

3.  Economics of Wilderness Recreation.

The Organizations are aware that many counties in the vicinity have moved away from the dark economic times that plagued them several years ago, as exemplified by Summit County Colorado identification as number 3 on the Wall Street Journal list of 21st Century Ghost Towns.[27] Unfortunately, many communities outside the direct influence of ski area-based revenue continue to struggle and overly rely on recreational opportunities to provide basic services to residents.  Many of these communities might include Redcliffe, Leadville, Birdseye or Alma as examples.   Given the importance of recreation to these communities and many of our members that live in these communities, the Organizations believe a brief update of the economic impacts to these communities that resulted from the Proposal is warranted.  Significant new information identifies the strong negative relationship between Wilderness designations and local economic activity involving recreation.

The first piece of new scientific research is the local economic information from USFS, as part of their “at a glance” summaries for the White River National Forest, which identifies the overwhelming importance that recreation plays in the success of local communities.  The USFS summarizes their conclusions in the following graphs[28]:

Economic Contribution by Program - labor income

It is difficult to understate the importance of the economic contribution of recreational activity to local communities, when the USFS estimates that the economic benefits of recreation outpace all other usages combined by a factor of more than 12.

New research highlighting the economic importance of multiple use recreation to the recreational spending benefits flowing to local communities comes from research from the Department of Commerce.  This analysis was prepared at the request of Department of Interior Secretary Sally Jewel in 2012, addressing the importance of recreational spending in the Gross Domestic Product.[29] This research clearly identified the important role that motorized access plays in recreational spending, which is summarized in the following chart:

Gross Output for Selected Conventional Outdoor Recreation Activities 2016

This research concludes that motorized recreation outpaces the economic contribution of boating and fishing at almost twice the rate and that motorized recreation almost outspends all other categories of recreation combined. Given that motorized usage plays major roles in both the hunting and fishing economic analysis, the three largest components of economic benefit from recreational activity would be prohibited in a Wilderness area. As a result of the overwhelming nature of these conclusions, the Organizations have to express serious concerns when the lion’s share of economic drivers are excluded from using any portion of public lands as clearly economic benefits are limited.  The negative economic impact concerns regarding degrading multiple use access are immediately apparent.  

The risk of negative economic impacts is also highlighted in newly released research from the US Forest Service, which estimates that recreation on National Forest Service Lands accounts for more than $13.6 billion in spending annually.[30] Experts estimate that recreational spending related to Wilderness areas accounts for only 5% of that total spending or approximately $700,000 million nationally. [31]  The limited economic driver of Wilderness based recreation is compounded by the fact that more than 20% of the trail network that is currently located on USFS lands is within Wilderness areas.  Again, this type of underutilization of any recreational resource is concerning to the Organizations simply because of the allocation of the resources and funding.

The basis for the economic underutilization of Wilderness based recreational resources is easily identifiable when the USFS comparisons for economic activity of recreational users is compared. This research is summarized below:[32]

Table 3. Visitor spending for high, average, and low spending areas by activity, $ per party per trip 2007

We will not be addressing this research at length as we have included this analysis in our previous comments on earlier versions of this legislation, other than to note the conclusions of this research are consistent with conclusions that high spending user groups, such as snowmobile and OHV users are consistently excluded from Wilderness areas, while low spending groups such as cross-country skiers and hiker are permitted in these areas.  Given the fact that low spending profile users are often spending only 20% of higher spending profile groups, these conclusions are consistent with the conclusions of both the Department of Commerce and new USFS research.

While the imbalance in spending profiles is problematic, the fact that once Wilderness is designated the general public fails to use the limited recreational opportunities in these areas is even more concerning.  Nationally, Congressionally designated Wilderness accounts for approximately 19% of USFS lands but results in only 3.4% of all visitor days.[33]  In the State of Colorado, there is approximately 22% of USFS lands managed as Wilderness[34] but despite the expanded opportunity results in only 3.4% of visitor days on the White River National Forest.[35] As we have noted in previous comments there are significant declines over time in the visitation to and demand for Wilderness based recreational experiences. Given the significant underutilization of Wilderness resources in the area of the Proposal, the Organizations must vigorously assert that any economic risk is significantly negative and must be addressed or at least recognized by the communities in the vicinity of the Proposal areas.

4. Most areas proposed to be Wilderness in the Legislation were found unsuitable for designation as Upper Tier Roadless areas in the 2012 Colorado Roadless Rule Process.

The Organizations were heavily involved in the development of the 2012 Colorado Roadless Rule, where both additional management flexibility was to be provided in Roadless areas and additional protection of less developed areas was explored. Extensive inventories of areas were provided as part of development of the Roadless Rule to ensure that best available information about the area was also relied on in the inventory process.  As a result of this process, significant portions of the areas now proposed to be Wilderness or the subject of other exclusionary management standard were inventoried for possible inclusion in upper tier roadless designations under the 2012 Colorado Roadless Rule development.  Every area proposed to be Wilderness was found suitable for management as upper tier only a few years ago.

