© Peter McBride/Aurora Photos
The Best Hope
Fort Carson, like the rest of central Colorado along Interstate 25, is in the bull’s-eye of development pressures. Sandwiched between Colorado Springs to the north, Pueblo to the south and a few smaller developments to the east, the nearly 140,000-acre post is high on the Defense Department’s list of bases in dire need of buffering. In the last decade, the population of Colorado Springs has grown 30 percent, topping a half million and making Forbes’ list of “Steroid Cities.”
Shale barrens, protected by the Walker Ranch buffer area, are home to rare plants. © Peter McBride/Aurora Photos
From a high pinyon- and juniper-covered ridge on the base, you can see the expansion of the community of Pueblo, moving toward the base along the verdant cottonwood bottoms of Fountain Creek. Fort Carson is planning some huge training exercises down on that end of the post. “The Army is a noisy neighbor,” says environmental compliance officer Warren, “and you can only push that ‘sound of freedom’ argument so far when the houses are rattling right off their foundations in the middle of the night.”
More visible and of more immediate concern is a development that has sprung up on the eastern edge of the post. El Rancho is a hard-bitten settlement consisting mostly of makeshift houses and trailers, some buried partially in the desert. With a community that close, officials worry about the possibility of kids crossing the fence to play or explore.
At Fort Carson, artillery ranges are littered with a 40-year accumulation of unexploded bombs and artillery rounds so dangerous, say officials, that helicopters do not even fly over them for fear of needing to land. Other areas have been fought over hundreds of times by armies in training, and then been carefully restored by Warren’s team for the next exercise. The soldiers of those armies have gone on to fight some of the most violent and decisive battles in U.S. history. (More than 25,000 soldiers from the post have been deployed to combat areas over the last three years.)
Yet while the base is dangerous for humans, biodiversity flourishes. Prairie-dog towns, and their host of attendant species, dot the tank-warfare mining fields where maneuvers keep the vegetation low. And native shortgrass prairie is thriving inside the fence lines.
The best hope for protecting that biodiversity and the post lies along Fort Carson’s southern and southeastern boundaries. Just beyond the high-impact artillery range, the electronics range and the tank-warfare training zones lies a 30,000-acre ranch owned by Gary Walker, a self-described “old-style conservationist—a member of every gun-totin’ conservation organization out there.” His father, Bob Walker, still ranching in his late 80s, owns an adjacent 20,000 acres. Ecologists working with the Conservancy on the Walker ranches have found Arkansas feverfew, roundleaf four o’clocks and other rare plants, some dependent not only on shortgrass prairie but specifically on a geologically unique feature known as shale barrens or juniper breaks. There are Mexican spotted owls, ferruginous hawks, mountain plovers, herds of elk and pronghorn, maybe swift foxes.
| Habitat Type: Shortgrass prairie |
|
Species of Concern:
Mountain plover (Charadrius montanus)
black-tailed prairie dog (Cynomys ludovicianus)
Arkansas River feverfew (Bolophyta tetraneuris)
golden blazing star (Nuttallia chrysantha)
Pueblo goldenweed (Oönopsis puebloensis)
round-leaf four-o’clock (Oxybaphus rotundifolius)
Threats:
Urban encroachment from Colorado Springs, Pueblo and smaller communities
Conservation Goals/Strategies:
Buffer several thousand acres to the south and southeast of the Army post by purchasing conservation easements on two ranches that contain all four rare plant species and many animal species. Restore fire to mimic natural disturbances. |
“Shortgrass prairie ecosystems need large, unbroken landscapes to thrive and the Walker ranches are some of the best remaining large examples in the area,” says the Conservancy’s McPeek, who works with Fort Carson and the Walkers. He adds: “The shortgrass prairie around Colorado Springs is being rapidly broken up by housing developers seeking cheap land.”
Both Walkers have worked closely with the Conservancy and the Defense Department to create easements that will permanently limit development on their ranches. “We are giving up dollars here,” says Gary Walker, “but we are getting something in return—preserving this ranch that we love.” He adds: “We’ve talked about this easement protecting the rare plants and wildlife habitat that are here, and helping Fort Carson, but there’s a third element for my family, and that’s protecting the ranching economy and traditions of this place. We needed an option to development, and this is it.”
The Conservancy and Fort Carson see a window of opportunity. Here, now, there is still the chance to protect huge parcels of land owned by just a few people. The level of encroachment at places like Fort Bragg serves as a cautionary tale and an impetus to quickly protect what’s left of these plains. “If we wait another 10 years,” Warren says, “we’ll be dealing with maybe hundreds of landowners, and that window will be closed forever.”
Recently Warren’s team was asked to study the cost-saving effects of buffering these ranges. The conclusion was a real eye-opener, Warren says: “The cost of not entering into the buffering agreement is that we lose the ranges. And there is no place left to rebuild them. It is an irreplaceable resource.” Irreplaceable for the military—and for wildlife.
For More Information
- NatureServe: Species at Risk on Department of Defense Installations
Department of Defense lands are thought to support more federally listed species than any other major federal agency, and to harbor more imperiled species than lands managed by either the National Park Service or U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. With this scientific report, learn the key findings about species at risk on military bases and how proactive conservation efforts can protect them.
- Save of the Week: Fort Carson
The Nature Conservancy is working with the U.S. Department of Defense under the Army Compatible User Buffer (ACUB) program to conserve hundreds of thousands of acres of important habitats while also ensuring military preparedness.
- The Colorado Grasslands Project
A summary of three innovative projects in Colorado aimed at protecting diminishing grassland habitat, primarily in the eastern prairies of the state.
- Northwest Florida Greenway
The state of Florida, the U.S. Department of Defense and The Nature Conservancy are working to establish a 100-mile protected corridor that connects Eglin Air Force Base and the Apalachicola National Forest.
- Conservation Projects on Military Bases in Georgia
The Conservancy is currently working on conservation projects at Fort Benning, Fort Gordon and Fort Stewart.
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