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'Plan will ha,ve a clearimpacfon jobs~' r- C'\ '.l C'\ "-) C'~) WHIlE RIVER from SA poned any action on the plan by adding three months taa public~ comment period that has stretched about two years and now will con~ elude May 9. The lawmakers said they want to give the" public more time to study the 1,700-page pro- posal. McIrmis said the Forest Service should pay more attention to the economic impact of its decisions. "This plan will have a clear impact onjobs," he said. "Right now. two-thirds of the-forest is used, for a wide variety of recreational activi. ties. One third is locked up as wilderness. This would. in effect, change the predominant use of recreation to a biological preserve. Somebody's got to stand op snd talk about the driving economic factor of recreation," The revision process is part of the National Forest Management Act. passed in 1976 to ensure that America's most prized public lands ",S: ,",'.' ,,:' are properly used and administered, with new land.use plans created every 15 years or so. Of the 155 . national forests, 12 are entirely or partly in Colorado. New land-use plans already have been drawn up in three of Col- orado's national forests - Arapaho- Roosevelt, Routt and Rio Grande. None of those plans, officials said, depart. nearly as draII1atica11y from current land~use patterns as the proposals now under consideration in the White River National Forest. Among the key provisions: . Restricting hikers, bikers and motorized-vehicle users to marked trails. . Limiting some trails to specific kinds of recreation use. . Reducing the number of acres available to snowmobilers. . Returning some trails to wet- lands, meadows and forest. Republican Sen. Wayne Allard also opposes the plan. He suggests the Forest Service is taking admin- istrative action to alter the nature of aplace whose motto is engrained in the minds of many Coloradans: ."Land of many uses." "This wasn't set up as a wilder- ness area," Allard said. "It Was des- ignated as a forest area with multi- ple uses. They're pushing it toward criteria that would set it aside as a wilderness area." Aside from powerful politicians, opposition is coming from another heavyweight - Colorado's ski in- dustry. The state's three largest ski areas - Vail, Keystone and Breck- enridge, all owned by Vail Associ- ates - oppose the plan because it would notallow future expansion. "I would hope the Forest Service would look to a more balanced alter~ native or a blending of alternatives to meet a variety of future needs," said Harris Shennan, a Denver lawyer who represents several of the ski areas in the forest. "This plan would result in more-crowded ski slopes, higher ticket prices and a lesser quality of ski experience." Yet the Aspen Wilderness Work. shop, another envirorunental group, said the resorts still have thousands of acres within their current bound~ aries that could be developed for skiing. The group argues that there is no need for new terrain because skier visits has leveled off in recent years. The Colorado Wildlife Federation rejects the notion that the plan dra- matically restricts recreation in the forest, saying that more than 1,600 miles of roads and motorized trails would reri:~in open under the plan. Forest ~rvice officials are quick to point out that the current propos. al is a tentative draft that could change significantly by the time the revision is approved. :.;;,:.;' , ~:. v'. ,,<!-' ::,. .", ,. .~~ . ~~ .. .:,.,. '\' '<<'.