Colo. landowners urge action on easements Frustrated landowners want the state to call a time out on conservation easements and fix problems they say were created by laws that encouraged donation of the easements without a procedure to track and stop abuses. “The state misjudged how many landowners were so poor that they would take such a small share of the value in cash if they could just keep farming and ranching,” said Jim Butcher, a Pueblo subdivision developer. “And that those farmers and ranchers needed the cash so bad they would hire all those experts at great expense to comply with all the state and federal tax laws.” Butcher was just one speaker in a parade of woeful tales that have grown from conservation easement audits by the Internal Revenue Service and Colorado Department of Revenue in recent years. Both state and federal laws allow tax credits for the development value of a property that a landowner passes up when donating a conservation easement. Colorado allows the tax credits to be sold....