Craig Daily Press

A couple of environmental groups met in Steamboat Springs Friday to protest Moffat County's more than 2,000 miles of public rights of way.

Under scrutiny is whether the county's road claims would later be expanded as use for gas and oil exploration and other uses thereby excluding public land from proposed wilderness designation.

About 344,000 acres is proposed for wilderness in the county's more than 3 million acres, said Jeff Comstock, Moffat County Natural Resource director.

But the brewing debate over Revised Statute 2477, a Civil War-era law that claims the construction of roads is granted on roads not reserved for public use, is heating up around the state and especially in Moffat County.

A May 15 letter to Interior Secretary Gale Norton from Greg Walcher, Colorado's Natural Resource director said roads with vehicle travel prior to 1976 establishes a right of way.

In early January, the county released a map stating claims to 2,057 miles of road that crisscross the landscape in areas such as Dinosaur National Monument and Browns Park National Refuge.

The roads, some of which are cow trails, single-track or abandoned routes, are merely the county's effort at "drawing lines on a map," said Jennifer Seidenberg, a field organizer for the Colorado Environmental Coalition out of Steamboat Springs.

"When you put a road claim in the middle of an area, it disqualifies it from becoming wilderness," she said. "It's a real effective loophole for them."

Road claims by the county include ones that haven't been driven on in 50 years, impassable ridges and trails used by Native Americans, Sceidenberg said.

But, according to the Comstock, the county has put considerable effort in detailing public right of way claims. The process included referencing old government maps and plat maps, considering testimony from older residents and accessing aerial photos prior to 1976.

Compiling the county's road claims and discussion with the public, Comstock added, has been ongoing for the last three years.

By this fall, the county will start a "ground-truthing" effort or global positioning system effort to verify the land claims.

The mapping efforts recently came into controversy when it was approved Jan.10. Other counties such as Mesa, Montrose, Rio Grande, Eagle and Routt have started similar mapping projects.

But considering Moffat County's size as the second largest in the state and the county's dependence on gas and oil revenue, the county should be proactive in keeping public roads open, he said.

Taxes from the top ten energy companies in Moffat County contribute to almost 70 percent of the county budget.

"This is about protecting public access to public lands," Comstock said. "It's not the purpose to prohibit wilderness."

But Steve Petersburg, the former national resource director for 29 years at Dinosaur National Monument, said he thinks otherwise.

Petersburg said the county would use the land claims as a way of discouraging wilderness.

"It certainly concerns me that if development came here the habitat would be fragmented," he said of the possibility of the construction of new roads and other development.

Light traffic on the monument's back roads and livestock trails define the pristine character of the area, he said.

"Dinosaur is still pretty wild," Petersburg said, disputing the county's road claims as mostly single- or multi-track trails that haven't been used by vehicles for 30 years. "Other than ranching, there's not a lot of evidence of man's intervention."

Still, the prospect of the county upgrading any or all of road claims would follow a structured protocol and extensive public process, said Moffat County Commissioner Marianna Raftopoulos.

"Our intent as a county is not to go out and make more roads," she said. "Number one, we don't have the budget to do that. We want to maintain it as pristine as it is."

Environmental groups have tried to paint the false picture that Moffat County is ready to bring out bulldozers start constructing roads wherever claim lie, she said.

"If there was a path, it would remain a path," Raftopoulos said.

In April, Interior Secretary Gale Norton overturned a BLM policy that automatically excludes energy and oil exploration on proposed wilderness areas. In that decision, Norton also settled road claims in Utah and Alaska made under RS2477.

Recently, U.S. Rep. Charles Taylor, R-N.C., initiated an amendment to prohibit BLM from processing right of way claims that

cross national parks, national monuments and designated wilderness study areas.