In the Roadless Rule process, generally two categories of management inventory were explored, which were Colorado Roadless areas and Upper Tier Roadless areas.  In an Upper Tier roadless area, management was closer to a Congressionally Designated Wilderness and in Colorado Roadless Area management direction was moved towards higher levels of usage and flexibility. Under Alternative 2 (preferred) the designation of Upper Tier Roadless management is reflected in areas highlighted in yellow on the map below and alternative 4 of the Proposal provided a more extensive acreage of areas for possible upper tier designation, which is reflected in the red freckled areas on the map below.  The stark differences between the scope of alternative 2 and alternative 4 of the inventory are reflected in the map below:

Map Key   Eagles Nest map

The Organizations must note that almost EVERY area now proposed to be Wilderness was reviewed under Alternative 4 of the Roadless Rule EIS and found to be unsuitable for this lower level of protection and management of an Upper Tier management designation.   In the site-specific descriptions of each of these areas, a detailed discussion of the reasons for designation of these areas either as CRA or Upper Tier was provided.  The Organizations must question any assertion that these areas are suitable for Wilderness designations, when these areas were recently inventoried and found unsuitable for the lower level of protection provided by an Upper Tier designation.  Any assertion of factual basis for such management would not be supported by the extensive site-specific inventory and review that was created as part of the Colorado Roadless Rule development.

5. Site-Specific Concerns.

The Organizations are providing the following site-specific comments to address the significant lost recreational opportunities that would immediately occur with the passage of the Proposal. The Organizations are opposed to the loss of these opportunities for the following reasons:

  1. There is simply no offsetting protection or release of recreational areas from possible Wilderness designations in other parts of the Legislation;
  2. Only a small portion of the WRNF is even suitable or available for multiple use recreation as exemplified by the fact that only 7% of the WRNF is suitable and available for OSV travel; and
  3. These are important recreational opportunities that are heavily used due to limited opportunities in the Proposal area.

The Organizations believe the source of the following maps and information is highly relevant as each of the summer Motor Vehicle Use Maps is highlighted to identify lost trail networks reflects current management on that Ranger District and the Winter OSV Suitability information comes from the White River National Forest recent Winter Travel Planning Process.  On the winter suitability maps, green areas are designated for open winter usage, and pink areas are future expansion areas for OSV travel, where travel is currently restricted to designated routes in the area.  OSV closure areas are identified in tan, but no portion of the Proposal area lies outside existing Wilderness in areas which are closed to OSV travel.

5(a).  Ptarmigan Peak (§3a1) & Williams Fork (§4) & Williams Fork Wildlife Conservation Area (§7)

The Organizations are opposed to the lost opportunities in the Williams Fork WCA, Ptarmigan Peak and Williams Fork Wilderness additions due to the loss of more than 20,000 acres of motorized recreational areas.  This closure would include the loss of a significant number of miles of heavily used currently authorized summer trail in these areas, as exemplified by the Cow Creek North and South networks immediately outside the Cow Creek and other campgrounds immediately adjacent to the trailheads, Route 2950.5a coming over from the ARNF and Route 2840.  The entire area is also a future expansion area for OSV travel and also includes a significant important open riding area.

2014 Summer MVUM
2014 Summer MVUM

Ptarmigan Peak (§3a1) & Williams Fork (§4) & Williams Fork Wildlife Conservation Area (§7)
WRNF Winter OSV suitability


Management under the Proposal

The Organizations must specifically mention that the alleged benefit that is asserted to be provided in the Williams Fork WCA is of no value to the multiple use commuity, as this alleged benefit is a ceiling for mileage and routes in the area created in §7b1 of the Proposal.   Unfortunately, there is no corresponding floor for  trail mileage in the areas, and such a mileage floor would be highly valued by the Organizations.   As a result, no additional routes can ever be built in these areas but all routes in the area could be lost.  The Organizations must question any assertion of value to mutiple use interests from these provisions, as the Organizations are simply unable to find the asserted benefit.  With designation of these areas under the Proposal, signficiant negative imapcts to existing recreational access would occur.

The Organizations are also very concerned with setting a precedent allowing for the automatic change of an area to Wilderness with the mere passage of time.  The Organizations are not aware of any precedent for automatic change of lands to Wilderness designation merely with the passage of time. Adopting such a principal could set a dangerous precedent moving forward and the Proposal provides no requirement that mitigation measures be completed prior to moving to the Wilderness designation. Mitigation measures can frequently take more than the 10 years to complete but the Proposal allows for a mere 180 day period for inventory and analysis of this issue.  This is problematic and would result in significant new analysis to be undertaken by land managers that are already struggling to provide for basic operations due to limited budgets and funding.

The Organizations would note that pursuant to §3e the Colorado Wilderness Act of 1993[36] that designated the Ptarmigan Peak area as Wilderness, there were to be “no buffer zones” around the Ptarmigan Peak Wilderness. Despite the clear direction of this Legislation, discussions have continued about expanding the Ptarmigan Peak Wilderness since the passage of the 1993 Legisaltion.  This exemplifies why the Organizations place little value in the “no buffer” provisions in the current Propsoal, as this discussion highlights the fact these provisions are some of the most ingored provisions of federal law ever passed.

