U.S. Rep. Jeff Hurd addressed a variety of topics during his visit with the Montezuma County commissioners Monday afternoon but was vague about one that is of major interest to many locals – the proposed Dolores River National Conservation Area.
Several representatives of the City of Cortez were also at the table during the meeting with Hurd, a Republican who represents the Third Congressional District. An audience of about 50, which included a handful of people who helped craft the NCA proposal, also attended but was not allowed to ask questions.
The NCA would cover the river corridor in portions of Montezuma, Dolores, and San Miguel counties. Colorado’s senators both support it and have introduced legislation to create it.
However, Hurd has remained neutral although his predecessor, Lauren Baubert, backed the proposal and sponsored the legislation in the House.
Commissioner James Candelaria asked him what would make him more comfortable with it. Candelaria said there is “a storm of misinformation” circulating about the proposal.
Hurd said he wants to make sure that public land decisions are made with the support of the community.
Noting that the proposal is about a decade and a half old, Hurd joked, “This thing is almost old enough to drive.”
He said there are “some pieces” about which he wants to be certain he is hearing from all of the community.
He also said he is getting “a little bit of heartburn” about the idea that the NCA is needed to forestall things that the commissioners say would be worse.
“It seems like there’s a threat that unless you do this, you’re going to get a Wild and Scenic River that has a federal reserved water right, or a national monument,” Hurd said.
“I just want to make sure that the feedback and input I’m getting reflect the concerns that are shared.”
“At one time that was a serious threat,” said Commissioner Gerald Koppenhafer, who served on the working group that crafted the proposal over a period of more than a decade. “That’s why we started working on this thing. . . to find some other alternative.”
Koppenhafer noted that when locals couldn’t agree to support an NCA or a “historic area” on the artifact-rich area in western Montezuma County, they ended up with a presidentially created national monument.
“We couldn’t get along enough to figure out which one it would be,” Koppenhafer said. “We ended up with a monument.”
NCAs can be locally created and locally managed, but the monument is not, Koppenhafer said. “We have nothing to say about it.”
A handful of people who also served on the working group were at Monday’s meeting. One, rancher Al Heaton, recently wrote an opinion piece in the Cortez Journal in which he said, “If we do nothing, an outside proposal will emerge in the not-too-distant future and determine how the Dolores River is managed. The NCA represents a reasonable compromise for the Dolores River and respects the majority of local voices.”
Hurd remained noncommittal about the NCA but said he is still studying the issue.
“I’m not on that legislation but it’s something I’m thinking about,” he said.
Hurd asked the commissioners and city representatives what some of their biggest needs are, saying it would be helpful if they could “triage” them.
Cortez City Manager Drew Sanders said water distribution and storage is probably the city’s biggest concern. He spoke about how the city gets raw water from the McPhee Project and transports the water tothe Ute Mountain Ute Reservation.
“We need some help with that," he said. "It’s not arriving as usable drinking water because of the length [that it has to be transported].”
Sanders said the city is “behind the curve” on funding for the raw-water delivery system and storage.
City council member Dennis Spruell said the local EMS dispatch center – which serves a dozen entities including five fire districts, the Cortez police, and the Montezuma County Sheriff’s Office – needs funding. Hurd talked about different grant possibilities and asked that he be kept informed about the situation.
The commissioners raised a common concern of theirs, which is the small amount of funding the county gets as Payments in Lieu of Taxes (PILT) from federal public lands. Hurd said people back East don’t understand how much public land there is in the West and how it affects counties. He said it’s possible the formula determining the amount of PILT funding can be adjusted.
He praised some of the actions of the Trump administration, including securing the southern border and cutting back on government spending,
“We need to rein in spending,” he said, “but we need to make sure we do it in a way that’s thoughtful.”
He said the “health-care engine” is broken and “leaking a bunch of oil” and the solution is “not to pour in more oil but to fix the engine.”
“That’s one of the things I’m committed to doing in Congress,” he said.
He urged people to reach out to his Southwest regional director, Amy Huff, with their concerns.
“There are a lot of decent and hard-working people in Congress on both sides of the aisle,” he said, adding that those often are not the politicians who make headlines. “I’m trying to be that guy for you.”
