[0:02] That helped. What I'd like to hear about it is.
[0:10] The criteria. Is just some ranger walks trail. Recording in
[0:15] progress. For being too muddy. Temperature. And relative humidity and
[0:22] precipitation. I know snow on the trail. They'll keep them
[0:28] open. That's why I included temperature. Because a lot of
[0:35] times they'll leave them open. And there are people. Who
[0:43] are terrible about. Walking on the trail when it's muddy.
[0:50] You will leave the trail, and then it leads to
[0:52] marital discord. That's the whole reason. Marital discord. I am
[1:01] a believer in. Tony, we're ready whenever you are. Thank
[1:05] you. And he's. Shoes clean. Oh, that causes. Discord. Marital
[1:14] discord. Welcome to Parks and open Space Advisory Committee. March
[1:21] 27, 2025. We have. A few presenters tonight. We're excited
[1:28] for that. Let's start with a call to order. And
[1:34] a roll call. It's kind of confusing, but. Drew Adams?
[1:39] Not here. Trace Baker? Present. Carol Byerly? Present. Janet George.
[1:46] Present. Christine Johnson. Here. Tony Lewis? I'm here. Dirk Turner
[1:52] here. Great. Get close to those mics. That's the note
[1:57] of the day. So we're going to start with a
[2:02] approval of last month's minute. Have you all reviewed the
[2:06] minutes. Any changes? Any discussion? Christine. Christine Johnson. Posack. There's
[2:12] a couple of typos. I'm not going to point them
[2:15] out. And I wanted to note that I think that
[2:18] there has been a change in how the public comments
[2:20] were annotated, and I liked it. And I found it
[2:24] helpful, so thank you. Great. Other comments? Are there any
[2:30] changes? Okay. Do we have a motion to approve the
[2:35] minutes? Trace Baker, Prosec. I move that we approve the
[2:40] February meeting minutes. A second. Christine Johnson. All second create.
[2:45] All in favor? Aye. Opposed. Great. Minutes are approved. We
[2:52] have two presentations tonight. Oil and gas in Boulder County.
[2:56] And elk management. So we're excited to start with oil
[3:01] and gas in Boulder County. Michael. Welcome. Hi. Good evening,
[3:08] Posak. My name is Michael Sylvester. I am the oil
[3:12] and gas regulatory. Specialist with parks and open space. I
[3:17] believe we have two presenters joining us. And are they
[3:21] already here? I have no idea. Let's see. We have.
[3:26] Is it Kate Burke and Horace Crane? Yes. I don't
[3:32] see a horse. Okay. Kate, can you hear me? I
[3:39] sure can. Can you hear me? Yes. Okay. And then.
[3:44] Michael, you're doing the slides. Yes, I am. I can't
[3:47] see them. So I'm just going to have to. Assume
[3:51] what you're seeing. My name is Kate Burke. I'm with
[3:54] the county attorney's. Office. And I focus on oil and
[3:57] gas. There we go. And have done for some years.
[4:02] And, yeah, we'll get started. We're hoping to have. Another.
[4:07] Oh, there he is. We also, Rusty Crane is going
[4:09] to join us from public health and you'll be hearing
[4:11] from him. A little bit down the road here. Great.
[4:17] I wanted to start by pointing out that. So I've
[4:21] been focusing on oil and gas since 2016. And our
[4:25] efforts to protect the lands and people from adverse effects
[4:28] of oil and gas drilling are really very multidisciplinary. Parks,
[4:32] of course, plays a key role, but as does the
[4:35] community planning and permitting department, and both being assisted by
[4:39] the county attorney's office and also by public health. Staff
[4:43] from other departments will also join us at times to
[4:46] work on some of the projects. And some staff members,
[4:49] like Michael, actually kind of straddle departments with their work
[4:52] and end up doing work for multiple departments at the
[4:55] same time, so we'll be talking about some of these
[4:57] specific roles of these different folks as we go through
[5:00] the presentation. But I just wanted to give you the
[5:02] sense that this was quite the countywide effort. Great. Thank
[5:06] you, Kate. So, to begin, the DJ basin is a
[5:11] large oil and gas basin that touches on five states.
[5:15] Reaching as far as South Dakota, with its western edge
[5:18] ending right here in Bolton in the middle. Of Boulder
[5:20] county. Our corner of the basin is called the Wattenberg
[5:25] Field, which is a particularly productive area. Of the DJ
[5:29] basin for natural gas. Because of this. Here is a
[5:35] production map of where producing wells are, as you can
[5:39] see. They are on the eastern side of the county
[5:42] with density increasing as you get closer to the county
[5:45] line road. Here's a picture where you can see wells
[5:49] and horizontal well bores just on the other side of
[5:52] county line road. Though we occupy similar parts of the
[5:56] DJ basin, Weld County's policy of being very pro oil
[6:00] and gas development has created a pretty different picture. In
[6:05] our neighboring county. Carol. By early posac. I really like
[6:14] this map, but I want to understand it. So what?
[6:17] Are the orange squares? So the individual squares are going
[6:23] to be, well, locations, and then the lines are underground,
[6:27] horizontal fracking bores. And then the green circles. Are. What?
[6:35] I don't see any green circles. Yeah, there's plenty of
[6:39] green dots, plenty of, well, county. I can jump in
[6:43] on that. I think this map is pulled from the
[6:46] state agency. The energy carbon management commission's database. And they
[6:53] have different symbols for, for example, where there might be
[6:56] permits pending and that kind of thing. From where I'm
[6:59] sitting, I actually can't see their green dots, but I
[7:01] assume that it's something to that effect. So to elaborate
[7:05] a little bit on what Michael was saying, what you
[7:07] can see is that in Boulder county. At this point,
[7:10] we have no horizontal well bores, which we'll be talking
[7:13] about a little bit more later. Exactly what those are
[7:15] and how they work. Whereas welk county of course. Is
[7:19] rife with them at this point. And the thing I
[7:21] wanted to point out was in 2012, we really started
[7:25] a major effort to revise our local regulations on oil
[7:28] and gas and one of the reasons was this imagery,
[7:31] and we saw. This horizontal drilling is a relatively new
[7:36] technology. In the greater Wattenberg area. And we saw this
[7:41] happening in Wells county and knew that this was something
[7:44] we needed to be concerned about. To the extent that
[7:47] the greater Wattenberg does reach into Boulder counties. You see
[7:50] in the kind of the yellow blob. And another question.
[7:55] Carol Byerly Posec. Is this horizontal wellboards. Is that fracking?
[8:02] Yes. Okay, that's fracking. So that's what we're calling it.
[8:04] Okay. Thank you. I have a question. Christine Johnson Posak,
[8:09] what is the yellow? Kind of lobby outline. That's the
[8:14] greater Wattenberg field. That's the field we're in, which is
[8:18] a section of the Denver Yolsberg Basin, so. What we're
[8:23] to notice from this image is. The horizontal wells and
[8:27] then just the greater density of the symbols in general.
[8:32] Yes. Right. Yeah. Just across the boundary of the county.
[8:38] Trace Baker Posac. Excuse me. So mostly. What I can
[8:45] see in Boulder county, which is not cluttered by the
[8:49] horizontal lines. There seem to be wells with very short
[8:55] radial lines. And I was wondering what's being represented there.
[9:03] I can speak to that, Michael. Those are the traditional
[9:09] or sort of older technology was just plain vertical wells
[9:14] where they would drill. Vertically, straight down. And then there
[9:17] was an intermediate technology briefly used called directional drilling, where
[9:21] they would drill diagonally from the surface. To a spot.
[9:26] It was still a straight well bore without any bends
[9:29] in it, but it would go diagonal rather than straight
[9:32] down. And then the newer technology is this horizontal drilling
[9:35] where there's actually a bend, and we'll show you an
[9:37] image of that later. But they drill vertically, straight down,
[9:41] and then they. Actually turn as much as 90 degrees
[9:44] and go horizontally. Thank you. In our area. Since probably
[9:51] 2010 ish is when it really got going. Okay, thanks.
[9:55] Yes, thank you for the questions. We also will have
[9:58] some time at the end as well set aside for
[10:00] additional questions. Great. Thanks, Michael. So here are some pictures
[10:05] of typical wells in Boulder County. You can see. An
[10:12] individual well is typically. Takes up a pretty small surface
[10:17] area. These wells, however, are connected to facilities on the
[10:22] left. You can see a full facility. In Boulder county
[10:26] and what a typical facility would look like this one.
[10:29] Has. The full cater of equipment you would normally see.
[10:34] At a facility, and one facility may have a single
[10:38] well, or it may have four or five. Wells all
[10:40] connected through underground flow lines. And on the right here,
[10:44] you can see a double tank. Depending on how productive
[10:47] the facility is or how productive it might have been
[10:50] at one point, it could have multiple tanks. So currently,
[10:55] we have 161 wells in Boulder county, the vast majority
[10:59] of which are on county open. Space. 68% of these
[11:05] are shut in wells or temporarily abandoned, meaning that they
[11:08] are not currently producing. Anything, but rather. The operator pays
[11:13] a fee to keep the leases alive. This is pictures
[11:18] of plugging and abandonment. Plugging an abandonment. Is the process
[11:25] by which a well is retired. It requires a workover
[11:28] rig which you can see here. This can be pretty
[11:31] visually dramatic. And involves redrilling down the well to an
[11:36] extent and then pouring concrete into the bore. They drilled
[11:40] to create the plug. Due to the size of the
[11:43] rig, this plugging and abandoned mint work can often be
[11:46] confused. By the public, with new wells being drilled. Here
[11:51] is a map of the plugging and abandonment work that.
[11:56] Has occurred over the last several years, as you can
[11:59] see. It is, of course, oriented towards the eastern side
[12:03] of the county, where most of the oil and gas
[12:05] activity is. Sorry, Michael. Yeah, I want to go back
[12:09] to the plugging for just a second. So when I
[12:14] started in 2012, I want to say close to 300
[12:18] active wells. We have not had a well drilled in
[12:22] the county since. What did we decide it was about?
[12:25] 2011, I think. Yeah. 2012, 2012. But we've had many,
[12:31] many plugged and abandoned, so. Our. Well, inventory is reducing
[12:35] year by year, and just since I've been here, it's.
[12:38] Gone down by a good 60, 70 plus. Well. So
[12:43] from the perspective of. Releasing open space lands to be
[12:47] open space lands. That is definitely a good thing. Okay,
[12:50] so we can go on to the next slide. Kate.
[12:52] Tony Lewis with a question. Do we have orphaned wells?
[12:56] In the county, and if so, how many? We have
[13:00] three orphan wells. And what that means for those who
[13:04] may not know, these are wells. Where the operator. Has
[13:10] abandoned them or has gone bankrupt or left the state,
[13:14] basically. And so they're now under the control of the
[13:17] state. And we have three. I think they're clustered together.
[13:21] Is that right, Rusty? They're all pretty close. And so.
[13:27] Because they're under the state's control. We no longer have
[13:31] jurisdiction over them. I think Rusty does. Take a look
[13:34] at them, but technically. Speaking. They're the state's problem now.
[13:38] Great. Anything to address? I guess we're good. Okay, Michael.
[13:49] And Rusty is our oil and gas inspector. He's kind
[13:51] of our guy in the field. And so you'll be
[13:53] hearing more from him here shortly, and he probably can
[13:57] answer a lot of questions. So a question you may
[14:03] have, many people may have is why are there wells
[14:05] on open space? At all. And there's basically two legal
[14:09] factors at play. One is what we called a split
[14:13] estate. Which simply means that different people can own the
[14:17] surface lands and the minerals below. And, in fact, it's
[14:20] more common than not that they are owned by different
[14:23] people at this point. So mineral rights can be sold
[14:27] separately. They can also be leased out so there can
[14:30] be the owner. But then if they're leased to an
[14:34] operator, then the operator actually has control of them. It's
[14:37] like leasing any real property if you might own the
[14:40] house, but if it's. Rented to someone, they have the
[14:43] possession of it. And then the second element is. That.
[14:48] When we buy land, we try to purchase the mineral
[14:50] rights whenever we can. If they're available. To try to
[14:55] gain or maintain some control over development to the extent
[14:58] that we can. But as you might know from buying
[15:02] real estate, and as depicted in this snippet of a
[15:05] typical deed on the left there when we buy land
[15:09] and minerals. It comes to us, subject to certain limitations
[15:14] and exceptions, and then you go to the exhibit b.
[15:17] Which is a snippet of some typical exceptions. And the.
[15:22] I think it's. The second one is oil and gas
[15:24] leases so oftentimes we will buy the land and the
[15:28] minerals and we become the mineral owner. But the minerals.
[15:32] Are already leased out to someone. So again, it's like
[15:34] buying a house. Where there's an existing tenant who has
[15:38] a long term lease. So you are the owner? But
[15:40] there's someone with possession of it, and so this is.
[15:45] How we inherited. Oil and gas on land that are
[15:49] really meant to be conserved and not developed. Mike Lee
[15:54] can go on to the next slide. So then this,
[15:57] of course. Oh, actually, I did want to say most
[15:59] of the leases we do. See were signed in the
[16:03] before. These have been there for a very long time.
[16:05] And as we said the wells themselves have been there
[16:07] for a very long time. Oil and gas leases generally
[16:12] stay alive as long as oil and gas is produced,
[16:16] and this is a very complicated issue. In fact, we've
[16:19] been in litigation and gone to the state supreme court
[16:22] around. What does it mean to produce oil and gas.
[16:26] But as long as there's a well out there, and
[16:28] it is producing. In minimal amounts, the lease will stay
[16:32] alive. So we have these 40, 60, 80 year old
[16:35] leases. That remain valid. We spend a lot of time
[16:40] examining these leases and looking to see. If the operator
[16:44] is maintaining their obligations, and we have in the past.
[16:49] Been successful in getting some leases released, particularly on Dougherty,
[16:54] Swanson and Pace properties. We have got rid of leases
[16:58] as well as. On portions of the Eddie property and
[17:02] the Nervik property and a couple of others, so that's
[17:05] one of our tasks that we do work on. So
[17:09] then another question that may arise is, could there be
[17:12] new drilling? And the answer is yes. But the operator
[17:17] has several important. Hurdles, I guess you could say, to
[17:22] get over first. They have to have valid mineral rights.
[17:25] And these leases, they're old and the operators tend to
[17:29] have lots and lots and lots of them. So we
[17:31] have found that they don't. Always keep the best records,
[17:34] and so they might think they have valid mineral rights,
[17:36] and we might find that they don't or have a
[17:39] way to challenge it. They also have to have the
[17:42] valid right to use the surface land. And again, depending
[17:45] who owns the surface, who owns the minerals. They may
[17:48] or may not have that, and the owner may or
[17:51] may not be interested in giving them permission. And then
[17:54] next the county. We have to give approval for any
[17:58] new drilling, and this goes through. The community planning and
[18:02] permitting department as they implement our land use code. And
[18:07] it's a very robust process. We'll talk about that a
[18:10] little bit more. So they'd have to get through all
[18:11] of that and get approval, and then they also have
[18:14] to get multiple approvals. From the state. Through. They need
[18:18] oil and gas permits, they need air quality permits, and
[18:21] they need stormwater permits. So there's a great deal that
[18:24] has to happen. But theoretically, it is possible that drilling
[18:29] could happen on open space if all of these things
[18:32] fell. Into place. Okay. So speaking of our legal authorities
[18:40] over these things and our ability to push back, We
[18:44] sit in three different chairs or wear three different hats,
[18:46] depending which analogy you like better. As the regulator. Local
[18:52] governments get to regulate the surface impacts of oil and
[18:56] gas through the land use code. The mineral owner has
[19:00] certain rights and obligations as the owner, and we are
[19:03] often in that role. And then the landowner also has
[19:06] certain rights and obligations. And there's cases in which we're
[19:10] in all three positions at the same time. Often we're
[19:14] both the mineral owner and the landowner, and we're always
[19:16] the regulator. So this makes it interesting. Complicated. And where
[19:21] we do have all three. Roles. It's a pretty powerful
[19:24] package. And go ahead, Michael. So on the regulatory role,
[19:31] this mostly sits with community planning and permitting, and through
[19:35] the land use code. And Kim Sanchez is the deputy
[19:39] director of planning at CP and PE, and she is
[19:43] also our local governmental designee, which is a role through
[19:45] the state. The energy and carbon management commission designates an
[19:50] LGD for each local government. Who's kind of the communication
[19:55] conduit, and they're the person who's going to get contacted
[19:57] most often, whether it's by the state or by operators.
[20:02] So Kim plays that role. We have lots of employees
[20:04] from different departments are also on that same. Email list.
[20:09] Including Michael, myself and I think Rusty and others. So
[20:13] if any one person. Is not around when an important
[20:16] message comes through, there are several of us who will
[20:18] pick it. Up. And then under the land use code.
[20:23] I'm not going to read all this list, but. These
[20:25] are all the things that CPNP has authority over and
[20:28] has regulations with which to govern. These things. And then
[20:35] public health supports the enforcement of article twelve, particularly with
[20:39] air quality and other inspections of existing facilities, which is
[20:42] rusty, and he'll get to talk to you about that
[20:45] here shortly. Yeah. So in addition to regulating as the
[20:50] local jurisdiction, as Kate mentioned, we also have increased oversight.
