Boulder County jumps over line again, tackles conservation project in Weld 08/18/2006 Source: Northern Colorado Business Report Author: Tom Hacker FREDERICK - Southwest Weld County property owners, knowing their county lacks the will or wherewithal for open-space preservation, have looked westward for help in setting aside their unique, 357-acre wildlife paradise. Boulder County's Parks and Open Space Department is happy to oblige, provided multiple public grant sources can be tapped. If the multimillion-dollar transaction goes forward, it would reflect two political realities: one on the east side of the county line, the other on the west. 1 / 5
Weld County voters have said repeatedly they want no part of being taxed to provide funds to protect open space. Meanwhile, Boulder County's electorate has embraced the notion of conservation set-asides so enthusiastically that they have amassed 85,000 acres of land purchases and easements. "The situation we're in is that we've turned down open space proposals three times in Weld County," County Commissioner Mike Geile said. "We really commend the Boulder County parks people, and the property owners, for moving ahead and doing this." The property owned by Les and Martha Williams is a startling oasis, where seldom-seen waterfowl species populate lakes and streambeds, where foxes and coyotes thrive and where deer migrate along a river corridor that is within a short walk of oil-and-gas wells and prairie-palace residential developments. "You don't have any sense at all driving by there that there could be anything like that there," Boulder County parks director Ron Stewart said. "Yet, there it is. It's a magnificent property in terms of wildlife habitat." On a recent day, Les Williams took a guest on a tour of the property that began with a northerly drive along the west bank of Boulder Creek. At a bend in the road, the view up the creek bed included a flock of two-dozen stately snowy egrets, smaller cattle egrets, a great blue heron and a much rarer black-crowned night heron, all feeding on minnows stranded in the creek's shallows. "That's as many as I've ever seen there," Williams said. "The egrets are always in there, but not this many." Confidence grows The tour of the property's perimeter causes visitors to wonder why an egret or heron would ever want to leave, so lush and varied is their habitat. That is why Boulder County Parks and Open 2 / 5
Lands Department grant administrator Bridgette McCarthy has growing confidence that an $800,000 Colorado Department of Wildlife grant, the linchpin of the purchase plan, might be in the offing. "We took a wildlife department area biologist out there, and he really liked the property," she said. "Everyone who visits there has the same reaction. We certainly have our fingers crossed." The price tag to keep the land safe from residential development is a steep one - $2.7 million, as determined by the value of development rights. For that, the Williams will grant a perpetual easement on acreage that has already been platted in Frederick for 30 large residential lots. McCarthy is also hopeful the county can provide another $500,000 from its share of funding from Great Outdoors Colorado, the agency funded by the Colorado Lottery that gives grants to local governments for parks and wild-land preservation. Likewise, a $280,000 grant application to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Farm and Ranchland Protection program could become part of the funding mix. "Ultimately, we're going to find something that works," Stewart said. If the county is successful in raising enough money from grants and commitments from municipal partners, including Frederick and nearby Longmont, the Williams property would be the fourth transaction that brings Boulder County money to bear on Weld County open-space acquisitions. The county jumped the Weld line first in 2002, with an outright purchase of 140 acres known as the Paschel property just inside Weld County, adjacent to Longmont's city-funded open-space purchases on the St. Vrain River. Boulder County moved into Weld again in 2003, also partnering with Longmont to acquire a conservation easement on the 154-acre Meglemere property in southeast Longmont. A third city-county partnership locked up 75 acres of Weld County land along Boulder Creek, just north of the Williams land. 3 / 5
Weld says 'yes' In each case, Boulder County sought and received the nodding approval of the Weld County commission before moving ahead with the purchases. "We've always gone to Weld for permission, and it's always been granted," Stewart said, adding that Weld County commissioners Geile and Bill Jerke had taken the lead on clearing the way for the deals. Geile said the open-space transactions were cases "where everybody wins," and that the county would likely view others favorably. "The key is a willing seller and a willing buyer," Geile said. "If another one of these comes up under the same situation, it's something the commission would continue to support, I think." For the Williamses' part, the proposal represents as much an emotional decision as a business one, they say. Martha Williams' father bought the land in the middle 1940s, and grazed cattle there until learning of its potential as a sand-and-gravel quarry in the 1970s. "When we were growing up and it came time for my dad to move cattle, he would round up all the kids and we'd get on our horses and go to work," Martha Williams said. The Williams family has undertaken a painstaking and expensive reclamation program after closing the gravel quarry business. The acreage is dotted with eight lakes formed by the gravel excavations that today are surrounded by cattail marshes and native grasses. Hardly a trace of the mining operation remains on most of the land. 'Best way to go' "It's a beautiful property, and will become even more so as time goes on," Martha Williams said. "Selling to a developer would change it forever. This easement is really the best way to go if we can get it all together." 4 / 5
Just two and a half miles east of the Williams land, the town of Dacono is jamming the accelerator down on a development plan that includes a Furniture Row retail center just for starters, and more retail properties in the works. Housing developments march relentlessly westward, and likely will gobble up the prairie all the way to Boulder Creek. That is why Stewart and his department want to draw the line, regardless of what county it's in. "The day we first went out there, there were cranes and herons and hawks and all kinds of wildlife," Stewart said. "It's just the sort of property that fits within our plan....we have learned that open space has real, tangible value. It's meant millions for Boulder County, just because of the kinds of businesses that want to be here, want to be near that kind of amenity." 5 / 5