Salazar: Taylor Ranch rights will be honored

Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar said Wednesday that his proposal to promote the cultural heritage of the San Luis Valley will have no impact on the use rights to heirs on the Sangre de Cristo Land Grant. San Luis residents fought a series of court battles for four decades to regain access to a 77,000-acre tract of land, which had been fenced off by North Carolina timberman Jack Taylor in the 1960s. The Colorado State Supreme Court ruled in 2002 that heirs had the right to graze livestock and harvest timber and firewood from the parcel known by locals as La Sierra, although a local court continues the process of confirming heirs. Prior to 1960, locals enjoyed more than a century of access to the property as part of the terms of settlement of the grant, which was issued by the Mexican government in 1843 to lure settlers to the area. "We're not going to undo a case that I personally was very involved in and followed, which was the Taylor Ranch case that recognized the historic subsistence rights of the local community," Salazar said. "Those have to be honored. It's my personal point of view. It's also my legal point of view." Shirley Romero Otero, who asked Salazar if the use rights of the land grant heirs would be protected under any of the proposals, said he had not answered her question. She worried that a designation under the National Park Service might open the land to the public, thereby infringing on the rights heirs regained in court. "We've got the most to lose of anybody else," she said. "I'm leaving with more questions than I came with."...more