[20:53] Over a lot of the oil and gas operations in
[20:55] Boulder county by virtue of being the landowner. As well.
[21:01] This is especially relevant with plugging and abandonment operations where
[21:06] the oil and gas operators required to return the land
[21:09] to its original state. However, in reality, this ends up
[21:13] usually being a negotiation between the landowner and the operator
[21:17] to identify the most important resources. That the landowner cares
[21:22] for. Fortunately, parks and open space has a team of
[21:26] specialists, including wildlife biologists and plant ecologists to help shape
[21:30] these discussions and identify what is most important to Boulder
[21:34] county. Additionally. Through the community planning and permitting review process
[21:39] for maintenance of these wells. Our team provides these recommendations
[21:44] and what to focus on during reclamation and re vegetation,
[21:47] even for work on private properties as well. So in
[21:52] 2024, the county received a little under 440,000 from oil
[21:57] and gas royalties. The previous year, we received approximately 570,000,
[22:04] and the year before that we received 294,000. So you
[22:10] can see that it varies quite a lot from year
[22:12] to year. These royalties go to the sales tax fund,
[22:15] after which an amount is reallocated to the ag resources
[22:19] budget. Additionally, we charge. A $2,083 registration fee per well
[22:25] annually, which resulted in about $345,000 last year, which goes
[22:30] towards inspection equipment and funding the salaries of our oil
[22:33] and gas team. Now hand it back to Kate.
[22:45] This is a simplistic graphic to talk about the horizontal
[22:48] wells that I mentioned before and I did want to
[22:51] return to one of the commissioner's questions about fracking. So,
[22:54] technically, speaking. Fracking is just one of the operations that
[22:59] occurs at a well, and it can occur at any.
[23:02] Well, it can occur. At a vertical well, or the
[23:07] diagonal type we talked about, or the horizontal. It's most
[23:10] common in these horizontal wells. And these horizontal wells are
[23:13] the most common on the whole front range. Of Colorado
[23:16] at this point. So if you're talking about oil and
[23:19] gas development, past about. 2015. It's going to be horizontal
[23:27] with hydraulic fracturing. So the horizontal well is the one.
[23:32] On the left. It drills down in our area. They're
[23:34] drilling down about a mile and. A half eight, 7508,000ft
[23:39] below the surface, and then they turn the well bore.
[23:42] I don't think it makes quite a sharp angle like
[23:45] that, but they turn it until. It's going horizontally. And
[23:48] they can travel. At this point, they are traveling horizontally
[23:52] two and 3 miles routinely. And now even longer. And
[23:56] then once that's drilled, then they do the fracking piece
[23:59] of it, which is. They bring in separate equipment, and
[24:02] they put pressurized fluid down there to create these tiny
[24:05] fractures. In the pipe. And those are what will then
[24:08] allow the oil and the gas they seep. Under pressure,
[24:11] seep back into the pipe. And up to the surface.
[24:15] So that's the fracking piece. The horizontal drilling is just
[24:19] the creation of this long. Well itself. Yes? Excuse me.
[24:24] Trace Baker Postac. So with the pressure. Is the pressure
[24:32] inherent in the geology, or is that something that. Has
[24:37] to be added by pumping in gas or liquid or
[24:39] something. I can speak to this one, actually. So the
[24:45] purpose of the fracking is to increase the porosity of
[24:48] the rock. And so the pressure is natural. They can
[24:52] do certain things, such as fracking. To basically allow the
[24:57] flow to move more into the pipe, but the pressure
[25:00] is being created by naturally, essentially. Thank you. It'll drop
[25:10] in an area pretty quickly after they start drilling, and
[25:13] then there are a number of. Artificial ways that they
[25:16] can try to increase it again. But the advent of
[25:20] this technology is the reason that. We are now looking
[25:26] at a new kind of oil and gas development that
[25:28] affects Boulder county even though it's not on our lands,
[25:32] so Mikey can go ahead. Our first, biggest. And best
[25:40] example of this, if you call it that, is the
[25:42] Draco project. This was just approved by the Energy and
[25:45] Carbon Management Commission yesterday. So this is a brand new
[25:49] thing. So let me try to describe this image. This
[25:52] is a well bore schematic. The highlighted line down the
[25:56] center is the county line between Weld and Boulder County.
[26:00] To the right, you can see that blue point where
[26:03] all the different lines converge. That is the well, site.
[26:07] And I have forgotten how many wells they're proposing. Looks
[26:11] like probably in the 26, 28. Range, something like that.
[26:17] Each of these blue lines is a horizontal well, and
[26:20] so the well head. Like in the picture you saw.
[26:22] Will sit at that blue dot over to the right,
[26:25] that is. Two and a half miles. East of the
[26:28] Boulder county line. And then they're proposing to drill these
[26:32] well bores. Some of them will be 5 miles long,
[26:35] which is unprecedented. And they will, as you can see,
[26:40] enter Boulder County. This whole project is located immediately north
[26:45] of Arapaho and the well boars. As drawn here primarily
[26:53] come in under the town of Erie. A few of
[26:56] the laterals kind of in the center. Might just touch
[27:00] the very eastern edge of the Eddie open space property,
[27:04] and we're taking a hard look at our mineral rights
[27:07] on that property. We think they're leased, but as always.
[27:12] Confusing to confirm that. And then if you see. Where?
[27:16] The southern fuels. There. Stop short. Those stop short. So
[27:22] as not to penetrate underneath our Cmmn kersh and Cmmn
[27:26] foofi. Open space and conservation easement properties. I don't know
[27:31] what they were thinking, but that conveniently keeps us out
[27:35] of the ability to argue about this project because we
[27:38] are not a mineral owner. So, basically. They're not drilling
[27:44] our minerals. And that takes away one of those hats
[27:48] that we could wear. And basically what it comes down
[27:51] to is we have no legal legs to stand on
[27:53] with a project like this. We're too far away from
[27:57] the actual well site to be recognized as a regulatory
[28:00] power. Either by the state or by Weld county. We
[28:04] did submit comments to both and participated in hearings in
[28:07] this instance. And then state law only gives only the
[28:12] state the legal authority to regulate anything under the surface.
[28:16] So as soon as those whale bowers leave the surface
[28:18] downwards, We no longer have any influence of that. So
[28:22] we can't govern those we have no. Landowner power in
[28:25] this over the site, of course, because it's over there
[28:27] in welf. County. We don't own any of the minerals
[28:31] because they are drilling around us. So this leaves us
[28:36] in a very difficult position where there will be, well,
[28:38] boars coming into Boulder county and our ability. To push
[28:43] back or do anything. About the situation is extremely limited.
[28:49] And then if you go to the next slide, Michael.
[28:53] There are three more similar projects pending, and I just
[28:57] want to say a few more things. I imagine you
[28:58] have some questions. But in the upper left is the
[29:02] project called the Indigo pad. This one's about it's. North
[29:06] of Longmont. And the Wellpad itself is about three quarters
[29:10] of a mile into Weld county, and. It will drill
[29:14] under the langhoff viewpoint. Nup. And Wasach conservation easement properties
[29:19] where we do not own minerals. So it's the same
[29:22] situation as I just described. On the lower left is
[29:26] an image of the coyote trails pad. This one is
[29:29] proposed. It's to be two and a half miles into
[29:31] wild county, inside the town of Erie. Actually, this will
[29:34] drill into boulder county, just north of baseline. And the
[29:39] well bores that they're planning their stop just short of
[29:42] our arapaho. 119 and Josephine roach open space properties so
[29:47] they will not be drilling Boulder county minerals in that
[29:49] one either. And then the one on the right is
[29:51] a little hard to read, but this. Is a very
[29:54] strange project. There is a well pad. It's kind of
[30:00] the light gray dot to the central right. Part of
[30:03] the image. It's a mile and a half into Weld
[30:06] county. It's actually in the town of Frederick. And then,
[30:09] very unusually, They have. I think it's six separate rectangular
[30:14] shapes that are different drilling areas. So they're going to
[30:16] have welds going all different directions into all of those
[30:20] blue and yellow rectangles, and you can see that there's
[30:23] two of them that come into Boulder county again, the
[30:25] county line. Is there almost in the center of the
[30:29] picture. These are going to drill under Conino seven m.
[30:34] Neal and the Caldwell Conservation easement properties. Where again, we
[30:39] do not own the minerals. And you can see they
[30:41] left out the portion in the middle, where we do
[30:44] own minerals. So it's worth noting the odd shapes of
[30:48] these drilling units. They all appear. I'm just speculating here,
[30:54] but they appear to be making the effort to avoid
[30:57] county. Owned minerals. And that may be because they know
[31:01] we will fight to protect them. So assuming that they
[31:04] do have valid lease rights with the other parties who
[31:06] do own these minerals, As I said. Are legal rights
[31:11] with these projects are extremely limited. I do want to
[31:15] point out that when these whale boars come into the
[31:17] county, they will be almost 2 miles below the surface.
[31:21] People have generalized concerns which are very understandable. We have
[31:24] not. Seen. Real substantial evidence of any harm from drilling
[31:30] at depths like that. The most harms that we see
[31:34] from oil and gas drilling come from the surface sites,
[31:37] but nonetheless, we're disappointed at the intrusion, and we continue
[31:41] to analyze all of our, all of our options. So
[31:44] handing it over onto rusty. Hello. Rusty Crane. I work
[31:54] for public health. The Air quality division specifically, and I'm
[32:00] an oil gas specialist. I spend most of my days
[32:03] out doing oil and gas inspections and locating gas leaks
[32:07] using an optical gas imaging camera that's produced by flur
[32:12] and using that. And a honeywell gas meter I'm able
[32:15] to identify and quantify. Really? Even the smallest leaks. It's
[32:21] an amazing technology. This slide shows the results from 2024.
[32:29] So I was able to make 505 visits. That's at
[32:32] least two facility per facility. Three. For many, and I've
[32:37] found 113. Emissions, 17 of them. Exceeded our maximum concentration
[32:45] threshold. And basically we were allowed to find for them.
[32:51] Which. 15 of those were fined. Two of them were
[32:53] not for other reasons. And our threshold is 500 parts
[32:58] per million. Voc that probably doesn't mean anything to you,
[33:04] but that's just. A guest concentration. We imposed 15 fines,
[33:10] unfortunately. Our maximum statutory cap is $300 per violation. So
[33:18] that's what we are finding and the total we're seeing
[33:21] for the year. Is $4,500. Rusty, quick question, Tony Lewis,
[33:26] Postac is the statutory cap, state or county? I believe
[33:33] that is state, but it's also. Yeah. Industry standard. People
[33:38] using that all over the country. Yes, the state air
[33:42] quality. Statutes limit us to $300 per violation per day.
[33:50] So we do try to keep out if a violation
[33:52] continues for days. We can find $300 per day, but
[33:57] we found it very difficult. I mean, it's. A good
[33:59] thing, really, but. We're not finding that. Rusty is finding
[34:03] the same emission day after day. It's. Usually a one
[34:06] time thing, so generally we've only been finding the $300.
[34:11] Thank you. Yeah. Of the 17 that I found, most
[34:14] of them were fixed on the spot. I have them
[34:18] kind of follow me around, and when I find leaks,
[34:22] I put them on immediately. And. If they can, they
[34:25] do. Fix them immediately. That's not always possible. Trace Baker
[34:29] Postac. The 500 parts per million, is that. A state,
[34:39] federal, county. Who imposes that, and what's the rationale for
[34:43] that particular number. I can speak to that one. The
[34:49] CDPHE. The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment has
[34:53] chosen the 500 parts per million standard as their threshold
[34:57] to fine. However. They would not actually find for the
[35:02] emissions we're finding because. Our facilities are in their point
[35:06] of view. Too small of facilities to really regulate at
[35:11] all. But we have. Independent authority to inspect and enforce
[35:17] for air quality aside from the state. So we use
[35:20] the same 500 parts per million because. We're relying on.
[35:25] Their background and their experts who have determined that that's
[35:27] an important threshold. But we're applying it to our smaller
[35:31] scale facilities. Under our separate local authority. Thank you. And
[35:38] know that that is a tight threshold. Christine. Yeah. Just
[35:44] very quickly. It's almost impossible at this point to measure
[35:50] the volume of gas released as you can. Imagine it's
[35:54] going into the atmosphere and it makes it extremely difficult
[35:57] to actually. Get the volume. So the best measure we
[36:00] can use is the concentration, and I believe 500 parts.
[36:03] Per million. Is. Not. Considered dangerous. To health or explosive.
[36:10] Is that right, Rusty? It's below those levels. So these
[36:14] are small leaks, but we take it very seriously, and
[36:16] we are nonetheless enforcing on them. Yeah. What's important to
[36:21] us is the cumulative effect. For precursors. Just because one
[36:27] leak is not huge, the cumulative effect of all the
[36:29] leaks Fraywell could be. Yeah, exactly. Christine. Christine Johnson Poseack.
[36:37] I'm curious. The identities of some of the VOCs and
[36:42] what their potential impacts are. Well, there's a long list
[36:47] of bocs, but they consider them all under the VOC.
[36:51] Umbrella. I'm not sure how many there are, but there's
[36:54] quite a few. The other precursor that we're looking at
[37:00] quite a bit is methane. But that is not included
[37:05] in the VOC list. That's the one outlier. Yeah, our
[37:09] equipment. Doesn't speciate between the different gases. So we're able
[37:15] to say it's 500 parts per million of some VoC.
[37:19] Or some combination of vocs, but we don't have the
[37:21] technology to separate out which or which, with the exception
[37:25] of methane, where we. Have. A formula that Rusty's been
[37:30] using where we can presume that a certain portion of
[37:33] a gas is actually methane, but other than that, we're
[37:36] only able to say it falls. Within that VOC category.
[37:40] And I believe that all VOCs are regulated in the
[37:43] same way. For michael. More presentation? Yes. I think we're
[37:49] just moving on to the end with where Kate will
[37:51] talk about policy work. Great. Oh, yes. I just want
[37:55] to point out that our broader owen gas team aside
[37:57] from everything we've been talking about out in the field
[38:00] or occasionally, in the courtroom. We also spend a lot
[38:06] of time working on policy at the legislature and in
[38:11] the various state agencies. And the one piece I wanted
[38:13] to pull up because it affects your Bailey wick here.
[38:18] Is the SB 24 185 from last year, which was
[38:21] called. Our shorthand is the force pooling bill. We are
[38:26] pretty excited about that, actually. It's very technical, but it
[38:30] actually is really good. For us from a mineral owner
[38:33] standpoint. So force pooling or statutory pooling, as you may
[38:37] know, authorizes the state to give permission to an operator
[38:41] to go ahead and drill the minerals of an owner
[38:44] who does not consent. So it's a little bit like
[38:47] an imminent domain action where this is my property. I
[38:50] don't want it to be used. And that fake says
[38:52] it's going to be. Used anyway. It sounds counterintuitive, but
[38:57] it has been found legal by the Colorado courts over
[38:59] time. However, last year we were able to get this
[39:03] bill through the legislature to prohibit the force pooling. Of
[39:06] any minerals owned by local governments. So up until then,
[39:10] all these minerals that we own. Were actually vulnerable to
[39:14] being forcibly developed by operators. But now the minerals that
[39:21] we've purchased are safer from development, and I say safer.
[39:26] As opposed to 100% safe? Because if they're already leased
[39:29] out, we cannot protect them. Through this, Bill. It only
[39:34] protects minerals that are not already leased. And of course,
[39:37] a good number of our mineral acres are already leased,
[39:41] but that said, as long as. We own unleashed minerals,
[39:45] which we do, and. Hopefully will continue to shed some
[39:49] of these old leases that have expired. Those minerals are
[39:53] now protected. By the bill, so getting that through was
[39:55] a good victory. And. A lot of these regulatory pieces
[40:00] are wonky. And incremental, but we're pretty proud of our
[40:04] work there, so I just wanted. To point that out
[40:06] too. And I think that's all we have. So if
[40:09] there's any further questions or. Discussion. If you want to
[40:11] take any more of your time, we're happy to. Great.
[40:16] Thank you, Kate. Thank you. S T. Thank you, Michael.
[40:20] Questions. Carol? Yes. Carol Byerly Pos. So. When these pipes
[40:26] go under the property in boulder county and they're 2
[40:29] miles below the surface. So if a farmer has land
[40:35] above them. If a farmer has land above them. They
[40:39] don't have any control over that either. And so what
[40:43] is the law? How far down do we own the
[40:46] land? I mean, the mineral? Rights, even if. Farmers own
[40:52] the mineral rights. When you sever the two. What is
[40:58] the size of the land portion versus the size of
[41:00] the mineral portion? Go ahead, Kate. And Michael has some
[41:06] more experience, so he'll, he can chime into this, too,
[41:10] if I were to sell you the mineral rights under
[41:12] my house. We don't. Measure. You own it from 10ft
[41:17] down. Or that kind of thing. I would tell you
[41:21] the mineral rights period and maybe to certain minerals. For
[41:27] example, we have leases for coal from the old days
[41:30] or. That accept coal, for example, but basically. What? You're
[41:37] leasing or selling is the right to pretty much any
[41:39] mineral under there. And then what comes with that is
[41:43] a very complicated. Set of rights to actually get at
[41:47] those minerals. So all of that to say. There's not.
