Conservation Advocacy

There is growing opposition to a proposed 2-lane road for a new subdivision that environmentalists say will damage important deer and elk habitat.  Developers are asking the US Forest Service to construct a paved, 32-foot-wide road to reach the proposed “Berlaimont Estates” subdivision in the back-country near Edwards. The sprawling 680-acre site is completely surrounded by Forest Service land. Currently it is accessed by Forest Service roads, but those roads are not sufficient for the number of vehicles expected on daily basis. Bill Heicher lives in Eagle County. He is retired state wildlife biologist and has serious concerns with the plan. Members of the group Wilderness Workshop, based [...]

EAGLE — On one hand, the Berlaimont Estates debate is a broad private property rights versus public good conflict. On another, it is a narrower question of applying applicable land-use and road standards to a proposed development that meets county regulations. But there is at least one sure thing about the project discourse — Monday, March 12, is the deadline to weigh in on the topic as part of the U.S. Forest Service's Berlaimont Estates Road Access Project comment period. Berlaimont Estates is a 680-acre parcel of private property surrounded by U.S. Forest Service lands, located north of Edwards and west [...]

From the sometimes-insular vantage point of lofty outposts like Aspen, the environmental record associated with the Trump administration might seem distant, even abstract. After all, the chances of vast swaths of public land at the upper end of the Roaring Fork Valley being transferred to state or private ownership seems remote. As are the chances of a coal mine suddenly blighting the views from atop Aspen Mountain. Such environmental affronts would simply not be conceivable, much less allowed. But the social and geographic remove from what is being perceived as the most anti-environment administration since that of Ronald Reagan and his [...]

Having grown up in the Eagle Valley, I know it is a stunning place. Public lands and a rich natural environment sustain an amazing quality of life for locals. Clean air and water, majestic mountains, raging rivers, abundant wildlife and recreation opportunities are foundational to the area's character and economy. We should be uniformly committed to protecting these values. The population of Eagle County is expected to nearly double in coming decades. That growth will seriously impact these values. More than ever before, it's in our best interest to be thoughtful about how and where new development occurs. Yet we continue to [...]

Thank you, Senator Bennet and Representative Polis, for sponsoring the Continental Divide Recreation, Wilderness and Camp Hale Legacy Act. I applaud you for standing up for Colorado values – clean, healthy forests, streams and air. As a fourth-generation Coloradan, a business owner in Aspen and Vail, and a rancher in Gunnison County, I love the outdoor lifestyle, and vast wild spaces that our state offers and that this bill protects. As a businessman, I support wilderness because I recognize that abundant wildlands, healthy ecosystems and outstanding opportunities to hunt, fish, raft, hike and view wildlife make up the foundation of Colorado's [...]

A bill has been introduced that would begin chipping away at the 1964 Wilderness Act. KDNK's Amy Hadden Marsh spoke with Will Roush, conservation director for Wilderness Workshop, about the bill and what's at stake. Read Full Article >>

A top U.S. Forest Service official in the area said Wednesday she doesn't believe a proposed timber cut in the Fryingpan Valley will overrun Basalt with logging trucks. Aspen-Sopris District Ranger Karen Schroyer signed a draft decision Tuesday to allow clear cutting, selective cutting and other vegetation management on about 1,759 acres in the Upper Fryingpan Valley over what would likely be a five-year period. In the best-case scenario, the project will start in fall 2018. The governments of Basalt, Pitkin County and Eagle County all submitted formal concerns about the traffic the project could generate on Frying Pan Road between [...]

A consortium of environmental advocacy groups, including Carbondale-based Wilderness Workshop, have filed a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration over its decision to postpone compliance with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s waste methane rule. “This administration’s effort to abandon a common-sense, waste preventing rule is bad for taxpayers, bad for people who live near BLM-authorized oil and gas development, and it will only intensify the climate crisis,” Peter Hart, staff attorney for the Wilderness Workshop, said in a press release issued Tuesday. “We will continue working with our partners to ensure that the rule is not abandoned, and that the protections [...]