Wildlife officers responded to a call about a ram stuck on the roof of a house in unincorporated Boulder County on Tuesday, said spokesperson Kara Van Hoos​e. The ram likely became stuck in the morning.

“We were hoping he would come down on his own because he’s on the roof and realizes this is not a great spot for him to be,” Van Hoose said.

The ram made it down to the deck of the house at some point and officers hoped he might be able to make it all the way down on his own, Van Hoose said. But after a day and a half, the ram wasn’t showing signs he could get out, so an officer cut out a portion of the deck railing to give him a clear path.

It’s not clear how or why the ram got on the roof, Van Hoose said.

“That’s one of the mysteries of bighorn sheep,” she said. “We’re in mating season for sheep right now and rams just act strange. They get really weird, their whole behavior changes and they do anything they can to find females to mate.”

Bighorn sheep are good climbers and like being up high, Van Hoose said, so it’s possible he thought it was the best place to look for eligible ewes.

While it’s a little early in December for the sound of hooves clattering on rooftops, the Colorado Parks and Wildlife could not confirm or deny if the ram’s activities were related to the holiday season.

“I can’t speak on behalf of Santa Claus – he has his own public information officer – but this is not how we would recommend delivering gifts for Christmas,” Van Hoose said.

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Simply put, this small inholding, known as the “Kelly Parcel,” should never be privatized — never. It is one of the most awe-inspiring and important pieces of open space remaining in America.

Within Grand Teton National Park, its borders include the National Elk Refuge and Bridger-Teton National Forest. Its value was appraised in 2022 at $62.4 million. However, the director of the Office of State Lands and Investment just recommended a starting bid of $80 million.

But its real value isn’t about money: The land is a vital migration corridor for elk, moose, big horn sheep antelope, pronghorn and mule deer travelling into and out of the national park. It also hosts 87 other “Species of Greatest Conservation Need.”

And the annual, 200-mile-long migration corridor known as the Path of the Pronghorn — from Grand Teton National Park to the upper Green River Basin — passes right through the Kelly Parcel at the crux of what’s recognized as the longest mammalian migration in the contiguous United States.

Wyomingites have been resolute in their opposition to selling the state-owned parcel. Publicity generated by the Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance collected more than 2,600 comments from people opposed to an auction, and hundreds of opponents turned out at each of four public hearings in November. Many others contacted the state directly for a total of more than 10,000 people opposed to a state auction.

Yet this week the Wyoming State Board of Land Commissioners will decide whether a private owner gets to do whatever they want with the Kelly Parcel once they bid highest at auction– fence it, subdivide it, certainly road it.

With its iconic views of the Tetons and natural beauty that’s surrounded by public land — plus sporting one of the most coveted zip codes in the country — the Kelly Parcel will most likely be snatched up at auction by a billionaire with development and dollar signs in their eyes.

“The people of Wyoming would not want to be part of a legacy where this land fell into a private developer’s hands and see that beautiful landscape dotted with a few select starter castles,” said John Turner, former director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, at one of the hearings.

There is no rush to dispose of the Kelly Parcel, no deadline to cash in before the bank forecloses or a buyer backs out. But an auction changes everything, in a way that can never be undone.

That is why Dave Sollitt, executive director of the Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance is asking The State Board of Land Commissioners to put a stop to this auction and focus on working with state legislators to find a way to sell the Kelly Parcel to Grand Teton National Park, where it belongs.

“National parks are heralded as ‘America’s best idea,’ and auctioning off public land within Grand Teton National Park would stand out as Wyoming’s worst idea,” Sollitt said. “If they go to auction, the state and everyone loses control. That’s how auctions work.”

Though money generated from auctioning the Kelly Parcel to the highest bidder would contribute some $4 million annually to the support of public schools, the windfall to the state would also come at an immeasurable cost to wildlife.

There is a better approach. Selling the parcel to the National Park Service — as Wyoming did with its other three parcels within the park — is projected to generate up to $120 million over 30 years. The National Park Service tried to buy the Kelly Parcel in 2015, but the agency lacked enough money to make the deal then and now.

Establishing ourselves as the first state to auction off public land within a national park is likely to blight Wyoming’s reputation beyond recovery. It should be clear: Privatizing an irreplaceable area within a national park for short-term gain is a foolish and destructive move.

Savannah Rose is a contributor to Writers on the Range, writersontherange.org, an independent nonprofit dedicated to spurring lively conversation about the West. She lives in Jackson, Wyoming, and is a wildlife photographer who cares about keeping ecosystems intact.

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A wolf killed the three lambs overnight on Nov. 17. One lamb was partially eaten. The wolf left the other two whole.

Anderson looked for tracks in the snow at the ranch, located just south of Walden. He found nothing. He called the local wildlife manager, who examined the carcasses and confirmed them as wolf kills.

Ranching with wolves has been a reality for people in Anderson’s community since 2019, when a wolf migrated south from Wyoming and established a small, now-dwindled pack.

In the coming weeks, ranchers in other parts of Colorado will have to learn to live with the apex predators, too, under the country’s first voter-mandated wolf reintroduction. After years of public meetings, planning and controversy, Colorado’s ranching community — bracing for the relocation of wolves to the state by Dec. 31 — is weighing methods to protect their livelihoods from a carnivore not seen in large numbers here in nearly a century.