[41:54] A defining line between where the farmer. Farmers ownership ends
[41:58] and the operator's possession of the rights begins. However, there
[42:04] is a law or a legal principle called the reasonable
[42:08] accommodation doctrine, which says that. Whoever's drilling to get at
[42:13] their minerals can't interfere too much with what the person
[42:17] on the surface is trying to do. So, for example,
[42:20] Michael can tell you. One of his jobs is to
[42:23] WorK with our tenant farmers who are doing things on
[42:26] the surface. And are sometimes interrupted by the oil and
[42:30] gas guys because they're getting the way of their rotating
[42:34] sprinklers, for example, or they're grazing. And so. They can't
[42:41] impair the farmer's ability to farm. So we can't point
[42:46] to a spot in the ground where the ownership changes.
[42:51] It's more amorphous than that. And we have to go
[42:53] on these principles. You have to make accommodations for me.
[42:57] What I'm doing, and you can't interfere. With what I'm
[43:00] doing. And those are the kind of principles that keep
[43:03] us busy, Michael. Might have something more to add to
[43:05] that. Yeah, I don't really have a whole lot more
[43:10] to add, really. These are sort of. Abstract concepts and
[43:14] not specific delineations of depth or anything like that. The
[43:18] oil and gas underneath the property. If that is what
[43:22] was deeded away, it is really the oil and gas.
[43:25] At any depth under that property. So, Carol. Byerly Posac
[43:29] again. So does Draco. Have the mineral rights to. All
[43:36] the property in Boulder county. Has they bought all that
[43:39] up? Yeah. Well, to get to one of the things
[43:44] Kate mentioned as well, they would have to own a
[43:46] certain percentage, which I believe is now over, has been
[43:49] changed to 51%, and then they can pool people who
[43:52] are not governments, local smaller farmers, for example. They may
[43:58] not wish to be a part of this, but as
[44:00] long. As they have a certain percentage of those leases
[44:04] already in their ownership, they can go to the state
[44:06] and. Pool non consenting owners to create a drilling unit.
[44:13] So there's still some force pooling. Yes. Just not affecting
[44:17] us. Okay, thank you. And we don't know. So that
[44:22] the operator in this. Is actually extract. Is it extraction
[44:26] or crystal? The Duracopad. I don't know where they came
[44:30] up with the name the operator. Is a company called
[44:34] Civitas, and they have various affiliates, but anyway, presumably they
[44:39] own the mineral rights. If they don't, then they would
[44:43] have to force pool. Because we are not a party
[44:47] to this. Chances are no one. Is taking. A very
[44:52] hard look at whether they actually do or not, because
[44:55] we tend to be the ones who force the hard
[44:57] look, but presumably. They own the minerals. If they have
[45:03] to, they'll do a forced pooling. I have not heard
[45:05] about whether they're going to or not. Just one clarification.
[45:09] Own or lease, probably, right, yeah. When the states call
[45:14] you an owner. This is very confusing. Yeah. The owner
[45:18] in the state's eyes is the person with the right
[45:21] to drill. So in our case. They would call the
[45:27] tenant of your building. They call that person the owner,
[45:30] because they have the right to be in the building,
[45:32] so it gets confusing. But yes. So they have to
[45:36] have the right to drill either through a lease or
[45:39] through outright ownership or some other kind of agreement. Great.
[45:42] Thank you. Other questions, Janet. Janet george posak. You answered
[45:49] most of the question I was going to ask. It
[45:51] was one that Carol asked towards the end, and it
[45:53] was about when you look at the Draco project, It
[45:58] looks like they have all the leases or ownership because
[46:02] there are no gaps in those lines. Other than where
[46:05] open space is. So in answered the question about that,
[46:09] but. Is there anyone, the state or anyone during the
[46:14] permitting that actually checks to see. If. They have leases
[46:19] for everything, or ownership. Not really. When the operator files
[46:28] its application to the state. They will. Sign. A certification
[46:35] in their application that they own the requisite mineral rights.
[46:40] But when we have fought back on some of these
[46:43] projects and we've asked for the actual evidence that they
[46:46] do, they refuse to give it to us. When we've
[46:49] asked the agency. To demand that they prove it. They
[46:53] have declined to do so. In our experience, we have
[46:57] not found that anyone is taking that hard look and.
[47:03] They are taking the operator's word for it. Thank you.
[47:09] Other questions from Postac. Carol. Carol byerly posac. So why
[47:16] are you telling us now? Is this? Just an information.
[47:22] To let us know what's going on beneath the surface.
[47:25] Or. Why should we know this? I mean, I'm happy
[47:30] to know it, but I'm. Just wondering why now. That
[47:34] might be a good question for Janice if she's there.
[47:37] She comes. She asked us to. Hello. Janice Wisman, real
[47:43] estate division manager. You may recall a couple of months
[47:46] ago I gave you our annual report for the real
[47:48] estate division. And when I do that, talk about closings.
[47:52] Which include acquisitions and dispositions, our conservation easement, monitoring work,
[47:57] and I also talk about our oil and gas activities.
[48:01] And we thought that it might be useful, and it
[48:03] sounded like there was some interest at the time for
[48:06] you to hear more about this, and I just want
[48:07] to say publicly and thank rusty. I know. It's been
[48:12] especially difficult for you, Rusty, to join us tonight. I
[48:14] appreciate that. And Kate. And Michael, particularly for putting this
[48:18] together and giving us to you, because I feel like.
[48:21] It has been really informative, and I hope it's been
[48:22] helpful to you. Thank you. Janice. It's been incredibly helpful.
[48:27] It takes me back to some work I did around
[48:29] force pooling, and it's a little bit traumatic. But. I
[48:35] appreciate. What you guys are doing and checking. And the
[48:41] frustrations involved, too, watching it come in from another county.
[48:45] With little to no regulatory powers. Very difficult. I think
[48:50] that's it from Posac. Nick, do we have anybody online
[48:54] with comments? Yeah. I'm going to open it up to
[49:02] anybody on Zoom call if you would like. To make
[49:04] comments on this current agenda item, please use the raise
[49:07] hand feature so we can call on you. I am
[49:11] not seeing any raised hands. All right, thank you. And
[49:14] anybody in the audience who wishes to comment. Okay. Michael,
[49:17] Kate, Rusty, thank you all very much. Really appreciate you
[49:20] coming. Thank you. Making time for us. Thank you. Yeah,
[49:24] thank you. And, Janice, thank you for being here as
[49:26] well. All right. Okay, we'll move on to elk management.
[49:39] Great report that you all sent. Thank you for doing
[49:41] that. And we did also have some comments online. Hopefully
[49:46] you guys have seen those cozy. Those, too. But several
[49:51] people have weighed in has been nice. So, john. You
[49:57] are up. Thank you for coming tonight. Thank you guys
[50:01] for having me. And you got to get really close
[50:05] to them, Mike. We're getting admonished all right. Is that
[50:08] good enough for everybody? That is perfect. All right, well,
[50:10] thank you guys for having me. My name is John
[50:13] de Cost. I'm the elk management coordinator for Boulder county
[50:16] parks. And open space. And I'm going to give an
[50:19] overall update of the program where we're at now. And
[50:23] then ultimately. We're going to be asking you guys to
[50:26] recommend. Reauthorization to the commissioners at the end of this.
[50:33] So I'll go through a little bit of a background
[50:35] if there's any new. Members of Postac that don't know
[50:37] the full background of the program. Tell you guys what
[50:41] we've been up to most recently, where we're at and
[50:44] kind of where the program is and where we're hoping
[50:46] to take it going forward. So, ultimately. We're asking for
[50:51] reauthorization of the Red Hill management plan for another three.
[50:54] Years. We're asking for some slight modifications to that, but
[50:57] overall, We still want to include a hunt program there.
[51:02] Run store preserve at Rabbit Mountain elk and vegetation management
[51:04] plan also needs to be reauthorized at this point because
[51:08] of the success we've seen with the program. We're recommending
[51:11] no hunting there for the foreseeable future. We've had really
[51:16] good success that. I'll show later on in the presentation.
[51:21] And if hunting is necessary again, obviously we'd be coming
[51:24] to you and going back to the commissioners for reapproval
[51:27] before we start any hunting at Rabbit Mountain. And John,
[51:31] it is difficult to stick in front of the mic,
[51:34] but as soon as you turn your head. Probably folks
[51:37] online have a hard time. Okay, I will keep my
[51:39] head. Thank you. So just an overall background? Elk have
[51:44] been in Colorado for 8000 years. There's a long history
[51:48] of hunting and use by indigenous people. In the 19th
[51:53] and 20th century. We lost pretty much all of our
[51:56] elk in Colorado due to unrestricted market hunting. Elk were
[52:01] reintroduced. In 1912 to 1914 at Rocky Mountain National Park.
[52:08] And today, Colorado, it's an incredible success story. We both.
[52:12] Over 280,000 animals. It's the largest Elkurd in North America.
[52:18] And that's kind of where we stand now. Boulder county
[52:21] is not much different. We also struggled. We had very
[52:25] few elk. When Boulder county acquired Ron store Preserve up
[52:29] at Rabbit Mountain. Elk were not on the property. You
[52:33] may get sporadic out coming through, but really we had
[52:36] no elk to speak of in the area. In early
[52:39] 2000s, we started to see elk regularly on this property,
[52:43] which was great. It's something that the property could handle.
[52:47] But around 2012, we started to see that number creep
[52:50] up. In 2016, we had close to 400 elk that
[52:54] were staying at Rabbit Mountain, not leaving the area. And
[52:57] that's where this elk management plan kind of materialized from.
[53:03] A couple of reasons why this became problematic. Rabbit Mountain,
[53:07] along with the Red Hill area, which I'll also be
[53:10] discussing. Rabbit Mountain is some of the highest biodiversity of
[53:15] all the areas along the northern front range. Along with
[53:17] Red Hill. So having 350 elk camped out there was
[53:22] doing some pretty serious damage to the ecosystem. These areas
[53:26] were previously only used as winter range and severe winter
[53:29] range, meaning that elk would be calving up in the
[53:32] indian peaks in the summer, coming down into. The plains
[53:37] in the winter, overwintering here in milder conditions and migrating
[53:41] back up. That dynamic started to shift when we started
[53:44] to have the 350 elk that stayed year round at
[53:47] Rabbit mountain. You can see in these photos we had
[53:51] bedding areas and trails. That basically became. Open soil that
[53:59] we had cheat grass and incursions there and other noxious
[54:02] weeds. We had elk over browsing the native mountain mahogany
[54:06] communities. There we had bull elk rubbing on a lot
[54:09] of our young saplings, so it was causing a lot
[54:11] of issues to that really great. Biodiversity, really high biodive.
[54:17] Biodiversity area, and we wanted to prevent that at the
[54:21] same time. It was also causing all these issues to
[54:24] surrounding landowners, so. We were having damage to private property.
[54:29] Ran through fences. People encountering elk on highways, often resulting
[54:34] in vehicle collisions, elk camping out in people's irrigated agriculture,
[54:39] like this corn crop that you see here. Or destroying
[54:43] infrastructure, center pivots and things like that. So in 2014,
[54:47] CPW created the subunit for hunting that was specifically really
[54:52] a private land tag. So that private landowners could try
[54:55] to address this issue in the area at the same
[54:58] time, parks and open space. We tried hazing at Rabbit
[55:00] Mountain. Non lethal methods to try to move the elk
[55:03] off the property. That really didn't work. At all, Elkwood
[55:07] would pretty much start ignoring us after a few attempts.
[55:12] Here's just a map. We did end up putting collars
[55:14] on these elk the center. Part of that map is
[55:17] Rabbit Mountain, and elk would go there during the day,
[55:20] and then at night radiate out to those agriculture fields
[55:23] in the area, causing the damage we just discussed. So
[55:28] in 2017, through Postac and the commissioners Carol Byerly Post
[55:33] that, can we see that? Map again. I want to
[55:37] understand it. Okay. These are individual elks. Each color represents
[55:43] a different individual l color. Okay, so each collar represents
[55:49] a lot more elk. These are all put out on
[55:51] cow elk. One of the things in our study that
[55:56] I've noticed is we ended up, I think, by our
[55:59] trapping methods. A lot of times it was clover traps.
[56:01] We were self selecting. Matriarch females. And so a lot
[56:07] of these collars represent one female that has a lot
[56:10] of other females. Following them around. So these are individual
[56:13] colors, but you can extrapolate there's other. Animals moving around
[56:16] with these individuals. Thank you. In 2017. With commissioners, we
[56:25] approved the first management plan at Rabbit Mountain, and ultimately
[56:28] the goals of that plan. Were to reduce the resource
[56:30] impacts caused by the herd, try to reestablish migration and
[56:34] reduce elk concentration. Unlike what a lot of people think,
[56:37] this program is not a culling program. We do do
[56:40] lethal harvesting. But it's really to change the behavior of
[56:46] the elk. As I said earlier, the hazing didn't work.
[56:50] And so adding that lethal component to the hazing really
[56:55] forced the change in behavior. So we didn't coal 300
[56:57] elk off the properties. We started this program, and they
[57:01] stopped seeing rabbit Mountain as the refuge. And then ultimately,
[57:05] our goal was to reduce that population to no more
[57:08] than 30 resident elk ones. That aren't migrating back to
[57:10] the high country and up to 70 elk with those
[57:13] winter migrants coming down. And then also reduce damage and
[57:18] impacts to private landowners in the area. This adaptive management
[57:22] plan was approved. Initially, it was a three year program.
[57:27] We are also simultaneously collecting data on. These elkurds in
[57:32] the area. In collaboration with CPW staff at the county,
[57:37] are also monitoring vegetation at Rabbit Mountain to see if
[57:39] there's impacts of this program, we fenced off some of
[57:43] the core use areas. There. We aren't doing hazing anymore
[57:47] outside of the calving season. And the biggest thing that
[57:51] was approved was a limited hunting of Antler OSLC. We
[57:53] only target cows. And that program has been going on
[57:57] now for eight years. So that was reapproved through this
[57:59] past season. Give you a background now on the Red
[58:03] Hill Elkurd, at the same time that the rabbit heard
[58:07] we started the elk management program at Rabbit Mountain. We
[58:10] started to see very similar. Trends with the red hill
[58:14] herd. So if you look at the map on the
[58:16] left hand side, from a collar study that was done
[58:19] in the late 90s, early 2000s. We had very few
[58:22] elk staying year round. And also, if you notice the
[58:26] elk that did stay round were all staying north of
[58:28] Nelson Road there. So fast forward to 2017. 2017. You
[58:34] see a lot more elk in the area staying year
[58:37] round. You see a lot more elk moving south. The
[58:39] tan blob on that map is table. Mountain. And that
[58:43] is becoming one of the big issues in this southern
[58:45] Red Hill area where elk are using Table Mountain as
[58:48] the refuge now. So again, Red Hill is also an
[58:53] area of high biodiversity. It was previously like Rabbit Mountain,
[58:58] only used for winter and severe winter range. But over
[59:02] time, those elk numbers. Those resident elk numbers have been
[59:06] steadily increasing and. They're primarily using these areas that we
[59:10] don't have a lot of people on. So these ecologically
[59:13] sensitive areas on the west side of Highway 36. They
[59:17] tend to camp out there and cause damage. These are
[59:20] those initial counts in 2018 and 2019. Where 2018, we
[59:25] had about 50 resident elk in the next year. We
[59:28] saw that jump. By 50% over 100. And so we
[59:35] decided that we needed to act on this, so we
[59:38] didn't get up. To 400 l, like we were seeing
[59:40] at Rabbit Mountain. Similar issues that we were seeing at
[59:44] Rabbit Mountain. Increased car and vehicle collisions on highway 36.
[59:51] Increased damage to private. Land and crops in the area.
[59:55] There's a lot of specialty crops, organic agriculture in this.
[59:58] Area and then also the resource damage to our open
[1:00:01] space properties. To address this, CPW extended the subunit from
[1:00:06] Highway 66 down to Nywat Road so that allowed us
[1:00:10] to address some of these issues with our hunt program.
[1:00:14] There's a close up of the expanded subunit boundary. And
[1:00:19] much like the Red Hill, a rabbit mountain management plan.
[1:00:23] We want to prevent resource damage to our areas of
[1:00:25] high biodiversity. We want to maintain. A migrating Elkurd in
[1:00:29] this area with no more than 25 resident elk staying
[1:00:32] around in the summer months. We want to continue working
[1:00:35] with our agricultural tenants to limit damage to crops caused
[1:00:40] by the elk. And then we also want to facilitate
[1:00:43] highway safety along us 36 in any way that we
[1:00:46] can. That plan was approved in 2020. Initially, it was
[1:00:50] a two year program. It's a short season. We target
[1:00:55] August 15 to the end of October, so we're not
[1:00:57] targeting those migratory elk. That are coming down from the
[1:01:00] high country and doing what we want them to do.
