Strategies to stop Fort Carson expansion

The Pinon Canyon Expansion Opposition Coalition (PCEOC) was formed nine years ago to stop the expansion of the Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site (PCMS). To date, that effort has been successful. The board of directors decided early on that PCEOC needed to be a big tent; there was no room in the expansion battle for partisan politics or divisive ideologies. Through the years PCEOC maintained a diverse set of board members and worked with politicians and non-profits from a wide political spectrum. At various times PCEOC has been labeled “environmental wackos” and “property rights extremists.” The organization has always defied those labels and strived to represent all of Southeastern Colorado in the expansion battle. The PCEOC has always viewed stopping expansion as a layering of political and legislative obstacles that eventually made expansion unappealing to the Army. These layers fall into three general categories: Public relations, government action limiting legislation, and documentation that Southeastern Colorado has value. The National Heritage Act falls into the third category of documenting value. In 1983 the Army successfully made the public relations case that our region was an overgrazed wasteland where ranchers wanted out because they had abused the land and its resources. PCEOC documented for state and national politicians that Southeastern Colorado is a unique place where the biological, economic and cultural coexist symbiotically, not in conflict. The foundation of a unique relationship between a successful economy and ecology is private land ownership. Each rancher must operate sustainably to stay in business on his or her own land. Generational knowledge about how to run cattle and use of historical resources in today’s world are at the heart of this ecological and economic relationship (emphasis mine).

Read the column to see how private landowners were considering using a federal environmental law to keep the feds from acquiring private property.