A 302-acre property along the West Fork of the Dolores River is permanently protected from development as of Nov. 22.
It’s a private inholding that’s surrounded by U.S. Forest Service land, with over 2 miles of river corridor flowing through it. It’s located north of the West Dolores Campground.
“It was a pretty dreamy project,” said Austin Easter, the conservation director at the Montezuma Land Conservancy, which is the land trust who partnered with the landowner to make this project happen.
“You don’t find 2 miles along the West Fork of the Dolores River that you can protect every day,” Easter said.
Five or six years ago, the landowner, who lives in Grand Junction, first reached out to the Montezuma Land Conservancy to learn more about securing an easement on her property, Easter said.
The pandemic postponed the project, as did her ability to travel down here, and so work on said easement really picked up this year.
The landowner wanted to make sure the two parcels of land that make up the 302 acres would stick together, and be sold and managed as one forever.
She also wanted to make sure the land wouldn’t be subdivided into smaller parcels, and so there can only be one structure on the entire property.
Easements “restrict development while protecting conservation value,” Easter said.
Since this project – called the Sturdevant easement – includes “vital watershed” that is the Dolores River, its conservation value is high, specifically when considering trout and other wildlife that depend on it.
What’s more, cattle historically graze this land when they migrate from the high country.
Easter called this easement “rare,” and the Montezuma Land Conservancy echoed that by calling it a “once-in-a-generation project” in a press release.
Funders agreed.
Easements cost $90,000 to $120,000, so they applied for grant funding to curb those costs.
“It was the highest-ranked project in relation to water protection in all of Colorado,” Easter said.
They got a total of $75,000 from Keep it Colorado, and $50,000 of it came from the Walton Family Foundation’s Colorado River Basin funding.
That money goes toward what Easter called “due diligence,” which includes things like appraisals, environmental assessments and stewardship efforts on the land.
To be clear, the landowner still owns the land, and the Montezuma Land Conservancy will be its steward, ensuring “no buildings are going up” or “dirt bike jumps” are added to the property, Easter said with a laugh.
And the land will be protected – sold as one lot with the possibility of only one home on it – in perpetuity, forever. Even if the Montezuma Land Conservancy went away, another land trust would make sure the easement was enforced.
The Montezuma Land Conservancy was founded in 1998, it’s protected nearly 50,000 acres of land in Montezuma, Dolores and west San Miguel counties through easements like this one since then.
Easter said, in addition to this most recent project, there’s an existing 40-acre easement south of Sturdevant.
There’s a few more easements on the main fork of the river – and they’re working on securing more – thanks to a lot of landowners who like to fly fish and thus see the value in riparian restoration efforts.
“There’s not much land to be protected on the West Fork anymore,” said Easter. “We’re excited to be part of it.”