[1:01:02] Those elk are only targeted if they start ending up
[1:01:05] in agricultural properties, and that's on an as needed basis,
[1:01:08] but our actual hunt program ends on October 31. And
[1:01:13] like I said, We still can send hunters after that
[1:01:16] to tenant lease properties if they're experiencing damage and we've
[1:01:18] had some success with that, and that's been extended or
[1:01:22] was extended through this past season. So where are we
[1:01:26] now? Rabbit mountain update. The hunter. Success has been steadily
[1:01:32] declining over the last eight years. This past year we
[1:01:35] had one harvest there. Which, as far as success goes,
[1:01:40] Is a little counterintuitive, but low hunter success up here.
[1:01:44] Is really exemplifying the success of this program. We really
[1:01:47] didn't have elk in the area. Our hunters weren't seeing
[1:01:50] elk this was a particularly challenging year, I think, for
[1:01:54] elk in the area, given the stone canyon fire and
[1:01:56] also the mine reclamation going on, so there's a lot
[1:01:58] of activity, but that's still a trend that we've been
[1:02:01] seeing. The elk aren't camping out on the properties. They're
[1:02:05] just not using it as the same kind of refuge
[1:02:07] that we've been. Seeing in past years. Our ultimate goal
[1:02:11] is 30 to 70 individuals, 30 resident elk that stay
[1:02:14] there year round and up. To 70 that join the
[1:02:17] herd in the winter. These are our elk count, our
[1:02:21] minimum high counts of elk. I only have up until
[1:02:25] 20, 23. 24 last year. Because we really can't find
[1:02:30] elk in the subunit bencraft is here with CPW. And
[1:02:35] he was telling me, they estimate that there's roughly 40
[1:02:38] between Blue Mountain and birthed. And I think that puts
[1:02:41] it really within the target of what we're trying to
[1:02:43] achieve at rabbit mountain and is why we're not going
[1:02:47] to be recommending hunting at Rabbit Mountain for the foreseeable
[1:02:49] future. Tenant issues. Our county tenants are experiencing much less
[1:02:56] elk damage than they have in the past. We haven't.
[1:02:59] Had to use hunters on any of their properties in
[1:03:01] the last two years. CPW still paid out close to
[1:03:06] $11,000 in game damage to some tenants in the area,
[1:03:10] but that's really. Going to one producer, and it's a
[1:03:13] producer that we've been having issues with. In the past.
[1:03:16] But ultimately, I think elk damage in the area is
[1:03:19] generally going down. Targeted hunting on private property has moved
[1:03:23] elk around tooth there is a lot of private. Property
[1:03:26] hunters in the area. The subunit harvest is staying, actually.
[1:03:31] Pretty steady. So it is telling us that the elk
[1:03:34] are still there. The elk are moving around. But ultimately,
[1:03:37] we've taken rabbit mount out of the equation as being
[1:03:40] that refuge where. They're staying. Another issue that we're having
[1:03:44] in the area is bachelor bulls are becoming an issue.
[1:03:46] We have large groups of bulls running around. That's a
[1:03:50] really tricky situation to deal with. Cpws trying to address
[1:03:53] that on their end. We don't want to get into
[1:03:55] the business of harvesting bulls, but that is something that's
[1:03:58] becoming an issue. For the recent past has been really
[1:04:02] tough to deal with, and CPW sounds like it's. Starting
[1:04:05] to try to address some of this. So elk numbers
[1:04:10] have been steadily declining. We do need some more accurate
[1:04:13] herd counts, but overall, I think it's pretty safe to
[1:04:16] say that we do not have the elk problem at
[1:04:18] rabbit. Mountain that we used to. Hunter success and harvest
[1:04:21] numbers have steadily declined. Hunting pressure has assisted tenants and
[1:04:26] neighbors with elk damage issues and long term vegetation. Monitoring
[1:04:29] by county staff has shown that there's a really strong
[1:04:33] recovery in these areas that have been over browsed and
[1:04:35] overused by the Elkurd. For red hill. We have a
[1:04:40] whole different dynamic down here. 2024 saw the highest harvest
[1:04:44] rates in the five year history. We had 18 animals
[1:04:48] harvested 15 during the actual season. And three more after
[1:04:53] the season on county owned property leased by tenants the
[1:04:57] elk were getting into their stored hay. So the elk
[1:05:02] in the Red Hill area, those numbers have continued to
[1:05:05] grow. They're continuing to cause conflict with our agricultural producers,
[1:05:09] particularly on the eastern side of the county. Highway safety.
[1:05:14] Is continuing to be a concern along Highway 36, but
[1:05:17] we're also starting to see issues along the diagonal highway.
[1:05:21] So again, our objectives, just to remind everyone, is 25
[1:05:25] non migratory elkit in the Red Hill. Area. Summer heard
[1:05:30] counts with CPW is what we try to use to
[1:05:32] get. At those numbers. And this is truncated. These are
[1:05:37] all summer counts. So each line represents a different summer
[1:05:39] count. Each year. So if you look at 2024, those
[1:05:43] two counts last summer were 57 and 47, which is
[1:05:46] obviously higher than 25. But. We weren't aware that there
[1:05:52] were as many elk as there were on the east
[1:05:54] side. Of the diagonal highway, so this is likely an
[1:05:56] undercount and. We're estimating that there's close to 80 elk
[1:06:01] in the subunit or in this area of the subunit
[1:06:03] right now. And. We're still seeing. Extensive game damage in
[1:06:10] this area, so crop damage, trampling. Row covers. Infrastructure damage.
[1:06:18] Cpw paid. Over $36,000 in game damage in this area
[1:06:23] this past year. So. We've been trying to address it.
[1:06:28] Our hands are tied as far as the county is.
[1:06:30] What we can do, but we're doing everything we can
[1:06:32] on the properties that we can. Use this program with
[1:06:34] using hunters from our Red Hill program. But there's issues.
[1:06:39] Table Mountain continues to be an issue. That we're trying
[1:06:43] to address. So, overall, Red Hill, the numbers remain outside
[1:06:47] of the plan. Objectives. Hunter success and harvest numbers are
[1:06:51] dramatically increased. This past year, hunting pressure has assisted tenants
[1:06:55] with elk damage issues, but that's going to be an
[1:06:57] ongoing issue. And like I said earlier, elk have been
[1:07:01] seeking refuge regularly. For the past few years on Table
[1:07:04] Mountain. So overall, rabbit mountain, we've. Successfully achieved most of
[1:07:13] our plan objectives. In Bread Hill. We're still outside of
[1:07:16] plan objectives. So next steps for 2020. After this 20,
[1:07:24] 24, 25 season. Our management plans have been improved through
[1:07:28] this last hunting season. We're hoping to have a recommendation
[1:07:32] to reauthorize these plans. And go before the commissioners for
[1:07:37] Rabbit Mountain. We would like to reauthorize the plan. For
[1:07:39] three more years. We will be pausing hunting indefinitely until
[1:07:43] we see any of those herd metrics start to increase.
[1:07:48] Again if hunting is necessary. We would seek Bocc approval
[1:07:53] going forward. But we're also hoping that if we can
[1:07:56] reauthorize this plan, this will. Still allow us to use
[1:07:59] hunters and some of these tools. On leased properties. If
[1:08:04] that's something that becomes an issue in the next few
[1:08:06] years. For Red Hill. We're also hoping to reauthorize the
[1:08:10] plan for another three. Years. One recommendation we have is
[1:08:16] to remove the whole northern. Hunt area from the red
[1:08:19] hill west side. We don't have any harvests there. We
[1:08:22] don't have hunters hunting there. The ledge ditch that you
[1:08:26] can see coming out of the northeast part of that
[1:08:30] graphic that broke in. The 2013 flood, and so there's
[1:08:34] very little water on that north end of the property.
[1:08:36] And so elk don't use that in those summer months.
[1:08:40] We do have a lot of elk there now. In
[1:08:41] the winter months, there's some hanging. Meadows on that north
[1:08:43] end that they like to use. But during our hunt
[1:08:45] season, our hunters don't hunt there. There's a parking area
[1:08:48] in the north. And in the three years I've been
[1:08:50] here. No, hundreds have parked there. And that's also the
[1:08:53] area where a lot of the neighbors in the north
[1:08:56] point neighborhood have had issues with the hunt, and I
[1:08:58] think, just for safety. I don't think it's necessary to
[1:09:01] have this as part of the hunt anymore. We have
[1:09:04] most of our success in the area to the south
[1:09:07] that you see circled in orange. And then across the
[1:09:10] road where we have the other hunt area on the
[1:09:11] east side of highway. 36. Sorry. Derek Turner Pozak, while
[1:09:16] we're on that specific subject, we had a public comment.
[1:09:19] On this about the northern boundary of the new area
[1:09:23] being out of rifle shot range is this. In your
[1:09:26] opinion, out of that, yes. And that brings me to
[1:09:28] the next point. So. Has been an area that we
[1:09:33] have approved short range weapons. It's a rifle tag that
[1:09:35] we hunt under. But because of neighbor concerns, like the
[1:09:40] North Point neighbors, we opted to use, initially archery shotguns.
[1:09:45] And muzzle loaders. After two years ago, we removed archery,
[1:09:51] mainly because we weren't seeing the success that we were
[1:09:53] hoping for. But also we were having some conflicts with
[1:09:55] the gun hunters and the archery hunters. That the archers
[1:09:57] had to get much closer, and then you'd have gun
[1:09:59] hunters 100 yards. Further away either, shooting over them, not
[1:10:03] knowing. Just to avoid. And the only negative comments we'd
[1:10:08] get when we did our hunter survey. Was from archers
[1:10:11] that were feeling that it wasn't safe. But. The other
[1:10:16] issue we've been seeing with using these shorter range weapons.
[1:10:21] Is that it's not as effective if we had rifles.
[1:10:25] We've heard from a lot of hunters. If there were
[1:10:27] rifles, they would have been more effective in harvesting. And
[1:10:31] based on the safety aspects, we have eight years of
[1:10:34] very safe hunting at Rabbit Mountain. We have five years
[1:10:36] of safe hunting here. I think this is an area
[1:10:40] that we can safely use rifles. We've demonstrated that our
[1:10:45] hunters have to go through a shooting proficiency test and
[1:10:48] attend orientations. With us. This is also the only area
[1:10:52] where we've seen significant wounding loss, and I think. That's
[1:10:56] also due to. These shorter range weapons. They're taking shots
[1:11:01] that are pretty much at the extent of the range
[1:11:04] of these shorter range weapons at that time. You're losing
[1:11:06] velocity. A lot of times they're hitting. Shoulders. It's not
[1:11:09] full penetration. And we lose animals every year. This year
[1:11:12] we only lost. One, but in past years it's been
[1:11:14] higher. I think that would help with the success. In
[1:11:17] this program. I also talking to local Dwm Joe pad.
[1:11:20] Padilla he thinks that this will allow him to be
[1:11:22] more successful in using hunters from this program on different
[1:11:27] leased properties. If that's approved. So in addition to approving
[1:11:33] those. Two management plans. We'll obviously continue monitoring efforts in
[1:11:39] each management area. Red hills outside of that objective number.
[1:11:43] So we're going to be monitoring to see where those
[1:11:45] numbers are for rabbit Mountain. We'll continue to monitor to
[1:11:48] see if that heard starts. To increase again and then
[1:11:51] take appropriate actions. If that's what we're seeing, we're going
[1:11:54] to continue to work with ag tenants in the area,
[1:11:57] private landowners in the area. To deal with the elk
[1:11:59] damage that they're seeing in the subun. Subunit. We're continuing
[1:12:02] to have conversations with Table Mountain and their representatives to
[1:12:06] allow limited hunting. A year and a half ago, we
[1:12:10] actually got our law. We met with their lawyers. We
[1:12:13] were working up a plan to allow limited hunting at
[1:12:15] Table Mountain, and then they kind of went radio. Silent.
[1:12:19] We had a meeting two weeks ago. Where we were
[1:12:23] told that. They're willing and ready to explore that again,
[1:12:26] so. We may get some movement there. They've also talked
[1:12:30] about potentially bringing in. Wildlife services to do a very
[1:12:35] quick and efficient call up there if they have to
[1:12:37] do that. So that's another option that they're exploring, that
[1:12:43] we wouldn't have much. Jurisdiction over. But Joe Padilla and
[1:12:46] again, we as a county entity wouldn't be involved. With
[1:12:49] hunting on table mountain. That would be through CPW, but
[1:12:52] they would be modeling it based on our program and
[1:12:54] likely using hunters from our program because we have such
[1:12:56] a rigorous. Entry into our program through the orientations and
[1:13:00] shooting tests. I don't know where that's going to go,
[1:13:04] but that's still on. The table and something we're discussing.
[1:13:07] CPW has also been discussing limited harvest of bulls. On
[1:13:10] private land. I don't know much more about that, but
[1:13:14] that was a discussion. Maybe Ben could talk about that.
[1:13:18] But again, that's a very tricky subject, and there's. A
[1:13:21] reason we haven't done that yet. So stay tuned for
[1:13:24] that. And then also, we want to prioritize highway safety
[1:13:27] on Highway 36. I was just involved in a large
[1:13:31] project with other staff members trying to get plans for
[1:13:34] wildlife. Crossings where they would go. We heavily utilized the
[1:13:37] el collar data. We had to show where those crossing
[1:13:40] points are and to. Give more data to support improving
[1:13:46] safety along that roadway. So if you guys have any
[1:13:49] questions and I'll play a video. I worked with a
[1:13:52] grad student this last year, trying to get better elk
[1:13:55] count data, and he was a uis pilot. And so
[1:13:59] we explored using uis and drones to improve our lcounts
[1:14:03] to try to get. Better data for this project.
[1:14:30] And ultimately he concluded that we can see elk better
[1:14:33] from a drone than we can from a ground with
[1:14:34] binoculars and spotting scopes. And this is the Red Hill
[1:14:41] properties is the west side of 36 and the southern
[1:14:44] end of the Hunt area. What time of year? This
[1:14:51] is either December or early January, I think is when
[1:14:55] this is. So this would be most likely wintering else.
[1:14:58] But at this point you have both migrants. You can
[1:15:00] see there's a collar delt laying down there. But, yeah,
[1:15:03] it's probably a mix of migrants and resident elk. And
[1:15:08] you would know that driving along 36 they're up in
[1:15:09] these high hanging meadows and you maybe see three or
[1:15:12] four over the top edge of that hogback there, but
[1:15:16] then you go over the top of the rim and
[1:15:18] there's 70 or 80 elk in here.
[1:15:32] Great footage anyway. Thank you, John. Thank you. Great presentation,
[1:15:37] really. Full of detail. I appreciate that. I'm sure we
[1:15:45] have lots of questions. Let's start with Tracy down there.
[1:15:48] Trace Baker, postac. Thank you for the detail. Want to
[1:15:53] bring up maybe four questions here. Sure. And on one
[1:15:57] of your slides, you seem to differentiate between hunting and
[1:16:01] hazing. And so what? Hazing is still going on. So
[1:16:06] we don't have hazing, right? Now. Okay, yeah. There's no
[1:16:08] hazing going on. Although the one thing that we may
[1:16:11] be able to get away with this year is sending
[1:16:14] people out in blaze Orange. We have animals that don't
[1:16:17] know we're not hunting. But if we're out there. The
[1:16:21] reaction is going to be the same, at least in
[1:16:22] the near term. That may wear off, so we may
[1:16:25] be able to get away. If we do see animals
[1:16:27] in the next year or two going up there and
[1:16:29] hazing, and they may run away and it may actually
[1:16:30] be effective because we have eight years of people out
[1:16:35] there where there's a lethal consequence to the hunters. Being
[1:16:39] there where before, when we tried it, going out there
[1:16:41] with staff. To run out, chase elk. That's not very
[1:16:45] effective. They learn pretty quickly that you're not a threat.
[1:16:48] And I did that with Dave as a volunteer a
[1:16:51] few years ago. There you go. And the elk ran
[1:16:55] away. It's just that, with one exception, they never ran
[1:16:59] in the direction where we wanted them. To run. That's
[1:17:01] the other thing about wildlife. The next question.
[1:17:12] In. The slides and also in the packet we received
[1:17:17] for Postac. There was a phrase recommend exploring the use
[1:17:22] of rifles. How would that process of exploration or study.
[1:17:28] Be conducted well. I would like to get public input,
[1:17:32] obviously, on that. This area specifically for Red Hill is
[1:17:36] the area that we did have neighbor concerns with high
[1:17:39] powered rifles, so I would like to. Solicit public feedback
[1:17:45] again. And. I would also like to defer a little
[1:17:50] bit to some of our cpw padilla or local dwm,
[1:17:53] some of our cpw colleagues. With their recommendations. They've been
[1:17:58] involved in the program for eight years now. And really
[1:18:02] see the benefit of adding rifles. And I think. Argument
[1:18:08] that. They could convincingly make, but, yeah, I think we
[1:18:11] need thorough public feedback for that before going. To the
[1:18:15] commissioners, okay? So the decision to use rifles or not,
[1:18:21] would that go directly to the commissioners or to, would
[1:18:23] it. Come here first. That? I don't know. Okay, sorry.
[1:18:30] I was hoping to go to the commissioners with that.
