WASHINGTON — Officials from the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service endorsed Sen. Mark Udall’s San Juan Mountains Wilderness Act in a Senate hearing Thursday, but the Forest Service asked for minor modifications in the bill.
The bill, co-sponsored by Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., would seek to protect more than 61,000 acres of public lands in the San Juan Mountains in San Juan, Ouray and San Miguel counties.
The bill asks to designate about half of the 61,000 acres as wilderness, which is the highest level of conservation protection for federal lands, according to the National Park Service. The existing Lizard Head and Mount Sneffels wilderness areas would be expanded under the bill, and a new area called McKenna Peak would be added as wilderness.
Wilderness cannot have permanent roads or commercial structures, according to the Wilderness Act, and should be areas “where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.”
The other half of the 61,000 acres — these on Sheep Mountain and Naturita Canyon — would have other designations for protection, according to Udall’s office.
The Forest Service proposes modifications to the bill that would enhance wilderness values, clarify the special management area designation for Sheep Mountain and improve the agency’s ability to manage resources in the area, according to testimony at the hearing by U.S. Forest Service’s James Peña, associate deputy chief of the National Forest System.
The bill began in the 111th Congress with the 2009 efforts of former U.S. Rep. John Salazar, D-Manassa, in the House. But the bills died in both the 111th and 112th Congress. Udall, D-Colo., re-introduced it in February for the 113th Congress.
“I think it’s time for it to move along,” said Lee-Ann Hill, public lands organizer for the San Juan Citizens Alliance. “This is an idea whose time has come.”
At the Senate Subcommittee on Public Lands, Forests, and Mining hearing on Thursday, Udall touted wilderness for its economic impacts.
“Wilderness is one of our state’s great economic engines and I am proud to be able to lead the efforts on this bill,” he said. “Our population is expected to double by 2050, and we need to be proactive so that future generations can experience the beauty, clean water and air, and wildlife that we have today.”
Bureau of Land Management Acting Deputy Director Jamie Connell testified that the agency supports the bill as it pertains to BLM lands, which is the McKenna Peak area proposed for a wilderness designation.
The Forest Service’s Peña testified at the hearing in favor of the bill and commended Udall’s work, but proposed those minor modifications.
Udall’s office said the bill as written reflects the consensus of the community — which worked with the lawmaker’s office to craft the legislation — but the senator is willing to work with the agency to address its concerns.
The bill is important to different parts of the community for different reasons, said Jeff Widen, associate director of the Wilderness Society, who has worked on the bill since its inception in 2009.
“The coalition supporting this is growing every year,” Udall spokesman Mike Saccone said.
Local businessmen, hikers, skiers and hunters all have distinctive priorities, Widen added, but this legislation reflects solutions made from compromises.
“There’s almost nobody who doesn’t support this bill,” he said. “It’s what people look at when they stand in downtown Silverton or downtown Ouray.”