Sean Pond was around a small town of his native western Colorado when he spotted a man in a blue ball cap. Above the bill were the words at the center of an ongoing controversy: “PROTECT THE DOLORES.”
Pond approached the man.
“He said someone at REI just gave it to him and he liked it,” Pond recalls, “but he had no idea what it meant.”
Composed of several local and national conservation groups, the Protect the Dolores Coalition is pushing for nearly 400,000 acres of public land spanning Mesa and Montrose counties to be Colorado’s next national monument. The proposed Dolores Canyons National Monument would bring new protections and management to the red rock landscape beyond the legendary river corridor.
Conservationists for decades have eyed that remote, embattled corridor as worthy of a wild and scenic river designation and, more recently, as a national conservation area.
“The values extend also to the surrounding canyon and mesa country,” says Scott Braden, the Grand Junction-based director of Colorado Wildlands Project, a leading proponent of the national monument.
Braden spoke of a mosaic with Grand Canyon-like beauty; of wildlife including desert bighorn sheep; of a tributary-streaked landscape supporting critical habitat; and of ancient, cultural sites he sees similarly at risk of unchecked recreation — particularly from off-roading over Cold War-era paths carved during the heyday of uranium exploration.
The prospect of mining, the potential of that revived economy in this region known as the West End, is one major layer of a heated dispute over the proposed monument.
In a sign of the proposal gaining momentum, U.S. Sens. John Hickenlooper and Michael Bennet in the spring visited the region to meet local audiences. In a sign of the tension, the senators heard a mix of cheers and jeers.
Pond has been the most outspoken critic. His points have been echoed by Mesa County and Montrose County commissioners; their letters of opposition have been joined by other local governments and civic groups.
“(T)he proposed monument designation raises concerns about federal overreach and the erosion of local control over land management decisions,” reads a letter from Club 20, the decades-old group representing Western Slope counties, businesses and tribes.
Reads the top of the online petition started by Pond: “This petition is born out of a deeply personal concern for the residents of Gateway, Paradox, Bedrock, Nucla and Naturita.”
From his home in Nucla, Pond has rallied opposition over what he and local officials see as a “land grab.” They say the monument designation would block economic development and compromise water rights and grazing by generational ranchers.
Opponents worry, too, that a national monument would bring tourists to a small, remote populace lacking infrastructure and interest.
“Those of us who choose to live over here and live this lifestyle do it for one reason,” Pond says. “We are away. We’re isolated, we’re private.”
People of the West End care more than anyone about the Dolores canyonlands, Pond insists. “We love this country. There’s nobody that wants to protect it more than us.”
One common hashtag he regularly posts on Facebook: #itsalreadyprotected, referring to current guards under the Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service.
Another common hashtag: #repealtheantiquitiesact.
In a divided Congress that has stalled on the national conservation area proposal or any other designation requiring bureaucratic wheels to turn, advocates have sought a national monument proclamation through the Antiquities Act. The 1906 law empowers the president to expedite protections; President Joe Biden used his authority to establish Camp Hale-Continental Divide National Monument, near Leadville, in 2022.
The monument was seen as a step toward Biden’s “30x30” initiative, a bold vision to conserve 30% of the nation’s lands and waters by 2030.
“Stop30x30,” reads another one of Pond’s hashtags.
“Other communities are being challenged with national monuments. It’s not a solo act with this Dolores proposal,” says Montrose County Commissioner Sue Hansen. “We’re in it for the long haul here to do what we need to do for this community, for miners, ranchers and the small towns that are trying to exist.”
From Braden’s view, if the Dolores proposal underscores perceived government overreach and threats to rural communities, the debate also underscores the broader plight of discourse and our political moment pitting good vs. evil.
Just as one heard cheers and jeers during senator visits in recent months, Braden has seen online comments turn ugly.
“Can we live together? Can we talk about our issues we need to talk about respectfully?” Braden says. “I think this is a test case of that for the Western Slope.”
The past meets the present
Proponents have pointed to polls showing support for Dolores Canyons National Monument.
In response to “conserving important wildlife habitat, safeguarding the area’s scenic beauty and supporting outdoor recreation,” Colorado College’s annual State of the Rockies survey reported 92% in support. Said to have asked 750 residents around Dolores, Mesa, Montezuma, Montrose and San Miguel counties, another survey last year reported 68% in support.
A more recent survey, released in April, found 72% of 1,272 area residents opposed the idea. Elected officials have pointed to that survey as more “scientific.” They have accused “special interest groups” of stirring support around cities away from the West End and using “phony” numbers to appeal to legislators, as Pond puts it.
“I think most people here would agree, had I not started a petition and drawn attention to this, this monument would’ve slipped through with the dishonest backing of the proponents,” he says.
Citing multiple stakeholder meetings last summer, Braden says he “categorically rejects” the notion that advocates ignored locals.
