GOCO grant consolidates Laramie Foothills project

By JoAn Bjarko
North Forty News

Call it a very rich frosting on the cake. An $11.6 million grant awarded Dec. 1 by Great Outdoor Colorado will ice a land conservation ethic that's been cooking for decades in northern Larimer County.

The vision of a 220-square-mile corridor, from mountains to plains, for agriculture and wildlife was not verbalized until recent years, but the first piece fell into place nearly 40 years ago. The final pieces will come together soon, now that governments and conservation groups have the money to buy land, to trade land for conservation easements and to purchase development rights from existing ranches. In addition, several private landowners are donating conservation easements to add to the larger vision.

"It will be a number of years before it finally sinks in to all of us what we've accomplished," said state Sen. Peggy Reeves, who also serves on the GOCO board.

The GOCO grant, funded by the Colorado lottery, along with $13.7 million of local matching funds, brings 55,400 acres into the contiguous stretch of land called the Laramie Foothills: Mountain to Plains project. The driving forces behind the successful grant application are the Larimer County Open Lands Program, the city of Fort Collins, The Nature Conservancy and Legacy Land Trust.

Much of the land making up the corridor has been ranched for more than a century, which means the native grasslands are still intact. It's one of the last large landscapes on the Front Range to be found with native vegetation, said Greg Gamble, northeast Colorado program manager for TNC.

Another valuable quality, noted county open lands manager K-Lynn Cameron, is the prolonged transition, rather than abrupt break, from high plains grasslands to the Rocky Mountains.

If a person looks at a map of the mountains-to-plains conservation area, it extends from the edge of the Roosevelt National Forest on the west to the lower-elevation grasslands east of Interstate 25 - about 22 miles. Here's a summary of how a vast stretch of land in a development-driven county has been preserved in perpetuity.

1 Cherokee State Wildlife Area

According to Dave Clarkson, area wildlife manager with the Division of Wildlife, the state agency started purchasing ranches in the Livermore area in the late 1960s. The largest were the Wagner and Elliott ranches. An acquisition from the Circle Ranch a few years ago brought the state wildlife area to 29,000 acres.

The SWA is divided into five units - Upper, Middle, Lower, Lone Pine and Rabbit Creek. Clarkson explained that the area is managed for big game habitat, hunting recreation, habitat for Preble's meadow jumping mouse and fall forage for bears. Horseback riding is restricted to two trail loops in the summer.

A sixth-generation native of northern Colorado, Clarkson gave an enthusiastic endorsement to the Laramie Foothills project that is protecting an "intact, living, breathing" ecosystem.

The DOW, which receives part of state lottery revenue, designated $1 million toward the $11.6 million GOCO grant.

2 Phantom Canyon Ranches

In 1977, a young man named Carl Judson bought and revived two small ranches in the Livermore area. A few years later, Judson said, several older ranchers decided it was time to sell, and they approached him about buying their land. "I was the only logical candidate," he explained.

Judson ended up buying the Tibbits, Steinhoff, Koch and Ferree ranches, along with several smaller adjoining parcels for a total of 14,300 acres.

His idea was to put a conservation easement on the entire acreage and maintain it as a working ranch, but as it turned out, he was a couple decades ahead of the curve. No organization was interested in accepting an easement at that time because it was too big, he said.

Instead, Judson and friends formed a limited partnership and crafted a development plan that located building sites out of view of each other and encouraged buyers to donate conservation easements.

"It just seemed obvious that it ought to be preserved," Judson said.

Jim Reidhead, one of the original Phantom Canyon Ranches partners, noted that the 131 homesites allowed in the plan have been reduced to 58 through perpetual conservation easements.

"This was a very visionary act on Carl's part," Reidhead said. "What was controversial almost 20 years ago is now mainstream."

Partners also wrote the covenants to favor agriculture, Judson said, so today much of the land is used for cattle grazing.

Heather Knight of The Nature Conservancy said her organization decided to protect the core of the ranch from all development and raised funds to purchase the 1,120-acre Phantom Canyon Preserve in 1987. Landowners also donated conservation easements on another 400 acres at the south end of the preserve, she noted.

Scheduled events at Phantom Canyon Preserve have been open to the public since 1989, but the preserve is not accessible all the time because it is surrounded by private land.

3 Maxwell Ranch

Fred Maxwell, who started ranching in northern Larimer County in 1902, bequeathed 11,600 acres to the Colorado State University Research Foundation in 1971. Part of the acreage lies in Wyoming, but the 8,870 acres in Colorado are part of the mountain-to-plains corridor. Under CSURF ownership, the emphasis at the ranch has been on beef cattle research and production teaching activities.

4 Family ranches

The book "Ranch Histories of Livermore and Vicinity: 1884-1956" provides a narrative of ranching families buying and selling land over the decades. The practice continues, and the large center portion of the Mountain to Plains project will be preserved with conservation easements on both large and small private ranches. Transactions will conclude later this year.

