ARMY OFFICIALS
are slow to get the message that Southeastern Colorado ranchers and
townspeople don't want any expansion of the Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site
near Trinidad.
So Reps. Sal Pace, D-Pueblo, and Wes McKinley,
D-Walsh, are sponsoring a bill to remind them. Their House Bill 1317,
scheduled for a hearing in the House Agriculture Committee on
Wednesday, would block the State Board of Land Commissioners from
selling or leasing state-owned land that the Army would use to expand
the Fort Carson maneuver site.
The bill's prime sponsors led a
Pueblo rally Sunday, encouraging people to testify at the State Capitol
for HB1317. The Senate sponsor is Sen. Ken Kester, R-Las Animas, also
an opponent of Pinon Canyon expansion.
The rally was attended by
more than 50 community leaders, elected officials, environmental
groups, ranchers, farmers and private property owners who would be
directly affected by expansion of the 238,000-acre training facility.
"I've
never seen the Army make a case for the need of this property except
because that they want it," said Pueblo County Commissioner Jeff
Chostner, a retired Air Force colonel.
Ross Vincent of the Sierra Club added, "It's time for the Army's war on the people of Southeastern Colorado to end."
The
proposed ban against a state transfer of land to the Army is no small
issue. There are roughly 20,000 acres of State Land Board holdings in
the region south of Pinon Canyon that the Army has targeted for
expansion.
State lands are a source of revenue, mainly from
livestock-grazing and oil-and-gas leases, for the public school trust
fund. Therefore, they are important to school funding in Colorado.
We
strongly urge the Legislature to pass HB1317 to let the Army know, in
no uncertain terms, that the school lands are important to the state
and that Pinon Canyon agriculture is vital to the future of
Southeastern Colorado.
