Thompson Divide withdrawal – what you need to know
PAONIA, Colo. (KREX) — The proposed protection area spans more than 220,000 federal acres across Gunnison, Garfield, Mesa, and Pitkin County.
Michael Gorman, the campaign manager for Wilderness Workshop, tells me it was cowboys and ranchers who first banded together in 2009 to protect the land their cattle graze from possible pollution or the environmental devastation mining and drilling leave behind.
After that, he says they worked with Senator Bennet to introduce a mineral withdrawal through legislation, and since then, various forms of legislation have been introduced, the most recent being the core act, which would provide a permanent mineral withdrawal.
In 2013, lawmakers shot down the Thompson Divide withdrawal protection act when it was first introduced. Then, came the core act in 2019.
Three years later, the Forest Service and BLM step into the ring to help push the withdrawal through…
White River National Forest public affairs officer Olivia Blake says her agency is starting with a more temporary solution than the advocacy groups working with Bennet, asking for a 20-year withdrawal.
Your voice, up until January 8th, and the secretary of interior can change that outcome- before BLM and Forest Service submit their final plan.
The secretary has the power to approve the whole thing or…. only parts of the proposal.
It’s important to remember, even if this does go through, it won’t necessarily affect you directly. Recreation in these lands will still stay the exact same.
Blake tells me everything will be open and available as normal.
But for the town of Paonia, sitting on the edge of the divide, Mayor Mary Bachran tells me she is fighting for this withdrawal to go through.
Bachran is fighting for both the protection of the town’s watershed and the ranchers worried for their cattle.
She adds the town has been pushing back the drilling expansion for much longer than others.
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