Battlement Mesa Roadless Area, photo: High Country Citizens' Alliance

Huntsman Ridge Roadless Area,    photo: High County Citizens' Alliance

Clear Fork Roadless Area, photo: High Country Citizens' Alliance

Mamm Peak Roadless Area, photo: Wilderness Workshop

The Bureau of Land Management is proposing to lease nearly 20,000 acres of roadless lands on three national forests in Colorado.

Read Senator Ken Salazar's letter to Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns and Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne (PDF file)

The areas proposed for development include:

• More than 9,500 acres in four roadless areas (the Battlement Mesa, Clear Fork, Huntsman Ridge and Tomahawk roadless areas) on the Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre and Gunnison (GMUG) National Forest in west-central Colorado near Collbran. These roadless areas are in critical lower elevation, biologically rich portions of the national forest that contain valuable resources such as Canada Lynx habitat, Colorado River cutthroat rout streams, watershed headwaters, other wildlife migration and winter habitats, and critical riparian zones. These areas also support a wide array of primitive recreation opportunities including some of Colorado's premier big-game hunting units frequently used by Western Slope outfitters. Additional opportunities for fishing, hiking, mountain biking, and horseback riding also exist in all or portions of these areas.

• More than 3,000 acres on the White River National Forest west of Carbondale in the the 25,344 acre Mamm Peak roadless area on Battlement Mesa, a dramatic, 20-mile long east/west ridge south of the Colorado River. The Colorado Division of Wildlife has identified Mamm Peak as an area of very high value habitat for elk, black bear, and lynx. The area is the centerpiece of a long wildland corridor from De Beque to Thompson Creek. Increasing development of private lands to the north of Battlement Mesa pressures wildlife to use this roadless area for migration. Many outfitters make a living guiding hunters or horseback riders through the area. Battlement Mesa is also a scenic resource that towers majestically over the Colorado River valley.

• Over 6,000 acres of the 9,500-acre Roc Creek (also called Big Mak) roadless area on the Manti-La Sal National Forest in southwest Colorado on the Utah border. The dramatic canyon of Roc Creek forms the heart of the roadless area and is blanketed with lease parcels. Roc Creek Canyon plummets 1,000 feet straight down, forming an imposing cleft between Sinbad and Carpenter Ridges. Roc Creek's brilliant red walls are framed by green forests of Douglas fir and ponderosa pine along the canyon rims. Roc Creek itself is a large, roaring creek lined by huge ponderosa pines. The Manti-La Sal NF has also found Roc Creek eligible for protection under the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act because of its outstandingly remarkable scenic and geologic values.

The Impacts

Canada lynx

Leasing and gas development within these Roadless Areas could lead to irretrievable harm to their unroaded, wild character. Development of these areas for natural gas would add roads, pipelines, acres of scraped wellpads and other infrastructure that would cause long term significant harm to the national forest and adjoining private lands.

While the leases in the White River and Manti-La Sal National Forests are being offered with stipulations that could prevent surface use to protect roadless character, the Forest Service could remove these stipulations later. In fact, the Forest Service and BLM are proposing to remove such stipulations that currently protect another roadless area, the HD Mountains in Colorado's San Juan National Forest.  The best protection for the wildlife, water quality, and recreational values found in these areas is NO LEASING.

Why Leasing Is Wrong

Leasing these areas while the State's Roadless Task Force considers how to recommend protection and management of roadless lands breaks the Forest Service's commitments to the State and citizens of Colorado. The Bush administration promised that roadless areas would have interim protections while states pursue the petition process. Mark Rey, Undersecretary of the Department of Agriculture, told the New York Times last September that: "We are providing interim protection to roadless areas, pending the development of state-specific rules provided for in our 2005 rulemaking." Colorado's Roadless Task Force is currently nearing completion of its work. A moratorium on the leasing of roadless areas should be instituted until the completion of that Roadless Task Force process.

What's more, none of the Forest Plans for the three forests foresaw the current boom in oil and gas development underway in Western Colorado. All based their forest plans on the assumption that only low levels of oil and gas development would continue. These predicted levels of development would be well-exceeded were development on these and other previously-issued leases to proceed. In fact, the White River National Forest has already approved drilling in excess of its forecasted level of development a mere four years into its 20-year plan. Nearly 500 square miles of the GMUG and White River forests have already been leased. The August 10 proposed leases in roadless areas must be put off until the Forest Service evaluates where and how gas should be developed on the forests -- with the public's input -- in light of the boom currently underway.

With tens of millions of acres of the American West already leased to the oil industry, America's energy security does not depend on destroying the few remaining vestiges of wild roadless forest.

• See a map showing the roadless areas to be leased on the GMUG and White River National Forests.
• See a map showing the roadless areas to be leased on the Manti-La Sal National Forests.
• See a map showing how oil and gas leasing and developing are moving rapidly into National Forest backcountry in some of Colorado's most scenic wildlands on and near the Grand Mesa.