Colo. county takes back roads closed by Feds

[Oak]

"County commissioners on Friday voted unanimously to invoke a 137-year-old mining law to assert rights to manage well over 1,000 acres of routes on public lands currently managed by the U.S. government."

"Moffat County has become the first county in Colorado to claim the right to manage a huge network of roads and routes on public lands..."

Full Story Here

Oak

<FONT COLOR="#800080" SIZE="1">[ 01-21-2003 11:29: Message edited by: Colorado Oak ]</font>

 

[tmsander]

Interesting.... If this works out, I wonder what the impact will be to the quality of hunting in unit 201....

 

[Oak]

It will be great, Todd! You'll be able to drive right up to your 340 class bull!

We'll see. Maybe I should look for somewhere else to burn 13 elk points?

Oak

 

[Ithaca 37]

Being very familiar with those Moffat Co. roads, I'm amazed the county commissioners would want to take responsibility for them. That is, if they intend to do upkeep on them. Just grading them every few years would be a monumental cost. And if they just open them all up and turn everybody loose to drive all over Moffat Co. all year long they better plan on raising the search and rescue budget by a couple million bucks.

This is probably a few crazy ranchers trying to make a statement and nothing will come of it but a lot of expenses for the taxpayers.

 

[Nut]

Ithaca I dont think they plan on any upkeep for the roads. Didnt it say some of them were just cowpaths?

Probably will get eastern taxpayers money for the the upkeep.

(How was that Darren?)

 

[tmsander]

The commissioners have been working on this for three years according to someone I know that knows the ex-county commissioner that spearheaded this. It might just be some wacky way to make a political statement, but they do seem dedicated to it.

I also understand that if this effort progresses further, the NPS will sue the county.