“It’ll be interesting to see what December brings us,” Anderson said.

On the precipice of reintroduction, ranchers say they feel trapped by a bevy of unknowns. They don’t know exactly where the wolves will be released. They don’t know if any of the methods promoted by the state wildlife agency or nonprofits to prevent attacks will work for their ranches. They’re hesitant to invest in expensive prevention gear or make expansive, long-term changes to their operations without knowing more about how wolves will act here and where they will go.

“We don’t know what it’s going to be like,” said Renee Deal, a fourth-generation sheep rancher based in Gunnison County. “A lot of the stress is the unknown.”

Colorado Parks and Wildlife plans to capture several wolves in Oregon and release them in Summit, Eagle or Grand counties by the end of the year. The wolves are expected to immediately disperse from the release site by up to 70 miles and stay on the move for weeks. The agency hopes to continue releasing more wolves through the winter — up to 10 — as they’re captured in Oregon.

Over the next five years, the plan is to bring up to 50 more wolves to Colorado from other states.

Voters in 2020 narrowly approved the reintroduction effort, which drew almost all of its support from urban voters. In the three years since, ranchers in the rural communities where the wolves will land first have reckoned with what the species means for their livelihoods and way of life.

“There are those of us who aren’t one way or the other — we’re just trying to carry out the tradition of a ranching operation as best we can,” Anderson said.

Interviews with Colorado ranchers and wildlife experts underscored the ways that conflicts over wolves often serve as proxies for deeper societal rifts.

The animals have become a flashpoint for disagreements about federal versus state control, the rural-urban divide and the use of public and private property, said Kevin Crooks, the director of the Center for Human-Carnivore Coexistence at Colorado State University.

Matt Barnes, a rangeland scientist and former ranch manager, pointed to the creature’s symbolic value: “Wolves are referents for nature in general, and disparate views of what nature is and how we humans relate to or fit into it. How much wildness can be allowed in a working landscape? That’s a question that reflects a deeper question, like: How much wildness can be allowed in a civilized culture?”

Deterring wolf attacks

But now ranchers are sorting through more immediate, and pragmatic, questions. And it’s Adam Baca’s job to help them navigate the coming change.

Hired in 2022, he is Colorado Parks and Wildlife’s first wolf conflict coordinator — one of several agency positions now dedicated to wolves. He’s tasked with helping ranchers use non-lethal tools to minimize conflict with the predators as well as answering their questions and working with outside groups that want to help.

He and others with the state’s wildlife agency have stockpiled stashes of wolf-deterrence supplies in the areas where they plan to release the transplants. The supplies to scare the canines away — LED lights, cracker shells, propane cannons and electrified fencing — will be lent out to ranchers who have wolves in their vicinity.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife officials previously said the agency would try to give at least 24 hours’ notice to ranchers living near the first release site in the north-central mountains, but they could not guarantee it.

Since 2019, Colorado Parks and Wildlife has confirmed that the wolves that migrated from Wyoming have killed five dogs, 13 cattle and Anderson’s three lambs. Wildlife officials believe two of the eight wolves in the North Park Pack remain in the area. At least four members of the pack were legally shot and killed just across the Wyoming border.

Baca has been living in a trailer in Jackson County since he was hired. Once the reintroduced Oregon wolves establish a territory, Baca will move to that area.

“I’m trying to lessen the learning curve that others might have to go through based on what happened in Jackson County,” he said.

Ranchers can try a variety of tools to ward off wolves. Dogs, donkeys and mounted riders can help scare them away. For a short period, bright flags tied on fencing or scare devices, such as motion-activated sirens and pyrotechnics, can keep the canines at bay.

But not all methods will work for all operations. And no method will work perfectly in perpetuity.

“As with all things science, trying to prevent things 100% is not possible,” Baca said.

When prevention fails, ranchers will be allowed to kill a wolf if it is caught in the act of attacking livestock or a person, according to a U.S. Fish and Wildlife rule finalized in November. State wildlife officers also will have the ability to kill or relocate wolves that repeatedly kill or injure livestock.

Ranchers can apply for compensation for animals killed by wolves. The agency will use money appropriated from the state’s general fund to pay a fair-market price of up to $15,000 for each animal killed. It also will cover veterinarian bills, up to $15,000, for injured animals. State lawmakers set aside $175,000 to pay for killed and injured animals in the first year and $350,000 for each year after.

Baca has been meeting with ranchers across the state to hear their concerns and talk about conflict prevention.

“You get a broad spectrum,” Baca said. “That’s part of meeting people where they’re at — some people are ready and willing to implement these tools, and some aren’t. Some will express frustration, and some won’t.”

CSU’s Center for Human-Carnivore Coexistence also hopes to help ranchers pay for prevention methods. The Wolf Conflict Reduction Fund already paid for trail cameras in Jackson County to help monitor calving pastures.

“These are considerable costs for ranchers who are often on the edge economically,” said Crooks, the center’s director. “Some of this will take considerable funding, but less funding than trying to address conflict after it happens.”

Most ranchers won’t experience direct conflict with wolves, Crooks said, and the wild canines have a relatively small impact on the broader livestock industry.

