San Juan Forest/BLM Plan Comments Needed!

Hermosa Wilderness, HD Mountains, Wild Rivers and More!

The San Juan National Forest and BLM Field Office finally released its long-awaited management plan that will guide management for 2.3-million acres in the San Juan Mountains for the next 20 years. The plan offers big opportunities for moving forward land and river protection.

What You Can Do by April 11, 2008

For the first time since the 1970s, we have the opportunity to add permanent protections to the largest roadless area in Colorado – the Hermosa watershed. The Draft San Juan Forest Plan takes solid steps by proposing the west half of Hermosa’s watershed for wilderness designation, avoiding conflicts with established recreational uses like mountain biking the popular Hermosa Creek Trail. The Draft Plan identifies a half-dozen potential wild and scenic rivers, including the Animas, Piedra, and Dolores. The Draft Plan addresses future oil and gas leasing, winter recreation, and many other issues of great interest to the public. Take time to attend a public meeting and send a comment letter:

· via Web site: http://ocs.fortlewis.edu/forestPlan
· by FAX: 916-456-6724
· by mail: San Juan Plan Revision, P.O. Box 162909, Sacramento, CA 95816-2909

Hermosa-Hesperus Peak  – This is the largest roadless area in Colorado (148,000 acres) and the plan makes significant steps towards greater protection. 1) Support the wilderness recommendation for 50,895 acres of the west side of Hermosa and the headwaters of Bear Creek and including Hesperus PeakHermosa;  2) Support the travel management focus that makes trails in Bear Creek and the west half of Hermosa watershed non-motorized.

Grizzly Peak and San Miguel Range – The plan proposes Management Area 1 (most pristine) and the Grizzly Peak Research Natural Area for upper Cascade Creek. Urge the Forest Service to expand MA1 zone to take in Ice Lake Basin, Engineer Mountain and the remainder of the roadless area, and propose new wilderness that aligns with possible wilderness for Hope Lake and Sheep Mountain in adjacent San Miguel County.

Red Mountain Pass/Molas Pass winter use – The plan reserves for backcountry skiing the east half of Red Mountain Pass and the east half of Molas Pass (south of Molas Lake), eliminating conflicts with snowmobiles. The Forest Service needs to hear support for this decision.

South San Juan Wilderness additions – the plan designates the northern (along the East Fork Valley) roadless area additions to the South San Juans as Management Area 1, but does not recommend any new wilderness. Urge the Forest Service to take the next step and propose wilderness for these areas.

HD Mountains – the plan makes the absurd claim that the HD Mountains lack wilderness character, have no solitude, and are generally incapable of wilderness. On the positive side, the Management Area 2 designation for the HDs does contain favorable verbiage about the area’s significant values. Urge the Forest Service to acknowledge the wilderness value of the HD Mountains.

Wild and Scenic Rivers – the plan does a generally commendable job of wild and scenic river recommendations (except for East Fork San Juan River). The plan recommends most of the studied river segments as suitable for wild and scenic including 1) the Animas from Silverton to Baker’s Bridge plus the forks of Mineral Creek, 2) all of the Hermosa watershed, 3) the Dolores below McPhee, 4) the Los Pinos which is entirely within the Weminuche wilderness, 5) the Piedra River above Hwy 160, and 6) the West Fork of the San Juan.  One major disappointment that needs correction is the failure to propose the East Fork of the San Juan as suitable for wild and scenic river designation in part because of private land. This is the old “Piano Creek Ranch” development proposal, and GOCO recently awarded a grant for a conservation easement for the valley.

Dolores River Corridor – We’ve been working to give landscape scale protection to the Dolores, and the plan continues protective management for the river corridor below McPhee Dam to include No Surface Occupancy leasing, no motorized use, no uranium leases. This meshes well with potential future protection such as a National Conservation Area or Wild and Scenic River designation. The plan finds the Dolores suitable for Wild and Scenic designation and shows that the Forest Service/BLM direction is similar to ours. We continue to engage the community through the Dolores River Dialogue about how best to achieve permanent protection for the Dolores. Please tell the Forest Service and BLM that we are insistent some form of permanent protection be put in place, and also that you support the Dolores River Dialogue as a means to this end.

Roadless Areas – the plan allocates most of the roadless areas to Management Area 3, which places them off-limits to oil and gas leasing and to commercial timber management, but still allows forest manipulation for fuels reduction or other purposes. Management Area 1 does not have the same latitude. The only roadless areas given the MA1 designation are west half of Hermosa, part of San Miguel, and northern additions to South San Juans. Urge the Forest Service to more widely apply Management Area 1 to additional roadless areas.

Wilderness Recommendations – the plan is skimpy with wilderness recommendations, just 55,533 acres of new proposed wilderness out of 558,000 acres of roadless areas. This consists of one new wilderness (Hermosa at 50,895 acres) plus a 2,600-acre addition to Lizard Head and a 2,000-acre addition to the Weminuche.