# Colorado Wilderness Act of 2024 Summary
This bill designates approximately 540,000 acres of public lands across Colorado as new wilderness areas or additions to existing wilderness areas, protecting them under the National Wilderness Preservation System. The affected lands are primarily managed by the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service and include areas with names like Bull Gulch, Castle Peak, Redcloud Peak, Handies Peak, and Dolores River Canyon. The bill creates new wilderness areas and expands existing ones like Maroon Bells-Snowmass, Flat Tops, West Elk, and Platte River Wilderness.
The legislation affects outdoor recreation users, ranchers with grazing rights, and water users in Colorado, while also impacting military operations and existing water infrastructure. The bill preserves grazing rights for livestock owners, allows continued military helicopter overflights and training exercises, and permits some competitive running events in certain areas. It also provides detailed protections for water rights and resources, requiring the Secretary of Interior and Agriculture to secure necessary water flows to maintain the ecological health of designated wilderness areas starting no earlier than January 1, 2025.
The bill includes special provisions for existing water facilities and infrastructure that can continue operating within wilderness boundaries if they existed before enactment. There is no specific funding allocation mentioned, as wilderness designation primarily involves managing existing federal lands. Two areas—Deep Creek and Pisgah Mountain—are designated as "potential wilderness" and will automatically become full wilderness once current nonconforming uses like mining claims cease.
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