Roadless area backers make mass appeal to Forest Service Environmental organizations delivered what they said were 170,000 letters urging the U.S. Forest Service to reject Colorado’s petition for rules governing management of forest lands in the state. Critics of the proposed rule say it contains loopholes that allow for energy development, logging and roadbuilding. The Colorado petition was drafted by a bipartisan task force that called for a no-surface occupancy provision for those areas, meaning only directional drilling would be allowed to reach natural gas or oil beneath the forests. Gov. Bill Ritter has resisted urging by environmental organizations to repudiate the state’s petition for its own version of the roadless rule. Opponents also have pointed to the proposed rule allowing what are termed “long-term temporary roads,” which are intended to be reclaimed once they outlive their value to the energy, mining or logging industries. Those roads, however, could be used for as many as 30 years, the Forest Service has said....The key, of course, is the roads. If your ultimate goal is wilderness, they must be roadless.