He rejects, too, the notion that the national monument would shut down mining possibilities, pointing to active claims outside the proposed boundary. The aim was to “strike a balance” with the boundary, Braden says.
“But we do feel it would be a tragedy for mining to happen or exploration to happen in some of these more sensitive and remote places,” he says.
Critics see the proposal overlaying the Uravan Mineral Belt. That’s the geologic zone storing uranium and vanadium, so named for the town of Uravan that rose to produce some uranium for the Manhattan Project.
A mine and mill operated through the Cold War, before hundreds of workers were displaced and the town torn down in the 1980s for radioactive cleanup. Uravan is but one boom-and-bust story in the region, with Nucla’s coal-fired power plant representing another. Tri-State announced the closure in 2019 — another moment that saw environmentalists as the bad guys locally.
“When Tri-State closed two years sooner than expected, that really threw (the community) for a loop,” says Hansen, the Montrose County commissioner. Property values plummeted, and basic services and businesses were lost with jobs, she says. “It’s been a struggle.”
And “now, we’re almost at a point of repeating history again, where there’s this need for uranium,” says Regina Lopez-Whiteskunk, a national monument supporter representing the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe and a local conservation group. “The eyes are on our region here again.”
With the Biden administration recently banning uranium imports from Russia, local officials see the Uravan Mineral Belt as prime terrain to explore the minerals needed for nuclear development and viewed as key to the clean energy transition.
“The national monument designation would drastically limit future opportunities,” Mesa County Commissioner Bobbie Daniel said in a statement, noting such opportunities as “small-scale nuclear reactors” and “critical supply chain resources” for semiconductors and electrical vehicle batteries.
Daniel added: “The designation would unnecessarily put our national security, economy and ally nations at a significant disadvantage at a time when pivotal resources must be readily available to ensure security and stability domestically and abroad.”
But such a push might ignore environmental justice, Lopez-Whiteskunk suggests.
America’s only operating uranium processing mill looms not far from her reservation, over the state line in Blanding, Utah, near a smaller Ute Mountain Ute base. Lopez-Whiteskunk’s tribe has long called for the White Mesa Mill’s closure, saying the industry has poisoned their land, water and bodies.
Lopez-Whiteskunk’s grandchildren live in the area. “During their school days, they’re transported past the uranium mill every day,” she says, “and it is gut-wrenching for me to think about.”
Continuing the conversation
For Lopez-Whiteskunk, it is similarly gut-wrenching to think about the Dolores canyonlands somehow degraded. She knows it as a scenic place where her ancestors lived and roamed over millennia.
“It feels like you’re going to visit your grandparents,” she says. “It’s got a certain soothing element that many of us don’t experience.”
Many more are experiencing it thanks to old mining roads, says Craig Grother, another national monument supporter. He’s a longtime San Miguel County resident, retired wildlife biologist and explorer of the canyonlands representing Colorado Backcountry Hunters and Anglers.
“There’s a lot of OHV use, and there’s better and better machines,” Grother says. “People have just been driving all over the place out here, just continually opening these places up and pushing further out.”
The idea is for the national monument to better manage that recreation now before predicted surges. “We argue a monument could help us get ahead of that,” Braden says.
The Protect the Dolores Coalition argues the designation could help the West End’s economy, perhaps symbolizing a tilt from mining to tourism. Opponents fear a tilt too far.
“The threat of mass tourism is terrifying,” Pond says. “We don’t want to be a Moab, Utah.”
Nothing seems imminent.
During their recent visits, Hickenlooper and Bennet sounded noncommittal over the monument proposal. Hansen appreciates their stances.
“When they tell you they have not decided on anything and they want to understand all the issues first, then respect goes up, trust goes up,” she says. “And you start building those opportunities to have a conversation.”
It’s been a hard conversation locally — hard like other political conversations near and far. However at odds on the issue, Hansen agrees with Braden’s view of the debate representing something larger.
“I do think it’s emblematic of what’s happening across the country,” Hansen says. “It would appear that having a conversation with someone with a differing view or a different political party is seen as disloyal.”
The need to protect a place, the need for an economic future — those are among values both sides share, Pond recognizes.
“If we could just get people in this country to think about the bigger picture and get away from the labels that divide us, man, we could do some great things for this country,” he says. “But we’re so divided by colors.”
Colors like the blue seen on those “PROTECT THE DOLORES” ball caps.
Like that unaware stranger he met, how many more would fall in line with a cause unaware of the details? Pond wondered. How many like him would be ignored? “They have avoided me,” Pond says.
Another line of apparel was needed, he decided. Now people can be found sporting the orange of “HALT THE DOLORES MONUMENT.”
And the commentary continues on Facebook. Read one recent post: “It’s time to stop compromising and start fighting for what we believe in!”
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