5(b).  No Name Wilderness – §3a23

The adoption of the Proposed management in the No Name area would result in the immediate loss of more than 3,900 acres of future OSV expansion area.  While no routes would be immediately lost for summer travel, the Organizations have significant long-term concerns due to proximity of the existing routes to new Wilderness areas.  It has been the Organizations such proximity never resolves management issues for the areas but rather creates conflict due to the fact that those seeking the solitude of the Wilderness immediately raise user conflict concerns due to the proximity of multiple use. While the Proposal does provide for “no buffers” in management, but in other areas where no buffers have been provided such protections have been completely useless in addressing user conflict and future expansions. Our concerns with no buffer type legislation are identified previously.

Came Hale Inset
2014 Summer MVUM

Eagle Co/Lake Co map
2014 Summer MVUM

No Name Addition map
Management under the Proposal

 

The Organizations are opposed to this portion of the Proposal as the entire No Name area is a winter expansion area for OSV travel and would convert FSR703, which is currently a groomed route through an important open riding area to a cherry stem into an important OSV area for winter usage as there would now be Wilderness on both sides of the route.  That would put the route and inholding of open riding area in the Wilderness immediately at risk due to the conflicts in usage of the area. That is simply unacceptable.

Summer motorized recreation would also be significantly put at risk from these new Wilderness areas, as FSR703 is the Holy Cross City route that is consistently identified as one of the top ten OHV routes in the country. While all routes are important to the multiple use community, the value of the Holy Cross City route to especially the full size 4×4 community cannot be overstated. Additionally, the eastern boundary of the No Name expansion area is a currently designated summer route and expanding the boundary to the route would result in immediate conflict between usages on that route.  Given the value of these routes, any new Wilderness could never be supported in these areas due to possible challenges to these routes in the future.  Again, a “no buffer” type protections do not resolve that type of concern in the least and there is no benefit in other areas to arguably even discuss a risk to important routes that could result from the passage of the Proposal.

5(c).  Hoosier Ridge Wilderness(§3a24)

The Organizations are again concerned regarding the long-term opportunities in this area due to proximity of the Proposed Wilderness to heavily used areas immediately surrounding the Hoosier Ridge Wilderness area, including opportunities on both the Dillon and the South Park Ranger Districts generally surrounding the Boreas Pass Area.  These adjacent areas are represented in the MVUM identified below:

Dillon rd map
2014 Summer MVUM- Dillon RD

South park rd
2014 Summer MVUM – South Park RD

current osv suitability
Current OSV Suitability


Boreas Pass area is a major multiple use summer destination area. Given the proximity of the expanded Wilderness boundary to highly used routes, conflict between these uses would be a concern. Again, “no buffer” language has proven to be highly ineffective in addressing these types of concerns previously.  Our concerns about the Hoosier Ridge area are compounded by the fact that the Pennsylvania Gulch area, immediately to the north of the Hoosier Ridge area is again another important future expansion area for OSV travel that possess exceptionally high-quality riding opportunities that could not be put at risk with a Wilderness expansion into areas adjacent to Pennsylvania Gulch.

5(d).  Spraddle Creek Wilderness area additions -§3(a) (26)

The Spraddle Creek Wilderness contains an extensive high-quality summer trail network for motorized and bicycle community centered around FSR 700/719 that would be lost with passage of the Proposal. These are important routes due to their proximity to local population centers.

Red Sandstone Inset map
2014 Summer MVUM  

Current Snowmobile Suitability
Current Snowmobile Suitability

Management under the Proposal
Management under the Proposal

 

The potential Spraddle Creek Wilderness represents an important open riding snowmobile opportunity area that would be lost immediately in addition to the future expansion areas for OSV travel. Many OSV users believe that closure of the eastern portions this area in recent travel planning was due to 10th mtn. hut in area. Almost all 10th mtn. division huts now have a buffer area, as a result of recent planning which has resulted in the long-term loss of motorized opportunities around huts. Users are very sensitive to additional lost opportunity around any of the huts. Additionally, the snowmobile community worked hard with the USFS in recent planning to establish a boundary that was easily enforceable in the area for snowmobile usage (currently on top of a cliff). Expanding the Wilderness would again move the boundary into an area where enforcement would be difficult at best and probably result in a large amount of conflict and enforcement expense.

Expansion of Wilderness in this area could prohibit OSV usage connecting Spraddle Creek area to Spring Creek groomed network north of Eagles Nest Wilderness. This type of a connection was left as a long-term option in the recent travel plan for the area. We understand there is some conflict over exact location of Wilderness boundary and any groomed route developed in the area in the future. This is a major concern as any possible routes that could connect the areas are limited due to rugged topography of the area. A connection of Spraddle Creek and Spring Creek areas would be highly valued by OSV community as currently Spring Creek trailhead is a lengthy drive (more than 1 hour) on US 9 north of Frisco. With this connection, access to the Spring Creek area would be a short drive outside Frisco. 

Expansion of the Spraddle Creek Wilderness areas would result in the immediate loss of motorized routes 786 and 719 that currently exist in the area and dead-end at two scenic overlooks. With the addition of the Spraddle Creek Wilderness access to these overlooks would be lost and 786 and 719 outside the Wilderness would be at risk for closure moving forward as these trails would now just dead-end at the Wilderness boundary. We are concerned that the proximity of a possible groomed route/existing designated summer route and this Wilderness boundary. Our concern is the expanded boundary would result in significant conflict between users and also present a major management issue for the USFS due to increased signage etc. The close proximity of these management areas has resulted in significant conflict in other areas and as we have expressed previously, the Organizations have SERIOUS concerns about the effectiveness of “no buffer” type management standards.