[1:18:32] Okay, yeah. Thank you. You mentioned several times. Concerns from
[1:18:40] people living in the area regarding rifles. And I'm not
[1:18:44] a hunter, and I haven't fired a rifle since about
[1:18:47] 1971. But I imagine there is some trade off. Among
[1:18:54] increased accuracy. But increased range. And therefore. Possible
[1:19:03] people, dogs, whatever. In increased lethality. So. If the accuracy
[1:19:12] is improved with a rifle. Would that mean less of
[1:19:16] a chance of stray bullets? Of getting into people's houses?
[1:19:21] Yes, I think overall, yes, that's what you would see.
[1:19:23] I also. Think the topography of this area would really
[1:19:29] limit any projectile actually reaching any houses. There's the impression
[1:19:36] that that whole west side of 36 is very hilly.
[1:19:40] If you're shooting off of there, that could go way
[1:19:42] out onto the plains. Janet hunted there. 's. A lot
[1:19:51] of topography. Once you start getting generally you're not shooting
[1:19:54] towards the road, is the one thing you're shooting into
[1:19:56] the interior of the property, and there's a lot of
[1:19:58] hogbacks in topography that would limit any stray bullets from
[1:20:02] going very far there. I also don't think you're still
[1:20:06] not going to be taking a three or 400 yard
[1:20:08] shot for the most part on these properties because the
[1:20:11] topography limits that as well. So when I'm saying you're
[1:20:14] at the maximum range for a muzzle loader or shotgun.
[1:20:18] It's 150 yards where a rifle is going to give
[1:20:21] you that accuracy at that. Distance, and it's going to.
[1:20:25] Give you the knock down power that you're starting to
[1:20:27] lose some of that as you're getting on those further
[1:20:29] distances with these shorter range weapons. Okay, thank you. And
[1:20:34] finally. Wanting to try to anticipate a possible public comment.
[1:20:41] You mentioned. The history of safety at Rabbit Mountain with
[1:20:46] the train hunters. And having. No unsafe incidents there. Do
[1:20:55] you feel that would be a sufficient predictor for safety
[1:20:59] at Red Hill? Yeah. I think our program, the way
[1:21:03] it's set up, is very self selecting for hunters that
[1:21:06] want to be in the program. People that find out
[1:21:08] that they have to jump through all these hoops to
[1:21:10] hunt. And we're also very involved. Our hunters were in
[1:21:13] contact with them. Every day they're checking in and checking
[1:21:16] out every time they leave the property. So we end
[1:21:19] up with hunters that are very ethical, that aren't taking
[1:21:23] ethically questionable. Shots. We end up with hunters that are
[1:21:29] passing on shots. I think if you're on public land,
[1:21:34] people probably would have taken, because we really do emphasize
[1:21:37] the safety. We have hunt boundaries off any major roads
[1:21:41] or private property so that we have buffers built into
[1:21:44] that. So, yeah, I do think Rabbit Mountain and I
[1:21:47] think also the track rabbit even at red hill with
[1:21:49] shorter range weapons. It's still a firearm, and we still
[1:21:53] have a really good safety record there as well. But
[1:21:56] as far as your point being, that's where we've used
[1:21:59] weapons. Long range rifles at Rabid Mountain. I think you'd
[1:22:05] have very similar results here at Red Hill. I don't
[1:22:07] think. There would be much difference. Okay, thank you very
[1:22:10] much. Janet. Janet george posack. Great presentation. Most of the
[1:22:19] questions, I'm sitting here exiting them off. So good job,
[1:22:21] John, and getting that done? I guess I might actually
[1:22:26] make as many comments as I have questions. One thing
[1:22:31] I would say. I'll pose this as a question. So
[1:22:36] before parks and home space own these properties. Red Hill.
[1:22:40] Wasn't center fire rifles. The landowners were allowing hunting there.
[1:22:44] Yeah, and they had a pretty robust hunting program with
[1:22:47] centerfied rifles. Yeah, and some of the same landowners still
[1:22:50] live in the area and they're on the private land.
[1:22:53] They're still hunting with center fire, right? Yes. Okay, very
[1:22:57] good. But I got to say, having lived around rabbit
[1:23:01] mountain for 40 years. I commend you for the job
[1:23:04] you in parks and homeless space staff had done. I
[1:23:08] remember hiking up there before, there were hardly any elk
[1:23:11] and seeing what it looked like, and then. As the
[1:23:13] elk increase in a very short time in ten years,
[1:23:17] watching some of the effects. Of the elk over browsing
[1:23:21] and the trailing and the bedding and all that that
[1:23:23] was. Going on. And now that elk numbers are down
[1:23:26] and I'm still hiking around up there, I'm actually seeing
[1:23:30] recovery too. And I'm sure you guys got data mine's?
[1:23:33] Only anecdotal, but I'm seeing some of those trails fill
[1:23:36] back in. With vegetation and native vegetation, too. Yeah, and
[1:23:40] that's. I mean, it's not just. Our program. But removing
[1:23:43] the elk was one aspect of that. Working with our
[1:23:45] weeds program to get rid of the cheat grass. So
[1:23:48] as a team at parks and open space, This is
[1:23:51] one of our crown jewels, and we've really worked. To
[1:23:55] reestablish that native community, so thank you for noticing. Yeah,
[1:23:58] no, it's. Looking good. The other thing I would say
[1:24:00] is, like you said, I've actually participated in the Red
[1:24:04] Hill hunt. Been lucky enough to. And I commend you
[1:24:07] in parks and home. Space staff for the job you
[1:24:10] do. It's quite a rigorous selection process to go through.
[1:24:13] The orientation, the. Proficiency testing. And the hunters that I
[1:24:17] was out there with were great people. They were very
[1:24:21] ethical. Everybody helped each other out. Staff helped out. So
[1:24:27] good job. Great. I'll say that. Great. Thanks, Janet. Christine.
[1:24:33] Christine johnson, posac. I wanted to read a couple of
[1:24:39] comments. That we got from. That were submitted to us.
[1:24:46] From david lucas in arvada. He suggested. Just as this
[1:24:54] goes on, including. Numerical information on vehicle strikes. We know
[1:25:01] you have it. And also including information on chronic wasting
[1:25:07] disease. So with chronic waste disease. I will say so.
[1:25:11] The first year that I took over managing this, hunt,
[1:25:14] which is 2021. It was a mandatory CWD testing unit,
[1:25:19] so every l carves did. In the subunit was tested
[1:25:22] for CWD. All the Alkana program came back negative, but.
[1:25:27] We do have, and it. Is lower, elk in general
[1:25:30] have a lower prevalence of CWD, and females specifically have.
[1:25:35] A lower instance of CWD than bull elk, but yeah,
[1:25:39] it is something that we are trying to keep a
[1:25:41] handle on, but that's really CPW's area, and we assist.
[1:25:45] Them however we can, but. That's really. In their realm
[1:25:50] of expertise. Thank you. And I wanted to note that
[1:25:54] written comments were generally supportive. Of the hunts and had
[1:25:59] hunters right in. I. Would like to also say, if
[1:26:06] you're going to. Seek public comment from the neighbors. To
[1:26:12] learn from some of the experiences. There have been a
[1:26:16] couple of issues. In the last year. Where folks in
[1:26:22] the area have not felt that. They have been in
[1:26:26] other areas around other issues. They haven't felt that they've
[1:26:29] gotten sufficient public comments. So reach out to other folks
[1:26:33] in pos. About that. Yeah, I'm aware of that. Thank
[1:26:37] you. We did ask for comment for this meeting with
[1:26:41] you guys, but. Let's not discount we did have a
[1:26:45] very rigorous public comment period leading up for both of
[1:26:48] these programs. And. Recently, when we've tried to do public
[1:26:53] outreach meetings with neighbors, we've had staff outnumbering the people
[1:26:57] that show up, which I think take as an indication
[1:27:00] that we're actually doing a really good job. They're in
[1:27:02] a lot of public comment, but. Yes, I do take
[1:27:05] your concern seriously, and yes, we will make sure we
[1:27:08] explore that. And I also want to ensure that. You
[1:27:13] get hunter input? About the weapons. I thought the comment
[1:27:17] that you had about. The safety of the archers was
[1:27:22] quite interesting, and the hunters know. And I think anything
[1:27:26] that they have to say about the process would be
[1:27:29] useful. Great. I'm curious. If you do a coal, what
[1:27:34] happens with the animals? And what would happen with harvested
[1:27:37] bowls? We wouldn't have anything to do with that. All
[1:27:42] the meat would be donated. So that's the first and
[1:27:45] foremost. None of that meat would be wasted. And my
[1:27:48] guess? Is, they probably wouldn't be targeting bulls, but I
[1:27:50] don't know, I mean, female. Reproduction drives herd size and
[1:27:54] herd growth, and I'm guessing they'd be targeting mostly. Females,
[1:27:57] but I don't know what the specifics would be there.
[1:28:01] I do know CPW would be harvesting bowls in their
[1:28:04] program. They would be taking trophy parts. He wouldn't be
[1:28:07] able to keep trophy parts. Okay. Thank you. And the
[1:28:10] last thing is. Just a comment. That everything that I've
[1:28:14] heard about this program has been. Extremely positive. I really
[1:28:19] commend pos about what they have done. If anything, I
[1:28:23] would just encourage you. To do more public education. I
[1:28:28] think that the public needs to hear more about what
[1:28:32] you're. Doing because. When I talk to acquaintances. They're understanding
[1:28:39] the situation. They're completely ignorant. Thank you. Okay. Thank you.
[1:28:44] And that's a good point. Thanks. Derek, do you have
[1:28:46] any questions? Carol. No. All right. One more question.
[1:28:56] And commenting on the video that you finished your presentation
[1:29:00] with. It seemed to be that the elk. Were very
[1:29:05] unconcerned about the drone. That was also something we were
[1:29:09] looking at. Yeah. They were not orienting towards it at
[1:29:12] all. They don't really care. And we did trials where
[1:29:16] we would move closer, even go straight. Over and shoot
[1:29:18] down. There was a picture in there earlier looking straight
[1:29:21] down at elk. They stayed. Bed it. They never got
[1:29:24] up, but we were trying to keep at least a
[1:29:26] three or 400. Foot buffer. Just because us, as the
[1:29:29] wildlife group in the county, we've always been hesitant. To
[1:29:31] use drones, and this is one of the first projects.
[1:29:34] Where we took on a project using drones and then
[1:29:37] also. We're really cognizant of any raptors. If there was
[1:29:40] any issues with other species in the area. And ultimately,
[1:29:43] we found this as a very non invasive way to
[1:29:46] get some good data. This won't work everywhere in the
[1:29:48] state. This is really specific to these. Smaller herds on
[1:29:51] this urban. Rural interface. It works really well. These elk
[1:29:57] are also really accustomed to disturbance. I think if some
[1:30:00] of these western slope herds. It might not work, but,
[1:30:02] yeah, this is a really good tool for. Local research.
[1:30:07] Great. Thank you. That's great. Can you remind me, John?
[1:30:11] Tony Lewis Posek. Of table mountain ownership is federal, right?
[1:30:15] It's federal. Is it doe? It's department of Commerce, but
[1:30:20] there's a bunch of. The guy, Rick Freeman, is the
[1:30:28] facilities manager there. But if you look at his signature,
[1:30:31] he's a bunch of different. Did you want to talk
[1:30:34] at all about anything from the CPW perspective, you'd be
[1:30:37] welcome to. Maybe just introduce yourself, get close to the
[1:30:46] mic. Good evening, posac members. My name is ben kraft.
[1:30:50] I'm michael holocaust with carl. Parks and wildlife. And I'd
[1:30:54] just like to say that Caro Parks and wildlife really
[1:30:57] appreciates the partnership that we have developed with Boulder county
[1:31:00] parks and open space over the years. And a lot
[1:31:04] of people have been in this process. For several years,
[1:31:07] over a decade now. So it was a big lift
[1:31:10] at the beginning, and it was a big endeavor from
[1:31:12] the county, shifting back to traditional land use and traditional
[1:31:16] values in the community. And I would say it was
[1:31:18] cutting edge at the time for an open space to
[1:31:20] go back. To those values in that type of a
[1:31:22] management. So we really, really appreciate. Parks and OPa spaces
[1:31:28] program that they develop in their partnership with us. What
[1:31:30] you're doing now is helping us manage our l? Curtz
[1:31:33] on a bigger landscale so we definitely appreciate that. I
[1:31:38] will kind of go back to some of the cooling
[1:31:39] stuff. That is something that I just found out about
[1:31:43] today. It was something in a meeting. I mean. This
[1:31:45] is all speculative. There's discussion within GBW as well. This
[1:31:50] hasn't been at all. So this was something, I think.
[1:31:54] That was just mentioned in passing, and now. It's grown
[1:31:58] legs. Probably shouldn't cut the legs off. I think so
[1:32:02] at this point. That's the only thing that I'll say
[1:32:05] about that. Carol, you have a question? Carol Byerly Posek.
[1:32:11] I don't know what you're. Referring to? Earlier, John mentioned.
[1:32:18] Calling or some kind of. An aphesis program, USDA program
[1:32:23] at Table Mountain in collaboration with Department of Commerce, federal.
[1:32:27] And nothing that we would do. And you haven't heard
[1:32:29] anything, okay. We had two weeks ago with them, okay?
[1:32:35] Yeah. And it was said in passing there was no
[1:32:37] more. Yeah, there's no they're. There right now. No. Okay,
[1:32:42] but at least they're considering elk management because. That's been
[1:32:46] a real issue with managing this hers. And I guess
[1:32:50] I'll make a few other comments on John's presentation, which
[1:32:54] you did a great job, John. One thing that I'll
[1:32:56] touch on. We definitely support the use of center fire
[1:33:00] rifles. Modern rifles. It's a more effective tool. You have
[1:33:04] much. And boulder county. Has definitely proven the track record
[1:33:10] of developing safe hunting programs. So by implementing modern rifles,
[1:33:15] we'd reduce wounding loss, and then we'd also probably harvest
[1:33:19] more elk and we'd get towards our management goal quicker
[1:33:23] in that area. So we definitely support that. And right
[1:33:28] now, as it stands with that subunit, so we have
[1:33:30] this subunit where we CPW. Issue licenses to private landowners
[1:33:33] that they can go by, that they don't have to
[1:33:36] interact. With any of Boulder County's programs, and they're all
[1:33:39] using rifles. And so right now, the only people that
[1:33:42] aren't using center file rifles are older county hunters, so
[1:33:46] they're a little bit restricted in that sense. It's kind
[1:33:50] of on what you guys do as far as management
[1:33:53] wise, but it's. A little bit tougher for Boulder county
[1:33:56] hunters right now, and it's making it a little more
[1:33:59] difficult for us to reach our objective as well, I
[1:34:01] think. In addition to that, As John mentioned, antlerless harvest
[1:34:07] is important, and it's the driver in population dynamics. Those
[1:34:10] females produce the calves. But we also have large segments
[1:34:14] of bulls that are moving around down. There. So bulls
[1:34:17] are becoming a problem as far as damage in certain
[1:34:19] areas as well. So. I guess my recommendation should be
[1:34:24] not to limit yourself on just shooting. One six of
[1:34:28] elk at this point, if punters have other opportunities, I
[1:34:32] guess I wouldn't. Limit them in that aspect, especially because.
[1:34:36] Ownership there. The county's ownership is kind of so parsed
[1:34:40] there that hunters aren't. Always going to have an opportunity
[1:34:43] to select what they want to harvest. It might be
[1:34:46] that moment at that time. So that's kind of the
[1:34:49] only thing you're able to touch on. So if you
[1:34:50] guys have any other questions for me, any questions for
[1:34:53] Ben? Yeah, Janet. Janet george. So the bowls. So where
[1:35:03] are the bulls coming from? And I guess that rabbit
[1:35:06] would be the main question because. If you're bringing. A
[1:35:09] population down and calves are 50 50. Assume 50 50
[1:35:13] bulls, you have less cows, less calves. You ought to
[1:35:16] be having less bowls. Eventually there'll be a bit of
[1:35:18] a lag. Time. So have you done a model on
[1:35:22] that and know where the bulls are coming from? We
[1:35:25] haven't done a model like at that scale. We have
[1:35:27] our larger population models as you know? And. Our bull
[1:35:33] towel ratio is declining, like because of a rabbit and
[1:35:36] red hill. It is declining for sure. But one thing
[1:35:40] that I've observed, and starting with raddat years ago, like
[1:35:44] in the early 2000s is, you know, there weren't many
[1:35:47] cows that were there initially. It was just bulls. Like,
[1:35:50] there were those bull groups, and so. I think bulls
[1:35:53] aren't as dependent on high quality nutrition or security areas
[1:35:58] during the winter. A bull can kind of go where
[1:36:01] it wants to go when it has a group of,
[1:36:02] like, three buddies, so they'll kind of go where they
[1:36:05] can get the best food or they get hassle the
[1:36:06] less and kind of show up in these areas, like
[1:36:09] these agriculture areas, like. Corn, for example. So you're right.
