<\/p>\n
A long-standing access issue at Yucca House National Monument is one step closer to being resolved.<\/p>\n
On Monday, Montezuma County commissioners agreed to support a key land donation to the monument so the public access point could be relocated off a ranchers\u2019 land.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a principled decision. We\u2019re happy about it,\u201d said Cliff Spencer, superintendent of Mesa Verde National Park, which manages Yucca House.<\/p>\n
The backstory provides some context.<\/p>\n
Back in 2014, rancher Larry Pickens asked the county to abandon Road 20.5, which accesses Yucca House, because tourist traffic and parking interfered with his farming operation.<\/p>\n
But the request was denied because monument managers pointed out they hold a permanent public road easement through the rancher\u2019s land, and it can\u2019t be abandoned unless another access point was created.<\/p>\n
Then conservationists Bernard and Nancy Karwick offered to donate to the park service a 160-acre parcel adjacent to Yucca House, allowing for a new access point. The donation was seen by the county as a solution.<\/p>\n
Expanding Yucca House on that scale requires congressional approval, and a bill was in the works.<\/p>\n
But in 2017, the commissioners \u2013 feeling annoyed about federal agencies obtaining private land and taking it off the tax rolls \u2013 passed a No Net Loss of Private Lands ordinance.<\/p>\n
The ordinance states that if a federal land agency acquires private land to be put in the public domain, an equal amount of acreage of federal land should be offered back to the private sector.<\/p>\n
The commissioners\u2019 main complaint has been purchases by Canyons of the Ancients National Monument of 12,000 acres of private inholdings and archaeological-rich bordering land from what has been \u201cwilling sellers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Montezuma County is about 40 percent federal land and 33 percent Ute Mountain Ute reservation, a sovereign nation, leaving just 27 percent in private hands.<\/p>\n
The No Net Loss policy created a \u201cstandstill,\u201d on the Yucca House issue, Spencer said, because Congress and potential bill sponsors needed county support to approve the land donation that would enlarge the monument.<\/p>\n
But on Monday, the commissioners recognized that their original support for the land donation happened before the No Net Loss policy donation, and they voted 3-0 to support it.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been critical of the federal government being obstructionist. Now we are doing the same, so I make the motion we allow the land donation process to continue like we had already agreed to,\u201d said commissioner Larry Don Suckla.<\/p>\n
The secluded Yucca House National Monument was established in 1919, and is surrounded by a ranch. The 800-year old, unexcavated pueblo village has the ruins of 600 rooms, 100 kivas, several towers, multiple plazas, unexplained structures, and one great kiva.<\/p>\n
With the approval of the land donation, a proposed new access point and parking lot would be located farther down Road 20.5 and off the ranch property.<\/p>\n