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Colorado adds land, closes loophole in roadless planDENVER (AP)--Colorado officials released a revised proposal Aug. 3 for protecting remote national forest land in the state, adding 160,000 acres for protection and eliminating one provision for building temporary roads. The revisions bring the total area that would be protected in Colorado to nearly 4.2 million acres, up from about 4 million acres in last year's version. The Aug. 3 revision also eliminates a provision that would have allowed the construction of temporary roads for ranchers to get access to federal land they lease for grazing. Theo Stein, a spokesman for the state Department of Natural Resources, said representatives of ranching groups agreed they could reach those areas without building temporary roads. The department will accept public comment on the revision for 60 days. Seven conservation groups issued a joint statement Aug. 3 saying the Colorado plan "falls far short.'' The groups said the plan would allow coal mining in a fragile watershed, allow road-building and logging more than a mile into the backcountry, and allow roads to new dam sites. The groups issuing the statement were Colorado Wild, Wilderness Workshop, Colorado Environmental Coalition, Western Colorado Congress, Colorado Mountain Club, Natural Resources Defense Council and the High Country Citizens Alliance. The Pew Environment Group, based in Washington, D.C., said the revision appears to offer less protection than the previous version. It said Colorado's plan would open some areas to mining, logging, oil and gas drilling, and roads, and would make the state "a magnet for development.'' Another group, the Colorado Wildlife Federation, is reviewing the revision and had no specific comment, spokesman Todd Malmsbury said. Colorado is drawing up the plan in response to a decision by the Bush administration to open some areas to development but allow states petition the federal government to keep protections in place. That decision reversed Clinton-era protections on 58 million acres of federal land designated as roadless areas nationwide. Colorado and Idaho were the only state to draw up their own policy under the Bush rule. In May, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack reinstated most of the Clinton-era rules for a year while the Obama administration formulates its own nationwide policy. Some conservation groups asked Gov. Bill Ritter to stop work on the Colorado plan, saying it would leave the state with weaker protections than the Clinton plan afforded. Ritter has said the state will press ahead with its plan, calling it an insurance policy amid legal uncertainty over the national policy.
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