Those who love the Dolores River canyonlands agree — the swath of rugged land along Colorado’s western border is one of the state’s last, best wild places.

The tract encompasses staggering red rock cliffs, broad valleys and rolling hills that burst into green in the spring. Cutting through it all is the beloved river, which sometimes dwindles to a trickle.

Nobody wants to see it overrun with tourists and trash, like so many of the West’s wild places.

But disagreements about whether to designate some of the river and its canyonlands as a national monument have driven a caustic rift between the people who love the area. What those protections look like, and who gets to shape them, are at the center of a fiery debate that, in some instances, has sunk to name-calling and declarations of evil doing.

Recreation and conservation organizations want to designate nearly 400,000 acres, or 625 square miles, of the federal lands along the river as a national monument, allowing for more robust management and protection of the land. If approved, the monument would be the largest in the state and would nearly double the total acreage of monuments in Colorado.

The Dolores River canyonlands are one of the largest, most biodiverse swaths of lands without federal protections, advocates for the monument say. They worry that without further federal regulations, increased recreation, mining and development could threaten the integrity of the landscape.

“It’s a pretty incredible, intact landscape,” said Mike Fiebig with American Rivers, a nonprofit group that supports the monument designation. “We don’t have a lot of that anymore.”

Sean Pond, organizer of the Halt the Dolores Monument campaign, agrees. He can drive and hike for dozens of miles in the area outside of his home in Nucla without seeing anyone.

But Pond and thousands of other campaign opponents worry that a monument designation eventually would impact livestock grazing and limit a decades-dormant mining industry that could be revived with the recent rise in the price of uranium.

Or, worse, that creating a monument would draw the hordes of tourists that the landscape needs protection from.

“They come with a noble cause — they want to protect the Dolores River canyon,” Pond said of monument supporters. “So do we. We live here.”

Two efforts to protect river corridor

The monument proposal is one of two efforts to offer greater protection to the lands around the Dolores River.

The Dolores springs from headwaters in the San Juan Mountains near Telluride and flows southwest until it reaches the town of Dolores. From the small town, it turns north and meanders, eventually nearing Colorado’s western border, before crossing into Utah and joining the Colorado River northeast of Moab.

Colorado’s two U.S. senators last year introduced legislation nearly two decades in the making. It would designate a smaller swath of 68,000 acres along the southern Dolores River as a national conservation area and special management area. The areaincludes the river and its surrounding lands in Montezuma, San Miguel and Dolores counties.

The Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources in December approved the widely supported bill and recommended the full Senate pass it.

Two counties — Mesa and Montrose — dropped out of conversations about the national conservation area years before the bill was introduced, however.

In response, a coalition of recreation and conservation nonprofit organizations crafted the monument proposal for the lands around the northern sections of the river in those two counties. In 2022, the coalition began organizing support for the monument designation in Mesa and Montrose counties, home to about 202,000 people.

Unlike conservation areas, the designation of a new national monument on federal land doesn’t need congressional approval and can be created unilaterally by the president. Presidents have designated 163 monuments across the country, including nine in Colorado.

The Dolores River monument designation is necessary to protect wildlife, ecosystems and tribal connections and resources, monument supporters said.

“This landscape is one Instagram influencer away from being overrun, so let’s get the conservation right before it a problem,” said Scott Braden, director of Colorado Wildlands Project and one of the monument campaign’s organizers.

According to the proposal, the lands would be managed by the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service — as they are now — and subject to a management plan created by the entities with an opportunity for public comment. The monument would not charge entrance fees, according to the Protect the Dolores website. Livestock grazing would still be permitted, as would biking and use of motorized vehicle routes.

The government would honor existing and valid mining claims, though it would not allow new mining claims. The draft map of the proposed monument was crafted to exclude the majority of the existing mining claims, Braden said.

“We think there are places that shouldn’t be mined in this landscape … but we’re also leaving (out) a ton of areas that we think are most likely to see future mining,” he said.

