Pitkin and Eagle counties have formally expressed their interest in purchasing about 40 acres along the Roaring Fork River in El Jebel from the U.S. Forest Service.
A letter to Scott Fitzwilliams, supervisor of the White River National Forest, signed by the open space directors in both counties, sets the wheels in motion for a process that may give the counties the right of first refusal to buy the land. The price has yet to be established.
The Forest Service was required to offer the property to the two counties first, according to Fitzwilliams, as the two governments acquired the bulk of the El Jebel land in a trade with the agency in the 1990s. The river parcel is part of what was once a tree nursery known as the Mount Sopris Tree Farm, now the site of Crown Mountain Park and an Eagle County administrative office building.
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