County waits to support DeGette wilderness bill

Legislation includes two pieces in Gunnison County

Another day, another Wilderness bill, and another request for support went to the Gunnison County commissioners on Tuesday, September 7. But this time the additions to the West Elk and Powderhorn Wildernesses being proposed by Denver congresswoman Diana DeGette have moved forward without push-back from the public.

DeGette’s proposal, H.R. 4289, the Colorado Wilderness Act, is a bill that would protect 850,000 acres, or about 1 percent of Colorado’s total land area, as Wilderness. The congresswoman has introduced a version of the act every year for the past decade.
The portion of DeGette’s bill that affects Gunnison County involves an addition of more than 8,500 acres to the West Elk Wilderness north of Blue Mesa Reservoir and another 3,300 acres outside of the Powderhorn Wilderness. The two parcels match closely with two of the areas proposed for wilderness additions in the Hidden Gems campaign.
But DeGette’s bill doesn’t include some of the most controversial areas that have been considered for wilderness. Senior policy advisor Jen Clanahan told the commissioners that neither area had any trails or roads, so the users in conflict with a Wilderness designation were hard to find.
The one person who holds a grazing permit in the Powderhorn addition area is in support of the proposal, and wrote a letter of support for the bill to the commissioners, saying as a fourth-generation Coloradoan, businessman and rancher, he understands and supports the push to expand Wilderness lands in Colorado.
Clanahan also said the proposed Wilderness boundary has been adjusted to carve out state-owned areas that would have become federal in the legislation and worked with the National Park Service to adjust the boundary to meet its needs in the Curecanti National Recreation Area (NRA).
The commissioners also looked over a letter from Forest Service district ranger John Murphy, who cannot advocate for the bill one way or the other, but said there weren’t any problems with the proposal.
Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park and Curecanti National Recreation Area superintendent Connie Rudd said in a letter essentially the same thing, noting the exception that the 1,500 acres inside the NRA that could be included in the Wilderness boundary was too small for the Park Service to evaluate for Wilderness characteristics, so she could not comment.
But commissioner Hap Channell pointed out, most of the land included in DeGette’s proposal is mid-elevation habitat, which is rare in the nation’s collection of Wilderness lands, which are usually at high elevation in the land of rock and ice. Any additions in that elevation range will increase the diversity of lands that have the highest level of protection.
The commissioners all agreed that having a bill with such widespread acceptance was easy to support. Their concern was with how the bill was presented to the county in the first place.
Commissioner Channell said he was quite concerned that the bill could conflict with an effort to define the boundaries of Curecanti National Recreation Area, which has gone without legislatively defined borders for the past 45 years. Channell said he was also a little surprised to see this bill come from the top, instead of being started at a grassroots level.
“I do not want to see a precedence set for starting these movements from the top—it should be a ground-up movement,” Channell said. “I don’t remember anyone coming to the county and asking us to weigh in on this proposal until the 11th hour, when you’re looking for a letter of support.”
Commission Jim Starr brought up some concerns he had about the way the legislation addressed water rights in the affected areas. But Clanahan said the bill had been updated to use language that Upper Gunnison River Water Conservancy District manager Frank Kugel was going to suggest before recommending that the commissioners support the bill.
Starr also backed Clanahan’s account of a public meeting that took place in Gunnison County regarding the Wilderness bill when it was first introduced in 1999, apparently easing Channell’s concerns that county residents hadn’t been consulted properly before the bill was moved forward.
And the commissioners all said they weren’t comfortable signing a letter in support of a bill that hasn’t been finalized. So until the final version comes in, the commissioners were reluctant to grant Clanahan’s request for a letter of support.
“I’m willing to have a look at the final legislation and we could set time next week to go over it,” Starr suggested, adding that the county has been waiting for 10 years on a defined boundary for Curecanti, so he didn’t think that should be a reason to withhold support. “There has been no opposition to these two pieces and that speaks loudly to me. It surprises me, with Wilderness designation requests we usually have a mixed audience. But we’ve heard nothing but support for this.”
The commissioners agreed to hold a special meeting on Tuesday, September 14 to discuss the final version of the legislation and decide how to craft their support for DeGette’s Wilderness bill.