Colorado Open Lands
President's Letter
Conservation Permanency
Dan Pike
President
I do not think we are more inspired, have more wisdom, or possess more virtue, than those who come after us. - George Washington
I write this column from a hotel room in Alamosa. I’m in town today and Walsenburg tomorrow, for hearings on a proposed 230kV transmission line to run from Alamosa over LaVeta Pass to Walsenburg. The line will purportedly increase electricity reliability in the San Luis Valley, as well as export future solar energy produced electricity out of the Valley to the Front Range. I’m here because Colorado Open Lands holds 13 conservation easements in the project study area, on both sides of the Pass.
In our land conservation efforts, we often speak of “saving” land. We talk of preserving land in perpetuity. We say we’re leaving a legacy for our children and grandchildren. Indeed, conservation is virtually unique in that regard – we’re doing something forever. It’s a promise from our generation to both those generations that preceded us and to those generations to come.
This is one of the arguments I’ve made for maintaining tax incentives and open space funding during our current budget crisis: Conservation is an investment that keeps giving. Conserved land generates recreation dollars, it maintains agricultural infrastructure, it enhances tourism, it raises property values, it cleans air and water, and it ensures the quality of life that makes people invest in Colorado. And unlike other public investments, we pay for it just once - but benefits are forever.
One of the things we learn early in this business is that the land we preserve, the people on the land, and the uses around the land, change. Land is dynamic, and its character and conditions change. We constantly encounter changes, or requests for changes, that did not exist at the time a property was protected. We encounter conditions we hadn’t anticipated.
One of these changes is condemnation. We’re facing more and more cases of condemnation of conservation easements for public projects, something I hear echoed by my colleagues around the country. Indeed, conserved lands – large, open tracts with few improvements and fewer owners – are attractive locations for condemnation for public projects.
But these lands are protected for a reason. These lands may have important wildlife habitat; they may be significant agriculturally; they may offer recreational opportunities; they may protect Colorado’s breathtaking scenery. More than likely, they do all of them.
Congress recognized the importance of the purposes underlying conservation easements when they provided tax incentives to protect them. Conservation easements reflect major public investments through direct funding from programs such as Great Outdoors Colorado or the Federal Farmland Protection Program, or indirect funding through federal charitable donations or Colorado income tax credits.
George Washington’s words quoted above came just after the Constitutional Convention, and were in regards to amending the yet-to-be ratified Constitution. He knew they hadn’t gotten everything right (the Bill of Rights would follow shortly), and that times would change, and that future societies would be capable of correcting the errors and making the changes. On the other hand, since the Bill of Rights, the Constitution has been changed only 17 times in 222 years.
Increasing the reliability of electricity in the San Luis Valley or generation of alternative energy sources are worthy objectives. But so are the promises we made to leave conservation lands for future generations. The preservation of these lands and the conservation values they harbor were supposed to be permanent. Instead, the impacts of construction of this transmission line, or facilities in any other public condemnation project, will be permanent. It’s imperative these decisions are made carefully, with all impacts considered thoroughly, and all alternatives fully vetted. Our children and grandchildren deserve no less.