Prime Brush Creek land will remain a working ranch

Farris Creek Road likely to reopen

One of the most scenic gateways to the upper East River Valley, the Cold Springs Ranch, could soon be protected from development in a deal that would also give mountain bikers coveted access to Strand Hill. A contract for a conservation easement has been signed with the Trust for Public Lands and Cold Springs Ranch. 

“This has the potential to be a win for the family, for keeping local viable agricultural land in production, for the recreational community and for the Forest Service,” Gunnison County attorney David Baumgarten says, describing a deal that could be completed soon.
A decades-long dispute between Cold Springs Ranch owner Michele Veltri and the U.S. Forest Service over the location of property lines in the valley has resulted in what Veltri described as “potentially ruinous” grazing fees for the ranch and the closure of the Farris Creek Trail to the public in the fall of 2009.
The Farris Creek Trail crosses Cold Springs Ranch property before connecting with the public trail system on Strand Hill. As a way of putting pressure on the Forest Service for what recently amounted to a grazing fee hike, Veltri posted the trail closed with a sign that encouraged disappointed bikers to let the local land managers know how they felt.
At the time of the closure, Veltri, saying he regretted closing the trail, explained, “It is in the public interest to keep Strand Hill open and that can be done by working with Cold Springs Ranch.”
Work is currently under way to readjust the ranch’s boundaries through a land exchange between the ranch and the Forest Service, with local attorney and former Gunnison County Commissioner Jim Starr mediating the agreement.
Veltri approached the County last spring about enlisting help with his boundary dispute, which arose after a federal land survey in the 1980s called into question the location of some of the ranch’s fencelines and has morphed and intensified in recent years.
This effort is the first chance the county has had at implementing any part of its newly adopted Ranchland Initiative process that aims to preserve working agricultural land in the Gunnison Valley. One way the program offers help is by enabling the county to step in on behalf of ranchers trying to sort out differences with federal or state agencies and that’s just what they did for the Veltris.
The county engaged the Forest Service and Veltri, and after leaving office in January, Starr asked if he could continue working through the negotiations. After the initial meeting, the Forest Service is just starting to dive into the proposal.
According to Forest Service public service staff officer Corey Wong, “The key questions are if [the land exchange] is in the public interest … Eventually a question will be, are we in the ball park in values. Are we close enough that it appears we have something we can take into a land exchange and do the environmental analysis.”
And while the proposal might be gaining steam locally, the federal process will move from the environmental analysis into a public scoping period, through internal forest service reviews and eventually, the decision to make the trade, or not, falls to the Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre and Gunnison National Forest supervisor, Charlie Richmond.
“Typically a land exchange takes two years or longer, maybe three, and I don’t know if we’re in the beginning yet,” Wong says. “This is a decision the Forest Service can make as long as we jump through the hoops we have to jump through. The key thing is that we want to make sure it’s in the public interest and that it’s something we believe is doable. Then we’ll launch into it.”
Part of the land exchange would include a 15.33-acre piece of federal property between the Brush Creek Trailhead parking lot and the East River, where it passes under Brush Creek Road. It’s a meadow the Veltris have historically used as a calving ground, with easy access to the river, the road (in case of emergencies) and the ranch house that sits to the east.  
Starr says getting the Forest Service to trade that property for land elsewhere has proved difficult because of a regulation that requires no net loss of wetlands in federal holdings and the meadow next to the river is wet.
“We may need to identify some lands that are privately owned wetlands that the Forest would like to acquire,” Starr says. “Then the Veltris could acquire that property and offer it in the trade so there would basically be no net loss of wetlands for the Forest Service.”
Along with that property, the Forest Service has said Cold Springs Ranch has also been using an 11-acre piece of publicly owned property to the north of the ranch’s big hay meadow. For the chance to keep the lands, during a meeting in January the Veltris offered to trade the Forest Service about 21 acres of the ranch, with the balance of remaining value paid by the ranch.
But the land exchange is only part of a larger plan to protect the 320-acre Cold Springs Ranch from additional development through a two-phase conservation easement.
Starr said Veltri approached him about helping find a way to keep safe the ranch that has been in his family since the 1930s. What has developed is a plan to parcel out 190 acres, not including the acreage that would be swept up in a land exchange, for protections this year.
Starr said an appraiser has estimated that the first, 190-acre phase of the planned conservation easement would cost about $1.37 million. To raise the money, Starr has approached the county on the Veltris behalf for a letter of support for a Great Outdoors Colorado (GOCO) grant. The deadline for the GOCO grant application is Friday, February 25.
Starr, who has been working with the Trust for Public Lands (TPL), is hoping the grant can cover between $720,000 and $730,000 of the cost of the conservation easement, with the rest being made up through fund raising and donations from the public. Already one interested individual has pledged a donation of $50,000 and on Tuesday, the Crested Butte Town Council fielded a request for up to $450,000 for the project that was ultimately approved.
For valley residents and visitors to the area, the dispute between the Veltri family and the Forest Service is about more than just grazing permits. It’s about securing historical access to a popular public trail system and keeping open space in the Brush Creek Valley.
“We feel at the TPL that this is a great project,” Justin Spring of the Trust for Public Lands says. “This is one of the most scenic properties, not just in Crested Butte, but in the state of Colorado.”
Spring said water rights will be tied to agriculture uses on the ranch as part of the deal.
In a letter of support for the Cold Springs Ranch GOCO application from the Crested Butte Town Council, mayor Leah Williams wrote, “The views in [the upper East River] valley are spectacular and one of the key reasons people come to Crested Butte. We would like to preserve the views of the irrigated hay meadows and the natural hillsides for our residents and the tourists we rely on for our economic vitality.”
The letter goes on to say the town is ready to commit $200,000 from its Open Space Fund now and a total of $450,000 to match a GOCO grant if the fund generates the necessary capital by the end of the year.
If the first phase of the conservation easement is successful, Starr says there will be a second 120-acre phase, including the exchanged land, waiting in the wings.
“The reason those two parcels aren’t the same size is that, according to BLM survey in 1980s, part of the ranch is to the east of Brush Creek Road and the ranch fences are right on road. So we’re not including acreage east of Brush Creek Road,” Starr says.
Already the first phase of the conservation easement is under contract. When the land exchange is complete, the ranch will have its boundaries clearly defined as being to the west of Brush Creek Road to settle any dispute with the federal government and mountain bikers. That should clear the way for foot and bike traffic trying to access Strand Hill from Farris Creek and the conservation easements will do their part to keep the surrounding views free of development.