Washington – Officials in Aspen are sounding the alarm to other mountain towns that fast-moving legislation in Congress could lead to the sale of millions of acres of public land in the mountains around them.
The House likely will vote as early as today on a bill that contains the public-lands changes.
Pitkin County commissioners and the Aspen City Council have voted to protest the plan and are urging Colorado’s members of Congress to try to stop it. They fear a sell-off of public land could trigger helter-skelter development of homesites in backcountry areas, and that hiking trails and other recreational opportunities could be closed by privatization.
“You can imagine the speculative boom if people can start tearing off parts of the national forest,” said Pitkin County commissioner Mick Ireland.
The officials are working to get other towns involved through the Colorado Association of Ski Towns (CAST).
“When the CAST communities hear about it, they will be very concerned,” said Aspen City Councilwoman Rachel Richards. “We’re very protective of the environment around us.”
A 15,000-member organization of hunters is also criticizing the plan.
“Private land means no hunting, no camping, no fishing,” Don Peay, founder of Utah-based Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife.
But the House Republicans who introduced the legislation and the mining companies who are pushing for it say the provision wouldn’t trigger widespread sales of public land.
“That is absurd,” said Brian Kennedy, spokesman for the House Resources Committee. “They will not be able to purchase land, flip it, and turn it into condo development.”
At issue is Congress’s five-year budget plan, which already has spurred high-profile fights over proposed oil development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and cuts to student loans.
The legislation now would lift the 11-year moratorium on mining “patents,” the sale of public land to mining companies.
In the process, environmental law experts say, it would remove requirements that those buying the land prove that they want the land for mining rather than real estate development.
Former Interior Department Solicitor John Leshy said that loophole would open millions of acres of public land to real estate speculation, as long as the land had some connection to mining or is adjacent to such land.
In Colorado, that describes much of the most valuable public land, since resorts like Breckenridge, Aspen and Telluride started off as mining towns and the public land around them is rife with old mining claims.
Pitkin County officials say they’ve been working for 15 years to eliminate old patented mining claims from backcountry areas. Such 100-year-old claims are already being developed into homesites around the mountains.
Critics fear that if the law passes, there could be a new wave of patented mining claims creating a new set of problems.
“I honestly think some folks in Washington don’t want people to know what’s really happening,” said Rep. John Salazar, whose district includes most of Colorado’s public lands, of the measure’s fast track through Congress.
But the mining industry and House Republicans say plenty of safeguards remain to ensure that the land can only be used by bona fide mining companies.
“I’m trying to see where the loophole is, and I’m having a hard time seeing it,” said Stephen Alfers, a mining attorney and CEO of NewWest Resources Group in Denver, who was consulted by the House staffers who wrote the bill.
