Part 1: Who speaks for the land?
West End residents voice concerns over creation of Dolores monument

(Editor’s note: The following is the first in a two-part series by Mancos-based reporter Ilana Newman focusing on the reactions of residents on the proposed creation of the Dolores Canyons National Monument. The monument would cover about 600 square miles in an area of western Colorado stretching from Nucla and Naturita to close to Grand Junction.) 

If you ask folks in the rugged West End of Colorado what they think about a proposed national monument status for hundreds of thousands of acres of land in the region, you’re likely to get a consistent answer: “No thanks, not here.” 

The national monument would stretch from Nucla and Naturita in the south to nearly Grand Junction in the north, encompassing approximately 390,000 acres, according to the current map on the website of Protect the Dolores, a coalition of groups that is promoting the monument.

Many residents feel that a national monument would threaten the diversity of their economies, potentially restrict access to land they love and overpower already weak infrastructure with an influx of visitors.

“We don’t have the infrastructure here at all. That’s one of the things we’ve tried to hammer home is that this is not an economic benefit for these communities. … and if it’s ever going to be, we need five or 10 years to get prepared for this,” Katey Herland, a rancher and resident of the West End, said. 

National monument status adds protections to federal land that is already managed by a federal agency. In the case of the Dolores, that’s the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management.

But residents are worried about the shape proposed protections of the land might take. They also feel excluded from the planning process, fearing that, ultimately, decisions will be made bypassing their concerns.

“We’re not against protecting anything,” said Herland. “It’s the fact that none of these conversations happened with these communities. It’s the fact that all the planning that’s gone in on the proponent’s behalf didn’t consider stakeholders, didn’t consider the reality of how this would affect these communities. And that’s wrong.”

The monument’s advocates say the plan would help West End communities get ahead of visitor and infrastructure demands that are likely to occur anyway.

The Dolores River shaped this landscape, cutting deep into western Colorado’s red rock sandstone. Mesas topped with piñon, juniper and ponderosa line the two-lane highway that winds through the path of least resistance. Two hours south of the proposed monument, barely any cars can be spotted on the highway. 

The red-tinged desert could be easily mistaken for Moab. No towns and only a few ranches and homes pepper the landscape until the town of Naturita (pop.  478) and its sister town, Nucla (pop. 590). Less than two hours from Moab to the west and Telluride to the east, it could not be further away in spirit from these tourist destinations. The West End remains mostly free from visitors, which is just how many residents like it. 

It’s a fragile landscape with soil crusts that are easily damaged and take hundreds of years to grow and cacti and sagebrush dotting the valleys and hillsides. Trails are rugged – or don’t exist at all – and it’s easy to get far away from a paved road.

Galit Korngold owns a business in Naturita, right on Highway 141. “I love the traffic, but I don’t want them to stay here. I like living in a quiet little town. I don’t want it to turn into Moab,” she said. 

But for Protect the Dolores, a monument designation feels vital to protect the biodiversity, cultural sites, geologic formations and public access for the future. 

While some of the concerns are more rooted in emotion than reality, the sentiment is one of misrepresentation. People feel unheard and excluded from the conversation around the monument. 

What does it mean to protect land? Who gets to choose what that protection looks like? These are some of the questions at the heart of the controversy.

The Talk of Town

A Tuesday morning in May in the Coop Country Ace Hardware in Nucla felt like a potential minefield for a reporter asking about a contentious national monument. But people were excited to talk about their stories and connections to the land. They shared their worries about what would happen if a monument was designated. 

High on the list were fears that the area would become overrun with visitors who would overwhelm roads and resources. There were also concerns the economy would become overly reliant on low-paying tourism jobs. 

A national monument would allow current commercial uses to continue, with limited new uses and development. Federal land in the area currently has mining, grazing, public utilities, commercial outfitting, and oil and gas leases. The proposed Dolores Canyons National Monument would be free and open to the public to camp, hunt, fish, boat, horseback ride, hike, ride mechanized or motorized vehicles and more.

Later that day, ranchers Mark Templeton and Lorraine Garvey spoke about their deep connection to the home they have worked on and cared for all their lives. 

Templeton’s family has been ranching in the West End for more than 100 years. He worries that a national monument could bring in people who do not respect the landscape. Templeton and many others feel the area is already protected by its current national forest and Bureau of Land Management designations. 

The change in management would occur through a resource management plan, which would replace existing management plans currently fragmented between the Forest Service and the BLM. However, the monument would continue to be managed by the BLM and the Forest Service – not the National Park Service, according to Protect the Dolores. The process of creating a resource management plan would include public input, which encourages local communities to get involved.

But the initial efforts of Protect the Dolores to get the monument established left residents with doubts about their inclusion in later stages. 

Despite the potential to contribute to a future resource management plan, residents feel left out of the current conversation. Herland, who owns land that would be surrounded by the monument, said she was never approached by anyone from the monument campaign, and to her knowledge, only one landowner was. 

Makayla Gordon is the executive director of the West End Economic Development Corporation (WEEDC). She and other community leaders were involved in a September 2023 meeting with Protect the Dolores and expected to be more involved in the map process. Attendees of the meeting told me they were initially excited about the prospect of being involved. 

“We were brought into it ... with the assumption that when we were having that initial conversation, we were going to be a part of the map construction. Then my next meeting in January with them, I was handed the map, and I was like ‘This isn’t what we were expecting,’” Gordon said. 

Gordon and other residents were taken aback by the size of the monument, which in the current draft encompasses around 600 square miles.

The Protect the Dolores website states that the map draft is a starting point for discussion that will continue to be adjusted based on input from stakeholders. 

Aimee Tooker, a West End community leader who was also a part of those initial meetings, left with a “warm fuzzy feeling,” after giving a list of questions and concerns that she expected to be addressed. But as the winter wore on, she said that questions were still not being answered, and she felt ignored.

During a community meeting in Nucla, Tooker said, “Let us write the conservation plan and let us design the map. I know we can do it better, and more inclusive, and with truly local stakeholder input.” 

Templeton, the rancher, said he has a message to the people who want a monument. “Just come enjoy the country. We’ll share it with you as long as you’re stewards. We don’t want you coming here and making a big mess just like you don’t want us making a big mess. But you can do anything here right now that you could do in a monument.”