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Show USFS, BLM gear up for public meetings on potential wilderness By Helene C. Monberg Do you want to become involved in the studies of roadless areas that the U.S. Forest Service is now conducting and the Bureau Bur-eau of Land Management is about to conduct in your neck of the woods? The studies are important, impor-tant, because the recommendations recom-mendations which result from the studies will have a lot to do with public land use policies and programs in your area for decades to come. The Forest Service is planning to hold extensive public meetings throughout through-out the West and elsewhere else-where on the environmental environmen-tal impact statement it is writing on 1954 roadless areas that it is now studying study-ing for possible wilderness wilder-ness designation. The statement is expected to be completed in June, and extensive public meetings based on the statement will be held from June 15 -Oct. 1 at the district, state and regional levels by the Forest Service. It recently put out a set of maps which can be obtained from the regional Forest Service offices detailing exactly where the roadless areas are that it has identified for study. For example, the Lakewood, Colo., USFS office is sending send-ing out maps about 3 by 4 feet detailing the roadless and undeveloped areas in the states of Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska and South Dakota. An inventory inven-tory list of USFS roadless areas is also available. The Forest Service is now running through its computers at Fort Collins, Colo., the adjusted acreages acre-ages in each one of these areas. That information will be published as soon as the information has been assembled. The National Na-tional Forest Products Association As-sociation plans to put out new state lists adapted to its own needs as soon as the Forest Service assembles as-sembles the basic data. The BLM district and state offices have packets of background material available on the wilderness wilder-ness studies that it will get underway this spring on roadless areas under its jurisdiction. Public meetings meet-ings are being announced on the BLM wilderness review now by the state BLM offices. Most will be held in April. A map accompanying the BLM material indicates there are huge blocks of BLM lands in eastern Montana, in portions of the states of Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, New Mexico, western west-ern Colorado and western Arizona, and in southern California. Virtually the entire state of Nevada appears to be under BLM management. |
