Update from Jack Welch, BRC President

Report on the Denver public meeting on President Clinton's Roadless Initiative to LOCKUP 40 Million acres of PUBLIC LAND!

On November 18th I attended a National Scoping Meeting on President Clinton's Initiative called the "National Forest System Roadless Areas". These are my impressions of that meeting.

First, as I approached the downtown Embassy Suites in Denver, I was met by a 25 five foot blowup of Smokie the Bear and students from the University of Denver with signs " Save our Forest, support Roadless Protection" Next, as I made my way to the second floor of the hotel, just before entering the hearing room I stopped at the Sierra Club's table in the hallway. It was clear from the information the Sierra Club was passing out that the environment groups had been working on this issue for a long time and clearly have their agenda set! Note: The Sierra Club had four color postcards that they were giving out to send in with preprinted comments on the Roadless issue. One statement on the preprinted card was to "Provide permanent protection for all raodless areas from road construction, logging, mining, OFF-ROAD Vehicle Use, oil and gas development and other harmful activities."

To open the hearing Lyle Laverty, Regional Forester, gave a brief presentation. In his remark, Lyle stated the purpose of this meeting was to gain input on the Environment Impact Statement (EIS) that will be prepared to determine how to manage these 40 plus million acres of National Forest System Roadless Areas.

After the presentation a brief question and answer session took place with Lyle. During that period several questions about the short public notice of the hearing and the unrealistic fast track schedule to create the rule on Roadless area were asked. In general, Lyle indicated that he in the Regional Office had only three days' notice about the meeting and said he was interested to hear our comments on the proposed rule. He also stated that the next phase of the roadless EIS process is to gain input on the 40 million acres of "roadless areas" by having informal meetings in all forests nationally. He passed out a schedule of the individual meetings on each forest in Region II of the forest service. Note: I suggest you contact all forests in your area to see when the local meetings are to be held. I understand the meetings must be completed by December 15, 1999.

After Lyle's part of the meeting concluded the formal commenting started. The comment period lasted two and a half hours with the following results. Of the 61 people commenting 21, including many members of Colorado Snowmobile Association, Colorado Off Highway Vehicle Coalition, Colorado and Wyoming Congressional delegations and several other multi-use groups commented. These pro-multi-use comments ranged from continued motorized recreation in these roadless areas to the President Clinton's Roadless Initiative was an end run at creating defacto WILDERNESS!!! The other 40 speakers' comments requested preservation and elimination of multi-use activities, such as motorized recreation, in these millions of acres of Roadless areas. It was also very clear that snowmobiling was included in their banning of "off-road vehicle use" in roadless areas. Several students from the University of Denver commented on how their work in "GREEN CORP" had created the 80,000 post cards to President Clinton which lead him to the Raodless intiative. One student proudly proclaimed "our 80,000 post cards caused the President to announce the Roadless initiative. That's why he did it, not because it was a GOOD IDEA!" In addition, another student stated after the hearing was over that he was being paid to run Green Corp as an activity at the University of Denver by an environment group. The student also indicated that someday he would like to visit a Forest in Colorado because he just moved here from New York City.

Before I continue let me interject an important footnote to this roadless review process. The footnote is that many of the "roadless areas" do have roads and trails in them and it is only by a new Forest Service definition of a road that these road, and trails do not count as roaded areas. I am sure if you check with your local Forest Service district office you will find that many of these now classified "roadless areas" have motorized recreation activities taking place. This is especially true of snowmobile riding areas that do not require a road for over snow travel in many cases!

I know that many of the pro-motorized recreation speakers at the hearing used information from the BlueRibbon website to support their comments. I believe that this information can help all of us in writing comments on this important Roadless issue! Please review the site for late breaking news on the "Clinton/Gore Land Lockup". The site is www.sharetrails.org Also, please download the form letter and send it to the Forest Service Chief! Most important in your personal comments is the issue of the comment period ending on December 20, 1999. This period is too short for ample time for public review of this complex issue and an extension of 120 days needs to be granted! Please comment today!

I know it is the Holiday Season but without your local input into the process our future use of public lands for motorized recreation will be LOST!!!!