Hick urges panel to leave land roadless
Deborah Frazier, Rocky Mountain News
Published February 25, 2006 at midnight
Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper urged a state task force on roadless areas Friday to favor preservation because a road is forever.
"Once you put in a road, it is there and it will be used," Hickenlooper told a task force appointed by Gov. Bill Owens to recommend the fate of 4.4 million roadless acres.
"Too often we look at these things with too narrow a self-interest," the mayor told the 13-member task force, which represents a variety of special interests.
"Our citizens have spoken long and and loudly about maintaining our roadless areas," he said.
The Bush administration asked Western governors to propose rules for managing roadless areas in federal forests in their states.
The group will give Owens its recommendation in November after a year of hearings across state.
At the Denver hearing on Friday, the crowd varied from about 50 to more than 150.
Hickenlooper, who spent his first five years in Colorado as a petroleum geologist, said each opportunity he has to visit the mountains "fills me with great joy."
When he travels, touting the state and city to businesses interested in relocating, Hickenlooper said he inevitably gets three questions.
"They want to know about the schools, the traffic, and they almost always ask about the mountains and rural Colorado and how is it holding up," Hickenlooper said.
About two-thirds of the state's residents visit roadless areas each year, boosting the state's $200 million outdoor gear industry, he said.
"These roadless areas are part of people's ability to step aside and outside to have what we used to call an inspirational experience," he said.
On the other side of the spectrum of speakers was Dennis Larratt of the Colorado Off Highway Vehicle Users Association. He wants all 4.4 million roadless acres opened to vehicles, with local Forest Service offices managing the access.
"Roadless areas and wilderness areas don't offer the kind of experiences that Americans want today," said Larratt. "We are more instant-gratification oriented."
Larratt said one-third of the 14,000 miles of trails identified in Colorado in 2000 had roads — unpaved two- or one-track trails used by ATVs, dirt bikes, four-wheel-drive vehicles and other motorized devices.
One-third of the trails are within wilderness areas closed to vehicles and one-third of the other trails are officially closed to vehicles, he said.
John Rold, a former state geologist, said oil, gas and coal revenues generated $10.3 billion in 2005 and opening up some roadless areas is essential to maintaining the state's economy.
However, he said economically viable mining and energy development would impact less than one percent of the current roadless acreage hand some impacts could be repaired.
"I firmly believe that a judicious designation of a relative few of the several hundred inventoried tracts would allow recovery of a significant amount of our mineral resources with only a small impact," Rold said.
In the last hour of the five-hour meeting, members of the public could speak for one minute each.
"Roadless areas are the gift that keeps on giving," said Vera Smith of the Colorado Mountain Club.
Valerie Douglas, vice chair of Larrett's group, said they had trained volunteers to photograph and report motorists who go off designated trails to protect forest lands from abuse.
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