By Bob Berwyn, Environmental News Service
from http://ens-news.com/ens/jun2001/2001L-06-26-04.html

BRECKENRIDGE, Colorado, June 26, 2001 (ENS) - A vocal group of Colorado residents appeared before the Summit County Commissioners Monday night to oppose plans to develop a new settlement where it would infringe on a wildlife movement corridor used by threatened lynx and other sensitive forest species.

Keystone Real Estate Development wants to increase the number of homes on a piece of private land located between Keystone’s River Run ski resort base area and the town of Montezuma.

"I do believe this is high noon for one of the last four wildlife corridors in Colorado," said Currie Craven, an activist with a local wilderness advocacy group. "We need to be cautious. We need to follow a policy of no regret."

"I have a problem with accepting the opinion of a biologist on the Keystone payroll," said long time Summit County resident Bonnie Beaux, referring to a wildlife consultant hired by the Keystone Real Estate Development to study the issue. "If you deny this, the people of Summit County will support you," Beaux told the commissioners.

In an emotional speech, Beaux described the changes she has seen in Summit County during the past 15 years. Wildlife encounters were once common, she said. But now, most animals have now been displaced by the wave of development sweeping the area.

The three commissioners apparently heeded this message and voted to continue the hearing until July. They scheduled a site visit to view the area for themselves.

The commissioners considered holding off on a final decision until they have the results of the first formal report from the Colorado Division of Wildlife on the activities of about 60 lynx that were recently brought to Colorado from Alaska and Canada. The report is due in July. [editor's note: not native to the area].

A revision of the management plan for the surrounding White River National Forest is also scheduled for release late this summer. It may have consequences for the wildlife movement corridor depending on how forest officials allocate land uses in the area. About 80 percent of Summit County is Forest Service land, and two nearby ski resorts are pushing for an expansion of their permit boundaries.

Of special significance for the Keystone project is a rocky ridge that divides intense development on one side from relatively pristine forest on the other. According to wildlife biologists with state and federal agencies, the ridge helps buffer the wildlife corridor in a critical choke point on the valley floor, where the corridor suddenly shrinks from three or four miles wide to just half a mile wide.

All but one of the public comments during the two hour commission hearing Monday urged denial of the project at least until there is more scientific information available on the importance of the corridor to threatened lynx and other shy forest animals. The only comment in support of Keystone Real Estate Development came from an official with the resort’s property management company.

Keystone planners pointed to their long history of cooperation with authorities on natural resource issues and said their development plans included adequate mitigation to offset any potential impacts.

The new neighborhood, known as Settlers Creek, is in an area identified for development by an existing master plan. A 1999 amendment to the development plan for the area resulted in a reduction of 283 units, said Keystone planner Thomas Davidson.

Woods in the location where Keystone plans a neighborhood

Vail Resorts was a big player in an earlier controversy over a ski area expansion into what was deemed by environmentalists and conservation biologists to be prime lynx habitat. That expansion resulted in protests and ultimately a mountaintop arson attack, allegedly carried out by the Earth Liberation Front on behalf of the lynx.

"It’s a reasonable assumption to say, based on what could happen on other parcels in the area, and what the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service can do under the Endangered Species Act, that this project in and of itself won’t cause a significant adverse impact," said Davidson.

But a series of letters from the Forest Service, the Colorado Division of Wildlife and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service all say that cumulative impacts could effectively sever the corridor, preventing wildlife from moving between the Tenmile Range and the Continental Divide.

The corridor is one of the last places animals can find a continuously forested path traversing Summit County from north to south. 

Note: Another move toward implementation of The Wildlands Project - placing 1/2 of the United States into "wildlands", while people will be forced to move out of rural areas.

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