Dear Editor:
The letter from Ken Jackson (Nov. 3) is described by him as a counterpoint to my letter (Oct. 11) endorsing the recent Journal editorials supporting the BLM Canyons of the Ancients Travel Plan and the San Juan Mountains Wilderness Act of 2011.
Presumably, Mr. Jackson regards both the CANM Travel Plan and the SJ Mountains Wilderness Act as violations of ... the law regarding our public lands. He does not state, however, which law these actions, in fact, violate.
Mr. Jackson wonders if I ... will have a key to the new locked gates. What new locked gates? The Wilderness Act prohibits roads (and bicycles) in wilderness areas. No new locked gates will be present in the Wilderness Act additions. The road closures proposed in the CANM Travel Plan will no doubt be gated and locked, primarily to exclude motorized travel, but possibly open to travel by bicycle, foot and horse.
Mr. Jackson, however, has missed the main point of both the CANM Travel Plan and the SJ Mountains Wilderness Act: the protection of scenic lands in the national monument from further motorized degradation and the preservation of rare high-quality roadless lands in the San Juan Mountains by incorporation into adjacent wilderness areas, worthy goals indeed.
Jack Spence
Dolores