Over and over again this year, Coloradans have spoken out to oppose the state seizing our national public lands. In fact, a recent bipartisan poll from Colorado College showed that 72 percent of Coloradans view these lands as shared national places (the highest among western states, it should be pointed out), belonging not to a single state but to all Americans. And yet, Sen. Ellen Roberts is insistent on defending her vote to waste taxpayer resources to “study” land transfers that are, in reality, no more than corporate-backed land grabs.
As Roberts mentions in her column (Herald, July 8), the costs of managing wildfires in Colorado are outrageous. These costs alone would bankrupt our state should we be forced to manage national lands ourselves, let alone with the added burden of general maintenance costs every year. These expenses would inevitably lead to massive sell-offs and privatization – something none of us want. I love living in southwestern Colorado because of our access to the outdoors. It would be a big hit to our local economy and lifestyles should we lose access to our backyard landscapes.
Sen. Roberts did get something right, though. Right now, our federal land managers are having a hard time doing their jobs well because the same folks pushing these land-grab bills at the state level are lobbying to defund the BLM and U.S. Forest Service in Congress. Instead of focusing on land transfers, our representatives should be working hard to make sure our federal partners get the funding they need to do their jobs well.
In the meantime, it’s time for our elected officials, including Sen. Roberts, to drop this land-transfer issue. It’s untenable for Colorado, unpopular in our community and unfair for all Americans who love getting outdoors in our beautiful state.
Maddison Johnson
Durango
