Western CO LWCF Win

[Oak]

I missed the quarterly BLM Colorado SW Resource Advisory Council meeting earlier this month because of the RMBS banquet. I wish I could have made it, because they discussed an amazing land acquisition that looks to be moving forward, made possible by a willing seller and LWCF funds. The Conservation Fund anticipates purchasing Escalante Ranch - which is comprised of over 4,000 deeded acres of inholdings within the Dominguez-Escalante National Conservation Area - later in 2024, and selling the ranch to the BLM in 2025. This acquisition will open access to much of lower Escalante Creek and significant portions of the Gunnison River within the NCA. It's not uncommon to see herds of 20+ desert bighorn sheep grazing in Escalante Ranch's irrigated pastures along the creek and river.

Here's a link to the slide show that was presented at the meeting.

Here's a link to the maps.

 

[Bigjay73]

This is great news!!

 

[Big Fin]

This is so cool. Having all these great groups working on public access makes a big difference. Getting full and permanent funding of LWCF in 2020 has ramped up the public access game, where the agencies are seeking new properties to acquire from willing sellers way more proactively than they were prior to 2020.

Thanks for sharing, @Oak.

 

[GrantK]

Awesome! The amount of access the ranch blocks due to its shape is pretty huge, and selfishly, I'm hopeful that the climbing that was closed by the ranch a couple of years ago gets reopened, a good chunk of early CO climbing history lives on the ranch.

 

[seeth07]

Getting full and permanent funding of LWCF in 2020 has ramped up the public access game

I watched your rant the other day and you hit this part of your talk right on. The use of these funds on projects like this happen all over the country and I have been involved in helping make a few them occur in my neck of the woods.

This is a massive amount of property being purchased and everyone involved should be very proud of making this happen.

 

[trb]

Very excited for this purchase. Such a cool area. A beautiful and underrated Western River trip, incredible archaeology, and some very cool wildlife in the area.

 

[sneakem]

Very cool. Someone posted a FB video this weekend with a bunch of sheep on that very property. Always a bunch of sheep down there.

 

[Schaaf]

I could probably figure this out by looking at prior BLM acquisitions but what generally happens with irrigated land once the BLM takes over?

Looks like a hell of a good project on every front.

 

[tormenter]

This is great - now if they just don't vote out hunting for the animals that use the property. Hopefully this information on what sportsmen groups did to assembly this and make it happen will by us some time and goodwill.

 

[Ben Long]

Gratitude and congratulations to everyone who helped make it happen.

 

[davinski]

Cool, looks like a good chunk of land. Cue the two county commissions' pearl-clutching about lost tax revenue.

 

[GigiBobert]

Dick Miller/Escalante Ranch had a very large grazing permit with a long season of use creating a pretty substantial western public lands ranching operation on both the BLM and USFS (with a little CPW thrown in), with this ranch as base property to qualify for the permits. This was the real deal. What's the BLM and USFS's plans for the permitted numbers? Retire, re-allocate, grass bank, adjust adjacent allotment boundaries?