Save our watersheds and wildlife
Tax deductible
We are a group of Costilla County residents in partnership with the Land Rights Council, a 501c3
non-profit organization along with 3,482 petition signers, requesting your financial assistance in
helping us protect our environment and holding William Harrison, an out-of-state, billionaire
owner of the 88,000-acre Cielo Vista Ranch (“CVR” or “La Sierra”) accountable.
Three years ago, the ranch owner, without any type of notice, permit, authorization, or study of the potential impacts, began construction of an 8-foot-tall game fence around the entire boundary of his 88,000-acre mountain ranch. This boundary is approximately 60 miles long with most of it over undeveloped mountainous areas and wildlife habitat. The County passed a moratorium on fences over 5 ft tall which was ignored by Mr. Harrison forcing the county to spend $80,000 just to get a judge to force Mr. Harrison to obey the law. Once the moratorium expires in a few months, we need help to continue the fight.
It is our belief that the fence he is building is causing severe damage to wildlife habitat and migration patterns in violation of environmental laws and Colorado Parks and Wildlife rules and regulations. The fence appears to be altering the migration patterns and denying animals their traditional ingress and egress routes to and from the Cielo Vista Ranch. This wire barrier traverses in and out of all of the drainages and many animals are denied access to water without having to travel great distances. Local residents have noticed a decline in the wildlife ingress and egress thus it seems the fence is interfering with the rights of county residents to have access to big game for sustenance hunting as well.
To build his prison like fence, he is bulldozing a 12 to 30 -foot-wide fence road with no apparent regard to topography, vegetation, soil type, or slope steepness. Once completed CVR will have disturbed the top soil along the boundary line of approximately 87 acres of undeveloped natural areas and steep slopes in probable violation of the Colorado Public Health & Environment regulations and The Environment Clean Water Act and other laws.
At least 20-30 miles if this 8-foot-tall fence has already been completed and county residents have observed severe disturbances to wildlife migration patterns, severe erosion in many of the bulldozed hills resulting in drastic alteration in natural stormwater flow in the most destructive way possible. The deeply rutted fence road is now capturing much of the stormwater from the upper foothills and diverting this excess water along with extra tons of sediment straight down to our creeks, ditches, reservoir, and historical religious sites (Morada). Sediment is considered by the EPA as one of the most damaging pollutants because it carries phosphorous (chokes off aquatic life), mercury and other heavy metals (toxic to humans) into our waterways.
We are a grassroots group of community members in the second poorest County in Colorado who lack the financial resources to fight against an out-of-state billionaire, we are pleading for your help to ensure that our environment is protected and all the applicable environmental laws and regulations are enforced.
All money raised will be specifically earmarked to help pay soil and water testing, attorney fees, expert witness fees and all other expenses, fees and costs associated with the ensuing district court cases, appellate cases etc.
Thank you for considering our request.
News Articles:
https://coloradosun.com/2024/04/28/cielo-vista-ranch-fence/
https://www.denverpost.com/2024/05/05/colorado-cielo-vista-ranch-fence-san-luis-valley-wildlife-erosion/
Three years ago, the ranch owner, without any type of notice, permit, authorization, or study of the potential impacts, began construction of an 8-foot-tall game fence around the entire boundary of his 88,000-acre mountain ranch. This boundary is approximately 60 miles long with most of it over undeveloped mountainous areas and wildlife habitat. The County passed a moratorium on fences over 5 ft tall which was ignored by Mr. Harrison forcing the county to spend $80,000 just to get a judge to force Mr. Harrison to obey the law. Once the moratorium expires in a few months, we need help to continue the fight.
It is our belief that the fence he is building is causing severe damage to wildlife habitat and migration patterns in violation of environmental laws and Colorado Parks and Wildlife rules and regulations. The fence appears to be altering the migration patterns and denying animals their traditional ingress and egress routes to and from the Cielo Vista Ranch. This wire barrier traverses in and out of all of the drainages and many animals are denied access to water without having to travel great distances. Local residents have noticed a decline in the wildlife ingress and egress thus it seems the fence is interfering with the rights of county residents to have access to big game for sustenance hunting as well.
To build his prison like fence, he is bulldozing a 12 to 30 -foot-wide fence road with no apparent regard to topography, vegetation, soil type, or slope steepness. Once completed CVR will have disturbed the top soil along the boundary line of approximately 87 acres of undeveloped natural areas and steep slopes in probable violation of the Colorado Public Health & Environment regulations and The Environment Clean Water Act and other laws.
At least 20-30 miles if this 8-foot-tall fence has already been completed and county residents have observed severe disturbances to wildlife migration patterns, severe erosion in many of the bulldozed hills resulting in drastic alteration in natural stormwater flow in the most destructive way possible. The deeply rutted fence road is now capturing much of the stormwater from the upper foothills and diverting this excess water along with extra tons of sediment straight down to our creeks, ditches, reservoir, and historical religious sites (Morada). Sediment is considered by the EPA as one of the most damaging pollutants because it carries phosphorous (chokes off aquatic life), mercury and other heavy metals (toxic to humans) into our waterways.
We are a grassroots group of community members in the second poorest County in Colorado who lack the financial resources to fight against an out-of-state billionaire, we are pleading for your help to ensure that our environment is protected and all the applicable environmental laws and regulations are enforced.
All money raised will be specifically earmarked to help pay soil and water testing, attorney fees, expert witness fees and all other expenses, fees and costs associated with the ensuing district court cases, appellate cases etc.
Thank you for considering our request.
News Articles:
https://coloradosun.com/2024/04/28/cielo-vista-ranch-fence/
https://www.denverpost.com/2024/05/05/colorado-cielo-vista-ranch-fence-san-luis-valley-wildlife-erosion/
Organizer
Shirley Otero
Organizer
San Luis, CO
Land Rights Council Inc
Beneficiary