5(e).  Porcupine Gulch Wildlife Conservation area – §4

The Organizations are simply flabbergasted that the 8,176 acres identified as the Porcupine Gulch Protection area is being proposed for loss to multiple use recreation, as this area was recently the basis of a multiple year collaborative process involving the USFS, Summit County Commissioners, Colorado Parks and Wildlife, Hikers, Mountain Bikers, Wilderness Advocates, Colorado Mountain Club, the Quiet Use coalition, local land owners and motorized users. This multiple year collaborative effort resulted in a consensus position regarding the future management of the area identified as the Tenderfoot Trail Proposal, which was then moved forward with minimal public opposition or concern. In addition to these active participants the Organizations recall those proceedings moving forward with the support of both Senator Bennett and Congressman Polis offices.

Porcupine Gulch WCA map

All detailed information regarding the Tenderfoot Trail project can be found here
https://data.ecosystem-management.org/nepaweb/nepa_project_exp.php?project=34502

Subsequent to the finalization of the EA for this project in 2012, more than 30 miles of trails have been closed and rehabilitated, 11 miles of sustainable single track were created and extensive new parking has resulted from the almost $1 million in partner grant funding that has been provided to implement the Tenderfoot Plan. This trail proposal has become a shining success story in the area and a model for resolving contentious planning issues in high use areas. Despite the success of the Tenderfoot project, the Porcupine WCA proposes to prohibit motorized and mechanized travel in the area.  That is simply offensive to the collaborative process that has been undertaken and would provide a significant barrier to such collaborative efforts ever being undertaken again in the future.

5(f).  Camp Hale National Historic Landscape §8

While the Organizations welcome the heightened importance of identification and removal of unexploded ordinance in the proposed Camp Hale National Historic Landscape provisions and that OSV usage is at least identified as a characteristic of the area, there is no additional protection of existing OSV usage provided in the Legislation.   The Organizations simply cannot support identification of basic safety concerns in the area and then not providing protections of existing recreational access to the area. 

In addition to providing no protection for OSV usage in the Camp Hale area, the Proposal provides no recognition of the important multiple use summer trail opportunities is provided for in the Legislation despite the extensive trail network that is currently authorized in the Camp Hale area.

2014 MVUM
2014 MVUM  

OSV Suitability and groomed routes
OSV Suitability and groomed routes

Clearly removal of unexploded ordinance could result in conflict between mitigation activities and recreational usage of trails in the vicinity of these activities.  With the statutory elevation of ordinance removal for safety reasons, the Organizations can clearly see recreational access being put at risk at least during the term of removal. Managers could easy prohibit access after running out of funding to undertake the ordinance remediation in the area simply to attempt to comply with safety-based provisions of the Legislation.  This is simply unacceptable as both short and long-term access to the area must be identified and protected and has not been.

The Organizations concerns about long term route loss from elevation of public safety concerns involving unexploded ordinance are compounded when the grant of Federal funding provided for in the Proposal is reviewed. The Organizations submit that any assertion that water impoundment facilities could be improved, historical interpretation sites created and a complete inventory of ordinance in the Camp Hale area with associated NEPA required for removal could be completed for the mere sum of $5,000,000 is simply without any basis in fact.  The Organizations submit that the funding provided managers would be hard pressed to complete one of the three goals, little lone all three. With the provided imbalance in funding with goals and objectives for management of the area, clearly protection of all usage of the area would be critical in insuring opportunities are not lost in the area.

While the interest in unexploded ordinance is appreciated, the provisions of the SMA fall well short of anything that could be supported by the Organizations.  To provide any value to the motorized community in the Legislation for this area, a floor for motorized travel must be provided and the importance of motorized access for both summer and winter motorized recreation at existing levels must be provided for.

5g. Ten Mile Recreation/Wilderness area §5

The Organizations submit that the designation of the Ten Mile Recreation Area would result in the loss of 16,996 acres for multiple use as multiple use recreation is not even a characteristic of the area.  This is another area where important multiple use recreational opportunities are currently existing but no protection for these opportunities is provided by the Proposal.  Rather than protecting these important opportunities, existing opportunities and future expansion areas would be permanently limited from expansion and additionally provided no protection from closure in the future as other priorities for the use of the Recreation area would be established by the Proposal.

Ten Mile map

2014 MVUM

Ten Mile map Over the Snow Suitability

Over the Snow Suitability

The Organizations opposition to the designation of these areas is based on the fact that no multiple uses are even identified as a characteristic of the area to be protected or reserved, while certain other recreational activities are advanced as characteristics of the area. Additionally, multiple use access is capped at current levels, despite a large portion of the area being available for OSV expansion. The Organizations are unable to see any benefit to the multiple use recreation community from designation of this area as multiple use access would be immediately capped and then put at risk of loss due to the elevation of other interests in the area as management priorities.

5h.  The Proposal provides no benefits or protections for multiple use recreation to offset risks and losses in new Wilderness areas created and previous commitments must be honored.

