Wednesday, August 10, 2011

County to Salazar: no new wilderness

Park County commissioners on Tuesday voted to sign a letter to the Bureau of Land Management stating their unwillingness to recommend new wilderness in the Bighorn Basin. At the direction of the secretary of the Interior, the BLM is asking state and local officials across the West to recommend areas that deserve wilderness protection. The hope is that by building bipartisan support from the ground up, any recommendations that do surface will pass the 112th Congress, creating the first new wilderness designations in nearly three decades. Park County commissioners last week voted 4-1 to not recommend any new wilderness. On Tuesday, they voted 3-1 — with one commissioner absent — to forward an official letter to the BLM stating their opinion. Commissioners said in the letter that public lands should be managed as multiple use, a designation that leaves them open to future drilling and off-road vehicle travel, among other things...more


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