A draft proposal released this week by two county governments on Colorado’s Western Slope is drawing criticism from a coalition of conservation groups backing the creation of a new national monument along the Dolores River.
Advocates last year unveiled an ambitious proposal to designate a 391,000-acre expanse of public land near the Utah border in Mesa and Montrose counties as Colorado’s next national monument. It’s the product, they say, of 50 years of study about how best to protect the region’s dramatic high-desert landscape, portions of which already have some protections under special Bureau of Land Management designations.
But an “alternative proposal” offered July 24 by Mesa and Montrose counties would shrink the proposed monument area by more than 90%, protecting just under 30,000 acres along the Dolores River as a national conservation area, a less restrictive designation. Mesa County calls the draft plan “another starting place for conversation.”
“We invite all residents to join us in determining the best path forward for western Colorado,” Mesa county commissioners said in a news release. Members of the public can comment on the counties’ proposal online.
Dolores River Boating Advocates, a group founded in 2011 to advocate for permanent protections for the area, calls the counties’ plan “grossly inadequate.” The Protect the Dolores coalition, which includes more than a dozen local, state and national conservation groups, says it falls “woefully short” of achieving its stated goals.
“Mesa and Montrose counties have failed, once again, to offer a good faith plan to safeguard the Dolores Canyons,” Anna Stout, a Grand Junction City Council member, said in a statement released by the Protect the Dolores coalition. “For almost 50 years, communities have worked to protect the outstanding wildlife, incredible canyons, and world class scenery found just outside Grand Junction.”
Conservation advocates call the Dolores watershed’s canyons the state’s “largest and most biodiverse stretch of unprotected public lands.” From its headwaters in the San Juan Mountains, the river runs north for 241 miles through parts of six Colorado counties and across the border into Utah, where it flows into the Colorado River northeast of Moab.
A bill to establish protections for the southern portion of the river, in Montezuma, Dolores and San Miguel counties, has won bipartisan support in Congress. The Dolores River National Conservation Area and Special Management Area Act is sponsored by Democratic U.S. Sens. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper and Republican U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert of Windsor.
“So many other public lands bills in Congress trample on the rights and liberties of the American people, but this legislation is good for conservation, good for private property rights, and good for local communities,” Boebert said last year.
The plan endorsed by Mesa and Montrose counties would essentially mirror that approach for the northern segment of the watershed, establishing a narrow corridor along the river as a national conservation area. But conservation advocates say such an approach would fail to protect critical wildlife habitat, fisheries, historical and cultural sites, and other important areas covered under the full national monument proposal.
Bennet and Hickenlooper have been noncommittal on calls for a national monument designation, which could be enacted by President Joe Biden under the Antiquities Act without a need for congressional action. Biden previously used that authority to establish the 53,804-acre Camp Hale–Continental Divide National Monument north of Leadville in 2022.
“Over the last several months, we have spent time in the Northern Dolores Basin and had many conversations about its future,” Bennet and Hickenlooper said in a joint statement earlier this month. “It is clear that Coloradans care deeply about this landscape and many want it permanently protected. We also recognize there are legitimate questions and the need for further discussion.”
In light of what they called Mesa and Montrose counties’ “meager” proposal, the Protect the Dolores coalition this week renewed their calls for bold action from the Biden administration.
“We shouldn’t wait another year to see it protected, much less risk decades more of inaction,” Stout said. “It is time for Sens. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper to fill the leadership vacuum, work with President Biden, and finally conserve the Dolores Canyons National Monument.”
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