The Organizations must note the significant differences between the current Proposal and the Hermosa Watershed Legislation.  The current Proposal provides for extensive loss of mileage and acreage to multiple use interests but no other areas are released from possible future designation and protected for multiple use.  The Proposal also puts numerous other areas at risk for long term loss due to the proximity of these areas to new Wilderness areas, no additional protections are provided in the Proposal for the areas put at risk for long term loss.  As noted previously, “no buffer” type management standards provided in previous Wilderness Legislation have been largely ignored.  While the Organizations believe that the ineffective nature of “no buffer” type protections is concerning, the lack of balance in previous Wilderness Legislation is problematic.  Even when more defined and concrete benefits to the multiple use community have been provided in previous Wilderness legislation, these benefits have never been implemented. 

An example of this issue would be the commitment to reopen the Rollins Pass Road that was made in § 7(b) the James Peak Wilderness Expansion and Protection Act of 2002. The Rollins Pass Road Language was in addition to the “no buffer” language provide in the James Peak Legislation.  Not only has there been no carry through on the legal obligation to reopen James Peak Road, this legislation provides yet another example of the ineffective nature of the “no buffer” language as both of the Wilderness areas involved in the James Peak proposal have been the basis of ongoing efforts to again expand these Wilderness areas despite the No buffer language.  Reopening of Rollins Pass road, as has been required by federal law would be a significant gesture to the multiple use community that implementation of commitments made in Wilderness legislation is as important as passage of the original legislation.

Conclusion.

After a detailed review of the proposal, the Organizations have concluded that every area expanded or created in the Proposal would result in significant lost recreational opportunities for the overwhelming portion of visitors to the Proposal area, both currently and in the future.  While there are significant lost opportunities there is also no additional protections for multiple use routes that might remain outside the Wilderness areas and no new areas are designated for OHV recreation. Additionally, frustrating any discussions around balance in the Proposal is the fact that earlier commitments made in Wilderness legislation in Congressman Polis district remain unfulfilled. Reopening Rollins Pass Road would be a significant step in meaningfully addressing usages in the Proposal. If commitments are not honored, what is the value in working towards more balance in any Proposal.  The Organizations still fail to understand the management concerns or perceived threats that are driving the discussion around the need for additional protection of these areas.

The Organizations have been visiting with your Office staff attempting to find some type of consensus position that we could support around these areas, but it appears those discussions have not been fruitful, as this version of the Proposal is the worst version of the Proposal the Organizations have seen in a long time.   This is highly frustrating as the Organizations were actively involved in the development of the Hermosa Watershed Legislation where large and diverse community support was developed around the Hermosa Legislation and a wide range of protections for a diverse group of users was achieved.  The Organizations had hoped the Hermosa legislation was a new model for developing land use legislation but that does not appear to be the case. 

In an effort to continue to discuss Wilderness and related management protections in the Eagle and Summit County areas, the Organizations have included our draft discussion of areas we would be interested in seeing additional protection for in federal legislation.  Please feel free to contact Scott Jones, Esq. if you should wish to discuss any of the issues that have been raised in these comments further.  His contact information is Scott Jones, Esq., 508 Ashford Drive, Longmont Colorado 80504; phone 518-281-5810; email Scott.jones46@yahoo.com

 

Respectfully Submitted,

Scott Jones, Esq.
COHVCO/TPA Authorized Representative
CSA President

Don Riggle
Director of Operations
Trails Preservation Alliance

 

cc: Senator Cory Gardner

 

 

[1] See, USDA Forest Service; National Strategy for a Sustainable Trails System; December 30, 2016 at page 2.

[2] See, USDA Forest Service; National Visitor Use Monitoring Survey Results – National Summary Report – data collected FY2012 through FY2016; December 2016 at pg. 10.

[3] See, USDA Forest Service; Visitor Use Report; White River NF; USDA Forest Service Region 2 National Visitor Use Monitoring Data; Collected through FY 2012 Last Updated January 26, 2018 at pg. 9.

[4] See, National Forest Foundation website at https://www.nationalforests.org/our-forests/find-a-forest/white-river-national-forest  accessed February 21, 2018.

[5] See, USDA Forest Service; Tkacz et al; 2013-2027 National Insect and Disease Forest Risk Assessment; 2015 at pg. 36. Hereinafter referred to as the “USDA Risk Assessment”. 

[6] See, USDA Risk Assessment at pg. 50.

[7] See, USDA Risk Assessment at pg. 51.

[8] A complete copy of this presentation and related documents is available at https://www.fs.fed.us/foresthealth/fhm/fhh/fhh_16/CO_FHH_%202016.pdf

[9] http://csfs.colostate.edu/2017/02/15/800-million-standing-dead-trees-colorado/

[10] 2016 Forest Health Report at pg. 6

[11] 2016 Forest Health Report at pg. 24

[12] 2016 Forest Health Report at pg. 24

[13] 2016 Forest Health Report at pg. 24

[14] See, 2016 Forest Health Report at pg. 5.

[15] See, USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station; Review of the Forest Service Response to the Bark Beetle Outbreak in Colorado and Southern Wyoming; A report by USDA Forest Service Rocky Mountain Region and Rocky Mountain Research Station at the request of Senator Mark Udall; September 2011 at pg. 5.