[1:36:13] I think eventually poll numbers will decrease. But what we're
[1:36:17] seeing now. And. I would say throughout this part of
[1:36:24] GMU 20, which is the game management unit that Boulder
[1:36:26] county is within. I would say we've seen these larger
[1:36:32] bull groups are definitely making a shift into more urban
[1:36:35] areas or agriculture interface areas where I think they're getting
[1:36:39] refuge from hunting pressure. So our hunting. Bull hunting systems
[1:36:43] go late into the winter, later than our cows or
[1:36:45] as later as our cow seasons, so I think a
[1:36:47] lot of those bulls are actually getting pressured. And our
[1:36:50] bowl numbers are getting low enough. Now, where. I think
[1:36:53] they're shifting farther to the east, and hunters are having
[1:36:55] a harder time harvesting. Bowls. And that's all speculative right
[1:36:59] now. I mean, I haven't developed any population. Models or
[1:37:01] anything on that for specific to rabbit mountain or Red
[1:37:04] Hill. Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. Thanks, Ben. Yeah. Other
[1:37:10] questions. Okay. Thank you both very much. Great presentation, Ben.
[1:37:15] Thank you for coming in. Thank you. Do we have
[1:37:19] any questions or comments from folks here in the audience,
[1:37:23] please come up and identify. Yourself. And we'd love to
[1:37:28] hear your comments. Is it three minutes. It is.
[1:37:41] Amy Strombotney. Eight five oh. Court in unincorporated Boulder County.
[1:37:49] Rabbit mountain was supposed to have 30 to 70 elk.
[1:37:56] On Rabbit Mountain. There are zero now. That means that
[1:38:00] there was over. Overhunting, over hunting, which is mismanagement errors.
[1:38:08] I think that Boulder county should be even more supervised
[1:38:11] now and come to you more. Not be given. A
[1:38:17] three year buy your leaves, they don't even have to
[1:38:19] come back to you. To discuss. Ongoing issues. They should
[1:38:25] come to you every year. They should absolutely come to
[1:38:29] you if they want to start. Rifle hunting. This is
[1:38:33] not a time for you who are representatives of the
[1:38:38] public. To be not giving. Public input. It's a really
[1:38:44] important time. We have no elk there. Elk may show
[1:38:48] up. What is the number that we want to keep
[1:38:52] now? Are we going to start shooting rifles? In red
[1:38:57] hill. This is not a time for you guys to
[1:39:02] give them a three week, three year leave. I don't
[1:39:07] believe that rifles are safe. I was in my home
[1:39:15] and. A bullet slammed through my bedroom wall. My neighbor
[1:39:22] was outside. And. A bullet whistled past his head. Rifles
[1:39:29] are dangerous. A stray bullet can go a mile. Boulder
[1:39:35] county. This area. Is open range land.
[1:39:46] There are guns out there, and there always have been.
[1:39:51] But Boulder county should have a higher standard. Than everyone
[1:39:58] else. We don't want bullets. Flying out of Boulder county
[1:40:04] and killing somebody. Who's on their property or on the
[1:40:09] road or hiking in the woods. Boulder county it seems
[1:40:13] like this is getting more and more. Normalized first. It's
[1:40:19] all these rules. Then maybe we'll take ElK. Then let's
[1:40:23] just have rifles everywhere. There's more and more. Just. Standard
[1:40:31] as is. Boulder county should have a higher standard. Than
[1:40:37] everyone else. Thank you. Thank you very much for your
[1:40:40] comments. Anybody else in the audience? Nick, do we have
[1:40:45] anybody online? I'll give a chance for those on the
[1:40:48] zoom webinar, if you would like. To make comment. We
[1:40:51] got Michael Moss here. Michael, I'm going to allow you
[1:40:54] to speak. Welcome, Michael. We'd love to hear your comments.
[1:41:03] Thank you very much. Michael Moss with Kelsey Farm. I'm
[1:41:10] really grateful for the presentation and all the work the
[1:41:13] county has been doing. To manage. Located at the corner
[1:41:19] of Oxford and the diagonal. And we've had a fair
[1:41:26] amount of elk interaction over the last few years. And
[1:41:31] especially this winter. There's been a rather large herd and
[1:41:35] at times it looked like it's 50. To 70 cows
[1:41:40] and bulls that have been migrating through. Properties in my
[1:41:46] area all the way. To Highway 36 in Red Hill.
[1:41:52] So this is a really large herd that's moving through.
[1:41:55] Doing a lot of damage. To my property and private
[1:42:01] farms throughout the area. And I'm not sure if this
[1:42:06] is an impact of pressure being put on. The populations
[1:42:11] at Red Hill, and they're moving to safer locations. It
[1:42:16] just seems like it's a problem in our area that.
[1:42:21] Is definitely growing rapidly. And I hope that. As we
[1:42:25] look at managing the elk. In these hilly, mountainous areas
[1:42:32] that we also focus on. What a possible plan could
[1:42:36] be to manage the herds in this rural urban interface.
[1:42:43] I have seen. Carcass or kills on the diagonal right
[1:42:49] by my farm. And. I just think this issue. Is
[1:42:55] definitely starting to ramp up more, and we've spent a
[1:42:58] lot of time and money on our farm, trying to
[1:43:00] protect our crops, working with Joe Padilla, spraying plants, skid.
[1:43:07] Harassing whenever we see the herds. And at times it's
[1:43:11] effective, but it's a high cost for our operation. That
[1:43:15] has a very thin margin. And the herd can come
[1:43:19] through and do thousands of dollars of damage. In any
[1:43:24] given night. So I'd really appreciate more focus on. This
[1:43:29] urban interface herd. Thank you very much. Thank you, Michael.
[1:43:34] Appreciate your comments, Nick. Anyone else online? I'm not seeing
[1:43:38] any more hand raised. Great. I'd actually love to hear
[1:43:44] a little bit about that. Urban interface because. The question
[1:43:49] I left your presentation with was like, where are they
[1:43:52] going? You're not killing them all. Where are they going?
[1:43:57] And are we causing other people more problems? Well, kilt
[1:44:00] farm is a perfect example of this herd moving further
[1:44:03] and further east. I mean, they've hit the diagonal. That's
[1:44:07] a relatively new development. They've crossed the diagonal. A lot
[1:44:10] of that $36,000 is being paid out. Is from the
[1:44:13] east side of diagonal highway. The elk removing through Table
[1:44:18] Mountain. South off the Table Mountain, they go along haystack
[1:44:21] into some of our ag properties. Those properties, there are
[1:44:24] some of the ones that we can actually send. Hunters
[1:44:26] to when the elk are getting into the haystacks, and
[1:44:29] it works really well. We got a hunter out there.
[1:44:31] If there's a harvest, the elk are usually gone for.
[1:44:34] Five days to a week, but it's moving them around,
[1:44:37] and Kilt Farm is really close to the properties I'm
[1:44:41] mentioning. Kilt farms, a difficult property for us to send
[1:44:45] hunters or use lethal control because it's right on the
[1:44:49] diagonal. Some of these properties. We're really limited because of
[1:44:53] safety where we can actually implement using. Firearms to deal
[1:44:58] with it. But that's where working with Joe Padilla, really,
[1:45:03] because he can work with the private landowners and he
[1:45:05] can say, well, the county is doing this here we
[1:45:07] have hunters here. We can put vouchers here that they
[1:45:10] can use to help deal with the tenants. That'll move
[1:45:13] the elk off onto the private land, and then he
[1:45:15] can work with private landowners that may have enough property
[1:45:18] where you can safely shoot and he'll work. With them.
[1:45:20] He can also provide pyrotechnics and other hazing methods. If
[1:45:24] we deem the rifle, he deems rifle or shotgun. Hunting
[1:45:27] isn't safe. They use cracker shells. They use all sorts
[1:45:30] of other means to try to haze them. They're. Less
[1:45:33] effective, but it's an arsenal that we kind of deploy.
[1:45:38] As the situation allows. Thanks. Okay, I think. You would
[1:45:45] like a recommendation from PosAc to the board of county
[1:45:47] commissioners. I'm not going to read. This entirety of it,
[1:45:53] but essentially, and correct me if I'm wrong, John. You're
[1:45:58] looking for us to approve extending the Red Hill Elk
[1:46:03] management plan through 27 28. Season. Same. For rabbit mountain.
[1:46:11] With the exception on Rabbit Mountain that you're not looking
[1:46:13] at active hunting. Yes. And for Red Hill. You have
[1:46:18] the recommendation that trace noted, which. Is. A process to
[1:46:25] decide whether you're going to use rifles. Is that correct?
[1:46:29] Correct. I'm still a little fuzzy on that because. It's
[1:46:37] not quite clear to me if you guys want to
[1:46:39] develop. A recommendation and come back to POSeC that we
[1:46:43] help provide a recommendation to the board of county commissioners
[1:46:46] or if you want us to approve this plan. And
[1:46:50] you would go directly to the board. Yeah, I take
[1:46:55] your point. Ultimately. We recognize that. Rifles. Is one of
[1:47:03] the concessions we made with the Red Hill program was
[1:47:05] to use short range weapons. Because of the concern. And
[1:47:10] I'm happy continuing status quo. If that's. What the recommendation
[1:47:16] is. We can still use shotguns, we can still use
[1:47:18] muzzle loaders and we're happy to do that. We would
[1:47:22] prefer to use rifles. I would like to bring that
[1:47:23] to the commissioners and see if they would approve using
[1:47:26] rifles. When we do that, bring public comment. Into that
[1:47:33] discussion. If it's ultimately deemed by the commissioners that rifles
[1:47:37] know, that's too far to go with this program. We're
[1:47:42] very content with remaining with the short range shocking and
[1:47:44] muzzle loader, but ultimately we want to be as successful
[1:47:47] as we can, and if the goal is ultimately to
[1:47:51] limit or stop hunting on open space. This may help
[1:47:54] us achieve that a lot more quickly. Yeah, I'm in
[1:47:56] agreement with you. I think it would be worth coming
[1:47:59] back to Poseac with. A recommendation. Show the public input
[1:48:03] you've had. Let us hear that and let us help.
[1:48:06] You make that recommendation to the board? So I think
[1:48:09] that would be of value. And I think the way
[1:48:12] this is written, Kind of suggests that. So it allows
[1:48:18] the current hunting on Red Hill you can come back
[1:48:21] to us at any point in time. Having gathered public
[1:48:25] input, show us a plan for what you'd like to
[1:48:28] do and. We'd love to take that, ask you questions
[1:48:31] and hopefully then make a recommendation to the board of
[1:48:33] county commissioners on that piece. Sounds great. Does that sound
[1:48:37] good? Yes. So a question is, what's the timeline on
[1:48:43] this? It's coming back to us. Rule out using center
[1:48:48] fire rifles for the next year. Or is there enough
[1:48:52] time to do that? I would hope there'd be enough
[1:48:54] time to. Explore it for this year because we wouldn't
[1:48:57] be doing any of. The actual proficient. We want it
[1:49:02] in place before we're doing proficiency testing and things like
[1:49:05] that, and that wouldn't be happening until the summer. Key
[1:49:08] question. Janet. Carol, you look massively confused. No. For once,
[1:49:12] I'm not confused, Carol. So I would suggest. A motion
[1:49:17] where we approve this proposal as presented. But also asking
[1:49:24] that they come back to POSAC with the recommendations regarding.
[1:49:30] The rifle use of rifles. And make that explicit in
[1:49:34] our motion. That was. I was suggesting that. But you
[1:49:39] didn't say it. Okay. Thank you, Carol, for clarifying that.
[1:49:45] I think that's the motion, then. Okay. Is there a
[1:49:50] second? Then we'll do some questions. Great. Now, questions on
[1:49:55] the motion. Does it make sense? Trace. Yes, a trace.
[1:49:58] Baker postac. Just for clarification. We are not approving. The
[1:50:08] use of rifles. Correct. But we are requiring. That staff
[1:50:13] come back. With. A plan, proposal, whatever you want to
[1:50:19] call it. About whether or not. To allow rifles in
[1:50:25] that unit, correct? With evidence of public input as well.
[1:50:29] Right. And reiterate, I think it was Christine who mentioned.
[1:50:35] That to make sure we really do. Get the public
[1:50:38] input. And avoid problems that we've had with another several
[1:50:43] other issues last year. Yeah, we're happy to do that.
[1:50:48] And I do also just want to point out that.
[1:50:51] We did kind of plan for this in our management
[1:50:52] plan that we would revisit this. If we deem that
[1:50:55] that was a necessary change. We'd be happy to get
[1:50:59] more public information. Thank you. Any other questions on this?
[1:51:03] Derek, I have a question that kind of came up
[1:51:06] through some of the public comments. Looking at the original
[1:51:10] plan, and I guess I don't see kind of a
[1:51:13] red lined amended plan that you're proposing. That the county
[1:51:18] commissioners adopt, and maybe that will be part of your
[1:51:20] presentation to them. It sounds like this is just going
[1:51:24] to be continued and the dates updated. Yes, in that
[1:51:27] original plan. You have annual public meetings. Weekly emails to
[1:51:34] county commissioners. That was changed with the last reauthorization process.
[1:51:41] In the plan. What is? The public. Kind of communication
[1:51:46] and reporting to the county commissioners. I send three updates
[1:51:50] a year to them throughout the season. And then. We
[1:51:56] put out information on our public. Engagement platforms with the
[1:52:01] county. We were doing public meetings up until three years
[1:52:05] ago, and we really didn't have people coming. We had
[1:52:08] more staff than actual people at the events. We also
[1:52:11] weren't getting a lot of public comment throughout the season.
[1:52:15] We weren't getting a lot of people calling up and
[1:52:17] complaining. And so we haven't been doing a lot of
[1:52:20] the public outreach because, like I said, we weren't getting
[1:52:23] a lot of feedback when we were trying to engage
[1:52:24] with the public. That makes sense. And I guess I
[1:52:29] think it would be good to update. The language of
[1:52:32] the plan that's clearly kind of describes if there are
[1:52:35] any commitments to public engagement for the next three years.
[1:52:38] Great. Yeah, great point, Derek. So, clarity of plan presented
[1:52:43] to the board of county commissioners would be good. Okay.
[1:52:45] Any other questions on the resolution? Okay, seeing none. All
[1:52:49] in favor? Aye. We are recommending your proposal. Thank you.
[1:52:57] Thank you very much, John. Thank you. Thanks, Ben. Okay.
[1:53:07] Moving right along. We now have public comment, period for
[1:53:12] items not on the agenda. And we'll start here with
[1:53:18] in person. Let me think if it might be Cindy
[1:53:21] Johnson. Come on up. Feel like a game show host.
[1:53:30] Thanks for coming out. Yes, thank you. Cindy Johnson, east
[1:53:36] Boulder county resident, appeared before you several times now. Thank
[1:53:41] you for your continued support. To value, respect and support
[1:53:44] all individuals as you serve the people of Boulder county.
[1:53:48] We know this is a volunteer position for all of
[1:53:50] you. And we are grateful for your service. So once
[1:53:55] again, thanks for this opportunity. To come before you and
[1:53:59] speak again. At the last meeting, we had 30 people
[1:54:02] show up in cowboy hats to object to the cancellation.
[1:54:05] Of open rides on Wednesdays in the winter at the
[1:54:08] fairgrounds indoor arena. Over the last seven months, we have
[1:54:14] had over 150 people show their support and encouragement. To
[1:54:18] emphasize that recreational users such as pickleball, ultimate frisbee and
[1:54:22] drone flying have other options. For their activities, whereas horses
[1:54:27] only have one public indoor riding. Arena built for this
[1:54:32] specific reason 30 years ago. We have not been given
[1:54:36] any reasonable explanation why it was closed and sitting idle
[1:54:41] all winter. In response to our last meeting with you.
[1:54:48] Posak. Supported six to one. The concept of convening a
[1:54:52] work session to formulate a recommendation. To the Boulder county
[1:54:57] commissioners to reconsider reinstating open rides on Wednesdays in the
[1:55:02] winter. And it's our understanding that you have the right
[1:55:06] to make a recommendation to the county. Commissioners and for
[1:55:09] them to make a decision on how to proceed. Apparently.
[1:55:16] The Boulder county commissioners. Are resisting taking the issue back
[1:55:20] up. We are a group of people who never complain
[1:55:24] without a solution. So how about this solution? Instead of
[1:55:29] asking them to reopen public writing, could you ask them
[1:55:33] to recommend to the Boulder county commissioners to revisit the
[1:55:38] issue and take more public comment. We are extending the
[1:55:43] olive branch with this new solution. We are the only
[1:55:47] group that has consistently objected to the change in the
[1:55:50] indoor arena policy and no other groups are coming forward,
[1:55:55] and to our knowledge, no one is using the arena
[1:55:57] during the winter months. We will take it up with
[1:56:00] the Boulder county commissioners, but we need to be able
[1:56:04] to point to the progress. And participation that occurred here
[1:56:09] before. Parks and open Space advisory committee, all of you.
[1:56:15] This is where we need your help, please. Will you
[1:56:18] please vote tonight to recommend that tHe BouldEr COunty cOMmissioneRS
[1:56:22] revisit this issue and take more public comment. Thank you.
[1:56:27] Thank you, Cindy. You're welcome. Anybody else in the audience.
