Ken Salazar: How green is his San Luis Valley?

On Wednesday, Alamosa-born Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar will return to his roots -- again -- as part of a long-simmering effort to promote tourism and conservation in Colorado's much-praised, much-neglected San Luis Valley. Accompanied by Governor John Hickenlooper and Senators Michael Bennet and Mark Udall, Salazar will visit Adams State College for a "community conversation" to discuss a federal study that calls for -- well, more study, and possibly some action. The point of the confab is to push the recommendations in the National Park Service's recently released San Luis Valley and Central Sangre de Cristo Mountains Reconnaissance Survey Report, which identifies significant wildlife corridors and heritage sites in a 3.2-million-acre area stretching across the Valley and the Sangre de Cristo Mountains into northern New Mexico. Salazar hopes to see more conservation easements, an ambitious recreational trail network, and landmark designations that will help spotlight some of the Valley's cultural treasures, from Colorado's oldest town to penitente gathering places to its sprawling, fourteener-backdropped Spanish land grants...more