“But some ranchers will experience conflict — and for those individual ranchers, the economic and emotional impacts are real,” he said.

The fund is a chance for people who voted to reintroduce wolves to help pay for the consequences borne by those who voted against the reintroduction but now live with its impacts, Crooks said.

Only 13 of Colorado’s 64 counties in 2020 voted in favor of the reintroduction, which passed 51%-49% and by fewer than 60,000 votes. Eight of those counties are on the densely populated Front Range, whose residents are unlikely to have a wolf in their backyard.

“I would feel a lot differently about this issue if it weren’t a voter mandate from people who will have zero effect on their lives,” said Deal, the Gunnison County sheep rancher.

“An expensive proposition”

As reintroduction and its unknown consequences approach, ranchers are weighing risks: How much money should they spend preparing for wolves that may or may not come to their properties? Is waiting until an animal is killed or injured too late to act?

Lenny Klinglesmith ran the numbers on what it would cost to install fladry — bright red flags tied to fencing that are believed to keep wolves away — on all the calving pastures he uses in the spring: $150,000. He decided not to spend the money yet.

“Preparing for wolves, it’s an expensive proposition,” he said while moving cows last month.

In total, his combined operation of private land and leased public land near Meeker spans 80,000 acres — more than four times the land mass of Boulder. He’s looked at how much it would cost to hire more riders to supervise his herds, but that’s not cheap, either. While a greater human presence could ward off wolves, the likelihood that a rider would be in the right place at the right time to witness a wolf attacking a cow is extremely slim, he said.

It’s more likely the rider would find a carcass.

Klinglesmith is also worried that the elk and deer herds he helps by managing his animals’ grazing will draw more wolves to his vicinity. A lifelong resident of northwest Colorado, he enjoys having the wild animals around and contributing to their wellbeing. But if the wildlife become a draw for wolves, he may have to reconsider his practices.

Klinglesmith for two years helped form the state’s wolf management plan as a member of the state’s Stakeholder Advisory Group. During that time, he said he came to accept the wolves and changes that were coming, though other ranchers remain bitter.

“It’s going to be hard,” he said. “But we’ll get through it and we’ll find a way. We don’t have any choice.”

In March, Anderson used 1.5 miles of fladry borrowed from CPW to ward off wolves from his calving area near Walden. No animals were killed and Anderson said he thinks it’s the best tool to deter wolves in the short term.

“But it would be an astronomical amount for us to go out and buy fladry, if you can even find any,” he said.

Deal is running her own calculations. Her family runs about 6,000 sheep every summer on 20,000 acres of national forest land near McClure Pass, south of Carbondale.

Being proactive for the sake of being proactive, she said, doesn’t make financial sense.

“There’s not a lot we can do to prepare,” Deal said. “Everyone says you need to prevent, prevent, prevent. But there are major challenges with that.”

The family already uses guard dogs, and sheepherders stay with its two herds. But many of the other tools promoted by CPW and others won’t work well for summer operations, she said.

Lights and sound equipment wouldn’t be effective on large swaths of land. There are no roads to their permitted grazing land — everything must be packed in by horse, and their permit allows only two horses per herd of sheep. It would be near impossible to bring in fencing and relocate it when the sheep are moved on to their next grazing spot.

And their U.S. Forest Service permit regulates those movements. So if they wanted to change their grazing plans to avoid wolves, they’d have to obtain approval first.

“Kind of getting the cart before the horse is difficult,” Deal said.

Beyond “glorified scarecrows”

Beyond flags and fencing and explosive tools to scare off wolves, some are advocating for a more long-term solution to minimize conflict with livestock.

“They’re all glorified scarecrows,” Barnes, the rangeland scientist, said of deterrence tools such as fladry. “Just like a scarecrow, the effect wears off in time.”

One strategy? Teaching cows and sheep to act more like bison.

Here’s how proponents say it works: Ranchers train their herds to respond calmly to stresses and to learn that they are safest from threats when they gather close together. Wolves prey on animals that panic, flee and separate from others. Training livestock to stick closer together and face wolves as a group, instead of scattering, can reduce killings.

The wolves, seeing that the herd is a more difficult meal, would search for something less risky to eat.

The training takes weeks and must be redone periodically, but the method works well even on Colorado’s vast rangelands, said Karin Vardaman, a co-founder of Working Circle, a nonprofit that aims to help ranchers successfully coexist with wolves. Vardaman traveled to North Park to work with ranchers there, and she said they have had success with the methods.

Other longer-term options include trying to time calving season with the months when deer and elk also are giving birth, providing wolves with more non-livestock prey options. Or ranchers could move cattle away from deer and elk entirely so the wild animals won’t draw wolves to their herds.

But reconstructing how a large operation handles its animals, grazing and birthing is easier said than done — and often comes with other consequences, Deal said.

For example, ranchers could condense their herds since it’s easier to protect calving cows on a 40-acre pasture than an 80-acre pasture. But calving in a smaller space heightens the risk of disease.

“I think in peoples’ minds who aren’t in the producer business and don’t really understand it — which is most people — they don’t realize all these other factors in play,” she said. “Everyone around us is saying what we should or shouldn’t be doing.”

