Proposed Colorado roadless rule released for public comment: Relevant to Underground Coal Mine Development
By JoAn Bjarko
North Forty News
Colorado residents are being asked to comment on a proposed roadless rule that will set guidelines for the future use of 4.2 million acres of national forest lands in the state.
A roadless area is undeveloped land that generally is at least 5,000 acres and has a number of unique characteristics.
A state task force began drafting a roadless rule in 2005. The resulting proposed Colorado Roadless Rule and Revised Draft Environmental Impact Statement are available for review and comment online at www.fs.usda.gov/goto/coroadlessrule until July 14. Additional information is available at the U.S. Forest Service Rocky Mountain Region web site www.fs.usda.gov/r2.
To be considered, written comments need to be submitted by any of the following methods:
- electronically at www.regulations.gov
- sent in hard copy to Colorado Roadless Rule/EIS, P.O. Box 1919, Sacramento CA 95812
- e-mailed to COComments@fsroadless.org
- faxed to 916-456-6724. Identify written comments by mentioning Colorado Roadless Rule on the cover sheet or the first page.
To review comments, visit http://stage-review.icfi.com/CORoadless.
Highlights of the proposed rule for Colorado follow.
- It identifies more than one-half million acres as “Upper Tier” and puts these acres into a higher category of protection.
- It provides an updated inventory that represents a portfolio of higher-quality backcountry areas with true roadless characteristics.
- The rule provides special protection for the headwaters of cutthroat trout streams.
- It allows for limited road construction to facilitate the venting and potential capturing of methane – a potent greenhouse gas – for underground coal development in the North Fork coal mining area.
In addition, the Forest Service and state of Colorado agreed to remove 8,300 acres from the Colorado Roadless Area inventory that were either part of an existing ski area permit or part of an existing ski plan allocation area.
The Arapaho-Roosevelt National Forest in northern Colorado has about 360,000 acres designated as “inventoried roadless areas.” Roadless is a misnomer, however, because those areas have about 44 miles of roads and motorized trails. A key question is whether the Forest Service should build new, permanent roads in IRAs.
Until 2005, federal employees took the lead in writing guidelines for roadless areas as they developed forest management plans. A combination of federal court decisions and policy changes from the Clinton to Bush administrations, however, set the stage for states to become active arbiters if they wished.
As a result, Colorado decided to tackle the task of writing guidelines to submit to the agriculture secretary, who oversees the U.S. Forest Service. The agriculture secretary then has the option to accept or decline the state’s petition.
