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6A * 003550 TilE DENVER PC>.T 440,000 acres added to wilderness debate WILDERNESS !rom Page lA orange and yellow slickrock, big- horn sheep - and some 01 the loneliest country in America. "There arc places where you could spend a week and never see or hear another person," said Eric Finstick, who coordinated the 12. year WilderneRs study for the state RI.M. However, wilderness advocates say it will be easier to find solitude than a political compromise to protect the tracts. Colorado's congressional delega. tion has failed for 10 years to re- solve an impasse between develop. ment interests and environmental- ists over the designation of 700,000 acres of Forest Service land as wilderness. The BI.M's proposal will give the state 440,000 more acres 01 roadles8 tract.. to consider. Colora- do already has 2.6 million acres of protected wilderness, none of it BLM land. The same political problems that have blocked th{' creation of extra Forest Service wilderness will be compounded for BLM wil- derness. "Many of the BLM wil. derness areas arc downstream and face very significant downstream water-rights issues; the Forest Ser- vice areas do not," said U.S. Sen, Tim Wirth, the state's principal congressional advocate for more wilderness. Environmentalists, who have been b,lcked by Wirth, want wil- derness areas to be awarded water rights that will guarantee bounti- ful streamflows and prevent wa- terfalls from drying up. But water developers, who have been backed by U:S. Sen. Bill Arm- strong, say those water ri,lthts "....,,1,1 nr"""nl "nd....,,"' t1<l",_nwn. ----- BLM PROPOSALS The 22 new wilderness areas proposed by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management are: .A...erlcClnPlClt.,1,494acres, southeasl of Ouray. .a.ov... Cr..k, 20,750, west of Colorado 115 near Fort Car. son. .alClck Rid,. Canyon., 19,595, northwest 01 Colorado National Monument near Fruita. . Black Rldg. CClnyon. W..t, 54,265, Colorado-Utah border. south side of Colorado River < . Brown. Canyon, 6,614, east of Arkansas River, downstream Irom Nathrop. . 8ull Canyon, 13,700, COlora- do.Utah border, north of Dino- saur National Monument. . Bull Gulch, 10,414, east Of Colorado River near Sweetwater. . Cro.. Mountal", 14,081, on Vamps River canyon east of Di. nosaur. . Diamond .".ah, 35,380, Colorado-Utah border west 01 Browns Park Wildlife Refuge. . Dolor.. Rlv... C."yon, 29,415, on southwest Colorado River, downstream Irom Bed- rock. . Do""nqu.a Canyon, 13,888, wesl Gunnison River near Della, .Iagl. Mountain, 330, west 01 Snowmass along MarOon BeHs.Snowmass area, . Gunnl.on Gor,., 22,078, SOuthwest river canyon down- stream 01 Black Canyon. . Hack LClko, 10, southeast edge of Flat Tops wilderness ar- ea near Sweetwater. . Mondl.. P.ak, 7,138, lake Fork of Gunnison headwaters, around 14,048-1001 peak. . Platt. Rlv.r Contl,,,ou., 30, COloradO-Wyoming border near exisllng Platte wilderness. . Powd.rhorn, 48,115, north- east 01 Lake City in southwest Colorado, . R.ddoud Peak, 27,884, southwest of Lake City, around 14.034-loot peak. ....---.--..--'- ......... cities trying to find water supplies for growing populations. He noted that Elephant Rock Reservoir, a water project under consideration by Colorado Springs upstream of Browns Canyon, "is an example of a facility that could be eliminated if a downstream wil- derness area is given a water right." However," environmentalists note that Congress in October ap- proved a 2.3-million acre Arizona wilderness bill that gave water rights to many downstream BLM areas. If Colorado neR:oliates sepa- rate water rights for each tract, the impact to upstream water de- velopers will be lessened or even eliminated, they said. Not all BLM tracts feature roar- ing rivers. Two proposed areas be- tween Lake City and Silverton con- tain Redcloud, Sunshine and Handies peaks, all over 14,000 feet. The nearby Powderhorn and AmeriCan Flats areas. earlier pro- posed for wilderness designatJon in Wirth's Forest Service bill, contain one of the largest unbroken ex- panses of alpine tundra in the con- tinental U.S. Those areas are among the BLM's most popular. But to really escape civilization, backpackers can hike through the 35,3BO-acre Diamond Breaks, which contains prehistoric Fremont ruins, in far northwestern Colorado. The main way to enter, after a 90-mlnute drive from the nearest full-time gas station, Is via a long swinging bridge over the Gr('cn River. But BLM officials say even Dia- mond Breaks could get crowd('d compared with the sharp ridges of Sewemup Mesa along the Dolores River downstream from Uravan. The 29-square-mile area, visited by fewer than 200 people a year, got its name in the Old West, when ~ rustlers herded stol('n livestock up ,. the rugged mesa to carve off cat. tle brands, "sew 'em up," and then burn new brands into the caUle be- fore selling them elsewhere. The 74,000-acre Black Ridge Canyons along the Colorado River near Fruita combine wlitude with i~ splendor. Some side canyons are visited by only a few dozen hikers a year; another square-mile area is home to a dozen natural sand- stone arches ranging from a few yards high to more than 100 feet. "Black Ridge is the crown jewel. the Maroon Bells of BLM in Colo- rado," said Mark Pearson of the ,~ Sierra Club. Pearson and Darrell Knuffke of the Wilderness Society, among oth- ers, are upset that BLM proposed only 440,000 acr~ as wilderness. They said it should try to protect 1.2 million acres as wilderness. But other public land users ques. tioned whether Colorado needs any more wilderness. About 4 percent of the state now has federal wil. derness protection. The Forest Service bill, combined with pro- posed BLM additions, would boost that to 5.5 percent. "Before we write off another ar- ea as a wilderness playground for people from California and New York, we have to consider the im- pact on local Colorado communi. PROPOSED BLN The Sh8dOOareClSrt'pI'PSenl8boul. 'NiIdemessoeSJgnaIlOr1 .,,~. ,."", 2 h CRAIG . - I . GlEN' """ 4 .'-' G...... JUNCTION . 13 6. ~ DELTA . .9 c- 7 ". . """"'OSE . TELLURIDE ~: ~. *=" I,BulCanyorl,WfIowCt-ooi.,Sk(JI( 2. OI&mor>c18'Mks 3.CrossMounlAII'l 4.B~R+dQeCanvons. BIlD<R>dge~W"'1 "~ICanyon 6'~lJlMl'$a 7. OoIorasR......ClInyon .,r,,~C,"9I< lies of locking up the natural r sources inside these areas," s Reeves Brown. executive vi president of the Colorado Catt men's Association. BLM's process calls for its Co rado officials to ask national ( rectors in early ,January to agr with their plan. Interior Secreta Manual Lujan then has until Oc