Old West echoes in battle between Fountain Creek ranchers, mining firm

There’s a stretch of land along Fountain Creek where the Old West lives on. Cattle move across the brown hills and the cottonwood trees are black against the sky. To motorists speeding on Interstate 25 between Colorado Springs and Pueblo, the land seems peaceful. In actuality, it’s a battleground. For six decades, the Frosts and Hannas, two of the ranching families who own land next to Fountain Creek, have been fending off efforts by people who want what’s above, below, or runs through their property. They’ve fought land speculators, developers, oil companies, utilities and toll-road firms. In the process, they’ve lost some ground to the guys in tassel loafers who wheel documents into court in luggage carriers. They’ve also lost ground to the flash floods that have periodically rampaged down Fountain Creek. Now they’re battling Lafarge, a multinational company headquartered in Paris that wants to erect a 745-acre operation adjacent to their ranchlands that will include an asphalt plant, a concrete plant and the extraction of 30 million tons of sand and gravel over 15 years...read more