Instead of fladry and lights, Deal is focusing on getting her records in order so that if animals go missing or are killed, she will be ready to apply for state compensation. She’s encouraged other ranchers to get to know their local district wildlife managers.

“There’s not really a whole lot more we can do, physically,” she said.

Part of the stress from the reintroduction is the potential to lose animals and income, Deal said. Part of it is the unknown. Another slice is the negativity the ranching community in Colorado has felt over the highly visible and highly contentious issue.

Ranchers are viewed by some as bloodthirsty, she said, and she’s seen and heard hateful comments online and at public meetings.

“I just want people to understand the amount of stress and heartburn and worry in our whole community,” Deal said. “It’s a huge unknown. There’s a general lack of empathy in our society and trying to understand what it’s like to walk in someone else’s shoes.”

Ranching and wildlife can coexist, Klinglesmith said. His family has worked with Colorado Parks and Wildlife for more than 15 years to make its lands the best habitat possible for elk, deer, sage grouse, trout, waterfowl and native plants. He fears that if ranching becomes less sustainable, western Colorado’s vast open spaces will slowly be sold off and developed.

“They like to paint ranchers out as wolf haters,” he said. “But the open space has to keep producing enough of a living to make it possible to keep it an open space.”

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The proposal marks a sharp turnaround from five years ago, when officials in Donald Trump’s presidency said lynx had recovered and no longer needed protection after their numbers had rebounded in some areas. President Joseph Biden’s administration in 2021 reached a legal settlement with environmental groups to retain threatened species protections for lynx that were first imposed in 2000.

Populations of the medium-sized wildcats in New Hampshire, Maine and Washington state are most at risk as warmer temperatures reduce habitat for lynx and their primary food, snowshoe hares, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service documents indicate.

But declines for lynx would be seen in boreal forests across the contiguous U.S. under even the most optimistic warming scenario that officials considered, the newly-released documents show. That includes lynx populations in the northern and southern Rocky Mountains and in the Midwest.

The recovery plan says protecting 95% of current lynx habitat in the lower 48 states in coming decades would help the species remain viable. And it suggests lynx could be moved into the Yellowstone region of Montana, Wyoming and Idaho — an area they don’t currently occupy — as a potential climate change refuge.

There are roughly 1,100 lynx in the contiguous U.S., spread across five populations with the largest concentrations in the northeastern U.S. and northern Rockies. Most areas suitable for lynx are in Alaska and Canada.

Those numbers are expected to plummet in some areas, and the proposal would aim for a minimum contiguous U.S. population of a combined 875 lynx over a 20-year period across the five populations, including 400 in the northeast and 200 in the northern Rockies, according to the proposal.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service faces a November 2024 deadline to draft a related plan to protect land where lynx are found. That came out of a legal settlement with two environmental groups — Wild Earth Guardians and Wilderness Workshop.

U.S. government biologists first predicted in 2016 that some lynx populations could disappear by 2100.

However, under Trump officials shortened their time span for considering climate change threats, from 2100 to 2050, because of what they said were uncertainties in long-term climate models. A government assessment based on that shortened time span concluded lynx populations had increased versus historical levels in parts of Colorado and Maine.

The proposed recovery plan comes two days after the Biden administration announced protections for another snow-dependent species — the North American wolverine. That came in response to scientists’ warnings that climate change will likely melt away the wolverines’ mountain retreats and push them toward extinction.

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As a hunter myself, I understand their frustration.

But reducing non-resident tags, as Andrew Carpenter suggests, takes us in the wrong direction. The greatest threat to hunting now and in the future is the loss of habitat.

Private lands provide up to 80% of the habitat for all wildlife species, including the critical winter range that’s the limiting factor for most big game populations. Yet these family farms and ranches are struggling for economic survival and in many places are under immense development pressure.

According to the American Farmland Trust, Colorado is on track to lose approximately a half-million acres of open land in the next two decades. Other states have similarly alarming projections. As these lands disappear, so does the wildlife they support.

Income generated by providing access and outfitting services to out-of-state hunters is one of the few economic lifelines keeping ranches and habitats intact.

As New Mexico rancher Jack Diamond explained, “Without non-resident hunters, we couldn’t survive at this point in the ranching business. I don’t want to see this place subdivided, but we’d have to consider that as a last resort.”

David Olde, also a rancher from New Mexico, concurred: “We ended up with so many elk that we had to reduce our cattle. If I can’t sell hunts, what can I do—turn it into ranchettes?”

For the fourth-generation Bramwell family ranch in Colorado, hunting income is an integral part of their operation.

“Our out-of-state clients have been coming here to hunt for generations,” Darla Bramwell said. “These migratory animals do not care whose grass they are eating or whose fences they tear down as they come from forest lands to eat in our hay meadows at night. Without the income from the non-resident hunters, something would have to give.”

Most states already heavily favor resident hunters, both in draw quotas and license fees. In Colorado, for example, residents are now allocated 75% of licenses while non-residents receive only 25%. Further, non-residents typically pay hundreds of dollars more per license than residents. In Colorado a resident bull elk tag is $61. A non-resident bull elk tag costs $760.

