A plan nearly a decade in the making to transfer a 46,000-acre State Land Board parcel in the La Jara Basin on the western edge of the San Luis Valley could be crumbling. Board commissioners are weighing a possible cancellation of the land deal a week before a scheduled vote to sell the land to the federal government and Colorado Parks and Wildlife.
“I’ve watched for years as the community came together and galvanized over this. I do not have one person in my community telling me please don’t let this happen,” said state Sen. Cleave Simpson, a Republican from Alamosa who also serves as the head of the Rio Grande Water Conservation District. “I don’t understand this shift at the eleventh hour after so many people have worked so hard to get here. To say you are going to turn this community on its head without any engagement and conversation or outreach, there is just an extremely high level of frustration on my part right now.”
The Colorado State Land Board has since 2017 studied a plan to sell the 45,952-acre La Jara Basin property inside the Rio Grande National Forest in Conejos County to the Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management and Colorado Parks and Wildlife.
With a mandate to make money for Colorado schools, the Land Board noted in 2017 that the grazing permits and outfitters on one of the board’s largest and most valuable parcels generated about half of 1% of its value. The board identified the La Jara Basin property for a potential sale and in 2021 started working with the Western Rivers Conservancy to sell the land. An appraisal pinned its value at $49.6 million.
The plan has collected more than $40 million from the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund over the last three years, including $5.52 million for the Forest Service and $9 million for the BLM in 2025. Colorado Parks and Wildlife has set aside $5 million from its habitat stamp fund. The La Jara project is the largest transaction ever funded by the Land and Water Conservation Fund in Colorado.
The plan delivers 21,800 acres to the bordering Rio Grande National Forest, the Bureau of Land Management takes over 21,700 acres and Colorado Parks and Wildlife acquires 2,224 acres around the La Jara Reservoir, which CPW manages as a state wildlife area.
The land transfer has harvested widespread support from local, state and federal officials and conservation advocates, including Gov. Jared Polis, U.S. Sens. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper, the Conejos County Board of Commissioners, Dan Gibbs at the Department of Natural Resources, Forest Service and BLM officials, and several wildlife and conservation advocacy groups.
The collaboration among the Land Board, state and federal land agencies as well as advocacy groups championed the protection of more than 30 miles of streams feeding the Conejos River, critical wildlife habitat and the preservation of seasonal hunting and grazing access for San Luis Valley families who have used the land for generations. It also conserved archeological sites like La Botica, or “the pharmacy,” where researchers have found evidence of Native Americans gathering medicinal plants many millennia ago.
In June, the land board voted 3-1 in support of a motion to direct staff to continue pursuing the sale of the La Jara property, a process that included public notice of the sale, collecting public comments and terminating existing grazing leases on the property. Commissioner Josie Heath voted against the motion to continue with the sale but gave no reason for her vote. Commissioners Phillip Chavez, Deborah Froeb and Christine Scanlan approved the motion.
A week after that June 12 meeting, Polis sent a letter to the land board supporting the sale of the La Jara parcel, saying the federal government’s acquisition “is of significant ecological and recreational value” and “would support world-class opportunities for both public recreation and cultural preservation.”
“We remain committed to seeing this project through,” Polis wrote in his June 19 letter, noting that the state had already committed money collected from hunters and anglers who pay for habitat stamps. “The state strongly supports this acquisition as a meaningful advancement in our goals of habitat connectivity, heritage preservation, and equitable public access to the outdoors.”
Fast forward to Oct. 15, when the Land Board was planning a final vote on the La Jara disposal. At the board’s direction, a 489-page October meeting packet shocked the diverse coalition backing the land transfer with two new options for the board to consider. Previous options largely addressed details about moving the deal forward. These new options offered a path to kill the deal.
The October memo from Land Board staff included a detailed analysis of denying the transaction so the Land Board could “hold and improve” the property. The staff report suggested the board could create new recreational opportunities and private outfitter leases on the land to squeeze more revenue out of it and invest in wetland and riparian habitat. With the right investment, the property could yield 1% of its value a year, reaching even $1 million a year for 40 years.
Staff also noted downsides to killing the La Jara deal. The board would lose the $45 million set aside and “it is unlikely the federal government will seek to acquire this property again in the near future and the already appropriated federal funds are not likely to be otherwise used to support conservation of expanded recreation in Colorado,” reads the report.
Staff also noted that the Western Rivers Conservancy had held more than 100 meetings to gather support for the land sale and replacing it with a plan for private leases instead of public ownership could alienate stakeholders and “produce unforeseeable reactions” from the Forest Service and BLM.
The report also highlighted “federal stewardship uncertainty,” noting the slashing of federal land management agency staff and budgets as part of the Trump administration’s overhaul of the federal bureaucracy. Staff also said the failed attempt by lawmakers to dispose of federal lands earlier this year created “increased uncertainty as to whether federal ownership will, in the future, continue to be the de facto conservation that it has historically proven.”
