Both rivers made the annual “America’s Most Endangered Rivers” report released this morning. The Green River, the largest feeder to the Colorado River, ranked second on the list while the Crystal River ranked eighth. The Potomac River — dubbed “the nation’s river” as it provides drinking water to more than five million people around Washington, D.C. — was deemed the most endangered.

The report, compiled by the nonprofit advocacy group American Rivers, cites Fort Collins businessman Aaron Million’s proposed Flaming Gorge pipeline, as well as a competing diversion proposal by Parker Water & Sanitation District manager Frank Jaeger, as major threats to the world-class recreation, rural economies, critical fish habitats, and the water supply for the lower Colorado River Basin.

“Aaron Million and Frank Jaeger remain committed to build that pipeline,” Matt Rice, Colorado conservation director for American Rivers, said Monday. “There are a hundred reasons why it doesn’t make sense, why it’s a bad idea and why it’s not a responsible use of taxpayer money. We’re calling on Utah Governor Gary Herbert and Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper to publicly oppose it.”

Wyoming Governor Matt Mead has already stated the proposed pipeline project that would span 578 miles across his state to Colorado’s Front Range would be misguided and overly expensive.

Rice noted that the Green River “faces an unprecedented number of threats” that include other less publicized water diversion proposals and the pressures from water-intensive energy exploration.

A new report lists the Green as the second most endangered river in America. (Photo by Brent Gardner-Smith/Aspen Journalism)

“Our rivers and streams continue to be under assault from competing interests that too often do
not consider the value intrinsic in the ecosystems that rivers and streams create, nurture, and
sustain,” said Pitkin County attorney John Ely. “If we are to preserve our rivers, public awareness of the threats and impending changes facing these ecosystems is essential.”

Creating public awareness is the focus of the “America’s Most Endangered Rivers” report, which is sometimes criticized as elevating the problems of certain rivers above those of other equally endangered ones. But the timing of key decisions that determine the rivers’ fates is a big part of how the America’s Most Endangered Rivers report, now in its 27th edition, is compiled each year.

The Colorado River Water Conservation District, for example, is expected to soon defend its remaining rights to potentially dam the free-flowing Crystal that feeds the Roaring Fork in Carbondale. The district abandoned a plan for one large reservoir last year and it has downsized plans for another.

Rice said the report is not meant to “hammer” the river districts but rather to convince them they have an opportunity to foster goodwill with the public by preserving and protecting healthy rivers.

“We’d like to build support for a ‘wild and scenic river’ designation,” Rice said.

The American Rivers report does hammer Congress for its “relentless” attacks on the Clean Water Act. It asks lawmakers to shelve legislation that would roll back longstanding clean water regulations.

Other rivers listed in the report include the Chattahooche in Georgia, the Missouri, the Hoback in Idaho, the Grand in Ohio, the Skykomish in the Northwest, the Coal in West Virginia and the Kansas.

“I’m not surprised by the outcome at all,” said House bill sponsor Mark Ferrandino, D-Denver, after the hearing. “We saw the end coming when [House] Speaker Frank McNulty assigned it to this committee, known as the Speaker’s kill committee.

“We had a majority in the House and the bill passed with a solid majority in the Senate. We just wanted it to enjoy the same vigorous debate on the House floor that it received in the four House committees where it appeared this year,” he said.

Republicans over the last week and in the committee hearing today said Democrats were playing politics with the bill, dragging out its introduction in the House and introducing it in an election year to place pressure one way or another on Republicans. Primary opponents could run against an “aye” vote, they say, and general election opponents could run against a “nay” vote.

“That’s just not true,” said Ferrandino. “We didn’t play politics. We introduced this bill to help families.”

He said he wasn’t sure what he would do differently given the standoff in the House that ended in the bill’s death.

“We can just help make sure that next year there continues to be a pro-equality majority but that leadership in the House won’t undermine that majority. We can work and organize from now till November to change that leadership.”

Republicans control the House this year with a one-seat majority. Most analysts believe that the new legislative district lines drawn last year have made it very likely that Democrats will control both chambers of the state legislature next year.

