BOARD02588

• Board Meeting Date: 5/24/1999
• Description: Directors' Reports
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Memo

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WHEREAS, The United States Congress declared that lands once
studied and found to be unsuitable for wilderness designation should be
returned to multiple-use management; and

WHEREAS, H.R. 829 creates a federal reserved water right for
each wilderness area, an approach specifically rejected in the 19~0 and
1993 wilderness bills; and .

WHEREAS, The designation of downstream wilderness areas may
result in the application of the federal "Clean Water Act of 1977"
requirements in a manner that interferes with existing and future
beneficial water uses in Colorado; and .

WHEREAS, The overall effect of the designation of downstream
wilderness areas will be to destroy Colorado's ability to deveIop and use
water allocated to the citizens of this state under interstate compacts,
thereby forfeiting Colorado's water to downstream states; and

WHEREAS, Many of our rural economies are dependent on a
combination of multiple uses of our public lands, such as timber
production, oil, gas, and mineral development, and motorized and

laltllil_if&-~I.ii~i_i~~il~YI~iI

WHEREAS, Wilderness designations limit the land management
options available to public land managers to protect forest health and
dependent watersheds; and

WHEREAS, Additional wilderness designation puts increased
pressure on the new designated lands as well as lands currently open to
multiple-use activities and limits access to only the most physically
. capable individuals; now, therefore,

Be It Resolved by the House ofRqJresentatives of the Sixty-second
General Assembly oJ the State of Colorado, the Senate concurring
herein: .

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That the members of the Sixty-second General Assembly oppose
H.R. 829, the "Colorado Wilderness Act of 1999".

Be It Further Resolved, That copies of this resolution be
transmitted to the President of the United States, the United States
Secretary of the Interior, the Director of the United States Bureau of Land
Management, the President of the United States Senate, the Speaker of
the United States House of Representatives, and to each member of
Colorado's delegation in the UnIted States Congress.

Engrossed HJRI 020

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