A conservation easement is a legal document that contains permanent restrictions on the use or development of the land. The law requires that conservation easements be monitored by an outside agency such as Larimer County, The Nature Conservancy or Legacy Land Trust. All three are filling a vital role in the Laramie Foothills project.

Legacy Land Trust. Established in 1993, LLT is a local nonpolitical, nonprofit corporation. According to executive director Steve Ryder, the group has completed 17 projects totaling 3,325 acres in the Laramie Foothills. Work is under way to put conservation easements on another 2,500 acres in the next two years, he said.

In addition, LLT holds an easement on 6,700 acres in Weld County, just 20 miles east of the Mountain to Plains project.

"Mostly we just work quietly with landowners and help them conserve their land," Ryder said.

Calling the Laramie Foothills: Mountain to Plains project "extraordinary serendipity," Ryder noted that no one entity could do it alone. He is convinced that without the GOCO grant and cooperative efforts, the presently contiguous landscape would soon be split into small ranchettes.

The Nature Conservancy. TNC is an international nonprofit organization established in 1951. Since its first efforts at Phantom Canyon Preserve, TNC has become responsible for some 15,000 acres of conservation easements in the area.

To compete for the GOCO grant, local partners gave TNC the task of raising $1 million of private matching funds. "That's what The Nature Conservancy does," Gamble said of the successfully completed assignment.

Noting that the Laramie Foothills project has been the most complex he's worked on in seven years with TNC, Gamble said, "The magic of this project has been the overlapping vision for conservation of this landscape."

Of the 55,400 acres in the current project, two-thirds of the land will continue as working ranches; one-third that is held by the city of Fort Collins and Larimer County will be open to public access. The public "can't step on every square foot of land that gets preserved," Gamble explained.

In future years, TNC wants to help fill in the holes of the Mountain to Plains project through voluntary land preservation, he added.

5 Red Mountain Ranch.

Straddling the Colorado-Wyoming border, Red Mountain Ranch has had many owners and many configurations over the years. At the end of 2004, GOCO funds allowed the Larimer County Open Lands Program to buy 13,500 acres in Colorado for $9.7 million. Some of the land will be traded for conservation easements elsewhere, leaving the county as the owner and manager of an estimated 5,000 acres adjacent to the city-owned Soapstone Ranch.

Combined, the publicly owned property will provide 30 miles of trails for hiking, mountain biking and horseback riding (purple lines on map). But outdoor enthusiasts shouldn't head that direction yet. Both the city and county first have to go through a public process to develop management plans. Cameron said she expects the county portion will open to public use in 2009.

TNC plans to protect the Wyoming portion of Red Mountain Ranch, which is 1,818 acres.

6 Soapstone Ranch

In May, Fort Collins purchased 12,579 acres of the Soapstone Ranch for $7.3 million, using the city's sales tax for open space. The purchase provides a major share of the matching funds for the GOCO grant.

The ranch contains 3,873 acres of public land managed by the State Land Board. The city has also purchased the adjacent Romans Ranch.

Soapstone includes the Lindenmeier site, a National Historic Landmark archaeological site bearing artifacts of the Paleo-Indians who lived there some 10,800 years ago.

Mark Sears, Fort Collins natural areas manager, said Soapstone will open to the public in 2008 at the earliest. He said the city and county will try to synchronize their work on management plans, perhaps holding public meetings on the same date.

In the meantime, the city is leasing ranchland to the Folsum Grazing Association, Sears said, and he expects grazing will continue after the ranch is open to the public. The city is also thinking about backcountry camping sites and access for hunting, he said.

To help the public learn about the resources of both Red Mountain and Soapstone ranches, the city and county will schedule guided public tours from May through fall this year, Sears said. Details will be available this spring.

7 State Land Board

The Colorado State Land Board manages three million acres of surface land and four million acres of mineral rights that were given to Colorado at statehood by the federal government. These lands are managed to benefit eight trusts, with income from the largest trust going to support public education.

About 13 square miles (light purple on the map) of state trust land fall within the Mountains to Plains project. Fort Collins is currently leasing state land within the boundaries of Soapstone Ranch and may someday purchase the land.

8 Meadow Springs Ranch

Fort Collins also owns the 26,000-acre Meadow Springs Ranch located along Interstate 25 near the Wyoming border. The city bought the land in the early 1990s to have a place to dispose of biosolids from its sewage treatment process. Twelve thousand acres are currently permitted for application of biosolids, according to Dave Meyer of the utilities department. Applications are rotated around the permitted area.

In addition, the city leases grazing rights from mid-May to mid-November and is working to improve grassland conditions with rotations.

Located 26 miles north of Fort Collins, Meadow Springs is adjacent to the city's recently acquired Soapstone Ranch.

9 Eagle's Nest Open Space

This 752-acre open space purchased in 2000 by the Larimer County Open Lands Program will open to the public this year, giving county residents opportunities for horseback riding and hiking on the rolling hills that beckoned ranchers to settle the Livermore area in the late 1800s.