Uphill battle

Gay-rights organization One Colorado, the main activist group lobbying over the last two years for the bill, told the Independent it was seeking out members of the State Affairs committee today to talk about civil unions. Spokesman Jace Woodrum said it was “an uphill battle” and that the group “wasn’t confident” they could win over a single necessary Republican vote on the nine-member committee. Woodrum said they were focusing efforts on Rep. Don Coram, R-Montrose, a personally sympathetic figure who nevertheless has been politically opposed to gay rights.

“I’m the proud father of a son who happens to be gay… but I also represent 75,000 constituents in southwest Colorado,” Coram said before voting against the bill. He referred to the ballot box votes in 2006 that defined marriage in Colorado as a union between one-man one-woman and that rejected civil unions for same sex couples.

“I have a lot of friends in the gay community but what you’re asking me to do here is to invalidate the vote of the people.”

Coram said he thought the gay community was being used as “a political pawn” by Democratic lawmakers.

“They controlled the governor’s mansion and both chambers of the legislature for four years. Why didn’t they pass it then. Why did they wait until we had a divided legislature? [Gay Coloradans] deserve respect but I feel an obligation to the voters I represent.”

Even as the proceedings got underway, the mood in the Old Supreme Court Chamber where the hearing was being held didn’t bode well for civil unions supporters. Opponents lined the walls and filled the seats, a departure from recent hearings on the bill, where opposition support seemed thin.

What’s more, Republican lawmakers seemed to be running away from the bill even as leaders waged war against it in the press.

An hour after the special session launched, House Speaker Frank McNulty, R-Highlands Ranch, talked to the capitol press corps about the “gay marriage” politics being pushed by the governor. As the State Affairs Committee hearing got underway in the afternoon, Rep. Kevin Priola, R-Henderson, a one-time civil unions supporter, distanced himself from the bill on Twitter, writing that it was a “poke in the eye” for traditional marriage.

‘A fair hearing’

McNulty had assigned the civil unions legislation to the hardline State Affairs Committee in order to finally end the drawn-out battle over the bill. During the regular session, it had passed with strong bipartisan support in the Democratic-controlled Senate and it passed with bipartisan majorities through three Republican-controlled House committees.

In the face of the bill’s unlikely progress and as key Republican primary campaigns heated up, McNulty seemed desperate. He had publicly promised a “fair hearing” for the bill on a number of occasions but in the end seemed determined not to let that happen.

On the next-to-last day of the session, the House Appropriations Committee passed the bill and sent it to the main chamber for debate, despite stalling efforts led by Colorado Springs Republican Rep. Bob Gardner.

As many as eight Republicans in the House, however, reportedly were ready to vote in favor of the legislation and three of them allied with Democrats to halt a McNulty-orchestrated Gardner-led filibuster intended to run out the clock and kill the bill Tuesday night.

When the pro-civil unions bipartisan bloc moved to end the filibuster, House leaders cut off debate and called a two-hour recess. Nearly 40 bills, including civil unions, died as a result, leading Hickenlooper to call for the special legislative session aimed at addressing the major bills left for dead in the wake of the historic House impasse.

Gay marriage versus civil unions

At the hearing Monday night, opponents of the bill mostly argued that the bill was a step on the road to gay marriage and that “traditional marriage” was the best arrangement in which to raise children.

Carrie Gordon Earl from Focus on the Family said the bill would lead to lawsuits. Once civil unions laws pass, gay marriage supporters file discrimination suits, she said. The financial costs of those suits should be included in the debate.

“It cost $10 million to defend California’s traditional marriage amendment,” she said. “Do we have that kind of money? What programs will the Colorado legislature cut to pay for such a lawsuit?”

Supporters of the bill mostly argued for equal rights. They said children thrive in two-parent loving homes, regardless of the sexual orientation of the parents, and that LGBT people endure soft and hard legally-sanctioned discrimination all the time.

“We say we’re ‘designated beneficiaries’ but people don’t even know what that means,” said Anna Simon, sitting next to her partner Fran. “People think that just means she’s the one I leave things to after I’m gone. But she’s the one I want to share my life with.”

