The U.S. Army’s plans to acquire as much as 418,577 acres of fragile grasslands in southeastern Colorado may face a bigger “tank trap” than the Pentagon expected when it announced its goal last February.
The Army already controls 240,000 acres at the Piñon Canyon Maneuver Site. Expanding to 1,000 square miles would displace ranchers who have been good stewards of these lands for generations.
The reaction from most of the state’s political leaders was originally meek. Gov. Bill Ritter and Sens. Wayne Allard and Ken Salazar urged the Army to only buy land from willing sellers and not to use federal eminent-domain powers.
Unfortunately, such pieties are largely beside the point. Most of the land the Army covets is in the Comanche National Grasslands and is already owned by the U.S. government. To be sure, the region is a checkerboard of private and public land.
But even without eminent domain, the Army could make most private landowners within or adjacent to the federal holdings an offer they couldn’t refuse.
The problem for many ranchers is that their private holdings are too small to be viable if they lose their grazing privileges on the adjacent public lands. Say you own one section (640 acres) and lease grazing rights on four more sections of federal land. If the feds revoke your grazing privileges, you’ve lost the ability to feed 80 percent of your herd. The Army would then be able to buy your remaining land at a distress sale price. Calling such a rancher a “willing seller” when the only alternative is bankruptcy makes a mockery of the term.
And face it, if a few diehards in this vast area did refuse to sell, the Army obviously could and would use eminent domain. National defense is the federal government’s core mission, and it unquestionably has the right to take private land to train our troops, as long as it pays the “just compensation” required by the Fifth Amendment.
As I noted in this column two weeks ago, U.S. Rep. Marilyn Musgrave invoked a much more promising line of defense against the Army by invoking the environmental protection laws, especially in regard to the Picket Wire Canyon area – home to thousands of dinosaur tracks, prehistoric Indian pictographs, other artifacts and portions of the Santa Fe Trail.
As the American Anthropological Association warned in a Feb. 12 letter to Musgrave that she forwarded to me, the Army’s proposals are “seriously inadequate to protect an area that contains the richest archaeological resources in Colorado outside of Mesa Verde.”
“The ancient rock art in and around the drainages along the Purgatoire River … is unparalleled,” the anthropologists concluded.
Last week, Salazar further changed the terms of this debate by unveiling his own vision of a “win- win” solution that would “protect the agricultural, natural, cultural and environmental heritage of the region.” Salazar’s proposal includes these points:
Allowing grazing to continue in the Piñon Canyon Maneuver Site.
Leasing land from private landowners so ranchers can continue to own and graze their lands.
Allowing public access to cultural and historic sites in the area.
Using goods and services from southeastern Colorado communities.
If these objectives really could be met, most ranchers and environmentalists would drop their opposition to the expansion plan. But can grazing cattle and throngs of tourists eager to view dinosaur tracks really coexist with speeding armored vehicles – not to mention live artillery fire – in the same general landscape, even one encompassing 1,000 square miles? That’s a tall order. But if the Army can’t meet it, it should weigh Salazar’s final point:
Consider alternate acquisition sites and smaller acreage levels for expansion.
Bob Ewegen (bewegen@denverpost. com) is deputy editorial page editor of The Denver Post.