Several things happen when non-resident licenses are further reduced. First, it squeezes the bottom line of family farms and ranches that support wildlife and depend on hunting for a portion of their income.

Second, it harms local livelihoods and rural economies. Visiting hunters outspend resident hunters by a large margin, supporting local restaurants, hotels, stores, outfitting services and the local tax base in rural communities.

As Bramwell said, “When our out-of-state hunters come here, they not only support our family but they support our community. They buy local gifts, food, fuel, lodging, meat processing and taxidermy work.”

Diamond’s operation supports between seven to 10 guides from August through December. “These are good-paying jobs and the money generated is all spent locally in the two counties we live in,” he said. “We buy gas, propane, groceries. We also pay state gross receipts tax on the entire hunt.”

Third, state wildlife agencies depend on the high license fees they charge out-of-state hunters.

Fourth, the loss of visiting hunters would remove incentives for prospective ranch buyers to invest in conserving and managing land for wildlife.

Finally, it would also mean more hunters crowding public lands and forcing elk to seek refuge on private lands, reducing hunter opportunities and creating a lower-quality hunt experience.

Pulling the economic rug out from under private lands and wildlife isn’t the answer. So, what is a better solution?

We need to increase, not decrease, incentives for landowners to conserve habitat and provide hunting opportunities. We should bolster, not undermine, the role of hunting in supporting agricultural lands and rural economies. And we need to improve wildlife habitat on public lands with better management of our forests and rangelands.

The future of hunting—and wildlife—both depend on landowners and sportsmen working together to sustain our remaining wild and working lands.

Lesli Allison is a contributor to Writers on the Range, an independent nonprofit dedicated to spurring conversation about the West. She is CEO of the Western Landowners Alliance, a West-wide, landowner-led organization that supports working lands, connected landscapes and native species. www.westernlandowners.org.

The Gunnison sage-grouse inhabit a small section of Montrose County, a satellite population called the Cerro Summit-Cimarron-Sims Mesa group. The bird, which also is found in several other Colorado counties — with the largest population in the Gunnison Basin — and in Southeast Utah, is listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act; ongoing human development and habitat fragmentation are seen as critical drivers behind decreasing population numbers.

As part of efforts to conserve the bird, the BLM recently released an updated draft Resource Management Plan amendment and environmental impact statement to incorporate habitat protections and management decisions as identified in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s 2020 Final Recovery Plan. That plan defined occupied habitat (where Gunnison sage-grouse breeding occurs, or is known to have occurred), and unoccupied habitat (areas formerly occupied by the species that still have appropriate habitat features to support the bird).

The BLM’s prior draft plan and environmental impact statement (EIS) for the Gunnison sage-grouse was released in 2016, but was placed on hold and ultimately canceled when the USFWS announced its forthcoming recovery plan.

Read more on the Montrose Daily Press.

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A nearby crane operator who happened to be in the right place at the right time stopped to help the wildlife officers, according to a social media post from Colorado Parks and Wildlife on Sunday.

Wildlife officers darted the deer with a sedative and strapped it into a “snuggie-like contraption” for the crane to lift over the wall and fence railing, the post stated.

A nearby crane truck operator in the right place at the right time gave our wildlife officers a hand with the #rescue. We darted the deer and placed it into a Snuggie-like contraption to lift it over the fence railing. pic.twitter.com/6mlgWakmwa

— CPW NE Region (@CPW_NE) November 26, 2023

Wildlife officers relocated the deer to a better habitat — a nearby forested area — and released it back into the wild.

In a video posted by Colorado Parks and Wildlife, one officer held the deer gently by the antlers and removed the blindfold before jumping backward as the deer darted forward and into the trees.

“I got photos,” one officer said to another, laughing in the background of a second video clip. “And I’ve got a video of him.”

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But this military base on 36 square miles of what once was short-grass prairie along the Arkansas River still is bleeding TNT (trinitrotoluene), which causes liver and nerve problems, and TCE (trichloroethylene), which causes kidney cancer, in underground plumes of contaminated water. Thousands of old bombs, grenades, and other munitions are scattered under the wind-whipped topsoil and weeds.

Colorado officials estimate cleaning the site to meet an industrial-use standard will cost more than $600 million, a cost the U.S. Department of Defense, which owns the site, is legally obligated to cover — though Colorado wants the land back. But if Congress fails to maintain a long-term focus and provide funds each year, state health officials and redevelopment authorities warn, the once-healthy prairie will remain a wasteland — more of a burden than a benefit.

“We cannot re-use the property if it is not clean,” said Russell DeSalvo, executive director of PuebloPlex, a state entity created by lawmakers in 1994 to redevelop the site.

“We just want to make sure the Army fulfills its obligation to clean up this property. It will hamper our economic development efforts if the property is unusable due to environmental contamination. Our congressional delegation will have to be diligent over a long time to hold the Department of Defense accountable to do what they say they are going to do for the people of Colorado,” DeSalvo said.

“It is unsellable if it is not cleaned up. It becomes a burden for the community and for the Army and for the state to monitor this contamination in perpetuity if it is not handled appropriately,” he said. “People could be killed if they find a piece of unexploded ordnance that may be live.”