Ferrandino, one of several openly gay lawmakers in the state, was eloquent but subdued in his closing remarks.

“We’re just asking to be treated equally in our state,” he said. “We’re not asking anyone here to say that being gay is OK. The fact is, we don’t have the same access to the laws that everyone else here does. It doesn’t seem democratic. [It doesn't seem] to uphold the spirit of our country.”

[ Top: Denver Rep. Mark Ferrandino; bottom: Montrose Rep. Don Coram by TCI ]

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An eighth-grader at Louisville Middle School enjoys a slice of cheese pizza before listening to U.S. Rep. Jared Polis speak Monday. (Photo by Troy Hooper)

“Congress said that eating pizza is the same as eating green beans or peas or broccoli,” U.S. Rep. Jared Polis, D-Colo., told the students. “While most of us know that sounds crazy, Congress apparently doesn’t.”

Just after the teens finished eating — what else? — cheese pizza, a vegetable salad, grapefruit slices and whole strawberries, Polis used the Louisville Middle School lunchroom as the backdrop for the introduction of a new bill, the School Lunch Improvements for Children’s Education (SLICE) Act.

The legislation would close the loophole that allows a pizza without vegetables to be counted as a serving of vegetables in federally subsidized lunches eaten by almost 32 million U.S. school children.

Two years ago, Congress passed a child nutrition law that called on schools to improve the nutritional quality of lunches they serve but then lobbyists for frozen pizza sellers like ConAgra Foods Inc. and Schwan Food Co. started hanging around the Capitol and the next thing you know pizza was classified as a vegetable. Lobbyists for french fry makers like the one that supplies McDonald’s Corp. also succeeded in preventing limits on how many starchy vegetables, like potatoes, are served.

There is an epidemic of childhood obesity across the nation and around the world. Experts estimate one in five children between the ages of 6 and 17 are overweight in the United States.

“We all eat pizza. I eat pizza. I enjoy pizza,” Polis said, calling a slice of pie “a good snack from time to time” that “can be part of a healthy diet” so long as all of its carbohydrates, calories and saturated fat are balanced out by exercise and overall healthy eating. While “pizza can be a lot of things to a lot of people,” he stressed that one thing it certainly is not is a vegetable.

In addition to setting higher standards for when tomato paste and puree counts as a vegetable, the SLICE Act (pdf) seeks to implement sodium-reduction targets and a whole grain requirement.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture spends $18 billion a year on its student lunch program.

Swamped by reporters after making the assignment, McNulty said that Gov. John Hickenlooper called the special session to advance “gay marriage” in Colorado but that Republicans were focused on job creation. He said Hickenlooper was spending tax money to run the special session on an election-year campaign issue meant to trip up Republican candidacies.

The State, Veterans and Military Affairs committee is known as the kill committee this year. The civil unions bill, sponsored by Denver Democrats Pat Steadman in the Senate and Mark Ferrandino in the House, never went to the State Affairs committee during the regular session. It went to the Judiciary Committee, the Finance Committee and the Appropriations Committee, passing with one-vote majorities in each by winning over one Republican lawmaker on each committee.

Talking to reporters after McNulty finished, Ferrandino lamented the action taken by the Speaker.

“The majority, including 46 percent of Republican delegates to the party convention this year, has supported this bill. This is not a controversial issue here. He sent it to the kill committee. It should have followed the same process as it followed during the regular session.”

Ferrandino said the selection of the kill committee on the part of McNulty was of a piece with what happened at the end of the session when McNulty led a filibuster and called a recess of the House in order to kill the bill.

“[McNulty] says that [Hickenlooper] is playing politics but the Speaker let 37 bills die, many of them related to job creation, when he maneuvered to kill civil unions legislation last week.”

The State Committee is scheduled to meet at 3:30 this afternoon.

Ferrandio said that Coloradans are sick and tired of the games that have been played in the House this year.

“I don’t know why [McNulty] is so opposed to this bill. I think the Speaker is listening to a small minority of supporters. You’ve heard him referring to ‘gay marriage.’ This isn’t about gay marriage. That’s not in the bill.

