{"id":105266,"date":"2016-05-06T20:58:44","date_gmt":"2016-05-07T02:58:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/bennet-touts-conservation-during-walk-on-durango-trail\/"},"modified":"2016-05-06T20:58:44","modified_gmt":"2016-05-07T02:58:44","slug":"bennet-touts-conservation-during-walk-on-durango-trail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/bennet-touts-conservation-during-walk-on-durango-trail\/","title":{"rendered":"Bennet touts conservation during walk on Durango trail"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Parks
Parks and Recreation Director Cathy Metz and Sen. Michael Bennet stand in front of the Durango Skate Park, which was funded in part by the Land and Water Conservation Fund.<\/span>Jonathan Romeo\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Sen. Michael Bennet<\/a> walked the Animas River Trail<\/a> on Thursday, enjoying the sunshine and sights made possible by a fund he and other senators saved from extinction last month.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s not a county in American that doesn\u2019t have a Land and Water Conservation project,\u201d Bennet told a gathering of local officials and outdoor recreationists. \u201cAnd it\u2019s not just about wilderness areas. It also makes skate parks like this possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pointing to the Durango Skate Park in Schneider Park, Bennet lauded the countless projects throughout the state made possible by the Land and Water Conservation Fund<\/a>, and stressed the need to make those funds permanent.<\/p>\n

Last year, the conservation tool expired, raising concern whether a politically and ideologically divided Congress would reinstate the fund. It was extended for three years in December in the omnibus spending bill. Last month, senators passed an energy bill that would permanently reauthorize the fund. The 50-year-old conservation fund has brought more than $239 million to the state of Colorado, through a portion of royalties from offshore oil and gas drillings.<\/p>\n

Locally, the city has been the beneficiary of $875,309 in grants for outdoor projects, including for Schneider, Needham and Rank parks, the Fort Lewis College picnic area, the Hillcrest Golf Course addition, and a portion of the Animas River Trail.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe purpose of the Land and Water Conservation Fund is to benefit the conservation effort,\u201d said Parks and Recreation Director Cathy Metz. \u201cAnd it\u2019s certainly done that in Durango.\u201d<\/p>\n

La Plata County Commissioner Julie Westendorff said the county has received about $1.5 million from the fund, enabling projects such as the Bodo State Wildlife Area<\/a> and the Southern Ute Tribe\u2019s Chief Ouray Memorial Park<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Regionally, the funds have preserved nearly 6,000-acres in Canyon of the Ancients National Monument<\/a>, enabling the purchase of private inholdings. Other projects occurred in Mesa Verde National Park<\/a> and the San Juan National Forest<\/a>, where in 2010 almost 1,100 acres of forestland in the Ophir was purchased.<\/p>\n

\u201c(The LWCF) is probably our nation\u2019s greatest conservation tool,\u201d said The Wilderness Society<\/a>\u2019s senior director Jeremy Garncarz.<\/p>\n

The energy bill that includes permanent reauthorization of the LWCF needs House approval. Bennet said he\u2019s \u201coptimistic\u201d the House will find a way to pass the legislation.<\/p>\n

jromeo@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Federal fund delivers more than $875,000 to city, $1.5 million to county<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":105267,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[529,13,25],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-105266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-conservation","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-u-s-sen-michael-bennet"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105266\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/105267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105266"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=105266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}