[16] See, Udall Forest Health Report at pg. I

[17] See, Colorado State Forest Service; 2011 Report on the Health of Colorado’s Forests; at pg. 9. 

[18] See, Colorado State Forest Service; 2011 Report on the Health of Colorado’s Forests; at pg. 11.

[19] See, Colorado Parks and Wildlife; 2015 Colorado State Wildlife Action Plan at pg. 279.

[20] This list of species includes: Albert Squirrel; American Marten; Hoary Bat; Snowshoe Hare and Luck spine moth.

[21] See, USFWS; Dr. Michael Young; Greenback Cutthroat Trout; A Technical Conservation Assessment; February 6, 2009 at pg. 3.

[22] See, Young @ pg. 20.

[23] See, Young @ pg. 21.

[24] See, USDA Forest Service; Pacific Southwest Region Research Station; Forest Service Response to Elevated Tree Mortality; prepared at the request of California State Association of Counties; March 24, 2016 at pg. 14.

[25] Photo included with application of Divide Ranger District application for maintenance in the Weminuche Wilderness to Colorado State Trails Program for maintenance funding.

[26] See, USFS presentation of Scott Haas, Region 2 Recreation Coordinator at the 2016 Colorado OHV Workshop. Full copy of presentation available on request.

[27] See, Douglas Macintyre; “American Ghost Towns of the 21st Century”; The Wall Street Journal; April 11, 2011

[28] See, USDA Forest Service; “White River NF- Job and Income Contributions for 2014 at a glance”; September 2016 A complete copy of this research is available here https://www.fs.fed.us/emc/economics/contributions/documents/at-a-glance/published/rockymountain/AtaGlance-WhiteRiver.pdf

[29] See, Department of Commerce; Bureau of Economic Analysis; “Outdoor Recreation Satellite Account: Prototype Statistics for 2012-2016”; February 14, 2018 at pg. 2.

[30] See, USDA Forest Service; National Forest Support a Recreation Economy- a complete study copy is available here: http://blog.nwf.org/2014/07/national-forests-support-recreation-economy/

[31] See, Holmes & White; National & Community Market Contributions of Wilderness; Society & Natural Resources; An International Journal; Volume 30 2017

[32] See, UDSA Forest Service; White & Stynes; Updated Spending Profiles for National Forest Recreation Visitors by Activity; Joint venture between USDA Forest Service Pacific Northwest Research Station and Oregon State University; November 2011 at pg. 6.

[33] See, USDA Forest Service, National Visitor Use Monitoring; “National Visitor Use Monitoring Survey Results; National Summary Report; Data collected FY 2012 through FY 2016”; 2016 at pg. 1.

[34] See, USDA Forest Service; 36 CFR Part 294 Special Areas; Roadless Area Conservation; Applicability to the National Forests in Colorado; Final Environmental Impact Statement; May 2012 pg. 19

[35] See, USDA Forest Service; National Visitor Use Monitoring Results; White River National Forest; Round 3; last updated January 26, 2018 at pg. 9. 

[36] See, HR 631 of 1993

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Ride with Repect 2018 Year in Review

ridewithrespect.org Ride with Repect 2018 Year in Review

The prevailing theme for Ride with Respect (RwR) in 2018 was partnerships. With help from near and far, we contributed nearly another thousand hours of trail work, as well as participating in planning that should pay dividends for diverse recreation opportunities on public lands.

This year’s outstanding contributors included the Recreational Trails Program administered by Utah State Parks, the Yamaha Outdoor Access Initiative, the Trails Preservation Alliance, Grand County, and the Off-Road Business Association. As usual, we put every dollar to good use, and then some.

It’s not too late to make your tax-deductible donation for 2018 (by sending a check to Ride with Respect, 395 McGill Avenue, Moab, UT 84532). If you’re one of the proud few to contribute for the past sixteen years, please encourage others to chip in, as trail use around Moab has steadily grown.

Of course, we’ve done basic maintenance of off-highway vehicle (OHV) trail systems in the Abajo Mountains, Sovereign Trail, and Dubinky (see uppermost and lowermost photo’s in 2018 collage). Additionally, below are highlights of new projects and partnerships for the year.

Sand Flats Recreation Area

Famous for mountain biking and motorcycling alike, the Slickrock Trail is a loop marked with white-paint dashes. Somewhat hidden from the main loop, a greater challenge can be found on routes that are marked with white-paint dots, which are aptly referred to as the Dot Routes. These secondary routes were actually slated for closure by the BLM in 2012 but, after RwR intervened, the agency displayed the utmost professionalism by voluntarily remanding its decision. Even better, the BLM performed an environmental assessment for two new miles of additional Dot Routes to be named Above Abyss. With help from David Olsen and Tom Dillon, both of whom are past bicycling representatives for Trail Mix, RwR marked Above Abyss and blocked potential trail braids in this spectacular setting (see middle photo in 2018 collage). We hope to avoid increasing the workload of Grand County staff, who were supportive of the project, and do a tremendous job maintaining Sand Flats Recreation Area in the face of over a hundred-thousand user days on Slickrock and Hell’s Revenge each year. Many thanks to the BLM for this privilege of expanding the trail system that solidified Moab as a tourist destination.