“All we’ve ever asked for is equal rights. That’s it.”

[ Image: McNulty talking to reporters by TCI ]

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Jan van Lohuizen, a pollster for Pres. George W. Bush, wrote to GOP insiders last week that rapidly building public support for gay rights across the demographic spectrum of U.S. voters suggested that the hard-line Republican stance opposing those rights threatened to marginalize the party.

From the memo:

Support for same sex marriage has been growing and in the last few years support has grown at an accelerated rate with no sign of slowing down. A review of public polling shows that up to 2009 support for gay marriage increased at a rate of 1% a year. Starting in 2010 the change in the level of support accelerated to 5% a year. The most recent public polling shows supporters of gay marriage outnumber opponents by a margin of roughly 10% (for instance: NBC/WSJ poll in February / March: support 49%, oppose 40%).

The increase in support is taking place among all partisan groups. While more Democrats support gay marriage than Republicans, support levels among Republicans are increasing over time. The same is true of age: younger people support same sex marriage more often than older people, but the trends show that all age groups are rethinking their position.

For months now, supporters of Colorado’s civil unions Senate Bill 2, sponsored by Pat Steadman, D-Denver, have pointed to survey data that demonstrates similar rapidly building public support for gay rights in the state. Surveys commissioned by Christian organizations and presented by Christian-right lawmakers opposed to the bill and that suggest support has dipped for civil unions here have been mostly written off as unreliable.

At the state Republican Party meetings held last month, 45 percent of delegates to the state convention– party activists from around the state– supported civil unions.

High-profile GOP attorney Mario Nicolais, spokesman for Coloradans for Freedom, a Republican coalition formed in support of the civil unions bill this year, argued repeatedly before legislative committees that the Republican Party was the party of family values and that Senate Bill 2, sponsored by Pat Steadman, D-Denver, would put in place vital legal protections for gay couples and their children presently absent in state statutes. Establishing child support and visitation rights, he said, for example, would promote the kind of responsibility proponents of conservative values have championed for decades.

During the regular session of the legislature, the civil unions bill passed the Democratic-controlled Senate and won bipartisan majorities in three Republican-controlled House committees.

Yet House leaders led by Speaker Frank McNulty, R-Highlands Ranch, killed the bill on the second-to-last day of the session. A Republican bloc ran out the clock with a filibuster and then a recess called when it became clear Democrats and their Republican allies had gathered enough votes to halt the filibuster and force a vote on civil unions.

McNulty promised a fair hearing for the bill throughout the regular legislative session. His actions on the floor of the House last week, however, suggest he is determined to make sure the bill doesn’t pass into law during this heated election year.

In the special session, the bill has to start from scratch. It has to pass the Senate and make it through House Committees. Although supporters of the bill won over key committee members in select committees during the regular session, McNulty can now assign the bill to any House committee he chooses and he can also appoint whomever he likes to those committees.

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The Colorado river cuts a mighty bend in Utah. (Image: Protect the Flows)

A study released earlier this month and presented at a small forum in Denver makes the case that the river — simply as an object of enjoyment — is the largest employer in Colorado.

The study — commissioned by Protect The Flows and performed by Southwick Associates — only looked at the money spent by residents of the six-state Colorado River Basin. It did not consider money spent by people from outside these states.

The study contends that nearly 80,000 Coloradans owe their livelihood to the river and that river-related retail sales alone generate more income than agricultural production in Colorado.

Of the six states studied, which included Arizona, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada and New Mexico, Colorado was by far the leader in terms of jobs generated and money spent. Direct spending in the region amounts to just over $17 billion a year, with just under $6.4 billion of that spent in Colorado. California was left out of the study because by the time the river reaches California it has lost most of its recreational value.

The forum, which drew only a couple of dozen people to a conference room at the Denver Chamber of Commerce, was nonetheless attended by both of Colorado’s U.S. senators. Panelists included business owners from throughout the region.

They included the predictable: rafting company owners, fishing guides and hotel owners and the unpredictable: the owner of a tile business.

