By Jen Schumann | Contributor, Rocky Mountain Voice
On Saturday in Nucla, Colo., hunters emerged from the wilderness. They paused from their morning hunt and headed to the town park in camouflage, joining with neighbors and locals to meet candidates for election.
At the heart of this gathering was a shared concern: the proposal to designate the nearby Dolores River as a national monument. Environmentalists praise its potential for conservation. But, it has sparked a fierce debate in Nucla.
Sean Pond, a Navy veteran and former nuclear engineer, leads the opposition through Halt the Dolores. Pond has criticized news media for ignoring those who would be most impacted by the Dolores Monument designation. He expressed gratitude to Rocky Mountain Voice for responding to the challenge of coming to hear from locals, firsthand, how they would be impacted.
For these communities, rooted in mining, ranching and farming, the designation threatens their culture and way of life.
The sentiment from these residents is clear: the monument may offer protection, but it comes at a price they are not willing to pay. And under terms they don’t trust.
“This isn’t just a designation, it’s a potential nail in the coffin for a town trying to recover and redefine itself,” says Aimee Tooker, former president of the West End Economic Development Corporation and entrepreneur in Nucla.
Many locals feel that the monument designation process has failed to include their voices.
“There is not a consensus by the private landowners on this. They weeded out everybody that ever was against it. We fought this for 18 years. And we held it that long. They got rid of us all ’til they got their own group in. The people representing agriculture don’t own any land. They keep saying there’s a consensus by the landowners. But all the landowners are completely against the NCA and Dolores monument,” said Larry Suckla, the largest private landowner on the Dolores River.
The Gateway Community conducted a survey earlier this month along with a statement. It shared that residents felt “shut out” during planning. A community statement said: “Instead of collaborating, you created massive pushback. It’s unfortunate.”
Western Slope residents worry about harm to local industries, especially mining. Many see it as key to the nation’s energy independence.
“We know how important it is to mine these critical minerals here in the United States for energy independence,” said Tooker.
John Justman, a farmer near Fruita, agrees: “[There’s] all this uranium mining that could be down in this area. We need a place to get uranium, whether we like to admit it or not.”
Many share this view. “We need to avoid locking the land up so tight that we do not have options in the future,” Ray Moores said.
John Reed is the quartermaster for the VFW in Nucla. He is also the vice president of the Tabeguache Trail Riders. This local horsemanship group advocates for access and land use on the Western Slope. Reed has been entrusted to represent the perspectives of these local groups. They fear the monument designation will limit their freedoms and disrupt their way of life.
“The infrastructure we’ve got in this area here will be [impacted] terribly if that happens,” Reed warns. He argues that existing infrastructure is inadequate. The increased tourism from the national monument’s designation is too much for the narrow canyon roads, he says.
An 81-year-old local, whose father was a rancher, wrote a letter on the issue to Rocky Mountain Voice, but wishes to remain anonymous. “We do NOT have the infrastructure for the volume of people,” she wrote.
This is echoed in the Gateway/Unaweep community statement: “The numbers of vehicle trips on Hwy 141 would be problematic and dangerous,” says Shane Burton.
Kindra Mazurek, a CDOT employee, adds, “Increased traffic will increase accidents. I’m very concerned.”
Tonya Stephens, a volunteer EMT explains how limited volunteer resources and long travel times would be strained by the monument designation. “We used to run 250 calls a year, and now we’re up over 400. And we have to travel two hours one way to get to a hospital.” She adds her concern about increased tourist traffic, “There’s going to be a slower response time to get to the hospital.“
In a wildfire-prone area, residents fear the monument will raise fire risks. It would limit land management practices, such as timber cutting, they say.
Dennis Pritchard, a firefighter and rancher from Paradox, says monument restrictions could hinder firefighting: “I’ve cowboy’ed all the way down to Paradox for winemakers and different ranches. Livestock is the best thing for the ground. They till it down to where there’s no longer a fire hazard. [But] Bennet and Hickenlooper think [designating more monuments] is the best thing to do.”
Pritchard argues that the monument designation will bring more rules. They will make it harder for locals to manage vegetation and fight fires. He says his community will have no power to act, except “to watch it burn.”
The Gateway/Unaweep community statement also warns of the danger: “Stopping all the timber and wood cutting will create a situation where it will burn all areas,” writes Leon Moores.
Public lands in the area provide vital resources for many residents. They rely on them for hunting, fishing, wood collecting and recreation. Limiting access, locals argue, would threaten these essential activities.
Barbara Hulet, a farmer from Olathe, views the designation as both a “water theft and a land theft,” explaining that restrictions could limit the ability to access necessary resources.
Michael S. Adams, a respondent in the Gateway/Unaweep Community Statement, elaborates: “A lot of the locals that use that land depend on that access. Cutting or minimizing those accesses would drive away or cut off the locals’ ability to survive.”
For many residents, the monument designation symbolizes a loss of autonomy, with outsiders imposing restrictions on land that locals have stewarded for generations.
The Gateway/Unaweep community statement supports this: “The people who live in this area have been stewards of the land for 150 years or better,” says Logan Littlejohn.
As Western Slope residents express their opposition to the proposed Dolores River Monument, a common theme emerges: they want to manage their own lands in ways that align with local values, continuing the longstanding cooperation they’ve built with the BLM and U.S. Forest Service.