Loss of Land
So far, Colorado has escaped the Trump-Zinke pillaging of public lands that has so sadly reduced the great public monuments of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante in southern Utah. Bears Ears is less than a quarter its former size! Monuments in Nevada and California/Washington appear to be in the crosshairs next. While western Colorado’s Canyons of the Ancients monument is on Zinke’s original list, it has not been mentioned recently. Is it safe? Eastern Colorado’s public lands, notably the Pawnee and Comanche National Grasslands, are not in the Monument category. Are they safe?
A look at the natural resources under the Utah national monuments leaves us in little doubt as to why they are being returned to the private sector. In addition to archaeological resources sacred to several tribes, those lands contain rich deposits of coal, uranium, oil, and natural gas. We will not have long to wait to see what developers are favored with their largess.
The Federal Bureau of Land Management has already auctioned off mineral rights under the Pawnee Grasslands in northeastern Colorado. Most of the leases stipulate that the rights must be accessed by means of horizontal drilling from wellpads placed on private land.
Unique landscapes in the Pawnee Buttes area are, thus, protected from disruption by industrial activity, but the carbon extracted and burned, the methane leaked into the atmosphere, the millions of gallons of water lost to fracking, all still damage the environment. Whether the shortgrass ecosystems of the grasslands will survive the resulting climate change remains to be seen.