Lee Gruber, founder and co-owner of Syzygy Tile Works in Silver City, Nev., said her business, which sells hand-crafted art tiles worldwide, would have trouble finding employees if it wasn’t for a healthy Colorado River system, several tributaries of which run nearby.

Gruber said healthy rivers and ecosystems are a quality of life issue for her and her 25 employees. She said all of her employees live in the area because of the lifestyle offered by the rivers and nearby wilderness areas. She said she would have no employees if it wasn’t for those factors, and noted that her business brings in more than $1 million a year from out-of-state buyers alone.

Protect The Flows has nearly 400 business members from the region, all of whom believe that a healthy river is vital to their own economic well-being.

“We represent 400 businesses who need water in the Colorado River to support the economy,” said Molly Mugglestone, coordinator of Protect the Flows.

She said all the trends show the river is losing water at a precipitous rate. “Think about the consequences of that,” she said. “If we do nothing, the price of water will spike and families will be forced to make drastic changes in how they use water.”

Karen Avery, who owns the Box Canyon Lodge and Hot Springs in Ouray, said her business and the economy of Ouray are dependent on a healthy Colorado River system. She said that in Ouray, 80 percent of sales tax revenue comes from visitors.

“Our business depends on a healthy river and a healthy environment. We need healthy flows in the river in order to support our way of life,” Avery said.

She said Ouray’s year-round population of 900 swells to 3,000 in the summer. “A healthy river makes that possible,” she said.

Sarah Sidwell, who manages a rafting business in Moab, Utah, said her business has more than 100 seasonal employees, all of whom rely on the river for their livelihood. “Our stake in this is huge. We need a flowing river for me to have a job. Moab is very dependent on sustaining flows in the Colorado River.”

Sidwell said Moab is home to burgeoning high-tech and manufacturing sectors, both of which rely on the outdoor lifestyle created by the river for the bulk of their employees.

“You don’t have to spend much time around rivers to understand their importance,” U.S. Sen. Mark Udall told the businesspeople.

Sen. Mark Udall addresses the Colorado River conference. (Kersgaard)

“Cynics might scoff at the importance of non-consumptive uses,” he said, adding that such uses are extremely important not just from a lifestyle point of view but from an economic one. He said the river supports 85,000 jobs and generates $9.5 billion a year in Colorado, numbers slightly higher than those documented by the study, which was limited in its scope.

He said climate change and drought are real concerns in Colorado. “Our economic future depends on preserving our water supply,” Udall said.

Sen. Michael Bennet hit on one of his recurrent themes when he told the gathering that politicians in Washington, D.C., are detached from the real lives and real problems of people in the United States.

Sen. Michael Bennet speaks at Protect the Flows meeting in Denver. (Kersgaard)

He said, though, that people in Colorado and the West have a history of rising above their differences in order to work together to solve problems such as those presented by an overtaxed river system.

He said the region depends on “our stewardship” of such natural resources as the Colorado River and the state’s natural areas.

According to the study, 1.74 million Coloradans recreate on the river or its tributaries each year. If you looked at the river system as a business, Rob Southwick said the recreational spending by regional residents alone would rank the river #155 on the Fortune 500.

In Colorado, he said, 3.5 percent of the population rely on the river for their jobs.

The Hinchey-Rohrabacher-Farr-McClintock Amendment:

None of the funds made available in this Act to the Department of Justice may be used, with respect to the States of Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington, to prevent such States from implementing their own State laws that authorize the use, distribution, possession, or cultivation of medical marijuana.

The final vote was 163-262, with 72 percent of Democrats in favor of the amendment but only 28 Republicans voting yes. Delegations from most of the states with medical marijuana did vote in favor.

More than a dozen states, including Colorado, have legalized medical marijuana, yet the federal Department of Justice continues to take the position that marijuana is illegal for any and all purposes and continues to pursue selective enforcement of federal laws irrespective of state laws.

In Colorado, U.S. Attorney John Walsh has acted to shut down dozens of medical marijuana dispensaries that were in compliance with state law but that he viewed as being too close to schools.