Mustard gas gone

For 80 years, the land served World War II and Cold War military purposes of storing the deadly “mustard gas” weapons. Then the United Nations-backed Chemical Weapons Convention, ratified by the United States in 1997, prohibited making, stockpiling, selling, and using chemical weapons. U.S. military officials contracted with Bechtel to build a $6 billion plant to destroy them safely. Starting in 2016, a carefully trained force of 2,600 workers from Pueblo and Colorado Springs ran that plant. Workers wore protective white respirator suits. They operated machines that removed mustard gas by blasting 105-degree water into each of those 780,000 shells.

President Joe Biden  last summer praised the workers along with counterparts at weapons storage bases in Oregon and Kentucky for successfully getting rid of all outlawed weapons. On Oct. 6, arms treaty officials at the Netherlands-based Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons sent a letter to Bechtel certifying the total elimination of the mustard agent. The United States was the last of 193 signatory nations to comply.

Colorado’s senators now are pushing legislation to enable a swift transfer of the land, located just east of Pueblo, back to local control, no later than July.

Meanwhile, Army officials are negotiating with the Colorado Department of Public Health and the Environment to establish a cleanup plan. The federal process for re-using military bases requires that Colorado buy back the land once Army officials formally decommission the base and redesignate it as “surplus.” CDPHE officials emphasized, in a response to Denver Post queries, that “the U.S. Army is responsible for cleaning up all remaining areas as long as contamination remains.”

Bechtel has started dismantling its plant, and company officials estimated this will take 30 months. Workers will break down much of the facility, including titanium pipelines and vats — necessary due to mustard gas residue contamination. They’ll reduce the facility to pieces they can fit into steel drums, which trucks then will haul to hazardous waste dumps.

“We’re doing this for the future,” said Walton Levi, the federal government’s project manager in the plant. “I have a daughter. We want to leave the world a better place.”

Railway and aerospace testing hub envisioned

Colorado officials envision a massive industrial research and development hub — if all goes as planned.

For years, PuebloPlex officials have been working under a master-lease agreement with the Army to sublease safe parts of the property to the Association of American Railways, the United Launch Alliance (a space launch venture by Boeing and Lockheed-Martin), and others. An eventual re-sale would enable, beyond possible jobs, the collection of taxes that could boost the economy in southern Colorado.

The rail transportation work conducted by MxV Rail (MxV is the mathematical formula for momentum) brought an investment of $30 million. MxV installed a 60-foot-thick concrete crash-testing wall and a six-mile rail loop for analyzing high-speed trains and managing derailments. MxV also created a facility for training rail emergency responders.

PuebloPlex marketers tout the proximity to Pueblo’s airport, U.S. 50, railways, and the Evraz steel mill, where employees produce state-of-the-art 1,500-foot seamless rails.

Some 1,000 concrete quonset-shaped storage bunkers, which provide constant 50-degree storage conditions, are available for $1,700 a month. One of the 500 or so tenants keeps a collection of antique cars. A Pueblo organization devoted to helping the homeless stores cots in one, but using the units for housing is problematic because the land at the site isn’t classified as safe for residential use, DeSalvo said.

Antelope roam between the bunkers and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologists this fall released 22 black-footed ferrets — an endangered species — in an effort to revive grasslands on the eastern side of the site. The federal government lacked funds to purchase the depot for conversion to a wildlife refuge, as was done in metro Denver with the 11-square-mile Rocky Flats and 25-square-mile Rocky Mountain Arsenal weapons-making sites.

Cleanup concerns

Cleanup anxieties have intensified since Biden trumpeted the destruction of weapons. Toxic groundwater and potentially explosive old munitions could prohibit re-development by increasing liabilities for future owners, DeSalvo said. “We have to be super careful so that we don’t acquire any liability.”

The CDPHE for decades has been charged with regulating all activities at the Pueblo Chemical Depot. State environmental officials say they regularly review work plans, conduct inspections to verify complete cleanup, and evaluate water and soil sampling data to ensure state standards are met — in this case conditions safe enough for industrial use. If standards aren’t met, state officials can impose controls on future land use.

A new permit specifying what the Army now must do should be completed this year and made public, health officials said.

“The Pueblo Depot will be cleaned up,” CDPHE hazardous materials and waste management division director Tracie White told The Denver Post. “Our primary goal is protecting human health — the people who are using that water. We still monitor, very closely, the off-site contamination.”

Nearby residents said they still feel vulnerable. Two miles south of the depot, people in the Avondale farming community (population 500), including former depot workers, had filters and water-cleaning systems installed by the Army so that nobody would drink water from wells. Those are still in place but some residents say they buy bottled water.

“Water here is an issue,” said Erica Birner, owner of Chuck’s Place, a local bar and restaurant established in 1928.

A 96-year-old customer advised her to never drink local well water, Birner said. She invested $37,000 to install a water vending machine that dispenses purified H2O for a fee outside Chuck’s Place. She runs that dispenser at a loss because she can’t bear to charge residents of Avondale and neighboring Boone more than 30 cents a gallon for a commodity essential for life, she said.

“We would hope the Army would clean it up before they leave. We are in a disaster zone.”

CDPHE officials said they monitor water in the towns and that plumes extend beyond the depot but there is no evidence drinking water is tainted.

