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The environment desk at Aspen Public Radio covers issues in the Roaring Fork Valley and throughout the state of Colorado including water use and quality, impact of recreation, population growth and oil and gas development. APR’s Environment Reporter is Elizabeth Stewart-Severy.

Bennet, Polis introduce new wilderness bill

Colorado senator Michael Bennet and representative Jared Polis introduced a bill yesterday that would designate new wilderness in the White River National Forest.

 

 

The bill, titled the Continental Divide Recreation, Wilderness, and Camp Hale Legacy Act, would create protections for nearly 100,000 acres in the White River National Forest, along the Continental Divide. It would expand the Holy Cross Wilderness Area in Eagle County, and create new designated wilderness in the Tenmile Range, west of Breckenridge. There are two new wildlife conservation areas included in the measure as well.

It would also make the 10th Mountain Division training site at Camp Hale the country’s first National Historic Landscape. Polis and Bennet say this would both preserve an important historical landmark and protect the surrounding ecosystem.

The bill has support from commissioners in Eagle, Summit and Grand counties, as well as from local environmental groups. It was introduced in both chambers of Congress.

 

Aspen native Elizabeth Stewart-Severy is excited to be making a return to both the Red Brick, where she attended kindergarten, and the field of journalism. She has spent her entire life playing in the mountains and rivers around Aspen, and is thrilled to be reporting about all things environmental in this special place. She attended the University of Colorado with a Boettcher Scholarship, and graduated as the top student from the School of Journalism in 2006. Her lifelong love of hockey lead to a stint working for the Colorado Avalanche, and she still plays in local leagues and coaches the Aspen Junior Hockey U-19 girls.