The U.S. Forest Service on Thursday will release its final decision on that would deliver access to the long-planned Village at Wolf Creek.
The agency’s preliminary decision — released in 2012 as the preferred alternative in — gave tentative approval to the land swap first proposed by Texas billionaire Red McCombs in 2001.
The swap has 87-year-old McCombs giving the Forest Service 177.6 acres of critical wetlands in exchange for 204.4 acres of federal land. The deal pushes McCombs’ long-pondered plan for a 1,711-unit village atop Wolf Creek Pass away from the Wolf Creek ski area and connects his remote island of mountaintop land with U.S. Highway 160, providing essential access to his proposed village.
McCombs — a self-built billionaire who co-founded Clear Channel Communications and once owned the Denver Nuggets — acquired the 300-acre island of remote federal land in a 1986 land exchange with the agency. The plan back then was a three-way business partnership with the Pitcher clan who owns Wolf Creek ski area and a Texas businessman.
The village plan was dormant for nearly a decade. The plan’s revival in the late 1990s galvanized environmental groups that vehemently opposed carving a large resort village into the high alpine terrain atop the remote pass.
But village development hinged on access. Federal law requires the government to provide “reasonable access” to landowners surrounded by public land. The Forest Service approved an initial plan for access through a Wolf Creek ski area parking lot in 2006. A lawsuit by a collective of environmental groups halted construction of the road. In 2010, across federal land and connected his parcel with U.S. 160 while nixing planned development in critical riparian habitat and reducing the overall size of his proposed village.
Environmental groups bemoaned the fact that the Forest Service’s intensive environmental review only peripherally addressed the overall impacts of the proposed village and focused largely on the land exchange. The Forest Service does not have jurisdiction over development on private land so further review of the village development will be done by elected leaders of the 750-resident Mineral County.
Land advocacy groups urged the Forest Service to pursue the no-action alternative and decline the land swap. But the agency still would need to require year-round access to the parcel. Regardless of the land swap decision, the development of a large resort village remains on the horizon for Wolf Creek Pass.
“It would be great for the Forest Service to say ‘We’re sorry, but we don’t think this is in the public interest and we are not going to approve the land exchange and we are not going to provide access because the whole idea behind ‘reasonable access’ is open for interpretation,'” said Christine Canaly, whose San Luis Valley Ecosystem Council has joined the San Juan Citizens Alliance and Colorado Wild in opposing the village at Wolf Creek for more than 15 years.
But that’s not likely. So if the Forest Service issues a final approval to the land exchange, the fight over the village will go the local level. In , but that decision was .
“In the meantime the county has changed. There are different county commissioners, different land use planners, a new attorney. I’m hoping this Mineral County will deal with the village differently,” Canaly said.
Jason Blevins: 303-954-1374, jblevins@denverpost.com or twitter.com/jasonblevins
