Locals talk public land concerns

Several former public land caretakers who live in Chaffee County spoke to The Mail about the recent mass firings across the public lands sector. 

Walt Dabney, who worked for the National Park Service for 30 years, said, “Here we are, with no plan, just cutting bodies, numbers and dollars. This is completely lunacy. If you were going to do something that was truly designed to destroy an organization, this is about how you’d go about doing it.”

He said in Utah, where he worked for most of his career, the outdoor recreation economy brought in $8.5 billion and 73,000 jobs last year, setting records.

Economic activity for just NPS is about $55.5 billion for the country, he added. Their total budget is $3.5 billion.

“It is really unfortunate. It is generally stupid economics to do this. There is a tiny bit of money you might save and a whole lot of money you’re going to lose.” 

Dabney retired in 1999 from his position as general superintendent for the Southeast Utah Group. That group includes the Arches and Canyonlands national parks and Hovenweep and Natural Bridges national monuments. 

“(National parks) are a repository for the prehistoric and historic things that make us who we are as Americans,” Dabney said. “The mission of the NPS is to use them and pass them on unimpaired to the future. It sets aside absolutely incredible and unique places in our country. There is only one Grand Canyon, only one Everglades, Redwoods, Yosemite or Yellowstone. We just happen to have them. I think we hold them in trust for the world.” 

Art Hutchinson, who grew up in Salida, met Dabney while they both worked at Canyonlands in 1996. Hutchinson retired from NPS as superintendent of Great Sand Dunes National Park in 2016. 

In regards to the ongoing discussions of privatizing public lands, Hutchinson said if that were to happen, it would change the experience and the foundational purpose of public lands. 

“The egalitarian nature of public lands, especially the national parks, is really in jeopardy. If you arrive in a Porsche or a jalopy, you got the same tour. It’s not how much you pay to get in, it’s the experience you want to have.” 

He said when parks lose staff, one of the first things that will change is the clean bathrooms. That will ultimately turn people away from visiting, resulting in loss of revenue. 

Amelia Orton-Palmer, a retired fish and wildlife ranger who lives in Salida, said, “These moves are not rational. If you want to right-size and smart-size government, I'll fully admit that there are agencies or departments that need some trimming – but there is nothing right and nothing smart about the way they are going about it. This is going to make it less efficient. This is not rational, it's political – part of the whole ongoing effort to vilify government workers.”

Last week, in a symbolic showing, the Colorado General Assembly passed a Senate Joint Resolution calling for the protection of public lands in the state. 

According to the resolution, a 2024 Colorado College State of the Rockies poll showed that 88% of Westerners visited national public lands in 2023, with a quarter of those visiting more than 10 times, and 84% of Coloradans support the creation of new national parks, national monuments and national wildlife refuges. “Those visitors contributed more than $17 billion to Colorado's economy in 2023, supporting 132,500 jobs and placing Colorado in the top 10 nationally for economic activity around outdoor recreation,” the resolution stated.

Chaffee County Commissioner P.T. Wood said he was pleased to see the resolution because it “reiterates the value that Colorado places on public lands and the importance that they hold not only in our economy but just our lives in general.” 

Wood said public lands “do seem to be under attack at the federal level. Certainly the folks that work for BLM and the Forest Service are feeling under attack, I think that is fair to say,” he said. “And it kinda takes all of us in Colorado waving our arms saying, ‘We value these places and value the people that take care of these places.’”