The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
By Katherine Nettles
Participating in BLM process
Gunnison County will participate as a cooperating agency in the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Uncompahgre Field Office Plan Amendment. This means it will participate in the process, athough the planning area is outside Gunnison County’s jurisdiction, because the planning area is an important corridor for preserving minerals, wildlife habitat and other interests to Gunnison County, according to county attorney Matthew Hoyt. “I think we have a major stake in this process,” he said during a commissioners meeting on October 17. County commissioner chair Jonathan Houck added that the Uncompahgre field office has a lot of sage grouse habitat as well. The board appointed Houck as the board representative to the process.
GMUG MOU for Thompson Divide Withdrawal
Commissioners also gave approval to a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the US Department of Agriculture, Forest Service Rocky Mountain Region, Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre and Gunnison National Forests, and Gunnison County as a cooperating agency for working toward the completion of an environmental analysis as required by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), for the Thompson Divide Withdrawal Project. The Thompson Divide Withdrawal would protect Mt. Emmons from mineral withdrawals as well but is separate from the Mt. Emmons deal being worked out between the USFS, Gunnison County and the town of Crested Butte.