Rep. Jared Polis (Kersgaard)

While all of Colorado’s Democrats in the House voted to defund the DOJ’s efforts to supersede state law, only Jared Polis, D-Boulder, has been outspoken on the issue, sponsoring legislation to remove marijuana laws from federal jurisdiction and speaking out strongly against DOJ interference in state medical marijuana regulation.

In a speech on the House floor, Polis said the amendment was “critical for Colorado” where businesses and patients “live under constant fear of selective enforcement from the attorney general or the Department of Justice.”

Polis accounted a recent conversation he had with AG Eric Holder, where Holder acknowledged that with so many medical marijuana patients and businesses, the only kind of enforcement possible is “selective.”

“What if that selective enforcement becomes politically motivated? That is a very dangerous road to go down,” Polis said.

He noted that drug abuse is a terrible problem, but that it is the corner drug dealer who sells to 15-year-olds, not state-regulated dispensaries.

“This amendment is commonsense. It will allow legal businesses to operate without fear of the DEA busting their doors down,” Polis said.

“This amendment would have done a lot of good,” said Morgan Fox, spokesperson for the national Marijuana Policy Project. “It would have prevented the feds from going after medical marijuana businesses that are in compliance with state law.

“Congress is out of touch on this issue, not seeing that marijuana reform is a very popular issue with voters these days,” he added.

Fox said he found it “amazing” that Republicans in Congress didn’t take this opportunity to “rebuke an unpopular policy of President Obama’s.”

Local marijuana attorney and supporter of the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol Brian Vicente said he was also disappointed.

“That law would have made a big difference. It would have been a concrete step toward stopping federal intrusion into the state’s medical marijuana laws,” Vicente said. “This federal intrusion is making it difficult for patients to get their medicine.

“There seems to be a disconnect between the people and their representatives in Congress, especially the Republicans. Voters should be angry at Republicans in Congress who say they are for states’ rights and smaller government, but won’t stand up for those things when they get the chance,” Vicente said.

Former Speaker of the House and current Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, recently released this statement supporting states’ rights on medical marijuana and questioning why the DOJ and the Obama Administration have been actively targeting businesses that are in compliance with state laws.

“Access to medicinal marijuana for individuals who are ill or enduring difficult and painful therapies is both a medical and a states’ rights issue. Sixteen states, including our home state of California, and the District of Columbia have adopted medicinal marijuana laws – most by a vote of the people.

Nancy Pelosi (Tomasic)

“I have strong concerns about the recent actions by the federal government that threaten the safe access of medicinal marijuana to alleviate the suffering of patients in California, and undermine a policy that has been in place under which the federal government did not pursue individuals whose actions complied with state laws providing for medicinal marijuana.

“Proven medicinal uses of marijuana include improving the quality of life for patients with cancer, HIV/AIDS, multiple sclerosis, and other severe medical conditions.

“I am pleased to join organizations that support legal access to medicinal marijuana, including the American Nurses Association, the Lymphoma Foundation of America, and the AIDS Action Council.

“Medicinal marijuana alleviates some of the most debilitating symptoms of AIDS, including pain, wasting, and nausea. The opportunity to ease the suffering of people who are seriously ill or enduring difficult and painful therapies is an opportunity we must not ignore.

“For these reasons, I have long supported efforts in Congress to advocate federal policies that recognize the scientific evidence and clinical research demonstrating the medical benefits of medicinal marijuana, that respects the wishes of the states in providing relief to ill individuals, and that prevents the federal government from acting to harm the safe access of medicinal marijuana provided under state law. I will continue to strongly support those efforts.”

(Image of dispensary: Kersgaard)

The idea was to convince the public that a new ranch he’d acquired would make a fine substitute for a stretch of federal land that slices through his 5,000-acre paradise, where he is building his own private frontier-themed town complete with a saloon, train station, firehouse and as many as 50 buildings.

But no one bothered to mention that the land Koch is offering, Buck Ranch, could soon be flanked by gas wells and pipelines — hardly the ambiance sought by hikers, mountain bikers and ATV users.

