San Luis Valley residents gathered Tuesday to watch Gov. Jared Polis sign a new law that strikes at the heart of a centuries-old issue: the rights of wealthy landowners versus the rights of people who use the land.
The law could help solve future disputes similar to the one that has pitted Costilla County locals against a billionaire Texas oil heir who put up about 20 miles of 8-foot-high wire fence surrounding his ranch. It could also block future attempts to expand the fence.
The Cielo Vista Ranch includes more than 100 square miles of piñon pine forest and more than 20 peaks in the Sangre de Cristo range. The land is part of the Sangre de Cristo Land Grant of 1844, which gave early settlers — and their descendants — legal access to the land to gather firewood and graze their livestock.
They call the land “La Sierra,” and the rights date back to the mid-1800s, when settlers each got a plot of desert with access to an acequia irrigation ditch.
The yet-unresolved battle over the fence has dragged on for four years. Fence construction was halted in 2023 after Costilla County commissioners won a temporary injunction against ranch owner William Harrison, who purchased the ranch in 2017 after it was listed for $105 million.
The fight drew several politicians to go see the fence for themselves during the past several months, including Attorney General Phil Weiser and state lawmakers who sponsored the legislation. The new law requires landowners to apply to local government officials before constructing a fence in the Sangre de Cristo Land Grant area that is more than 5-feet high and includes more than a mile of fence line that encloses property, or is more than a half-mile long but not enclosed.
It gives county commissioners responsibility for determining whether the benefits of the fence outweigh the harms.
Costilla County residents said they hoped the legislation will become a template for other parts of the state, not just their land grant area.
“This will enable other counties to protect themselves from the destructive obscene displays of wealth that the ultra-wealthy who are purchasing large mountain tracts in Colorado can engage in in order to separate themselves in their private sanctuaries from the regular people,” said Joseph Quintana, who has been documenting the fence’s effect on wildlife and water flow.
Quintana and other locals argued that the fence separated wildlife from water sources and disrupted their migration patterns. They said they watched deer and elk running in a panic, looking for a place to cross. Construction of the fence included a 20-foot-wide bulldozed path through the forest that has exacerbated erosion problems, sending runoff down canyons in the sand, residents and county officials said.
The landowner, however, has argued that the fence is to keep out trespassers who have entered his private property to dump trash and collect antlers, to fish illegally and ride ATVs. The fence also is to contain his herd of bison, he said.
The descendants of the original settlers have keys to nine gates through which they can enter the property, so Harrison is honoring the land grant, he previously told The Sun through his attorney.
Polis signed House Bill 1023 into law Tuesday afternoon under a large tree in a town park in San Luis.
Sen. Byron Pelton, a Republican from Sterling, was among those who voted against the bill during a Senate agriculture committee hearing. The measure passed 4-3.
“I’m really concerned about the private property aspect of this,” Pelton said. “Somebody is deeded that land, owns that land. That’s the thing I’m concerned about is the taking of the private property rights.”
But fellow Republican Sen. Cleave Simpson, who is from Alamosa and one of the bill’s lead sponsors, argued that the Cielo Vista Ranch fence was so huge and disruptive that the people needed the state’s help.
“It’s really about a story and a sense of place and a part of Colorado that is about as unique as you can get,” he said. “Part of the history of Colorado is centered in the San Luis Valley and Costilla County.”
The ranch owner and county commissioners are now conducting separate wildlife studies as part of the pending court case.
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