La Sal Mountains

Below the SITLA trail system of Upper Twomile Canyon is a USFS trail in Lower Twomile Canyon called the Hideout Mesa ATV Loop. This 50″-wide trail is generally rated as more difficult, but its north side is actually most difficult, which prevents intermediate riders from completing the loop. With a generous loan of equipment and staff from the OHV Program of Utah State Parks, RwR improved the northern hill climb by reestablishing drainage and flow to the trail so that water stays off and riders stay on (see upper-middle photo of 2018 collage). The three steepest segments may ultimately need realignment, which we’ll monitor with the USFS, but the rest of the hill climb should finally sustain itself. We also used the Utah State Parks equipment to barricade a nearby route that’s closed to conserve prime wildlife habitat. Finally, we cleared dozens of lead-out ditches on a nearby 4WD route.

Utah OHV grant program expansion

All year long, RwR has taken the opportunity to advise Utah State Parks on establishing the foundation of an expanded grant program for trail work and other benefits to responsible OHV riding. It actually began with House Bill 143 to reallocate revenue derived from the registration of OHVs. Let’s say that you as an OHV-owning Utah resident were paying about one-hundred dollars each year. About 20% of that amount was actual “registration” going mostly to Utah State Parks for OHV-related expenses. The other 80% was “fee in lieu of property taxes” going to non-OHV expenses, mostly county governments (and mostly counties that provide virtually no OHV riding opportunities). H.B. 143 basically flips this ratio so that the bulk of your money will go to a grant program administered by Utah State Parks (and will ultimately reach the counties where OHVs are ridden, not just where they’re stored). In addition to RwR, several entities played a role in passing H.B. 143, including UTV Utah, the Utah OHV Association, Brett Stewart of Utah OHV Advocates, and the late Fred Hayes of Utah State Parks. The expanded grant program is just part of Fred’s legacy for future generations.

The Utah State Parks OHV Program Manager, Chris Haller, renamed this state funding as the OHV Fiscal Incentive Grant (FIG) program to emphasize its intent of incentivizing land managers to provide quality OHV opportunities and pitch in some of their own resources along with volunteerism from OHV clubs, donations from related businesses, etc. Chris wisely formed a committee including RwR to advise him and the State Parks board on any new rules, policies, and procedures to ensure that the funding is readily available for beneficial projects while also being protected from waste.

While the majority of funding must go to trail work (whether construction of new trails or maintenance of old trails), the types of eligible projects will be expanded to include access protection, search and rescue, tourism, education, and other uses. Particularly for projects in which OHV riding is not the only use, applicants should offer significant matching funds, such as 50% of the total project cost. Applicants may be nonprofit organizations and government (whether local, state, or federal). Utah State Parks anticipates starting to accept applications for smaller requests (under $12,500) in the second half of 2019, and then for larger requests in May of 2020. By then, total funding will accumulate to several million dollars, so RwR hopes they receive many competitive applications for a robust program. Chris and Utah State Parks have earned our trust in preventing the FIG program from becoming a mere handout, and in shepherding the efficient and effective funding of projects to directly benefit OHV riders, the public at large, and natural resources across Utah.

American Motorcyclist Association

This year the American Motorcyclist Association (AMA) presented me with its annual Outstanding Off-Road Rider award. Having received it due to my work through RwR, I am happy to accept the award on behalf of the nearly one-thousand individuals and organizations that have contributed volunteer time or money since 2002, when Dale Parriott assembled a board to establish RwR. Since then we’ve come a long way thanks to that widespread support, which has included the AMA itself. Most recently the AMA provided RwR with an OHV sound-measurement kit to demonstrate one way of addressing noise concerns in the community of Moab.

In October, the AMA’s Government Affairs Manager for Off-Highway Issues, Steve Salisbury, visited Moab to see western issues firsthand. To sample different kinds of trail, we rode the White Rim in Canyonlands and Sovereign Singletrack. We met with NPS regarding day-use permits on White Rim and discussed refining their rules and education to best accommodate motorized access along this iconic route and yet preserve the heart of Canyonlands. We also met with the USFS regarding their Forest Plan revision and discussed enhancing the connectivity and diversity of their travel plan in the Abajo and especially La Sal mountains. Finally, we met with BLM regarding the reevaluation of its travel plan in certain areas required by the settlement agreement with SUWA. After Steve’s whirlwind tour, RwR commented on a draft management plan for the downsized Bears Ears National Monument, which the BLM is dutifully developing while the monument’s downsizing is debated in court.

Emery County Public Land Management Act of 2018

While most of RwR’s resources go toward trail work in Grand and San Juan counties, we have participated in Emery County travel planning for over a decade, as the San Rafael Swell offers world-class riding (see lower-middle photo in 2018 collage). This year we spent several-hundred hours assisting OHV groups in Emery and Carbon counties to engage with their representatives. In the 1990s and again in the 2000s, Emery County wisely invited its citizens to develop a bill that would partially resolve debates on the management of federal land that dominates their county. By 2012, they developed a balanced bill that didn’t pass Congress for a few reasons. For example, in 2016 the executive branch insisted on proclaiming a million-acre Bears Ears National Monument in San Juan County unless legislation was passed to cover an area that’s equally large and equally restrictive. Addressing most of eastern Utah, the Public Lands Initiative apparently fell short of that mark, although it probably had less to do with a lack of preservation benefits and more to do with the PLI attempting to address too many counties at once.

