Sen. Bennet announces federal legislation to protect more than 700,000 acres of Colorado Western Slope land
The Gunnison Outdoor Resource Protection (GORP) Act would place different federal land designations in and around Gunnison County. The effort has been more than 10 years in the making.
John F. Russell/Steamboat Pilot & Today
GORP.
Does it stand for “good old raisins and peanuts,” a classic trail mix combo, or is it referring to a sweeping federal lands protection bill? Well, it’s both.
Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colorado, on Thursday released the Gunnison Outdoor Resource Protection (GORP) Act, a new legislative proposal that would safeguard more than 700,000 acres of public land in and around Gunnison County, if enacted by Congress.
The bill would place different types of federal land designations throughout the region aimed at enhancing protections for undeveloped and wildlife areas, managing recreation use and spurring more research and education.
Additionally, it would withdraw more than 74,000 acres of key lands in Delta County’s North Fork Valley from oil and gas development and secure public access to a boat ramp at the Gunnison Forks Day Use Area.
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It would also transfer over 18,000 acres of Ute Mountain Ute Tribe land from fee ownership to trust ownership, a first for a public lands bill in Colorado, Bennet said. Doing so would unlock the potential for these lands to access more federal funding and programs while protecting the tribe’s sovereignty.
“All the way back to 2012, I’ve heard from the Gunnison County community about the need for more public lands protections,” Bennet said during a virtual press conference Sept. 26. “The effects of climate change, drought, increased visitation and development have put unprecedented stress on Gunnison County’s economy and on its natural resources.”
From those concerns formed the Gunnison Public Lands Initiative, a coalition group that includes recreationists, ranchers, hunters, water managers and conservationists. Leaders from adjacent counties — including Delta and Pitkin — also worked with the group to identify new protections for land within their counties that are intertwined with the Gunnison area.
“For people to stay at the table for over 10 years shows how important public lands are … not just to our economy and not just to our way of life — but these are the roots of our values as Coloradans,” said Gunnison County Commissioner Jonathan Houck.
The result is the legislation introduced by Bennet and co-sponsored by Sen. John Hickenlooper.
“At the heart of every discussion over the bill was a shared respect for the generations before us who preserved these lands and a shared responsibility to future generations,” Bennet said.
Stakeholders involved with the process hailed the legislation’s various prongs that aim to balance recreation access with outdoor preservation.
“It is critical that we empower future generations … with the knowledge that they need to manage the environmental challenges that they inherit from us,” said Ian Billick, mayor of Crested Butte and executive director of the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory.
The bill “sets direction, congressionally, for the Forest Service to prioritize research and education in one of the most intensively studied ecosystems in the world,” he added.
Tony Prendergast, a Gunnison-area rancher with a background in different recreation industries, said he is excited to see a higher level of stewardship and protection for big game habitat and migration corridors as well as for extensive cold water fisheries.
“The scale of wildlife habitat protected across Forest Service and (Bureau of Land Management) lands in this bill is impressive,” Prendergast said.
Bennet said he is optimistic the GORP Act will pass Congress with bipartisan support, but acknowledged that “it has been hard to get public lands bills across the finish line over the last decade or so in Washington.”
“I am hopeful that we are going to see some movement in terms of public lands at the end of this year in this Congress,” Bennet added.
Among the several sweeping public land initiatives currently stalled in Congress is the Colorado Outdoor Recreation and Economy (CORE) Act, versions of which have passed the U.S. House of Representatives five times since 2019 but have yet to advance out of the Senate.
The legislation, co-led by Bennet and House Rep. Joe Neguse, would dramatically expand protections to 420,000 acres of state public land, 71,000 of which would be new wilderness and nearly 80,000 of which would be new recreation and conservation management areas. Initial provisions of the bill did pass in some form after President Joe Biden designated the Camp Hale National Historic Landscape and the Tenmile Recreation Management Area a national monument last year.
Another federal proposal to create a 400,000-acre national monument along the Dolores River in Montrose and Mesa counties has faced local backlash. If approved, it would be the largest national monument in Colorado and residents and landowners have raised concerns over crowds, loss of access for ranches and potential impacts on the mining industry — a longtime economic driver.
Bennet said he would not support legislation “that affects existing grazing rights, that affects existing water rights, that affects the multiple uses that people historically have had on those lands.”
On GORP, Bennet said there is broad, bipartisan support for the legislation at the regional and state level.
“I’m very interested as we do this work in making sure what we do can last, what we do is durable,” Bennet said. “The broader consensus we can create in the communities affected by these lands, the better off we all are.”
Houck, the Gunnison County Commissioner, said stakeholders are prepared to push for the GORP Act’s passage for as long as it takes.
“We’ve been at the table this far, we’re going to stay at the table until the end,” he said.