A third option proposed by staff would be to cancel the transfer to the federal government but move forward with the sale of more than 2,200 acres around La Jara Reservoir to Colorado Parks and Wildlife for about $5 million.
Commissioners Froeb, Heath and Scanlan remain part of the board. There are two new commissioners appointed in June by Polis, who also named renowned conservation and wildlife advocate Nicole Rosmarino as the director of the board.
Questions for Rosmarino, other commissioners and the board spokeswoman were directed to Polis’ office. The board does not typically direct media inquiries to the governor’s office. An email from a spokesperson in the governor’s office said the Land Board “is an independent board and the Governor respects their ability to weigh this opportunity to protect access to public lands in Colorado, maximize asset allocation, and work with federal partners where it benefits Colorado.”
Sen. Bennet: “Leaving over $40 million in precious conservation funding on the table is a mistake.”
The Land Board staff report said Western Rivers Conservancy advised that the federal government does not prefer to purchase land that has conservation easements or restrictions that prevent development or a future sale, “which rules out the option of protecting the land for conservation in that way.”
Both the BLM and Forest Service have rules that prohibit or restrict the sale of lands acquired with Land and Water Conservation Fund. But it is unclear how recent orders by the Department of the Interior directing the Land and Water Conservation Fund to focus on the National Park Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and discouraging acquisitions by the BLM may impact the money already allocated for La Jara Basin. There is scant evidence of either land agency ever selling land acquired by the Land and Water Conservation Fund. But this year has seen a lot of firsts for the federal government.
The Land Board commissioners in October, citing the federal government shutdown, delayed a vote on the La Jara project to their Nov. 13 meeting. Even if the government remains shut down Thursday, the board is planning to vote on the project.
Bennet is big on consensus-building. He regularly travels across the Western Slope to get local governments and residents aligned on land conservation plans, including the Colorado Outdoor Recreation Economy Act and his new Gunnison Outdoor Resources Protection Act. He spent years working on the Land Board’s plan for the La Jara Basin.
“The La Jara Basin project would provide permanent public access, continued grazing, and protection of critical wildlife habitat for over 45,000 acres of land in the San Luis Valley,” he said in a statement sent to The Colorado Sun. “When I worked to secure full funding and permanent reauthorization of the Land and Water Conservation Fund, this is just the type of locally-driven project with broad-based support that I hoped our efforts would back. Walking away from the project now, and leaving over $40 million in precious conservation funding on the table, is a mistake.” (Bennet is running for governor next year to replace Polis.)
About 35,000 acres in the La Jara Basin were part of the federal government’s original land grant when Colorado became a state in 1876 and additional acquisitions between 2000 and 2022 added about 11,000 acres.
Wildlife and conservation groups have worked with the Land Board and state wildlife officials since 2014 to better protect the bright-bellied Rio Grande cutthroat trout in La Jara Creek, including stream and bank work spanning several miles of creeks in the La Jara watershed.
“We see this land transfer as a win-win,” said Kevin Terry, who directs the Rio Grande Basin Program for Trout Unlimited. “It allows the board to generate money for schools but it keeps the parcel in public hands and open for recreation and traditional uses.”
That traditional use — like grazing, hunting and fishing — is important for residents of Conejos County, said county commissioner Mitchell Jarvies.
He’s been buried in emails since that Oct. 15 Land Board meeting for the first time revealed hesitancy around the La Jara Basin transfer.
Since 2017, Jarvies said, locals have rallied around the idea of transferring La Jara Basin to the federal government. He said he has fielded recent calls from Bennet’s office, Hickenlooper’s office and CPW officials raising concerns that the deal may be in trouble.
“But not one word from the State Land Board. That is worrisome,” Jarvies said.
He’s concerned the Land Board could be pondering a sale to a private owner. The San Luis Valley is home to at least two billionaires who own sprawling properties that span hundreds of thousands of acres with limited public access. A sale to a fence-building owner “would be devastating,” Jarvies said.
“We put in a lot of hours and collaboration with so many agencies and we thought we had a great plan to keep traditional uses in place and let people use the reservoir,” he said. “A good percentage of our population depends on hunting in there as a way to feed their families for winter. We see this transaction as the best possible option. To change everything this late in the process is frustrating. It’s just disheartening.”
Simpson, the state senator and water district manager, suspects the shift in support for La Jara could be coming from the governor or the new director of the land board, Rosmarino. It might be stemming from a growing distrust of the federal government’s ability to properly protect the treasured basin.
Simpson wondered how many conservation projects in Colorado lost Land and Water Conservation funding in the last few years as the La Jara Basin project vacuumed up record-setting commitments from the fund.
“If you are going to base long-term decisions here with what’s happening in Washington, it’s a circus six months from now and it’s a whole new dynamic in a few years,” Simpson said. “It’s time to do what’s right for Colorado right now. The changes in our federal government should not sway the work that has happened over the last several years without engagement in the community. It’s just disingenuous. We have to be better than that in Colorado and we have to honor all the work that went into this.”