Sandwiched between the Animas River and the Dolores River divide sits a patch of dense, coniferous forest named for and defined by the exceedingly cold and clear Hermosa Creek.
Nearly all of the watershed – 107,000 acres – is federally protected thanks to a piece of legislation that was crafted through a painstakingly inclusive community engagement process. Over the course of eight years, community stakeholders in Southwest Colorado worked toward consensus, drafted, and lobbied.
And 10 years ago Thursday, the Hermosa Creek Watershed Protection Act of 2014 was signed into law, attached to the annual defense spending appropriation bill, by President Barack Obama.
“This bill was not written in Washington, D.C., it was written by the people in Southwest Colorado and protected the land for many of its historic uses,” said Sen. Michael Bennet, a Democrat, who worked with former Republican Rep. Scott Tipton to get the legislation through Congress. “And it was, it may seem like ancient history, but a time when you could get bipartisan agreement on a public lands bill and pass it through the Congress and get it on the president’s desk.”
The bill designated the watershed into two areas: a 37,000-acre wilderness, which remains more or less undisturbed by long-lasting human activity (mechanized transport including bicycles are not allowed in wilderness areas) and a 70,000-acre special management area.
Ten years later, the San Juan National Forest is improving the recreation roads and trails in the watershed, building new opportunities to explore it and working to preserve Hermosa Creek, its tributaries and the wildlife that live in them.
Discussions about protections for Hermosa Creek started as early as 2006, when community members got together to talk about the forest plan, regional watersheds and Wild and Scenic River designations.
Marsha Porter-Norton, now a La Plata County commissioner, was hired by the state water conservation board to work as the facilitator.
Key stakeholders – San Juan Citizens Alliance, Trout Unlimited, the Southwestern Water Conservation District, the International Mountain Bicycling Association and many others – showed up to monthly meetings of the Hermosa watershed subgroup. But no single issue was permitted to be elevated over another.
“Anybody could come to the table. It was not an appointed group,” Porter-Norton said. “And we ended up having about 45 to 55 people at every meeting, which is kind of unbelievable.”
The discussions were bipartisan, interest-driven and dialogue-rooted, said Jimbo Buickerood, who worked as SJCA’s lands and forest protection manager at the time.
“It was an example of what this country needs to take a look at,” he said.
Representatives of the San Juan National Forest sat in on meetings in an advisory capacity, but could not advocate for one outcome or another.
Where motorized uses would be allowed was one major sticking point; so was the size of the wilderness area, which denies access to mountain bikers; and the water conservation district had concerns about its potential access.
“The whole impetus behind it was the watershed conditions and water quality,” said Cam Hooley, the now-retired National Environmental Policy Act coordinator for the Columbine Ranger District who was ultimately charged with writing the watershed management plan.
In 2010, the group reached consensus and published a 33-page final report. It was a remarkable moment, Porter-Norton said.
The report called for a 150,000-acre SMA and a 50,000-acre wilderness – both designations would get scaled back by the time the bill was signed into law in 2014.
The intervening years were defined by “a lot of meetings,” said Tipton, the former Republican congressman from the Western Slope.
“People were all working with a good heart, not trying to find a way to stop something, but (saying) ‘should we find a way to be able to work together?” he said.
“There was nothing inevitable about this legislation,” Bennet said.
Ed Zink, who died in 2019, was a longtime advocate for protections in the Hermosa drainage and a respected leader in the discussions, Tipton and Bennet added.
“He was delighted when it passed Congress,” Ed’s wife, Patti, said. “I can remember him sitting watching it on C-SPAN … and just being so delighted that after all those years.”
Of course, the designation was, in a way, just the beginning.
The law set a three-year timeline for the Forest Service to complete a plan for the newly established SMA and wilderness. Hooley took the full three years.
She held public meetings and open houses, took stakeholders on field trips into the area and spent significant time focusing on travel management. Six months after the plan was signed, in December 2017, the 416 Fire broke out.
“We hadn’t even had a chance to do anything yet and the SMA caught on fire,” Hooley said.
After the fire burned 54,000 acres of the watershed, questions proliferated. Would extensive repairs be necessary? Would trails have to be rebuilt?
When the ashes settled, it became clear that most of the fire was not high intensity, and little had changed from a management perspective.
“That delayed us a year for implementing because of the fire. And so then it was 2019, and we had a year to start moving on it,” Hooley said. “And then it was the pandemic.”
In recent years, state and federal agencies have made big strides to shore up the recreational opportunities and preservation of wildlife in the watershed.
Hermosa Creek’s clean, cold waters are perfect habitat for Colorado River Cutthroat trout, said Colorado Parks and Wildlife Senior Aquatic Biologist Jim White.
In 2020, CPW completed the restoration of the trout in 23 miles of the upper reaches of Hermosa Creek.
For its part, the Forest Service has undertaken a number of stream improvements. This summer, it completed the installation of two aquatic organism passages on Sig and Relay Creeks. The AOPs allow cutthroat access to parts of the stream previously cutoff by impassible culverts.
The forest will close Hermosa Park Road again over summer 2025 to install an AOP on the main stem of Hermosa Creek.
District Ranger Nick Glidden, on the Columbine Ranger District, is also exceedingly proud of the recently minted Cutthroat Trail – a 6.2-mile segment built with electric bike users in mind.
Travel management was a massive undertaking for the entire SMA, Hooley said. It included winter travel and summer travel, motorized and nonmotorized, to carefully ensure that the steam remained a stronghold of outstanding waters.
“Everything we do in the Hermosa comes down to Durango and hits Hermosa on the way,” Glidden said. “… It’s hard to physically or mentally connect yourself with town, but that water is flowing down and eventually hitting the Animas and town.”
“I’ve never met a person, literally not met a person, that said they wish that we had not passed the Hermosa Creek watershed bill,” Bennet said. “I think there’s universal agreement that it was good for Durango and good for Southwest Colorado, good for Colorado as a whole.”
The question now: Could it happen again?
For over a decade, a similar cast of characters, including Bennet and Porter-Norton, have been involved in community stakeholder conversations around how to protect the Dolores Watershed.
Protections for that waterway have become a political flashpoint, especially as calls for a national monument – a unilateral decision by the president – have become louder.
The proposed national conservation area is a dramatically different plan, and one that has the backing of Colorado’s two Democratic senators and Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert, who represents the 3rd District for another two weeks.
“I’m never going to give up,” Bennet said. “These places are critically important to Colorado.”
The recipe that worked on the Hermosa bill is the best one available, according to Porter-Norton. An NCA, established through an act of Congress, would offer protections as dictated by the local community. A national monument, in contrast, a top-down approach.
“In my mind, this bill, the Hermosa Creek bill, is a reminder of what our democracy can do at its best,” Bennet said.
rschafir@durangoherald.com
