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000291 SUMMARY OF DRAFT ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT The draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) discloses the environmental consequences of implementing the proposed action (proposed Forest Plan) and the alternatives to it. The proposed action and the alternatives to it were developed in preparation of a proposed Land and Resource Management Plan (Forest Plan) for the White River National Forest. The EIS is published in draft form for public review and comment. Subsequently, a final Environmental Impact Statement, and final Forest Plan, responding to the comments of the public on the draft EIS, will be prepared. PURPOSE AND NEED The action under consideration is establishment of a comprehensive management plan for the White River National Forest. Such a plan is required by the Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources Planning Act (RPA) , as amended by the National Forest Management Act (NFMA). The Plan for the White River National Forest will supersede all other resource management plans after a Record of Decision is published along with a final Environmental Impact State- ment. The purpose of the Plan is to develop an overall strategy to guide management of the Forest for the next 50 years. The goal of the Plan is to provide direction for achieving a healthy, vigorous forest environment capable of supporting a wide range of natural processes and human activities. Vege- tation management is the major tool the Forest Service has at its disposal to achieve the goal. The alternatives developed in this document will approach satisfying this goal in different ways. The Colorado Wilderness Act of 1980 designated three new wildernesses and ex- panded an existing wilderness on the White River National Forest. This action left one Further Planning Area, the Williams Fork, which is to be covered in the Routt National Forest Plan, and one Wilderness Study Area, Spruce Creek. The study area will be managed as wilderness in this Plan as the Adminis- traion has made a recommendation to Congress that the area is suitable for wilderness. Hence there is no difference in wilderness acreage in any alter- native and there are no recommendations made on either Further Planning Areas or Wilderness Study Areas in this document. Because of the need for uniform management direction on designated wilder- nesses which are on more than one Forest, this draft EIS develops alternatives and discloses effects of alternative management direction for the entire Col- legiate Peaks, Eagles Nest, Flat Tops, Holy Cross, and Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wildernesses, portions of which are on adjacent National Forests. The White River National Forest encompasses 1,960,760 acres of National Forest System land in north central Colorado. It also administers 312,136 acres of National Forest System lands on the Dillon District of the Arapaho National Forest (see Figure 1). In addition, the Forest Plan will establish management direction fot some 196,280 acres of wilderness on other Forests. It does not include 16,750 acres of the Raggeds Wilderness to be covered in the Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre, and Gunnison National Forest Plan, or 16,521 acres of the Williams Fork Further Planning Area which will be covered by the Routt National Forest Plan. The total acres covered by the Plan are displayed in Table 1. 1