Colorado’s U.S. senators introduce one of the most ambitious public lands bills in decades
Original article by the Colorado Sun, Jason Blevins, 9/27/24:
Colorado’s U.S. Sens. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper on Thursday introduced one of the most ambitious Colorado public lands bills in decades, proposing to increase protections for more than 730,000 acres in the Gunnison River Basin.
The Gunnison Outdoor Resources Protection Act — or GORP Act — has been in the works for nearly 10 years as local advocates and Bennet worked with diverse groups to better protect the basin’s mountains, rivers, lakes and valleys.
“At the heart of every discussion over the bill was a shared respect for the generations before us who preserved these lands and a shared responsibility to future generations … who will make their homes and livelihoods in Gunnison,” Bennet, a Democrat, said Thursday during an online news conference.
Bennet said “careful and thoughtful” work on the bill includes a provision to transfer the 19,080-acre Pinecrest Ranch near Gunnison, which is owned by the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, into a reservation trust that will make management of the ranch land easier for the tribe. The legislation does not close any roads or trails and protects grazing rights. It does not impact water rights or existing leases for mining or oil and gas drilling. It protects motorized boating in the Gunnison Gorge.
Crafted over a decade, the legislation is based on work by the Gunnison Public Lands Initiative that began in 2014 with a proposal to increase protection on federal lands around the Gunnison River while preserving water rights and access for motorized travelers, mountain bikers, ranchers, hunters and anglers.
Gunnison County Commissioner Jonathan Houck said the Gunnison Public Lands Initiative included input from hundreds of public land users as well as diverse political leaders from neighboring counties and towns.
“We sit down and we have hard discussions around hard issues and we learn how to attack issues without attacking each other,” Houck said.
The GORP Act legislation lands as controversy swirls around a plan to persuade President Joe Biden to use the Antiquities Act to create a 391,000-acre national monument on federally managed land around the northern reaches of the Dolores River in Mesa and Montrose counties. The monument proposal is opposed by both counties, where residents fear the designation could draw crowds and impact water and grazing rights as well as motorized access. Bennet and Hickenlooper have visited with locals in western Colorado and expressed support for increased protection around the Dolores River.
The East River flows south from its headwaters in Emerald Lake north of Crested Butte, Colorado, on May 18. (Dean Krakel, Special to The Colorado Sun)
The GORP Act has support from six counties: Gunnison, Delta, Pitkin, Hinsdale, Saguache and Ouray, and five municipalities: Crested Butte, Mt. Crested Butte, Gunnison, Paonia and Ridgway. Sixteen advocacy groups have signed on to support the legislation, including American Whitewater, Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, Trout Unlimited, Gunnison Stockgrowers, Gunnison Offroad Alliance of Trail Riders and Wilderness Workshop.
Crested Butte Mayor Ian Billick, who is executive director of the Rocky Mountain Biological Lab, a nonprofit environmental research center in a remote valley above the town, said the GORP Act sets a model for negotiating protections while preserving access.
He said the GORP Act is a progressive next step following the Biden Administration’s withdrawal of mineral rights in the Thompson Divide and the Crested Butte community’s nearly 50-year effort to eliminate mining on the peak everyone calls Red Lady above town.
“This demonstrates how we create progress on how we manage our landscapes and complex environmental issues,” Billick said. “We have the capacity to work together in our communities across the board, across the political spectrum to make true progress.”
Change of seasons with dusting of snow appearing on Capitol Peak inside the Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness on Saturday afternoon, Oct, 2, 2021 outside Aspen. (Hugh Carey, The Colorado Sun)
Bennet has spent five years trying to secure a Senate vote on his Colorado Outdoor Recreation Economy Act, or CORE Act, which he spent a decade crafting as a way to protect about 400,000 acres of public land in western Colorado. U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette has spent 25 years proposing legislation that would protect more than 740,000 acres across the state as wilderness.
Public lands legislation has proven challenging in the U.S. Congress, with some elected leaders vehemently fighting any increase in federal land protections.
Utah Sen. Mike Lee, a Republican and critic of increasing federally managed lands in the U.S., is poised to take over the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which vets public lands legislation.
Bennet said he hopes Lee — if he becomes chairman of that committee — “will respond to the voices from the West who are far less ideological than he is in his approach to public lands.”
“If he doesn’t, I think he’s going to discover very quickly that there is broad public sentiment out here that he is way out of step with,” Bennet said.
The GORP Act allows for seasonal closures on new special management areas and directs land managers to conduct riparian restoration. It maintains existing motorized and mountain bike trails and protects longstanding trail proposals like the Crested Butte to Paonia Trail, the Gunnison to Crested Butte Trail and the Carbondale to Crested Butte Trail.
The Gunnison Outdoor Resources Protection Act would increase protections for 730,000 acres of public land in the Gunnison River Basin. (Handout)
The proposal would create nine federally protected Special Management Areas covering 214,650 acres, down from 261,715 acres in the draft proposal from 2022, including:
36,171 acres in the American Flag SMA around Brush, Cement and Spring creeks
24,031 acres in the Beckwiths SMA around Kebler and Schofield passes
37,998 acres in the Clear Fork SMA around McClure Pass
5,476 acres in the North Poverty Gulch SMA around Kebler and Schofield passes
22,497 acres in the McIntosh Mountain SMA around Ohio Pass
16,973 acres in the Pilot Knob SMA around McClure Pass
28,345 acres in the Signal Peak SMA around Cabin Creek
22,483 acres in the Union Park SMA
20,676 acres in the Whetstone Headwaters SMA around Kebler and Schofield passes
The proposal would create eight Wildlife Conservation Areas across 223,865 acres, including:
29,518 acres in the Cabin Creek WCA
28,844 acres in the Flat Top WCA
50,535 acres in the Lake Gulch and Cebolla Creek WCA
12,975 acres in the Matchless WCA
3,281 acres in the Munsey Creek WCA
27,395 acres in the Pinnacles WCA
27,668 acres in the Powderhorn WCA
43,109 acres in the Sawtooth WCA
The proposal would create four Protection Areas covering 20,542 acres, including:
3,136 acres in the Deer Creek PA
9,666 acres in the Granite Basin PA
1,350 acres in the South Poverty Gulch PA
6,390 acres in the Castle PA
The proposal would create four Recreation Management Areas covering 18,247 acres, down from 65,694 acres in the draft proposal, including:
14,734 acres in the Double Top RMA
3,513 acres in the Horse Ranch Park RMA
The GORP legislation would also establish a 12,250-acre Rocky Mountain Scientific Research and Education Area around the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory at the ghost town of Gothic outside Crested Butte. That’s an increase of 125 acres from the draft proposal.
The GORP Act also withdraws 74,271 acres in Delta County’s North Fork Valley from oil and gas development and prevents oil and gas companies from working on the surface of another 49,422 acres in Delta County.
The GORP legislation also amends the Colorado Wilderness Act of 1993 to add 122,902 acres of federally designated wilderness to nine areas, up from 118,294 acres of new wilderness in 11 areas in the draft proposal. The legislation would add wilderness designation to:
2,096 acres around Crystal Creek and Lottis Creek
11,780 acres around Poverty Gulch, Erickson Springs and Treasure Mountain
8,656 acres creating the Matchless Wilderness Area
7,684 acres creating the East Cement Wilderness Area
7,210 acres creating the Star Peak Wilderness in the White River National Forest
3,321 acres around Deer Creek inside the Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness
58,603 acres added to the West Elk Wilderness
13,948 added to the Uncompahgre Wilderness
9,604 acres added to the Powderhorn Wilderness
