The following is a summary was sent from a grassroots organization seeking to protect the environment and ranching culture in the American Southwest for all Americans. At issue is the U.S. Army’s attempt to grab some 400,000 acres of private and public lands for weapons testing and training.
Updates are available online at: The Piñon Canyon Expansion Opposition Coalition Website
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Skyhorse Op/Ed
From reading the documents hosted at the Piñon Canyon Expansion Opposition Coalition website, it is difficult for many of us not to wonder how and why has this been allowed to happen?
“What happened to congressional and civilian oversight of the U.S. military and the military’s spending of our tax dollars?”
“What happened to due process for all citizens such as those who have lived, farmed or ranched in the Piñon Canyon region for generations?”
And finally…
“What happened to the basic principle of democracy, that says one person equals one vote”?
In this case and in many others you may know personally, what was once was yours’ is no longer. That’s right, it has been *SOLD* to someone else by someone else. That someone might not even be a real person, it may be a corporation that legally has all the rights of a person or it might be a politician who needs the money of large corporations in order to be re-elected.
Sadly, this is where we are today in the United States. Freedoms, protections, due process, and rights barely get a whiff of consideration when they come up against big money. The military once imbued with notions of duty, honor, and country is now mostly working for someone else, someplace else, other than U.S. citizens it is sworn to serve. The good news is that it is not too late! This terrible set of circumstance must and will be changed by ordinary people who care for democracy. Ordinary people of modest means and who care not only about democracy but for each other, our nation, and our world, our air, our water and yes of course our land too.
Please write us with your thoughts: kickit@theskyhorsepost.com
Subject Line:I AM A PERSON WHO CARES
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Below is the update on Piñon Canyon provided by not1moreacre.com:
In the key November battleground state of Colorado, one of the most important national issues is a massive military land grab in the state’s southeast - a plan driven
not by any coherent national defense policy but by real estate deals.
To date, neither Colorado’s most influential Democrat, Senator Ken Salazar, nor the candidates to replace the outgoing Senator Wayne Allard (R) have denounced a pending bill that would allow military acquisition of property for expansion of the Piñon Canyon Maneuver Site (PCMS).
The Pentagon’s plan would take out 1000 square miles of the last intact shortgrass steppe in the American Great Plains - an area roughly 15 times the size of Washington DC. The proposal involves: tripling the size of the 238,000 acre PCMS; building out the existing site, including shopping centers and a medical clinic; and exponentially increasing the number of live-fire exercises, pyrotechnics and the use of incendiary and highly toxic weapons systems. Leaked documents show this is the first phase of a long-term plan that could swallow up to 5 million acres. The rarely used PCMS was created in the early 1980s, largely through the use of condemnation. At the time the land was taken the military promised no live fire and no expansion but has kept neither commitment.
The environmental consequences of the expansion on this fragile ecosystem and the rare wildlife it supports would be catastrophic. Ranchers whose relationship with the native grasslands goes back many generations would lose their lands and their livelihoods. The region’s family agriculture based economy and the communities that depend upon it would be devastated. And a vast trove of historical, archaeological and paleontological treasures would be lost.
At every level of democracy from the grassroots to the counties, from the Colorado State Assembly to the US Congress, diverse and bipartisan alliances have clearly voiced opposition to expansion at Piñon Canyon. Yet Sen. Salazar has worked alongside pro-expansion Republicans - the outgoing Sen, Allard and Rep. Doug Lamborn (CO 5th CD) - and the Colorado Springs Chamber of Commerce to advance this disastrous proposal.
KEY POINTS
National defense policy is being set by real estate deals: In an extraordinary admission, the outgoing Sen. Allard told the Senate in January 2007 that Army officials had “repeatedly” assured him that the genesis of the expansion project “occurred when several landowners approached Fort Carson and expressed their strong desire to sell”. Sen. Allard made the remarks as he was introducing Senate Bill 135, an amendment designed to trigger a 60-day countdown to military acquisition of private property. That bill is still pending and there has to date been no opposition from Sen. Salazar.
Any real estate deal requires a willing seller and a willing buyer. Every level of democracy has clearly voiced its opposition to spending taxpayer dollars on the build-out and expansion of the PCMS. The Pentagon must answer to the people, not the other way around, and the people are not willing buyers of this land. American taxpayers already provide in excess of 25 million acres of US land for military use.
Unprecedented bipartisan opposition to the expansion: From the grassroots to the counties, from the Colorado State Assembly to the US Congress, bipartisan opposition to the expansion plan remains resolute. The 15 southern Colorado counties – who represent the communities that would be affected by the plan - led Colorado counties statewide in adopting a resolution opposed to expansion.
