THE WESTERNER
Thursday, January 05, 2012
Salazar, Colorado leaders push to preserve much of San Luis Valley
Aiming for economically beneficial conservation, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar launched three broad initiatives Wednesday for his home turf of the San Luis Valley, including plans to protect vast tracks of pristine private land from development. "This is an opportunity that may not come again to this valley for decades, if not for a century, because you're not going to have a president, with a secretary of the interior, with a governor, with two U.S. senators who embrace these initiatives in this way," Salazar said during a swing that included stops in New Mexico and Texas. Main elements of the emerging plan include: • Creating a Sangre de Cristo National Historic Park. Salazar declared the Trujillo homesteads in the valley a National Historic Landmark on Tuesday. Other sites under consideration for this designation include a communal irrigation ditch at San Luis. • Building a San Luis Valley Trail System along the Rio Grande from Colorado into New Mexico. Land trust leaders are exploring potential easements to keep land private, yet constrain future construction. • Establishing new wildlife areas. Federal biologists have mapped areas on the valley floor and in the Sangre de Cristo mountains that could be managed for ranching and also enable better migration of birds and big game. Salazar and Gov. John Hickenlooper have engaged key landowners in discussions about easements — envisioned as a way to protect 400,000 acres — along with purchases of another 30,000 acres. Besides the government, three owners — billionaire hedge-fund manager Louis Bacon, media mogul Ted Turner and owners of the Taylor Ranch — control most of the land extending south from the existing Great Sand Dunes National Park along the Sangre de Cristo mountains to Santa Fe. The success of those conversations was uncertain, but Turner and Bacon have reputations as far-sighted conservationists. Colorado officials "will do everything we can" to support the initiative, Hickenlooper said...more
Labels: Federal Lands
Salazar: Taylor Ranch rights will be honored
Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar said Wednesday that his proposal to promote the cultural heritage of the San Luis Valley will have no impact on the use rights to heirs on the Sangre de Cristo Land Grant. San Luis residents fought a series of court battles for four decades to regain access to a 77,000-acre tract of land, which had been fenced off by North Carolina timberman Jack Taylor in the 1960s. The Colorado State Supreme Court ruled in 2002 that heirs had the right to graze livestock and harvest timber and firewood from the parcel known by locals as La Sierra, although a local court continues the process of confirming heirs. Prior to 1960, locals enjoyed more than a century of access to the property as part of the terms of settlement of the grant, which was issued by the Mexican government in 1843 to lure settlers to the area. "We're not going to undo a case that I personally was very involved in and followed, which was the Taylor Ranch case that recognized the historic subsistence rights of the local community," Salazar said. "Those have to be honored. It's my personal point of view. It's also my legal point of view." Shirley Romero Otero, who asked Salazar if the use rights of the land grant heirs would be protected under any of the proposals, said he had not answered her question. She worried that a designation under the National Park Service might open the land to the public, thereby infringing on the rights heirs regained in court. "We've got the most to lose of anybody else," she said. "I'm leaving with more questions than I came with."...more
Labels: Federal Lands
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