Colorado Native Plant Society
4057 Cottonwood Drive, Loveland, CO 80538
Project: Village at Wolf Creek Access Project
To: Dan Dallas, Forest Supervisor, Rio Grande National Forest
National Forest: Rio Grande National Forest
The Colorado Native Plant Society is writing you to oppose giving road access for the Village at Wolf Creek. Our primary reason for opposing this approval is that will allow the destruction of hundreds of acres of pristine national forest which, parenthetically, includes an area that the Colorado Natural Heritage Program has identified as having “High Biodiversity Significance”.
Beyond that, however, we believe that the Forest Service should be in the business of protecting our National Forests for the American public to use and enjoy. Your mission statement says, “The mission of the USDA Forest Service is to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of the Nation’s forests and grasslands to meet the needs of present and future generations”.
Protections should be based upon scientific analyses which allow “reasonable use” of the property. In no stretch of the imagination, is the building of an 8,000-person development in a pristine forest a “reasonable use”. And it certainly does not “meet the needs of present and future generations” of Americans as it is strongly opposed by the public.
Beyond that, the “scientific analysis” of the project was deemed by a federal judge to be, based “on an analysis which is contrary to law”. Providing access to the proposed village is based on that same analysis, and therefore, the Colorado Native Plant Society strongly opposes your granting access for the proposed project.