To the U.S. Forest Service

I have personal experience of the WRNF are having led a Sierra Club snowshoeing trip in the area staying in the 10th Mountain Division Huts. It was the only time in the last 12 years of living and hiking in CO have I seen such an abundance of lynx and snowshoe hare tracks. This area is very special - I urge you to keep it safe.

I urge the Forest Service to place all roadless areas off limits for new leasing because of the road construction and fragmentation such leasing will ultimately cause.

The White River National Forest is too important for water production, recreation, tourism, and wildland values, and no additional leasing should take place there, I support Alternative B, which places nearly 1.5 million acres off limits to leasing, while the other alternatives would leave open at least a quarter of a million acres for future oil and gas leasing. If future leasing is allowed, any development should be restricted to areas that are already disturbed, and surface occupancy should be prohibited anywhere on the forest that is not already developed.

Please protect the beautiful White River National Forest. Western Colorado is doing its part!


Deirdre Butler
PO Box 1337
Lyons, CO 80540