Army committed

At the site, water tests conducted by the Army show a gradual decrease in the TNT and TCE concentrations in groundwater from as much as 250 parts-per-billion in 2009 to less than 60 ppb this year after water is filtered, state officials said. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has set a health advisory guidance level for TNT in drinking water at of 2.2 ppb and a maximum limit for TCE at 5 ppb.

The Department of Defense is committed to full cleanup, said the Army’s Pueblo Chemical Depot commander Col. Rodney McCutcheon, a chemical weapons expert whose experience includes dealing with munitions stockpiles found in Iraq.

“The Army is not going to leave here until everything is 100% good to go,” McCutcheon said. “We housed a strategic deterrent against our enemies the Russians for years. We did that safely and securely. And, now, the community here will benefit.”

However, on a recent ride around the land, he and DeSalvo acknowledged that Congress must stay the course for cleanup to be done.

“We need Congress to function effectively,” DeSalvo said.  “We need long-term environmental remediation. Congress needs to authorize that each year. ….. When there’s no funding, cleanup just gets delayed. Some projects, if they were fully funded up front, could be completed quickly.”

Unexploded munitions

Colorado officials said the most costly cleanup task will be clearing a 7,000-acre area where munitions are buried. On Aug. 6, 1948, a lightning strike at the depot triggered detonations and the scattering of explosives, according to military records.

First, electromagnetic surveys must be done to locate explosives. Of 62 sites where unexploded materials are concentrated, 22 are classified as problem areas, said Dustin McNeil, leader of the CDPHE’s federal facilities remediation and restoration team.

Another long-term challenge will be monitoring and filtering out the toxic pollution from groundwater, which was contaminated after Army operators spilled industrial solvents and dumped explosives, McNeil said. Much of the toxic material has been confined to the property. “There are some off-site excursions,” McNeil said.

Largescale water-cleaning systems have been running for years and must continue to remove and contain contaminants.

The groundwater flows south from the base toward farm fields and the Arkansas River, about two miles south of the depot. At one of the treatment plants, TCE-contaminated water pumped to the surface is aerated — treatment that could be compared with “bubblers in a fish tank,” said Ann Mead, the Army’s remediation project manager. The cleaned water then is reinjected into the ground. At the southwestern side of the site, pumps raise groundwater to the surface where it is circulated through charcoal filters to remove TNT and other contaminants.

State data provided to the Denver Post shows that Army water-cleaning systems last year pumped more than 215 million gallons of water from 78 wells for treatment to remove TCE and TNT.

“The point of this is to stop the contamination at our boundary,” Mead said.

However, sustained water treatment over the next 25 years, she said, “depends on funding.”

Jobs uncertain

U.S. Sens. John Hickenlooper and Michael Bennet were not made available to discuss cleanup issues. Hickenlooper staffers, in emails, did not respond directly to Denver Post queries about cleanup.

They’ve introduced legislation in Congress that would direct the Army to close the Pueblo Chemical Depot no later than July, a year after the completion of the chemical weapon destruction. Then, under the military’s Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) process, the site would be sold to PuebloPlex, the local redevelopment authority.

PuebloPlex officials said they will take ownership later this year of a 16,000-acre portion of the site. The legislation would enable a transfer of the remaining 7,000 acres from the Army to PuebloPlex.

The primary objective for Colorado has been generating jobs in the economically ailing southern half of the state. During the Cold War, the weapons depot employed as many as 8,000 workers, second to Pueblo’s steel mill in sustaining the southern Colorado economy.

Now Bechtel’s workforce is shrinking gradually and notices posted at the plant advise employees of upcoming opportunities for retraining. “We’re going to lose about 2,000 jobs over the next five years,” DeSalvo said. “That will have a huge negative economic impact. And that’s why we’re ramping up our efforts.”

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The Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission on Friday approved the importation of the red swamp crawfish for human consumption — though with some restrictions. Starting Jan. 1, people who want to bring the southern food staple into the state can do so with an importation license, but they cannot possess the crawfish for more than 72 hours or release them into water.

Before the change, it was illegal to import or possess the species because of concerns that the crustaceans would damage lakes and rivers if they made their way into waterways.

But the species remained easily available for purchase live or at restaurants. If caught, a violator was subject to a misdemeanor that could carry a fine of up to $5,000. Most of the people cooking and eating the mudbugs were unaware of the regulation banning them, and the ban went unenforced for years, Colorado Parks and Wildlife staff said.

“There is a huge demand on these,” Ty Petersburg, assistant chief of law enforcement programs at the agency, told the commission at an August meeting.

Consternation about the ban began in March when wildlife officials cited someone for importing the species, which led to a larger investigation into the industry.

“As a result of that case, CPW has been made aware of a significant culture in Colorado regarding social gatherings and meals surrounding crayfish boils,” a CPW memo on the issue states. “CPW law enforcement has now documented dozens of restaurants across the (Front Range) alone that hold regular crawfish boils and meal services with live imported crayfish.”

For years, Cajun restaurants sold imported crawfish, caterers put on boils for private events and individuals bought live crawfish for backyard boils. One distributor told wildlife officials that they were selling between 9,000 and 11,000 pounds of live crawfish per week during the season, from January to August.

