After more than 18 months of microscopic progress in the U.S. Senate, the Hermosa Creek Watershed Protection Act is slated for consideration in the chamber’s Energy and Natural Resources Committee today. This critical step on the measure’s path to enactment is both long anticipated and long overdue. The committee should take decisive action to advance this bipartisan measure that developed from widespread community support crafted through an exhaustive and inclusive stakeholder process. The window to do so – which has been open but unused since the measure’s introduction in April 2013 – is closing.
The Hermosa Creek bill would establish a watershed-wide protection area for nearly 108,000 acres divided into three levels of management. It would designate nearly 38,000 acres of new wilderness, and delineate a 68,000-acre special management area wherein a portion would remain road-free but open to mountain bike and other trail users, while a segment would be available for higher-impact activities including some logging. The measure comprises the recommendations of the Hermosa Creek River Protection Workgroup, a collaborative gathering of stakeholders convened to discuss protection strategies for the shared values held by conservationists, equestrians, hunters, anglers, water interests, mountain bikers, mining and timber interests, snowmobilers, ATV riders and motorcyclists, the agricultural community, tribal interests, city and county governments, land managers and many others without interest affiliation but who share a love for Hermosa Creek. This group began its work in 2008 and produced its recommendations for legislation in 2010. U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colorado, first introduced the Hermosa Creek Watershed Protection Act in 2012.
The infamous gridlock that has gripped the Senate in recent years meant that version of the bill gained little momentum, and Bennet reintroduced it in 2013. Now, with new Senate leadership eagerly awaiting its forthcoming session in January, moving the Hermosa Creek bill is critical, particularly for such a non-controversial measure. It is also opportune as well as potentially fleeting.
Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., is a co-sponsor of the Hermosa Creek measure. He is also a member of the Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee, which is chaired by Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La. Landrieu is in a tight runoff race that polls suggest she could lose. Today’s committee hearing considering the Hermosa Creek bill and other energy and public-lands bills must honor Bennet’s and Udall’s work in crafting, supporting and championing a measure that is widely embraced and carefully composed to embody the shared values that so many stakeholders identified as treasured in the Hermosa Creek Watershed. Allowing the bill to languish unmoved through the lame-duck session is an unacceptable alternative.
Bennet has done his homework on the Hermosa Creek Watershed Protection Act, drawing on the significant expertise and support that inspired and developed the measure locally, regionally and in Washington, D.C. This is not a bill worth paralyzing further as a victim of the partisan gridlock that has made action on any measure a rarity in the Senate. Advance the Hermosa Creek bill through the Energy & Natural Resources Committee and onto the Senate floor.