“There was absolutely no mention of gas wells. There was talk of how wonderful the trails would be and how they would put in a separate trail for the ATV users,” Paonia resident Hal Brill, who went on the tour, said in a recent telephone interview. “They were trying to extoll the beauties of that place. Nothing was said at all about the potential for industrial-scale development.”

Brad Goldstein, a spokesman for Koch and his coal company Oxbow Corp., said many properties in the area have mineral rights beneath the surface that the owner of the land does not control.

“We do not intend on taking any mineral rights in the land exchange. … We intend to preserve all of our rights to use the surface of those lands for recreational purposes,” he wrote in an email. “… Privately held conservation easements insure that if there is ever oil and gas exploration on Buck Ranch by another party, it cannot abrogate either the surface rights or the conservation rights.”

Olivia Bartlett, stewardship director at Black Canyon Land Trust, which would enforce the terms of the conservation easement on Buck Ranch should the land swap be approved, said in a phone interview there is nothing to prevent drilling from occurring on certain portions of Buck Ranch. She said the property includes both severed private and public mineral rights beneath its surface.

An aerial view of the western portion of Bear Ranch, which is entangled in a controversial land swap proposal. (Photo by Kathy Browning)

The land swap is much bigger than just Buck Ranch. There’s nearly another thousand acres in Dinosaur National Monument and in the Curecanti National Recreation Area that Koch is also throwing in the deal for what amounts to roughly 1,840 acres of federal land that bisects his remarkable retreat.

Koch bought the historic Colorado tourist town of Buckskin Joe two years ago and he has reassembled it at his Bear Ranch spread, a dozen miles upstream from his Oxbow coal mines. Koch — brother to billionaire oil barons Charles and David Koch — is an Old West fanatic known for his extraordinary collection of revolvers, wagons and other cowboy artifacts. He also owns homes in Aspen, Palm Beach, Fla., and Cape Cod, Mass., where he has been a vocal opponent of a proposed offshore wind farm.

Some residents on the Western Slope — Brill among them — believe John Salazar, a Democrat, lost the last 3rd Congressional District race to Scott Tipton, in part, due to the revelation that Koch, his wife and Oxbow donated a total of nearly $70,000 to the then-congressman’s political war chest around the time that Salazar introduced a bill for a stripped-down version of the Bear Ranch land swap. Smaller amounts of Koch-related money went to the campaigns of Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., and Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, who co-sponsored the failed land exchange bill.

Whether a new bill will be introduced to get the land swap done this year is unclear. Commissioners in Gunnison and Delta counties have endorsed the deal. But opposition to the land exchange is fierce and Colorado’s congressmen may not want potentially bad publicity in an election year.

A spokesman for Udall on Thursday said the senator was not planning any related legislation “at this time.” A spokesman for Tipton did not immediately return a message seeking comment.

Nonetheless, Koch — who has directed at least $2 million to a super PAC backing GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney — has mounted a publicity campaign to try to garner support for the land exchange. He is bankrolling robo-calls (mp3), color mailings and radio spots.

Critics of the swap have long contended the acreage Koch is offering the public is inferior to what he would be getting. Now there is the prospect of noisy compressors, air pollution, hazardous materials and traffic within earshot of the trails they’ve been offered. The master development plan submitted by Texas-based SG Interests that is under consideration by the Bureau of Land Management shows four wells perched immediately on the west boundary of Buck Ranch (pdf), and a pipeline that would run up the steep strip of land where there is an existing ATV trail.

Securing permits for the pipeline could be “extremely difficult” and its construction would be “very costly,” according to Goldstein. “In this market of extremely low [natural] gas prices, such a project would be very uneconomical,” he wrote. “Our opponents are grasping at straws that do not exist.”

Opponents, however, remain convinced that the offer of recreational trail easements on Buck Ranch is compromised by the nearby natural gas drilling that is proposed in the BLM’s preferred alternative.

“The economic argument provides little comfort,” Brill said. “Economics of gas drilling will change. It is likely that the current low prices for gas are not going to last forever. Demand will rise as coal power plants and vehicle fleets convert to gas and liquefied natural gas exports ramp up.”

