I spent sometime looking into the whiteriverwild.org and the white river national forest web site. I put together some numbers and ideas that might help you in your letter writing or when talking to other like minded outdoor groups for their support.
The White River National Forest is 2.3 million acres. One largest in Colorado.
Current wilderness with in that is 998,616 acres = 43.42%
White river wild proposes an additional 710,641 acres.
This would total 1,709,257 acres in wilderness area in the White River Forest
= to 74.32% in this forest alone.
Leaving us 590,743 acres to ride on. 25.68% That is a tragity.
Some ideas in my mind for good points to be made include:
Existing roads and campgrounds is the forset just going to act like they never built them and maintained them for 50 years.
Structures like outhouses and powerlines that may be in those areas. How are they going to maintain them.
The beetle problem comes to mind. Why make that much timber that is salvageable with existing roads to access it just fall over and rought. Not to mention a potential wildfire of epic portions. That would be even harder to fight. I dont care what they say on the site. Closing roads means its harder to get the fire fighters in no matter what tools they use.
It is a ill thought land grab by the selfish few that will make managing the forest harder and more expensive for the forest officials. In my mind anyway.
I hope this helps PLEASE email or write the senators.
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