[1:56:33] Nick, is Michael still on? No, Michael jumped off. I
[1:56:38] don't see any other hands raised for people online. Okay,
[1:56:44] great. We're done with items not on the agenda. Postac
[1:56:50] members comment period for items not on the agenda. Postac.
[1:56:57] And I would like to thank Tony for the personal
[1:57:00] time he's taken. To try to elevate. The open riding
[1:57:06] sessions. Both here in the meetings and also. On his
[1:57:12] own. And perhaps. He can address Cindy's comments. With what
[1:57:19] he's learned. But I do thank you, Tony. That's nice.
[1:57:23] Thank you. Trace. I appreciate it. I'm happy to do
[1:57:25] that. Other thoughts or questions or comments on let's stick
[1:57:30] to open writing for the moment. Since that's a topic
[1:57:34] of interest. Christine Johnson. I just wanted to know that.
[1:57:39] There continue to be written comments supporting it. Thank you
[1:57:45] for noting that. So here's kind of where I'm at.
[1:57:50] Given public input, talking to staff. And thinking through this
[1:57:56] issue. The county commissioners voted to. Change. They voted to
[1:58:04] approve the recommendations for the use of the fairgrounds as
[1:58:07] presented by parks. And open space staff. They did that
[1:58:11] after. We also voted to recommend that to them. And
[1:58:16] I am getting the distinct impression from the port of
[1:58:18] county commissioners that they feel like they've decided this issue.
[1:58:24] I don't think they're super interested in us having a
[1:58:26] work session. I don't know if they're super interested in
[1:58:31] having. Us push them to change their recommend. Recommendation, but
[1:58:37] I appreciate Cindy's comment and thought. To me for the
[1:58:42] open writing piece of this, I am pretty comfortable. Having
[1:58:49] a vote, depending on. Your appetite for a vote. To
[1:58:56] recommend to the board of county commissioners. That they revisit
[1:59:00] the issue and take more public comment on it. It's
[1:59:04] different than recommending they change their minds. It's different than
[1:59:08] recommending a certain course of action. It is a recommendation
[1:59:12] to revisit the issue and take more public comment on
[1:59:15] it. Secondly. And tangentially. We had a discussion at the
[1:59:23] retreat. That touches on this because I think some of
[1:59:27] the concern we had. That I heard expressed from the
[1:59:30] committee. Was around the gathering of public input on this
[1:59:34] issue. Teresa and I had a brief conversation. My sense
[1:59:40] is that. That public input could have been done better.
[1:59:45] That's my personal opinion. I think staff felt like it
[1:59:49] was appropriately done. And I think. The difficulty lies therein
[1:59:56] in understanding what the process is for gathering public input.
[2:00:01] And ensuring that. It's robust and complete. To represent all
[2:00:05] the stakeholders that people were contacted through various modes. Of
[2:00:11] information. Various modes of media. And then fully incorporated all
[2:00:18] the input. Given to us as a recommendation. And I
[2:00:22] think several committee members had questions about how robust that
[2:00:26] process was. So my other recommendation is to. Task parks
[2:00:32] and open space staff with developing. A public input process.
[2:00:39] That would broadly apply to issues of concern. And really
[2:00:44] as a framework, right? It's a framework of how you
[2:00:49] go about gathering public input and the modes and nodes.
[2:00:53] Of how to do that. So that we can be
[2:00:56] assured. That that process has been robust for these issues.
[2:01:02] It's not do this X number of times or. It
[2:01:07] is context specific by the issue, by the geography, but.
[2:01:12] As a framework for how input would be gathered. So
[2:01:14] those are my two recommendations. I would love some input
[2:01:18] on both. Christine.
[2:01:30] Christine Johnson all bite. I have a great deal of
[2:01:35] respect for. The parks and open space staff. And. Their
[2:01:44] expertise and. Their diligence. And. I don't think that. They
[2:01:54] are infallible, and I think. That. Engaging the public and
[2:02:00] engaging a broad swath of the public and engaging them
[2:02:02] to the extent. That they wish to be engaged. Is
[2:02:08] very challenging. And I think that it is worth. Revisiting
[2:02:15] this, looking into. It. Beefing it up just because it
[2:02:25] would save. If an improved process can be developed. It
[2:02:32] would save staff time in the long run. It would
[2:02:36] save us time in the long run because. It's hard
[2:02:40] to. Have to revisit issues and. It costs time and
[2:02:46] money. Its opportunity costs. So, yes, please. Thank you, Tony.
[2:02:53] Yes, Carol. Carol Barley. I'm not real enthusiastic about this.
[2:03:07] The buck stops with the county commissioners. And so this
[2:03:10] is not the issue that I would be willing to
[2:03:13] go back to them on. Writing. The open writing. Yes.
[2:03:19] But it does also seem to me to be a
[2:03:22] budget issue. Not only a communications issue. And when I've
[2:03:29] been talking to people about it, because I have been
[2:03:32] soliciting. Input. What do you do about this? And one
[2:03:36] of the answers is that if it's a budget issue,
[2:03:40] let's talk. About that. So that it's not an issue
[2:03:44] of. The county subsidizing this particular. Activity. And so I'm
[2:03:53] wondering, why not have this come up in the next
[2:03:56] budget cycle? The winter is just about over. Seemed over
[2:04:01] today. And so why not go through this in the
[2:04:06] budget cycle and call it out specifically? And recommend that.
[2:04:14] An effort may be made to make it more financially
[2:04:18] viable. So that the commissioners don't feel like they're being
[2:04:23] squeezed. And so that's kind of. What? I'm thinking if
[2:04:30] we look at it more as a financial problem, Because
[2:04:35] that's a budget problem. That's what their job is. To
[2:04:38] weigh, how to spend the money and. It's not an
[2:04:44] infinite amount of money. So that would be my preferred
[2:04:48] approach, would be focus on the next budget cycle and
[2:04:51] not go back and say, change your mind. So that's
[2:04:56] my recommendation. I appreciate that. Thank you. I do want
[2:05:03] to be clear. I would not be asking them to
[2:05:06] change their mind. I'm asking them to revisit the issue
[2:05:11] and perhaps collect more public input. Understood. But I would
[2:05:17] wait for. The budget cycle and call it out and
[2:05:22] be alert and say, okay, let's really focus. On this
[2:05:25] particular issue. And make sure we get it right.
[2:05:34] Appreciate that. Other thoughts, Janet? Yeah. So I don't know.
[2:05:42] If I'm in agreement with going and saying, asking the
[2:05:46] commissioners, recommending that they take more public input on this
[2:05:49] one issue. But I have a question, and Teresa may
[2:05:54] be the one to answer it. So my question I'm
[2:05:56] thinking from having come from the state and working with
[2:06:00] the wildlife commission. When constituents had a recommendation or wanted
[2:06:05] to ask for something, there was a process for them
[2:06:08] to do that. It was called the issue paper process.
[2:06:12] Is there any process to actually bring this up again?
[2:06:17] The constituents that want to ask for this. Do the
[2:06:19] county commissioners have any kind of process like that. Please
[2:06:24] join us. Sorry, Teresa. It's good.
[2:06:37] Therese, director of parks and open space. The answer is
[2:06:43] no. There is no formal process. Like the Wildlife Commission
[2:06:48] has. It is up to them to choose what issues
[2:06:52] they address. And through public comment. They can choose, okay?
[2:07:00] This department. Go investigate this. I also want to just.
[2:07:04] Give a little bit of insight into whether this would
[2:07:07] ever rise to a decision that commissioners would be considering
[2:07:11] through the budget process. Their budget is so enormous. $750,000,000.
[2:07:17] And we're talking about. Trying to recoup the
[2:07:26] 12 hours at a fairground for 24 days of the
[2:07:29] year. So as much as I appreciate that thought, that.
[2:07:36] It is. It could be a budget issue. And I
[2:07:38] think that Joe has said this, and I'll just reiterate,
[2:07:41] it is not just a budget issue. And I want
[2:07:44] to make clear that the indoor arena. Is used throughout
[2:07:48] the winter. There are groups that rent it and use
[2:07:51] it. Including. For each and weekend events. And what Joe
[2:07:58] proposed, the reason he proposed. Not holding public sessions. One
[2:08:03] is because they do not pay for themselves, and number
[2:08:05] two is to give their staff time to work up
[2:08:08] the arena so they are prepared for the large events
[2:08:11] that come in during the weekends, and so the time
[2:08:14] that. Is not blocked off for open rides is now
[2:08:18] being used for maintenance. In the indoor arena. Hold that
[2:08:23] thought for a moment. Heidi, I see you have your
[2:08:25] hand up online. Would you like to weigh in on
[2:08:28] this, too? Sure. Good evening. Hello. Pozak. Heidi Wagner, resource
[2:08:34] planning division manager. Nice to be with you. I'm assuming
[2:08:37] you can all hear me. We can. You sound great.
[2:08:41] Great. So, Tony, I wanted to speak to the second
[2:08:44] issue that you brought up. The first issue? I believe
[2:08:48] was around the policy change, but the second issue was
[2:08:52] around. How parks performs its outreach and engagement for different
[2:08:57] topics. So I appreciate you elevating that topic and the
[2:09:02] discourse. That the committee has had. So what I would
[2:09:07] like to do is come back before Posac. In May
[2:09:11] and outline our framework to you that we've established for
[2:09:17] different types of plans and policies that have come before.
[2:09:23] Posac. And just to clarify, depending on the work that
[2:09:27] we're doing, It's everything from East Boulder Creek to weeds
[2:09:33] to elk management and the type of outreach and engagement
[2:09:37] that we prepare for those types of plans and policies
[2:09:41] looks different. Depending on the scope of that work. And
[2:09:46] you're right. I'm not remembering who said it earlier, but.
[2:09:54] We can always grow. And sometimes. We don't understand. Maybe
[2:09:58] the. Interest behind a planner policy until we're several months
[2:10:04] into a process, and then we adapt. Accordingly, our hope
[2:10:08] is that. We do the correct intensity of an outreach
[2:10:13] and engagement, depending on that topic. And people find out
[2:10:18] about it and contact us with their opinions, but we're
[2:10:22] always looking. To get more engagement around all of our
[2:10:25] issues, so I'm going to commit to coming. Back in
[2:10:29] May to you all. With that information, and I look
[2:10:32] forward to the conversation and happy to answer any questions
[2:10:36] that you might have this evening as well. Thank you,
[2:10:39] Heidi. That'd be great. I think it'd. Be really instructive
[2:10:42] and helpful in that discussion. Because I think there are
[2:10:45] ways to grow and to change, and it'd be great
[2:10:48] to understand. How you guys do your work now. So
[2:10:52] thank you for that offer. Great. Thank you. And I
[2:10:56] just want two things I would like to point out.
[2:10:59] Having heard the elk management presentation, I don't think any
[2:11:04] of you are on. Janet was on the other side
[2:11:07] of she was in the audience and sitting here as
[2:11:10] a CPW and employee. When we did that process. I
[2:11:15] just want to describe it for you so that you
[2:11:17] understand. We did an online survey that people could self
[2:11:21] select and go in and say, I like hunting. I
[2:11:23] don't like hunting. We did a little information piece. Before
[2:11:26] that, we did a telephone. Survey where we called residents
[2:11:30] of Boulder county. Both of those had over 350 people
[2:11:35] putting in comments. We did open houses at our parks
[2:11:39] and open space building. We did flyers. We didn't do
[2:11:43] Twitter because there wasn't Twitter back then. Anyway. It was
[2:11:49] a very robust and engaged public process in order to
[2:11:53] make that decision. And I've said this ten times. When
[2:11:57] I first started working for parks and space. If anyone
[2:11:59] ever told me that, we would have hunting on open
[2:12:02] space. I would have said you are crazy, but when
[2:12:04] we had a change in the ecosystem and the elk
[2:12:07] population. And we brought it to the public and explained
[2:12:10] it. They understood. And they supported it. Both of those
[2:12:13] mechanisms for collecting public comment, in addition to. Many postac
[2:12:17] hearings and county commissioner hearings. 75% approved 75% supported using
[2:12:24] hunting. So just to say that it's not like we
[2:12:28] have been sitting on our hands for the last 50
[2:12:31] years, not engaging the public. And like Heidi said, putting
[2:12:37] it in a framework like you guys have requested, I
[2:12:39] think is the right thing to do now so that
[2:12:41] it is clear for you. For the county commissioners, for
[2:12:45] the public. How we go about gathering. I think John's
[2:12:50] presentation today was a good example. Of having a framework
[2:12:54] so that. We are all really clear what type of
[2:12:58] public engagement we will pursue. Depending on the topic. Derek.
[2:13:04] Derek turner. I'll vote for your motion. And I guess
[2:13:09] I think you highlighted. What we feel like may not
[2:13:14] have happened with the fairgrounds that you've done in some
[2:13:17] other. With other plans that affect people. I do remember
[2:13:22] that first meeting on the fairgrounds plan where. I think.
[2:13:29] The staff were seeking a recommendation before the public meeting
[2:13:32] had occurred, and we. Wanted to come back and what?
[2:13:37] We've seen is. The considerable public comment that's come after
[2:13:42] it, I am worried about the precedent it sets. That
[2:13:45] if we ultimately can, citizens always just come back to
[2:13:49] us and ask us to reconsider. The weed management plan
[2:13:52] or the elk management plan because they didn't like the
[2:13:54] county commissioner's decision. And. We can recommend whatever we want
[2:14:01] to recommend. They don't have to listen to us. They
[2:14:05] don't have to agree. And I think. That one thing
[2:14:08] we specifically sent to them. On my time here. They
[2:14:14] specifically told us not to actually ask them to do
[2:14:17] anything about what we wanted them to. Do. So. That's
[2:14:23] my perspective on. Our authority with the county commissioners. It
[2:14:25] would be nice to interact with the county commissioners. I
[2:14:30] shouldn't go too far here, but. In the two years
[2:14:34] that I've been on the committee. We haven't had a
[2:14:37] county commissioner attend a meeting. And hear about what we
[2:14:40] do. So I don't know where I'm going to end
[2:14:43] up here. But I think I do see this as
[2:14:47] a unique. Thing. That we would be asking for. But
[2:14:53] I also see the potential that this is something that
[2:14:56] could happen. Anytime a group of citizens are affected by
[2:14:59] a decision could come to us and take a lot
[2:15:02] of our time. Thinking that we can do something about
[2:15:05] it. When it's county commissioner's decision. And I appreciate everything
[2:15:11] that she just said. Two things. Two more things, actually.
[2:15:14] I never got to the second one when I said
[2:15:16] I had to. There is an opportunity for public to
[2:15:19] bring topics. Back to the county commissioners directly. They do
[2:15:22] not have to go through you. And it is an.
[2:15:27] Open public comment hearing and I don't know how often.
[2:15:30] I'm sure it's. At least once a month. And so
[2:15:35] the public who was here listening can go straight to
[2:15:37] the county commissioners. If they feel. That that. If they
[2:15:43] want their voice to be heard by the decision makers.
[2:15:47] I would say as well that it is up to
[2:15:50] the county commissioners to direct what their 37 advisory committees
[2:15:54] do. And that if they give us direction, which may
[2:15:59] be coming. That says we made our decision, move on
[2:16:04] and concentrate on new things. Posek. That I would just
[2:16:09] be prepared for that. That's fair. You had two things,
[2:16:16] or is that both? One was they couldn't go straight
[2:16:19] to the county commissioners through the public comment and the
[2:16:21] county commissioners can direct. What pose act does you serve?
[2:16:24] At the pleasure of the board, right? Other thoughts other
[2:16:29] comments. All right. Where do you want to go in
[2:16:32] this? Trace, Baker, Posack. I think at this point.
[2:16:45] Both of your original questions are moot. Number one, going
[2:16:50] to the commissioners and asking them to revisit the budget.
[2:16:56] And number two, because Heidi volunteered to come and talk
[2:16:59] about communications. I think tasking the staff. To create a
[2:17:07] plan. Is also moot until after we hear from Heidi.
[2:17:12] Yeah, I did hear trees say that. That sounds like
[2:17:15] the right thing to do is to establish this framework,
[2:17:18] and having Heidi's background would be super helpful. In the
[2:17:23] preparation of that and the preparation of us for that.
[2:17:27] Yes, no problem. We already have. Several processes. And it
[2:17:35] will be good for us to put it all in
[2:17:36] one place and have everyone know. It and follow it.
[2:17:41] And one more question. Derek Turner. Is there any provision
[2:17:45] of the fairgrounds management plan that requires. Every three years
[2:17:49] that gets revisited. Is it just approved? I don't know
[2:17:55] definitively. Some of our plans do, say, every three years,
[2:18:01] like the Alk management plan. Some just say. This is
[2:18:05] our plan or this is our policy, so I can
[2:18:08] check into that. I don't mean to drag this out
[2:18:12] much further. And I guess I'm wondering. About. Would the
[2:18:16] county commissioners be open to saying next winter? Revisit. Hear
[2:18:21] from the public on how the fairgrounds management plan.
[2:18:31] I guess I'll yet leave it to Tony. If you
[2:18:33] want to make any kind of. Motion based on. What?
