Dear Editor,

On September 8th the new USFS land camping closure surrounding Nederland will start. Camping will no longer be allowed on any USFS surrounding Nederland except for the marked campsites at West Magnolia and campfires will only be allowed in the metal fire rings at the designated West Magnolia campsites. Enforcement of this no camping policy will be enabled by the “no use” between 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. except licensed hunting and fishing. Fire danger and abusive user issues have the potential to be greatly reduced with effective enforcement. I urge all Nederland residents to do the following:

E-mail our USFS District Ranger Angela Gee (angela.gee@usda.gov) and USFS Rec Specialist Matt Henry (matthew.henry@usda.gov)  and say “thank you, nice job”!  They exist between a rock and a hard place and just as we need to let them know when something isn’t right it is even more important to let them know when they are doing something right. Ultimately, these district leaders made this happen and we need to positively reinforce the importance of their actions.

Help this new policy succeed by calling the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office non-emergency dispatch at 303-441-4444 or Nederland Police Department to report illegal camping or campfires. It will likely take years to change the use culture and education and enforcement are critical. In my personal experience both the NPD and BCSO treat all users with empathy and respect.  (Great if you want to post it on Facebook, but getting law enforcement to the site is what works).

You can provide more feedback on the future of West Magnolia at www.fs.usda.gov/goto/arp/westmag.  There is no perfect solution and you can add to the dialogue of how to fine tune the approach. 

This policy change is HUGE! Let’s support the momentum of making our adjacent forests safer from fire danger and abusive use. Get involved and reinforce this extremely positive policy change.

Kris Hess
Nederland