The ad features a young woman sitting at a laptop sending an email to her mother, explaining why she prefers marijuana over alcohol and asking her mother if she would like to talk about the issue. In particular, she tells her mother that marijuana poses less harm to her health than alcohol and that she feels safer around people using marijuana than she does around those using alcohol.

Betty Aldworth, advocacy director for the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol addresses the media in Denver a few weeks ago. She is surrounded by campaign volunteers. (Kersgaard)

“Our goal with this ad is to start a conversation – and encourage others to start their own conversations – about marijuana,” said Betty Aldworth, advocacy director of the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol. “As more people talk to their family and friends about marijuana, more people understand that marijuana is objectively less harmful than alcohol and ought to be regulated like alcohol.”

The ad directs viewers to TalkItUpColorado.org, a website in support of Amendment 64. The site complements the campaign’s strategy of encouraging young pro-legalization voters to talk about the issue with their parents, grandparents and other older voters.

“We will win this election if more older folks come to appreciate that marijuana is an acceptable and less harmful alternative to alcohol for adults,” Aldworth said. “For years they have been led to believe marijuana is more dangerous than it actually is, and that marijuana users are all slackers and losers. Once they hear from those closest to them that marijuana is used by millions of hard-working and professional people for the same reasons most adults use alcohol, they’ll be forced to think about why they would prefer people use alcohol instead of a less harmful substance.”

Polls have shown a tight election, but one in which the measure has a strong chance of passing. Even Denver Republicans voted in favor of the measure during the recent county assembly.

It was no different today in Denver except that the accomplishment was immediate and to the point.

One of the protesters, Jim Erlsten, came to the sidewalk outside Wells Fargo armed with a sheaf of papers documenting his efforts to stave off foreclosure. After the usual angry and impassioned speeches, Erlsten marched into the bank.

Immediately security officers met him and one of the protest organizers at the door and first said no protesters would be allowed inside the bank, then upon learning that Erlsten was a client, allowed him in alone.

Nearly an hour later he emerged, and said he was happy with the results of his meeting with several bank executives.

Erlsten explained prior to going into the bank that he has received numerous letters from the bank, some saying the bank is beginning foreclosure and others saying the bank would like to work with him on a loan modification. He said he had made numerous recent payments but wasn’t sure the money had been properly credited to his account.

“I showed them the contradictory letters I’ve gotten and asked ‘What does this mean?’ They shook their heads and they apologized,” he said after his meeting.

He said bank executives made no promises, but that at least now he feels he knows who to call and that someone in a position to help him knows who he is and what his situation is. “I have the cell phone number of a senior loan officer. At least now I feel like we’ve cut through 90 percent of the red tape and I can start to get answers. I was not in a positive spot when I went in there but at least now I feel they are listening and I have a fair shot.”

Prior to today’s meeting, Erlsten said his calls to a loan officer at the bank were often met with a recording that the man’s voicemail was full.

Erlsten credited the protest and the efforts of Corrine Fowler, economic justice campaign director for the Colorado Progressive Coalition, for getting him in the door at the bank.

“If it wasn’t for Corrine and the folks standing outside the bank and chanting and all of that publicity, there is no way they (Wells Fargo) would have given me the time of day,” he said.

Of course, for most of the protesters, while Erlsten might put a face on the problem of foreclosures, their issues with Wells Fargo run much deeper.

“His (Erlsten) story is horrendous, but it is not new or unique,” said Fowler. “We receive calls from homeowners in similar situations weekly, almost daily, and it is always the same two banks–Wells Fargo and Bank of America.”

Dave Anderson protesting the business practices of Wells Fargo. (Kersgaard)

Some complained that Wells Fargo has in recent years paid little or no federal taxes, a situation documented in a study by Citizens for Tax Justice and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Wells Fargo, of course, maintains it pays its fair share of taxes.

“I don’t know what effect a protest like this has,” said retired postal worker Don Ferry. “Maybe it will make people think. Maybe it will inspire someone to move their money into a credit union.”

Other protesters pointed to Wells Fargo’s major ownership interest in private prison company The GEO Group, which owns and operates one private prison in Colorado, as being indicative of a company that puts profits above people.