“If you extrapolate that, we have a whole lot of these critters coming into the state — something we didn’t really realize, to be honest with you,” Petersburg said.

Despite the tons of crawfish coming into Colorado, the state has not detected a population in lakes or rivers here, said Josh Nehring, assistant aquatic section manager at CPW. However, the agency does not test specifically for the species.

“The species, if established, is capable of altering the habitat and food chain of lakes and streams,” Nehring said.

The ban was intended to keep the non-native species from being introduced to Colorado’s waters if they were used as fishing bait or released live into the water.

Red swamp crawfish are native to the Gulf of Mexico but have established invasive populations in other states, including Minnesota, New Mexico, Maine and Washington.

If introduced into Colorado waters, the species could also spread downstream to other states and communities. Several native species of crawfish live in the state east of the Continental Divide, but there are no native crawfish on the western side.

“Red swamp crayfish mature early, and have rapid growth rates, large numbers of offspring and short life spans,” a CPW memo on the species states. “They can replace indigenous crayfish by competitive exclusion and/or transmission of crayfish plague.”

A different invasive crayfish species, the rusty crayfish, is one of Colorado wildlife managers’ top invasive concerns in the state. That crayfish has been found in Colorado’s waterways since 2009 and wildlife managers believe they were introduced after anglers used them as bait.

More than 200 people weighed in on the Gulf Coast crawfish issue during the agency’s public comment process. About two-thirds of those who commented supported removing the ban. Some of those in favor of ending the ban noted that few people would pay $6 to $9 a pound for live crawfish simply to dump them in a river.

The new regulation is an attempt to balance cultural and business needs with environmental risk, Petersburg said.

Under the new rules, people who want to buy live crawfish and host their own boils must have a copy of the providers’ importation license and a receipt of purchase, Colorado Parks and Wildlife spokesman Joey Livingston said.

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To slow the steady march of musk thistle, a fast-spreading weed from Eurasia, we spend Thursday morning each week bending down to tackle these interlopers. We know what we do is a drop in the bucket, but right here, along this trail, we see results.

Joining Morgan is a mixed crew: native plant enthusiasts, elk hunters, employees of non-profits and the Forest Service, plus “youngsters” in their 30s and retirees like me.

My friend Mary, nearly 80, wins the prize as the oldest and most enthusiastic of the crew. While we were waiting for a friend at a trailhead this summer, she spotted a musk thistle on a steep slope, went to her car for some gloves and signaled for me to follow. “Let’s get that one,” she said. We ended up uprooting several.

Musk thistle (Carduus nutans) is an invasive weed, and like many invasive plants, it is adaptable and vigorous, producing prolific seeds. It competes for light and nutrients with native plants. Eventually, it can replace them.

To be fair, it has positive qualities. Bees, butterflies and other pollinators are attracted to its magenta flowers, and it blooms later than many native wildflowers, extending the season for insects. Songbirds eat its seeds.

But wildlife and livestock won’t eat musk thistle because of its spines. Where it grows, grazing animals must forage more heavily on other plants, reducing their vigor, which allows musk thistle to invade ever more space.

Tackling a stand of musk thistle requires determination. All flowers and buds are removed and placed in bags or bins. The plant, a long-lived biennial, must be cut off below the base, or pulled, to prevent further blooming.

All of us volunteers are suited up in protective gear that includes heavy gloves, long sleeves and sturdy boots. The work is hard, but the hours go quickly with conversation, laughter and impromptu contests to see who can pull out the largest thistle without tools.

We talk about plant ecology in general, but one question often comes up: “What makes it a weed?” Simply put, a plant is a weed if doesn’t belong where it’s growing. But as humans, we’re inconsistent.

To a farmer dependent on crops for a living, a weed is any plant, native or otherwise, that competes with the crop. To a hand spinner of wool, the invasive and noxious tansy is welcome for its rich golden dye. To a rancher whose cattle or sheep forage on public land, tall larkspur and several members of the pea family, all native plants, should be sprayed, for they are toxic.

We also pull out other invasives such as Canada thistle, hound’s tongue, salsify, toadflax and knapweed. Despite our best efforts, these plants are flourishing. As we work, it’s fun when bicyclists whizzing by yell out “thank you!”, though some shake their heads. “You’re pissing in the wind,” one called.

But before-and-after photographs show that our hours of work make a difference. There is satisfaction in seeing the beds of two pickup trucks filled with bags of musk thistle blossoms.

Part of me admits that I’m not making a huge difference, but a bigger part is glad I have done my little bit for however long its effects may last. My Thistle Thursday friends agree.

That’s why we keep coming back. It’s a way to say, “I’m just going to enjoy my life for as long as it lasts.” Pulling weeds and filling buckets with their flowers is a lot like tending a garden at home. We’re just tending a larger garden, the Eden we all inherited.

Most of all, we’re expressing what is perhaps the most precarious of human sentiments these days: Hope.

Susan Marsh is a contributor to Writers on the Range, writersontherange.org, an independent nonprofit dedicated to spurring conversation about the West. She is a naturalist and writer for Mountain Journal, which covers Yellowstone’s wildlife, wild lands and culture. A longer version of this opinion appeared in mountainjournal.org.

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