Last year Congress overwhelmingly approved a bill to block funding of all aspects of the build-out and expansion of the PCMS for 2008. The bill was authored by Rep. Marilyn Musgrave (R, 4th CD) and cosponsored by Rep. John Salazar (D, 3rd CD) and received landslide support in the House (383-34). The funding prohibition passed the Senate despite tepid sponsorship.
Last month the House reaffirmed the no-funding language for 2009. On July 11, 2008, Sen. Salazar endorsed continuation of the no-funding law for 2009. However, he has not distanced himself from pro-expansion legislation he introduced with Sen. Allard.
Backroom deals: Despite sweeping opposition to expansion, Sen. Salazar has worked with the outgoing Sen, Allard, Rep. Lamborn and the Colorado Springs Chamber of Commerce to advance the Pentagon’s plan. Sen. Salazar sits on the Senate Agriculture committee yet his pro expansion efforts are at complete odds with Colorado’s two House Agriculture Committee members, Rep. Musgrave and Rep. John Salazar, on this issue.
The Senators have repeatedly introduced legislation to facilitate expansion. In 2006 they introduced legislation asking for Army reports that would trigger a 30-day countdown to the military acquisition of property. That legislation effectively split the acreage expansion from the build-out of the existing site and helped to hide the full impact of the expansion project from public scrutiny. No review, approval or public disclosure of those reports was required by the legislation. Again, through 2007 legislation requiring more “studies” of expansion at the PCMS, Sen. Salazar and outgoing Sen. Allard have facilitated pro-expansion activities by for-profit military contractors such as Booz Allen Hamilton at great expense to taxpayers. Booz Allen Hamilton expenditures for the Senators’ studies are being investigated by the Government Accountability Office for violation of the no-funding law (the GAO report is due in November).
Sen. Allard currently has legislation waiting in committee (Senate Bill 135) that would use the submission of “studies” to trigger a 60-day countdown to the military acquisition of private property. That bill replicates legislation proposed jointly in the past by Sen. Salazar and Sen. Allard.
The three pro-expansion politicians and the Colorado Springs Chamber of Commerce-with help from Booz Allen Hamilton - have lobbied hard to send more troops to Fort Carson and are using those extra numbers in their efforts to justify the expansion. Yet this is happening at a base that is experiencing severe urban encroachment and that has been investigated for its substandard treatment of soldiers suffering from brain injuries and post-traumatic stress disorder and for its unconscionable record of redeploying injured soldiers. Sen. Salazar has called for stationing brigades at Fort Carson above and beyond those approved to date. Militarizing the economies of southeastern Colorado while destroying the grasslands will not provide the support our troops desperately need.
Lack of public disclosure: On top of these legislative backroom deals, throughout this entire process the Army has avoided publicly disclosing the full impact of its plans for the region. In fact expansion opposition group Not 1 More Acre! is suing the Army in federal court, alleging that the Record of Decision for the Final Piñon Canyon Maneuver Site Transformation Environmental Impact Statement - issued on August 2, 2007 - violates the National Environmental Policy Act. (The complaint and the Army’s initial response filed last month can be accessed at www.not1moreacre.net/docs)
Part of the lawsuit alleges that while the Army has pushed to expand the site for years, the Transformation EIS disclosed only its plans to expand facilities and weapons ranges within the site’s existing boundaries (already twice the size of Colorado Springs). The massive expansion of acreage was illegally excluded from the public disclosure process. The people have been forced into court to find out what’s really happening.
What’s at stake: Grasslands are the most endangered ecoregion on earth and the interconnected grassland ecosystems of southeastern Colorado and northern New Mexico are of local and global significance. At stake is the key role the shortgrass steppe plays as precious and unique wildlife habitat, as a hedge against another Dust Bowl, as a recharge area for critical groundwater supplies and as an important form of carbon storage and gas recycling for a planet imperilled by global warming. The region’s unique combination of canyonlands, forested mesas and grasslands contains critical riparian systems that support a diverse range of flora and fauna found nowhere else. These ecosystems - now functioning in equilibrium - cannot be replaced if destroyed. The expansion would also force generational family ranchers from their lands, people who have a long history of working sustainably with the land and of making a vital contribution to the food security of the nation.
Also under threat are the largest dinosaur tracksite in the US, pictographs made by the region’s original inhabitants, Native American sacred sites and Hispanic placitas. Scars carved into the landscape from wagons traveling on the Santa Fe Trail are reminders of the fragility of the native grasslands. The threat of military takeover prompted the National Trust for Historical Preservation to place the area surrounding Piñon Canyon on its list of America’s most endangered historical places. Copies of all relevant legislation and other documents can be found online at
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