Since then, the executive branch has changed its stance on monuments like Bears Ears, and the Emery County bill was back to being a single-county bill. The time seemed ripe for Emery County to pass its bill without many more concessions, otherwise with more public involvement. Unfortunately, they did neither, instead of introducing a bill this past May that conceded many OHV interests, all of this without having consulted a single OHV group. RwR quickly worked with the Castle Country OHV Association and Sage Riders Motorcycle Club to identify ten major OHV benefits that were in previous Emery County bills but went missing in the 2018 bill. With guidance from Michael Swenson of Swenson Strategies, by August we reduced our request to four feasible amendments, which were then endorsed by a dozen national OHV groups (including ARRA, MIC, SEMA, ORBA, AMA, and BRC). Although the bill’s sponsors did switch proposing to designate the San Rafael Swell from a National Conservation Area to a Recreation Area, which is a significant gain, they didn’t adopt any of our actual requests (despite Representative Bishop’s courageous attempt to do so).

By November the Sage Riders, Castle Country, and RwR were compelled to oppose the bill with a total of thirty Utah-based OHV groups, which was again echoed by a dozen national groups. In contrast to the grassroots effort of OHV groups, the bill itself appeared to be top-down, as the Emery County Public Lands Council passed the buck to the county consultant and staff, then to the county commission, then to Representative Curtis, then to Senator Hatch, then to the Senate, itself. In fact, each of these entities granted veto power to the ones below it, so each entity is actually responsible for the final product. In December, the Senate did partially-adopt one of our requests, which was to continue allowing for the relocation of motorized trails (including e-bike trails). Previously the bill would have prevented any rerouting even though this management tool (a) has been done dozens of times by RwR alone for the benefit of safety and conservation, (b) has not been prohibited in other recreation areas, conservation areas, or even monuments, and (c) was requested by the BLM as a continued option for the agency in its comments on the Emery County bill this past summer.

With this single issue resolved, we are now being asked to adopt a neutral position on the bill without being shown a map. Compared to the previous month’s version, the bill’s text that is now in an “omnibus” package of other bills indicates an additional hundred-and-fifty-thousand acres of wilderness (including several new wilderness areas and the doubling of other wilderness areas like Muddy Creek and Labyrinth Canyon). We are told that this wilderness expansion doesn’t concern us because boundaries are being drawn around any routes that are currently-designated for OHV use. However, the current travel plan around Labyrinth Canyon is incomplete, missing many routes that are well-established. The BLM tried to fix this problem after approving its current plan in 2008, but this fix got held up by SUWA’s lawsuit, although the settlement does agree to reevaluate the San Rafael Desert travel plan by the end of 2019. Further, if the doubled Labyrinth Canyon wilderness proposal extends north or east beyond the Recreation Area boundary, then we’re talking about permanently prohibiting mechanized use in places where the Emery County bill had never proposed to automatically ban the planning of new trail. This is the kind of complexity and compromise that we remain willing to navigate if only the county and federal officials would recognize that we have an equal stake in the matter.

The way that things transpired in this session of Congress, we can hardly blame Senator Lee for single-handedly blocking the public-lands package of bills. He’s trying to put in check the executive powers to proclaim monuments that have increasingly drifted away from what Congress intended when passing the Antiquities Act of 1906. However, the next session of Congress will be even tougher in some regards. Hopefully, they’ll realize that, if not reforming the Antiquities Act directly, their alternatives to mega-monument proclamations need to have clear and lasting benefits for OHV riding. We called them on it this year, and we’ll be even more prepared to do so again if necessary. By the same token, we recognize the inherent difficulty of passing a comprehensive public-lands bill, and sincerely appreciate efforts to find win-win solutions. Most of all we thank the dozens of OHV groups for coordinating their efforts. We survived another round, but for the long game ahead, it’s critical for all OHV riders to support their local, state, and national groups.

OHV management training events

Save the date for a few 2019 events that will be worth your while. On September 10th-12th and again on the 24th-26th, the OHV Program of Utah State Parks will host a couple of Great Trails workshops presented by the National OHV Conservation Council (NOHVCC). For OHV enthusiasts and land managers across Utah, both workshops will begin with one day of classroom introduction to state-of-the-art trail design, construction, and maintenance. The second and third days will apply these concepts to actual problems and solutions in the field. Whether you are an enduro racer, ecologist, or engineer, trail building is such an interdisciplinary job that you are bound to learn a lot.

Likewise, NOHVCC’s annual conference always offers something for everyone. I have attended eight annual conferences, and continue to find them inspiring, as the team of NOHVCC staff is stronger than ever. The 2019 conference will be an easy drive from Utah to downtown Reno. Land managers should likely attend from October 16th through the 18th, while OHV enthusiasts should likely attend from October 17th through the 19th. Both groups will get two days of presentations, one day of riding, and a lot of networking opportunities.

In many respects, RwR has adopted NOHVCC’s model of “creating a positive future for OHV recreation” through partnerships, many of which go unrecognized. We give thanks for all of them and hope to build on them in the years to come. In the meantime, happy holidays.

Clif Koontz
Executive Director

 

2018 Ride with Respect Year in Review

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