The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Hopes to build consensus before introducing legislation
U.S. Senator Michael Bennet strolled along the Slate River on Thursday, July 5 to a place where the value of wild places is plain to be seen and rekindled an old conversation about how best to preserve the vast public lands in Gunnison County.
It’s a discussion that’s just getting its start, with big plans for bringing people together to find a way federal land use designations could be applied to local lands. The goal is to give as many people as possible a piece of what they want, with priority placed on land preservation.
Bennet told a crowd of more than 30 supporters, “Everybody here should think broadly and think big about what you want to do and understand that in the last 10 years we’ve learned a lot … about the multiple uses of our lands and how different designations can work together if done in a holistic way to balance the needs of the community.”
Within the community there are people who take to the public land by all means available; the land designation determines the types of travel allowed. A Wilderness designation is the most restrictive, limiting access to foot or hoof traffic and placing a high value on maintaining the primal character of a place.
In a county where at least 85 percent of the land is held in the public trust, past efforts at securing more restrictive and cohesive designations for local lands has foundered under the pressure of so many special interests.
Most recently, the Hidden Gems campaign sought to preserve more than 300,000 acres across four counties, including Gunnison County, as Wilderness. That effort also gathered input from many user groups and eventually whittled its proposal to 175,000 acres, with none in Gunnison. Laura Yale, who was the local coordinator for that campaign, said the areas proposed as wilderness in that effort will be presented to Bennet for his consideration.
This new initiative, however, has the backing of one of the state’s most powerful politicians. Bennet told the crowd this new conversation could end in legislation, formalizing any future agreement the users of local public lands might come up with.
“I’d ask you not to limit your imagination, but expand it,” Bennet said.
With a contingent of local politicians lining up to thank the senator for his attention to an issue of local and global importance, County Commissioner Hap Channell said, “The fact that we can stand here and have a conversation with a U.S. senator speaks volumes about his commitment to taking this on. The commissioners will take a look at this and I think it’s a real possibility for this to be a catalyst for us to have this conversation.”
He said the commissioners would work to engage all the affected stakeholders in a dialogue about the senator’s plan, which is aimed only at lands within Gunnison County, “to figure out what it is that we want.”
Support for the idea of protected public land was rife at the meeting. County Commissioner Paula Swenson implored the group to “take a holistic picture of public lands and how we can manage them for generations to come.” Commissioner Phil Chamberland reminded people, “What you see around us, the places that bring people to our community, is also what keeps a lot of us here.”
And some of those people spoke up in support of the senator’s plan as well, with the first to speak up being Billy Rankin, a mountain biker and snowmobiler who has watched similar efforts in the past crumble under their own weight.
“I just want to remind you guys that as you get into this process you’re going to hear from every single user group, as you know. As we look at a piece of potential wilderness it’s going to get cut back and cut back when every user group wants to cut off a piece that is potentially important to them,” he said. “I think Wilderness is extremely important and I think it’s really the only designation that is going to keep this place what it is for many generations.”
At the same time, Crested Butte Mountain Bike Association vice president and trails director Dave Ochs, asked everyone to treat human powered travel, like that on a mountain bike, equally.
Bennet staff member John Whitney invited members of the public to speak with him and asked those with input to “please think creatively. We don’t have to confine this discussion to just Wilderness. There are certainly a multitude of public land uses in Gunnison County, some of which may make sense to think about legislatively.
“We’ll look to find elements and proposals people can agree on. I would warn people that this won’t necessarily be a short conversation, dealing with a piece of legislation and requests, getting to a place where the community can feel comfortable with it,” he continued. “It could take some time so we’re not putting a time frame on the conversation—we’re just saying let’s start the conversations and hopefully we have reached a broad base of consensus.”
The public can jump in the conversation and add input about how they’d like to see public lands around Gunnison County preserved for the future, online at www.bennet.senate.gov/gunnisonpubliclands.