So far, the coalition has collected more than 85,000 signatures and letters of support from 150 businesses, as well as some state and local politicians. Both of Colorado’s senators this year have traveled to the Western Slope to hear about the plan and talk with locals.

The Native American tribes with land in Colorado support the monument, too. Both the Ute Mountain Ute and the Southern Ute lived in the area of the proposed monument, said Regina Whiteskunk, a member of the Ute Mountain Ute and a former tribal councilmember.

The land needs to be kept as close to its natural state as possible, she said.

“This landscape provided everything for us and we survived that way for hundreds of years,” she said. “And now we’re trying to do right by the land.”

Advocates are hoping President Joe Biden will turn his attention to the idea before the November election. While Biden has designated five new national monuments — including the Camp Hale-Continental Divide National Monument north of Leadville — former President Donald Trump, who’s the likely Republican nominee again this year, created a single monument and reduced the size of another while in office.

The coalition believes the monument would help local communities by boosting outdoor recreation economies, while continuing the mining and ranching industries.

Distrust and name calling

But some in the small towns along the proposed monument’s boundary don’t buy those claims.

Pond is not sure the land needs more protections. The area’s minimal tourists need little management now, he said, but he fears that designating a monument would act as a siren call to the hundreds of thousands of RVers, bikers, motocrossers and hikers that descend on nearby Moab every year.

Visitation to the area increased in 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic prompted many people to seek wilderness solitude, Pond said. People were camped “every-freakin’-where” that year, Pond said, but the fervor has since calmed. There is no true tourism industry in the area, he said.

Pond and others with Halt the Dolores fear that despite promises from the monument advocates, access and use regulations will change in the future. Nearly 8,000 people have signed Pond’s petition to halt the designation. County commissioners from Mesa County and Montrose County passed resolutions opposing the monument, though the mayor of Grand Junction — the largest population center in the area — supports the monument and traveled to Washington, D.C., in April to lobby for its creation.

Even if grazing is still allowed on the land, changes to motorized access could affect the feasibility of reaching cattle or maintaining ranching equipment, Pond said. Or, if the monument designation grandfathers a mining claim, blocked access could make it useless.

“They’ve said we’re spreading misinformation,” Pond said. “But I’m just spreading the other side of the truth.”

Pond also opposes a ban on new mining activity. With the price of uranium rising, the towns along the uranium belt could see a mining boom. Minimum-wage tourism jobs are not the same as the potential six-figure mining jobs such a boom could bring.

In a post on social media, Pond alleged that a monument designation would lead to entrance fees and closed-off lands, roads and trails.

Colorado’s nine national monuments cover a combined 490,000 acres and vary widely in size and management. The five created before the turn of the century are managed by the National Parks Service and the four created since are managed by the BLM and the U.S. Forest Service. Five of the nine charge an entrance fee.

Braden, from the Colorado Wildlands Project, said the monument, as proposed, would not be operated similarly to the Colorado National Monument, which is heavily developed and sits just outside Grand Junction. A better comparison would be to the Camp Hale or Canyons of the Ancients national monuments.

The debate over the monument has resulted in name calling and harassment, both sides said.

On Facebook, Pond has called supporters of the monument “eco-terrorists” and called Braden a “parasite” and “the embodiment of evil.” Others opposing the monument have called local businesses that support the monument a “cancer on the community.”

When asked about the posts, Pond said his emotions have sometimes gotten away from him and that he’s trying to be more politically correct.

He did not apologize and said that if his language brings attention to his cause, “then so be it.”

Pond said he also has faced harassment, including a death threat he said he reported to law enforcement. He also cited a woman who screamed at him from across the room at a community meeting last Sunday in Nucla.

The inaccurate talking points and name-calling from those who oppose the monument have been disheartening, Braden said. But he believes compromise is possible.

“We’re ready to come to the table and meet people where their concerns lie and try to figure something out that’s workable for everybody,” said Braden, who lives in Grand Junction. “But at the end of the day, we’re committed to permanent protection of this landscape.”

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Originally Published: June 16, 2024 at 6:00 a.m.