It\u2019s been a long time coming, these extraordinary bipartisan Senate and House bills that propose additional protections for the Lower Dolores River corridor. Equally impressive are stakeholders who spent 14 years, pulling together this legislation.<\/p>\n
At their first meeting during a blizzard in December 2008, a quick glance around the room could have produced skeptics. People from wildly diverse backgrounds sized up each other. Glared and made assumptions. County commissioners, ranchers, reps from water districts, Ute Mountain Ute members, recreationists, landowners, conservationists \u2013 some with boating habits \u2013 got through the initial awkwardness.<\/p>\n
At the time, though, you could almost smell the fear. Who would try to take water from whom?<\/p>\n
Instead, stakeholders heard each other\u2019s concerns and learned they mostly wanted the same thing. A river that supports recreation and agriculture.<\/p>\n
This was a starting point, along with an unconditional love of the area. Good science would be their guide. They would become the Lower Dolores Working Group.<\/p>\n
Dolores County Commissioner Julie Kibel said: \u201cBy the time we got to the hard questions, we had built that bond. And that mutual respect.\u201d<\/p>\n
The group came to embody the ability \u2013 rare and elusive \u2013 to put aside differences for a mutual goal. \u201cMy approach has always been to listen to people,\u201d said Amber Clark, executive director of Dolores River Boating Advocates.<\/p>\n
The journey was winding. Players dropped out, then back in, then out again. The group had side turns and outside loops. A pressing priority \u2013 not addressed by legislation \u2013 was the right amount of water released to support native fish spawning. Fish couldn\u2019t wait for legislation to be dialed in. The timing was critical, and led to monitoring and recommendations.<\/p>\n
And they kept returning to that river love. Who wouldn\u2019t swoon inside the canyon\u2019s desert-patina streaked red walls, protecting mighty old-growth ponderosas? The river shape-shifts. It\u2019s an enchanting place with desert bighorn sheep, bear and river otters, and a vitality that stays with people. The Dolores touches each community it runs through.<\/p>\n
Group members built their best legislative tool for the job. Community values, such as cultural and natural resources, native fish, boating and agricultural interests, had to be included. From the early days, Sen. Michael Bennet and his staff were committed. After much give and take, the group found language to protect the Lower Dolores River corridor and keep it under a kind of local control with an advisory committee on the management plan. The end result is the expertly crafted, homegrown Dolores River National Conservation Area and Special Management Act. Legislation protects more than 68,000 acres of public land along a coveted 75-mile stretch of the river canyon below McPhee Dam in Montezuma, Dolores and San Miguel counties. The area includes the spectacular Ponderosa Gorge.<\/p>\n
The bills ensure traditional uses \u2013 grazing, uranium mining and other mineral extraction. Motorized-vehicle use will continue. The bills prohibit new mining and oil and gas permits, but protect existing rights and leases. It also bans new large dams, new roads and commercial logging.<\/p>\n
John Whitney, a regional director with Bennet\u2019s office, said, \u201cI can\u2019t think of a place where people worked harder to get a bill done.\u201d<\/p>\n
Whitney remembered the group eating lunch alongside the river, making breakthroughs. \u201cNo way better to do that than to spend a day in the canyon,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The group evolved into a community. Jeff Widen of The Wilderness Society said \u201cit was a true partnership.\u201d Kibel added, \u201cWe count each other as friends.\u201d<\/p>\n
We in the Southwest are better off for group members\u2019 diligence in protecting the sublime, delicate Lower Dolores River corridor.<\/p>\n
Fourteen years of discussions and compromise, missed dinners and homework with kids to get here.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It\u2019s been a long time coming, these extraordinary bipartisan Senate and House bills that propose additional protections for the Lower Dolores River corridor. Equally impressive are stakeholders who spent 14 years, pulling together this legislation. At their first meeting during a blizzard in December 2008, a quick glance around the room could have produced skeptics. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[125],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-38880","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-newsletter-opinion"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38880","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=38880"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38880\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38880"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=38880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}