LAND, what is it for? Probably first priority is to prevent you from drowning or having to grow fins and gills in devolution, for those that believe they were once a mud puppy. No, I won’t say it. What next? In concise terms, it is a “place–to-be” for you and ALL other people to live and produce food to continue to exist until you die to make room for the new ones coming along. So what is there to think about? Well, the Earth is 71 percent water, which is great for all the “mud puppies,” leaving only 57,308,738 square miles of dry land. The dry land is further divided to identify only 24,642,758 square miles or 43 percent habitable by man. This equates to 15.77 billion acres for the approximate 7.8 billion people to live and raise food on their 2 acres each. Obviously a bunch of people are crammed into tiny spots to allow food farms to still be operating. Food and water has been a mainstay for life since the beginning of time. Throughout history, wars were fought to take over the “lands” of other people, which continues today.
OK, so that is understandable in China, but what about Colorado, no problem here, we have lots of open land and water, right? Well, yes and no. Colorado contains 104,093.77 square miles, which by the way, is about the size of New Zealand and larger than the U.K., Syria, South Korea, Denmark and Israel, etc. Keep in mind that only 52.6 percent of Colorado lands are in private ownership, which includes the big cities and towns, greatly restricting agricultural opportunity for food production, which needs water to produce. The balance of land is in various governmental controls, mostly in the mountains, and not available for agricultural food production and human habitation, however, those lands are the principal source of the water needed for both agriculture production and potable water to sustain life of man, beast and vegetation like lawns and golf courses for the state and ALL counties. Colorado has about 5.8 million people confined on only 52.6 percent of the land, which is about 34.9 million acres providing for only 6 acres per person to “be somewhere” to live. That is only 4 acres more than the rest of the world.
Now let’s look at Montezuma County. Montezuma County is about 2,038 square miles or 1.3 million acres. That is bigger than French Polynesia, twice the size of Samoa, Luxembourg, and almost 10 times the size of Singapore. Incidentally, these are all self-governing entities. Montezuma County is running short on private lands to both raise food and have a “place to just live.” You see, 73 percent of the lands within the county are controlled by the federal government which includes the Ute Mountain Ute Indian Nation, national forests, parks, monuments and BLM lands, leaving only about 26.6 percent, totaling 347,138 acres for about 27,000 people in need of water to sustain life and produce food, which figures at only 12+ acres per person. Like the world and state, much of the county’s population is concentrated in Cortez, Dolores and Mancos, providing more acreage for agricultural food production, which is what this County was built upon.
That is all interesting stuff, but so what? Well, things are changing! People are escaping the cities and moving into the working rural agricultural areas, but not to work a farm or ranch. The once productive bean, wheat and hay fields are becoming trophy homes producing lawns and increased trash that is taking land out of production and use, to bury increasing tons of trash which produce methane and a “gold mine” for archaeologists 500 years from now. I’m not being critical – well, maybe I am while noting this is simply what is happening. Last fiscal year we paid about $1.3 million to cover up how trashy we have become, producing problems for future generations. Recently the “wood trash” pile that ignited from spontaneous combustion from years of increased storage produced smoke and CO2 that people are so fearful of these days. What most people don’t know is that the woody trash used to be burned as it was created, which in most cases produced heat and power for the milling operations, thus not having woody trash piles to create problems like today. I even remember when city and county “dumps” were continually burning, resulting in only small ash piles to be mixed back into the soil, not the extensive and expensive large “landfills”, which produced only some stinky smoke besides the ash. The unburnable materials were usually scavenged by locals on a Saturday afternoon family outing where some “gold mines” were found. Today salvage companies have really helped with some of the recycling, but not all.
So where am I going with this trivia? Well, time has been moving ahead while we have been asleep at the wheel. The verdant “productive” farming and ranching communities of Montezuma County have been gradually changing and increasing the demands for product “consuming,” retirement and recreation lands, electric power, road systems, trash disposal, water use and basic food availability, while reducing food production by farming & ranching and product exportation.
We are no longer “producers” but rather “consumers,” a condition that is not sustainable! We are totally dependent upon outside forces for our water, transportation, electricity, food and economy. The “stroke of a political pen” in Denver can and HAS recently caused un-paralleled damage to lives and economy here. I will leave you with a question: How would your life be impacted if all the electrical power within our county were to be shut off tomorrow, for only six months? THINK ABOUT IT!
Dexter Gill is a retired forest manager who worked for private industry, three Western state forestry agencies, and the Navajo Nation forestry department. He writes from Lewis, Colo.
