Commission receives updates on the GMUG forest management plan
Despite county objections over certain motorized use designations and timber harvesting, USFS likely to finalize plan soon
By Sophie Stuber, Planet contributor
The San Miguel Board of County Commissioners received updates on objections that the county had submitted to the U.S. Forest Service’s (USFS) final management plan for Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre and Gunnison (GMUG) National Forests. The GMUG plan determines how forest conservation and management are operated. San Miguel County submitted final comments to USFS in October 2023.
San Miguel County staff and commission member Lance Waring attended the USFS objection resolution meetings in February 2024, and USFS then emailed Waring their objection response in May.
Although the USFS responded to San Miguel County’s 10 concerns, there were no major changes to the plan.
San Miguel County is still concerned that the area north of Ophir, Bear Creek and Bridal Veil Falls will be designated for Winter Recreation Opportunity Spectrum (ROS) motorized use.
“We have been objecting to this since the beginning,” Starr Jamison, San Miguel County natural resources and climate resilience director, said during the BOCC meeting on June 5.
The objections stem largely from safety concerns due to avalanches in the area. Many of the proposed motorized areas in the plan go across avalanche paths.
San Miguel County is in favor of modifying the Bear Creek, Bridal Veil and North Ophir Winter recreation opportunity spectrum designation to “semi-primitive non-motorized.”
This classification would allow the local district ranger to manage the zone for permitted motorized uses and let Telluride Helitrax operate using their current permit in this area.
Telluride Mountain Club also suggested differentiating between motorized over-snow vehicles and helicopters for this specific management area.
In the objection response from USFS to San Miguel County, the agency wrote, “Based upon the national protocol for establishing recreation opportunity settings, including the consideration of existing travel decisions and desired potential future management options, they determined these areas should be managed with a desired winter recreation opportunity setting of semi-primitive motorized.”
San Miguel County also expressed concerns over timber harvesting.
USFS eliminated timber harvesting on steep slopes above two fens in Ouray County, but timber harvesting is still permitted in other parts of the forest. High-country fens are essential source waters in Colorado. In the San Juans, there are about 10,000 fens, according to a research project at Colorado State University led by David Cooper.
Fens are peat-forming wetlands that need groundwater input. Fens are a large carbon sink and can store more carbon than even forests.
“They should remove timber harvest on steep slopes above any and all fens, not just these two,” Cooper wrote in an email to Jamison that was shared as part of the BOCC agenda packet.
In their objection response, USFS said that designating land near fens as “general forest and suitable for timber production does not mean that timber harvesting would occur in all areas, or that harvesting would negatively affect the fens.”
Another objection from San Miguel County comes from the proposed increased acreage suitable for logging in the GMUG plan, which would add 302,000 acres of logging, which could release carbon stored in the trees and ground.
“We have been advocating for them to include climate change in the GMUG plan since the beginning and they really have not,” Jamison said.
Local environment groups, including Sheep Mountain Alliance and Winter Wildlands Alliance, also submitted objections to the GMUG plan in November. USFS recommended adding 46,200 acres of new wilderness area, which is significantly lower than the 324,000 acres proposed in the community conservation proposal.
Gunnison County, notably, received fewer projections than requested. The Gunnison Public Lands Initiative had created a broadly supported proposal for new wilderness and special management areas, but most elements were not included in the GMUG final plan.
“The proposed plan largely ignores local input by recommending only a small fraction of viable lands as wilderness, completely ignoring the support of local communities and deserving wilderness quality lands across these forests,” Jim Ramey, Colorado state director at The Wilderness Society, said in a statement. “This is particularly disappointing in Gunnison County, where the community came together over a multi-year, consensus-based stakeholder process.”
Following the GMUG plan update, the commission members discussed where to focus community efforts to make changes.
“I think we want to continue to focus on the upper Bear Creek mechanized designation. I think that’s really important. And also the conversation that we were having earlier about fens. It seems like those are the two in our county that are most pressing,” Waring said.
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