[2:18:37] You. Yeah. I think. I'm feeling. That county commissioners both
[2:18:44] have a lot on their plate, and they're not super
[2:18:45] interested in this issue. To be quite honest, I don't
[2:18:50] think they're interested in revisiting this. Issue right now. I
[2:18:54] think we could vote. I don't think a split vote
[2:18:57] is super effective with the county commissioners. And I'm not
[2:19:02] sure. That. Asking them just to take more public input.
[2:19:08] Is going to be effective enough to actually open the
[2:19:10] issue up. I feel like the best interaction I have
[2:19:15] with our county commissioners is when I went and presented
[2:19:19] it their open session and did my own. Perspective about
[2:19:25] their lack of attention to the Red Hill or to
[2:19:27] the east boulder wreck plan East East Boulder Creek East
[2:19:33] Boulder Creek management plan and they actually paid attention. For
[2:19:38] at least three minutes, I had. But I think that's
[2:19:43] actually. A more effective route, to be honest. And I
[2:19:47] think that can occur from both the pelic and I
[2:19:50] think it can occur from individual post act members as
[2:19:53] well. Acting in your own capacity, not as part of
[2:19:56] the committee. So I think I'll drop those. And look
[2:20:01] forward to may. And Heidi's presentation and whoever else you
[2:20:06] want to bring into that conversation. I'm sure Vivian will
[2:20:10] be up here, too. I know she's aching to come
[2:20:13] up. Great. That sounds good. So I think next is
[2:20:18] the director's update. Great. Thank you very. Much. Teresawaki, director
[2:20:23] of parks and open space and I have just a
[2:20:26] few things, actually. I'm going to ask Vivian to come
[2:20:29] up. She can be preparing something. They want you to
[2:20:34] come. She knows that she has to figure out how
[2:20:38] to plug in this computer. Whatever. So Prairie runs. Speaking
[2:20:45] of prairie run, the management plan. Is being implemented. We
[2:20:51] hired a consultant. To help do the design for the
[2:20:55] prairie run management plan, and they are heading towards 90%.
[2:21:00] Design by April. By early April. So they're moving very
[2:21:04] fast. We have a lot of staff working on it,
[2:21:06] and our goal is still to have the southeast corner
[2:21:11] open. In 2025. So we're still moving forward with that.
[2:21:15] It's very exciting. If you have been out driving around
[2:21:19] recently, you might have seen a lot of prescribed fire
[2:21:21] happening. Parks and open space is part of that. We
[2:21:24] work with the sheriff's office and we do a lot
[2:21:26] of prescribed fire and. It's very successful these last couple
[2:21:32] of weeks, so that's a good thing. It's both on
[2:21:35] county lands and. We had a smoke near our open
[2:21:40] space offices. It was not our burn. Don't tell. Me.
[2:21:42] It's the sugar mill. You guys weren't over at the
[2:21:44] sugar. We were. Not at the sugar mill, no. But
[2:21:48] anyway. It is. County and non county are doing burns.
[2:21:52] So just to be clear, we're not. The only ones
[2:21:54] out there burning. The cardinal mill mine, which many of
[2:21:58] you took a field trip to. We are working with
[2:22:02] two. Contractors. One is looking on a temporary solution and
[2:22:06] one is looking at a permanent solution to try and
[2:22:09] mitigate the heavy metals that are leaching out of the
[2:22:13] former mine into Kundrak. Creek. We are moving forward. And
[2:22:22] every meeting that goes by, the price tag goes up
[2:22:25] on fixing it. So it is going to be. A
[2:22:28] very expensive. Mitigation, both the temporary and the permanent. We
[2:22:34] don't have that yet. And we will. And we'll bring
[2:22:36] it back to. You. So you have at least an
[2:22:39] understanding of what Boulder county is proposing to do, because
[2:22:41] we're talking millions of dollars. That. Will need to be
[2:22:47] put towards this effort. So that's something that certainly is
[2:22:50] going to get the county commissioner's attention. It is a
[2:22:53] state permit. We need to comply. But. We're also looking.
[2:23:00] At state and federal funding sources. What I want to
[2:23:03] point out is this has been in the news. It's
[2:23:05] been on nature net. There is. Another mine. It's a
[2:23:10] former mine that they are requesting to expand and reopen.
[2:23:15] Reopen. And expand. And it's called the cross and caribou
[2:23:20] gold mines. And the company that is proposing this. Their
[2:23:25] application for a permit is into the state. It is
[2:23:29] called Grand Island Resources. I just want to be clear
[2:23:34] because the names all overlap, the land overlaps. The creek
[2:23:40] that it drains into is Coon Track Creek. So as
[2:23:44] we are trying to clean up the boulder county owned
[2:23:48] former mine. There's a proposal to open up from what
[2:23:52] used to be nine acres of mining. They want to
[2:23:56] expand it to 200 acres of mining. And we've looked
[2:24:00] at 3d models, and literally some of their mine shafts
[2:24:04] cross under our shaft. So I just want you all
[2:24:08] to be aware of that. And as we move forward
[2:24:13] with this, Through any public process, through county commissioners or
[2:24:17] through you. People are going to get confused, the public
[2:24:21] is going to get confused, and. They're going to conflate
[2:24:28] the two issues, so I just want to be sure.
[2:24:30] That Pozek knows and understands. We are trying to close
[2:24:33] and clean up a mine. Whatever. And there's a proposal
[2:24:38] to expand mining right in the same area. Terese, the
[2:24:43] state has the say on opening and expanding the mine.
[2:24:48] Or does Boulder county also have some input there. The
[2:24:53] input that we have. Currently, there are four departments working
[2:24:57] on providing input to the state. It's the state that
[2:24:59] gives the permit. I don't know how much. Like you
[2:25:03] heard with oil and gas, we need our oil. And
[2:25:05] gas experts. I don't know. How much our community planning
[2:25:11] and permitting has control over. Anything that happens up there.
[2:25:16] But they are certainly one of the four departments that
[2:25:19] are providing input to the state. So we are providing
[2:25:23] input to the state on all the things that impact
[2:25:25] parks and open space there's. Public health issues. There's community
[2:25:29] planning and permitting. And the fourth one. I don't know
[2:25:36] what the fourth one is right now, but anyway, we're
[2:25:39] going. To be sending. Four different letters of concern or
[2:25:44] opposition to the expansion. And you all as individuals can
[2:25:49] also submit comments. It's just Google Cross gold mine. The
[2:25:57] Netherland mountain Ear newspaper has done a really thorough job
[2:26:00] of covering it. There's a public portal that you can
[2:26:04] just get online and put comments in. And to me,
[2:26:09] we're looking at. A $10 million cleanup, and they're proposing
[2:26:13] to do. 20 times the amount Terese could renata send
[2:26:19] us that portal. Certainly. I would appreciate that. No problem.
[2:26:27] And besides that, does the portal have information to base
[2:26:31] our comments on about the mine? Well, what I would
[2:26:34] say is the mountain. I'll have her send you both.
[2:26:37] That'd be. Great if anyone's on nature net. The mountain
[2:26:43] articles with links to the portal. I'll work with Renata
[2:26:47] and we'll get you the mountaineer articles as. Soon as.
[2:26:52] Our things are submitted. You will be able to see
[2:26:55] them on the public site now, of course. We're going
[2:26:59] to be last minute getting these in. The deadline is
[2:27:01] April 1, I believe. So it's not like we can
[2:27:04] share. They're not public, but the mountaineer, I would say.
[2:27:09] The public press has covered it. They give you concerns,
[2:27:12] talking points, and then you can go in and put
[2:27:15] in comments, public comments. And encourage your friends to do
[2:27:19] so as well. Okay. No other questions. The postac vacancies.
[2:27:30] We have, as you know, we've had two people, we
[2:27:31] had Paula and Jackson that stepped down. Trace is up
[2:27:36] for renewal, and so is drew. So all of those
[2:27:39] names. Have been four vacancies, basically. So the commissioners are
[2:27:44] approaching this. We hope to meet with. Them early April
[2:27:48] and have a decision before next posec meeting. So just
[2:27:51] to keep you informed, of where that stands. I want
[2:27:55] to congratulate Christine Johnson. She passed her volunteer naturalist training.
[2:28:00] I got to see her presentation, and she is. A
[2:28:05] competent. Volunteer naturalist right now, so thank you, Christine. Next
[2:28:10] month. We're having a field trip, so we're not having
[2:28:12] a meeting here. We are having a field trip, and
[2:28:15] the field trip is the focus of the field trip
[2:28:17] is trail maintenance and muddy trails in particular, and you
[2:28:22] will be seeing information from Ornata on where to meet.
[2:28:25] We'll provide you dinner. It's really going to take since
[2:28:28] we're getting longer. Nights. It will be 100% in the
[2:28:33] field, so I don't know where we're going to meet
[2:28:35] and what trails we're going to go look at. But
[2:28:37] that's next meeting. That will be interesting for the new
[2:28:41] members. So we might want to think about. How to
[2:28:45] give them some onboarding before they we do. Well, actually,
[2:28:50] at least one of you offered to be a mentor.
[2:28:53] I think Christine did. Christine? Carol did. Carol's raising her
[2:29:00] hand. Well, hopefully trace is coming back. So. We'll try
[2:29:08] and pair them up with a mentor for sure. Carol,
[2:29:10] thank you for volunteering. Tracy, you might have to mentor
[2:29:14] yourself. But. You're right. But we will do for sure.
[2:29:18] We will do their orientation before we. Send them out
[2:29:20] in the field. And then this is what Vivian's up
[2:29:29] here for. March is Women's history month, and this year's
[2:29:35] theme is moving forward together. And we would like to
[2:29:40] just take this opportunity to look at a few. Well,
[2:29:43] first of all, I'm going to tell you about one.
[2:29:47] And then we're going to watch a short film. On.
[2:29:51] One of the women in parks nervous base who really
[2:29:54] helped influence our open space program. And then that is
[2:29:57] Carolyn Homeberg. Our Carolyn Albert preserve is named after her
[2:30:02] and. There's a. So we'll get to that in 1
[2:30:04] second. The other thing is. There was recently Boulder International
[2:30:08] Film Festival and there was a film presented at it
[2:30:11] called Citizen Ruth. And I highly recommend. That you. Were
[2:30:18] on the park service based advisory committee. If you can
[2:30:21] find the time. And the cash. You can get it
[2:30:25] online. Through Boulder International Film Festival and Ruth Wright. Was
[2:30:32] a force of nature for creating open space in Boulder
[2:30:35] county. She worked with the city and it certainly had
[2:30:38] influences. In where we are today. Why Boulder county looks
[2:30:44] the way it does. And Ruth Wright is still alive.
[2:30:46] She's still alive. She's 96. She's in her film, she
[2:30:49] is interviewed and she was at the. Showing. So with
[2:30:57] that, Vivian has it queued up, and we're going to
[2:31:00] watch Carolyn Holmberg. A legacy of service. I'm Terese Klocki.
[2:31:07] I'm the director of Boulder county parks in open space,
[2:31:10] and I'm thrilled to help introduce this tribute to Carolyn
[2:31:15] Holmberg. Carolyn Homeberg was an early director of Boulder county
[2:31:19] parks in open space. She in collaboration with some of
[2:31:26] the other visionaries that we have in Boulder county, including
[2:31:30] Ron Stewart and Dicky Lee Hullinghorst. Were instrumental in creating
[2:31:36] our open space program, the program that we all know
[2:31:39] and love today, when she became director of parks and
[2:31:44] open space in the early 1980s. She had the idea
[2:31:49] that open space could really. Shape what Boulder county looks
[2:31:53] like as a community. You will get a chance to
[2:31:57] listen to some of her colleagues, the people that she
[2:32:00] partnered with and other visionaries that worked with Carolyn in
[2:32:04] the early days of open space. And together they have
[2:32:08] created what we know now as our open space. Great
[2:32:13] mentor, great sense of humor, fun to be around. Carolyn,
[2:32:17] as far as. As a person. She was so human
[2:32:22] and she was so kind. She was really brilliant, and
[2:32:26] she was a negotiator par excellence. When she was for
[2:32:29] something, she worked as hard as she could. Maybe 20
[2:32:34] hours a day. She could reach out and you could
[2:32:39] know that she valued you. Very appreciative of the staff
[2:32:43] that did work for her and not afraid at all
[2:32:46] to join in and give a hand. She never missed
[2:32:50] a moment to make us enjoy our jobs in our
[2:32:54] day. Carolyn had been on this parks and open space
[2:33:04] advisory committee, and. I was immediately impressed with her. She
[2:33:12] was so sharp. Real dynamo. I've never seen anybody as
[2:33:16] energetic as Carolyn. She had presents. Yes, she did. Gravitas.
[2:33:21] She did. You listen? She talked slowly. And you paid
[2:33:26] attention, and sometimes it was a little bit intimidating. So
[2:33:30] when there was an opportunity. Which. We made. We brought
[2:33:37] Carolyn on board, and I'm guessing that for some of
[2:33:40] you, that was kind. Of. A surprise. As I recall,
[2:33:44] she was working in the district attorney's office. As kind
[2:33:48] of a consumer advocate. So for us, some of us,
[2:33:51] anyway, there was a little bit of question mark. I
[2:33:55] can recall too on my own time walking down here
[2:33:57] at night and her light would be on and you'd
[2:34:00] see her working up here. After eating 09:00 or later.
[2:34:05] Wow. Yeah. When Carolyn took over at parks and open
[2:34:15] space, the department was pretty small. There wasn't a lot
[2:34:19] of land that had been preserved as open space. When
[2:34:23] I first started working with her. It was before the
[2:34:26] open space sales tax pass and we were doing rolling
[2:34:29] option deals. The qualities that she brought to the table.
[2:34:34] Were ideal for the growth of the program. She was
[2:34:38] a relationship builder in the best sense of the word.
[2:34:41] 93 was the biggie was having sales tax. And the
[2:34:45] other thing I think kind of happened. People start seeing
[2:34:47] the success of the program. Particularly with the agriculture piece
[2:34:51] of it. Once you got a few farmers involved in
[2:34:54] doing conservation easements, for example. The others could see that
[2:34:58] there was a path here for doing something that would
[2:35:02] save their properties. From development. Due to the
[2:35:11] passage of the sales tax and the relationship that Carolyn
[2:35:16] had with. Like Vantines and the Stromquis. That ball started
[2:35:26] rolling once. There were successes in word of mouth came
[2:35:30] that this is not a bad program. I first met
[2:35:34] Carolyn, I think I was on the first Boulder County
[2:35:36] Advisory Committee, and I remember her always asking me, what's
[2:35:41] it going to take to keep you here? What's it
[2:35:43] going to take to keep you farmers here? And I
[2:35:46] remember that vividly because I think she was trying to
[2:35:50] establish a trust. There were many years we were coming
[2:35:53] out of hard times. Financially in agriculture in the 1980s,
[2:35:59] and it wasn't about getting producers off the land. It
[2:36:03] was keeping them on the land and. She made people
[2:36:07] feel very comfortable and at ease. And I think that
[2:36:11] helped her in the future in terms of making acquisitions,
[2:36:15] doing acquisitions and buying farms is important, but I think
[2:36:19] keeping the families in place was just as important, and
[2:36:22] that really made such an impact to me. Those first
[2:36:26] years, we were like drunk and sailors. There was just
[2:36:30] all kinds of money, and he just went out. And
[2:36:34] then you all knew from the maintenance. And the priority
[2:36:35] was buy bye bye, buy. We used to joke about
[2:36:40] Carolyn and acquisitions and saying that, well, If you came
[2:36:45] in with muddy boots on. You better be careful, because
[2:36:47] she might want to put an offer on the dirt
[2:36:49] that's on your boots. What property really embodies, Carolyn. I
[2:36:59] think it's this one. When it came time. To figure
[2:37:02] out how we're going to honor the legacy of Carolyn
[2:37:04] Homeberg. It was decided to name the Rock creek farm
[2:37:08] in her honors. Because. It's really the property
[2:37:18] that embodies almost all of the aspects of our program.
[2:37:23] It's got a recreational component. It's got the agricultural component.
[2:37:25] It has wildlife. The fact that the Carolyn was so
[2:37:29] instrumental in engaging with the agricultural community. Is her legacy.
[2:37:35] And it started here. I don't believe we would have
[2:37:37] had an open space program in Boulder county if it
[2:37:40] hadn't been for Carolyn and Ron and some other very
[2:37:43] visionary people. That basically put it together from the ground
[2:37:47] up, looking at how it started, what it is today.
[2:37:50] I think she's the major reason for that, and it's
[2:37:53] probably the number one. Or number two park agency in
[2:37:56] the United States. The youth corp. Program is now 25
[2:37:59] years on so. There are now of people who met
[2:38:03] in the youth corps who are now bringing their children
[2:38:06] to Rott Creek Farm. And in that way, Carolyn's legacy
[2:38:11] definitely has passed on, at least two to three generations
[2:38:14] at this point. She was very instrumental, I believe. In
[2:38:19] helping us save our family farm.
[2:38:44] It can go everywhere. Everywhere. That was
[2:38:54] great. Woman's history month. That was great. Thanks. Vivian. Anything
[2:39:00] else? That's it. Thank you. All right, we are adjourned.