Some places deserve to remain wild — especially some of Colorado’s most scenic treasures — as the U.S. Senate finally has understood.
In a bipartisan vote last week of 73-21, the Senate overwhelmingly supported a broad collection of bills that grants wilderness status to 315,000 acres here. The wilderness omnibus legislation preserves more than 2 million acres in nine states.
The protection would be the biggest expansion of the nation’s wilderness lands since 1994. Presently, the wilderness system offers 107 million acres.
We applaud the vote and encourage the House to swiftly approve this already thoroughly aired proposal before getting enmeshed in the particulars of the stimulus debate. The measure’s provisions already have been through a lot of review and compromise. Now is the time to pass it and move on.
In Colorado, the legislation means that 250,000 acres inside Rocky Mountain National Park — nearly the entire park — would be forever kept as untouched wilderness; the status is the highest level of protection given to public lands. That means that all the land not already developed in existing roads, trails and campgrounds is off-limits to further development, as well as any drilling or logging.
The legislation also would apply to 65,000 acres in Dominguez and Escalante canyons south of Grand Junction.
The Post’s Mark Jaffe reports that the legislation would create a 210,000-acre national conservation area around the scenic canyons, help Colorado water projects and designate parts of South Park and the San Luis Valley as National Heritage Areas. The South Park protection would extend to 19 working ranches.
The legislation provides still more, Jaffe reports. The Sangre de Cristo National Heritage Area in Conejos, Costilla and Alamosa counties would be recognized as the confluence of American Indian, Latino and Anglo cultures. And a Front Range Mountain Backdrop Act would require the Forest Service to help Front Range communities protect open space bordering the Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forests.
Newly minted Interior Secretary Ken Salazar was a sponsor of the bill while a Colorado senator. He helped broker compromises that helped calm community and corporate concerns in Rocky Mountain National Park to make the Senate measure possible.
Rocky Mountain National Park, only two hours from Denver, is truly a national treasure that each year risks being loved to death as 2.8 million visitors come from around the world to enjoy its peaks, valleys and mountain lakes and streams. As park personnel note, that’s as many visits as Yellowstone sees, and Rocky Mountain is one-eighth the size.
Keeping some places wild makes sense on many levels. Failing to protect areas like the 310,000 acres designated in Colorado would be unforgivable.
