ESTES PARK, Colo.-
With 14,259-foot Longs Peak as a backdrop, members of Colorado’s congressional delegation said Monday they will introduce legislation designating nearly all of Rocky Mountain National Park as wilderness.
The announcement caps about three decades of wrangling with various interests including farmers who use water that flows through irrigation ditches in the park and local communities concerned about maintaining public access to popular recreation areas.
“At the end of the day if you have a crown jewel like Rocky Mountain National Park, you want to make sure it’s preserved in its pristine state for generations to come,” said Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., who was joined by other lawmakers at an amphitheater that overlooks Moraine Park, a wide, flat valley carved out by glaciers and a popular gathering spot for elk herds.
Under the bill, 249,339 acres would be classified as wilderness—about 95 percent of the park—and 1,000 acres would be also added to the existing Indian Peaks Wilderness south of the park, keeping the land free of logging, mining and vehicles.
Land in the park that’s already developed, including Trail Ridge Road, the nation’s highest continuous paved road—would be exempted, along with the path of a proposed bike path along Grand Lake.
A compromise worked out by Colorado Democrats and Republicans in Congress cleared the way for the wilderness legislation and settled a monthslong dispute over what happens if a privately owned irrigation ditch on the park’s western edge overflows again.
The National Park Service and the owners of the Grand River Ditch will negotiate an agreement on how the ditch will be operated. That agreement would determine how any future breaches are handed but it would not cover a 2003 incident where the ditch overflowed, scouring a mountainside and forcing the temporary closure of trails and campsites.
The government sued the water company last year for damage caused by that incident.
The park, about 70 miles northwest of Denver, is Colorado’s No. 1 tourist attraction.
President Nixon first suggested protecting the park three decades ago, and Rep. Mark Udall, D-Colo., has introduced a wilderness bill every year since he took office in 1999.
Eight months ago, Sen. Wayne Allard and Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, both Republicans, broke from the version favored by Udall and Salazar and introduced their own legislation.
At issue was what liability Water Supply and Storage Co., owners of the Grand River Ditch, should bear for any future damage from the ditch. The question had implications for other private companies operating in the park.
Allard and Musgrave’s version protected the ditch company from liability for damage from accidental breaches in the park.
The compromise said the company would not be covered by the liability rules set out in federal law as long as the company follows the terms of an agreement to be worked out between the company and the park service.
The owners would remain liable for damage caused by negligence or intentional acts, the summary said, and the new rules would not apply to any damage that occurred before the bill is enacted.
Allard said bipartisan support from the state’s congressional delegation will help propel the bill through Congress.
While many national parks are generally designated as wilderness, Allard said Rocky Mountain is different in part because of the irrigation ditches—including the Grand River Ditch—that existed before the area became a park. Other states also had an interest since the Rocky Mountains are the headwaters for rivers used for irrigation in Kansas and Nebraska.
“We finally got all the interests together. I think we have a good bill that we can move forward with,” Allard said.
The bill also specifies that the wilderness desigation wouldn’t restrict maintenance and operation of the Colorado-Big Thompson Project, which pipes water from west of the Continental Divide to eastern Colorado.
Park superintendent Vaughn Baker said the designation wouldn’t change much at the park because it is already largely being managed as a wilderness area. But he said it would make sure that the practice continues despite changes in administration and it would prevent any development.
Judy Burke, the mayor of Grand Lake on the park’s western edge, said there were bills in the past that her community wouldn’t support because it took away public access to some parts of the park.
“It is wonderful to see that it has become a joint proposal, bipartisan legislation,” she said.
The National Park Service would still be able to control fire, insects and disease in wilderness areas under the proposal.
