You can’t separate the history of Colorado from the iconic natural landscapes of the San Luis Valley, the first part of our state to see settlers who came from what is today New Mexico to farm and graze this land. The farmers provide the food that keeps our state and country fed. The rich fabric of the diverse communities in the San Luis Valley reminds Coloradans who we are and where we came from. Here in the valley, our connection with the land and water has always defined our way of life.
Public lands in and around the San Luis Valley power our outdoor economy, provide water for our crops, sustain our agriculture industry, and support our families and communities.
It’s why we worked for nearly a decade with a broad coalition of community leaders, farmers and ranchers, conservation advocates, Senators Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper, Gov. Jared Polis and the State Land Board to support the acquisition of the La Jara Basin property.
This hard-fought project to transfer nearly 50,000 acres of La Jara State Land Trust property to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and U.S. Forest Service has been nearly a decade in the making. We were proud to work closely with our senators to secure the $43.5 million in Land and Water Conservation Fund funding we needed.
Now it has come to our attention that the governor-appointed State Land Board — with no representation from southern Colorado — may break another promise to the Valley and vote to kill this project.
As recently as June, the State Land Board was firmly behind this project. Governor Polis himself wrote an enthusiastic letter of support, citing the state’s commitment to seeing this project through. He wrote, “The state strongly supports this acquisition as a meaningful advancement in our goals of habitat connectivity, heritage preservation, and equitable public access to the outdoors. We commend the collaborative approach taken by BLM, the USDA Forest Service, Colorado Parks and Wildlife, and local partners in continuing to move this multi-year project forward.”
Then just last month the State Land Board, which recognized a new director in June, suddenly reversed course. They began discussing an array of well-meaning but likely unworkable uses for this parcel of land if the state were to break their commitment to the federal government and San Luis Valley residents and vote to retain the land. We can assure you that if this project is terminated in the final hour that any trust that has been built over many years of work would be lost and the State Land Board would suffer a significant loss of credibility among the many partners who toiled for years on this project. That’s not to mention the loss of the $43.5 million LWCF dollars that our senators secured for this project which would evaporate and go to other states if the deal falls through.
This land transfer represents an incredible opportunity for the San Luis Valley to create needed jobs and bolster our agricultural and outdoor economy. The La Jara property contains cold-water fisheries and provides clean drinking water and irrigation for farmers and ranchers. It is home to hundreds of acres of pristine big game habitat for elk and mule deer, refuge for migratory birds, and irreplaceable historic and cultural resources.
The San Luis Valley has a long history of private landowners taking over public land. One only needs to look across to the other side of the Valley above the town of San Luis and the land known locally as La Sierra, to see the decades of controversy that can result when public land moves from accessible to locked gates and fences.
If the Board prevents this transfer from moving forward, what is to stop a future board from selling this land to a billionaire offering a price the state can’t refuse? What would then happen to the many ranchers who depend on this land for grazing or the hunters who rely on this land to feed their families.
This project enjoys deep and broad support in the San Luis Valley, and we have been committed, honest, and collaborative partners throughout this process. Unfortunately, however, rural communities in Colorado have become distressingly accustomed to bad faith deals. Decisionmakers in Denver too often pick winners and losers, without taking into account the impacts on rural communities.
But this time we simply cannot afford to see this agreement fail.
We urge the State Land Board to honor the commitment they made to San Luis Valley farmers, ranchers, business owners, recreationists, hunters, anglers, Indigenous leaders, and conservation partners, so our kids and our grandkids can benefit from this remarkable landscape for generations to come.
Ken Salazar is a former U.S. secretary of the Interior, U.S. senator and attorney general to Colorado and U.S. ambassador to Mexico. John Salazar, a farmer and rancher from Manassa Colorado, served as the U.S. Representative for Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District from 2005 until 2011 and was the Commissioner of the Colorado Department of Agriculture from 2011-2014.
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