By David Grant Long

Rep. Joel Hefley (R-Colorado Springs) is voicing strong opposition to a proposal that would elevate the Great Sand Dunes National Monument in the San Luis Valley to a national park and quadruple its size.

The legislation, which would also foil attempts by Front Range developers to acquire the water under surrounding private lands, is supported by the rest of Colorado’s congressional delegation as well as Gov. Bill Owens. However, Hefley, a member of the House committee though which such bills must pass, said Monday he doesn’t believe the proposal "makes any sense."

The 40,000-acre monument contains giant, constantly shifting dunes formed by the wind from the erosion of sandstone in the nearby Sangre de Cristo Mountains. It is situated on the edge of the Closed Basin, under which lies an aquifer containing as much as 2 billion acre-feet of water. (A closed basin is an area that has water draining into it, but none running out.)

Along with park designation, the proposed legislation would add between 150,000 and 200,000 acres to the monument’s present area, according to monument Superintendent Steve Chaney, and protect the underlying aquifer from developers, who want to sell the water to supply the growth along the I-25 corridor.

After touring the monument with Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt and senators Wayne Allard and Ben Nighthorse Campbell on Saturday, Rep. Scott McInnis (R-Grand Junction) declared his enthusiastic support for the change.

"If there ever were a place deserving of national-park standing, in my estimation it is the Great Sand Dunes," McInnis said Sunday in a press release. "Much more than simply rising to the level of a national park, its delicate and diverse ecosystems are so unique and majestic that anything short of this designation fails to do it justice."

Nonsense, replied Hefley, who sits on the Natural Resources Committee as well as its subcommittee that deals specifically with national parks and public-lands legislation. He said during a telephone interview with the Journal Monday that while he supported similar legislation for the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, which was upgraded from a national monument by Congress earlier this year, there is no comparison between the two.

"My response to the Sand Dunes (proposal) is that it doesn’t meet the qualifications for a national park," he said. "You got your Yellowstone, your Yosemite and your Grand Canyon —and the Sand Dunes doesn’t meet those kind of criteria.

"I think it’s an interesting sight to see," he added. "If you’ve been there, you say, ‘Wow, this is a big pile of sand,’ but I doubt very many people would want to spend their vacations at the Great Sand Dunes National Park.

"But you might want to spend your vacation at the Black Canyon National Park, where you can fish and explore —to me it’s just a higher quality of resource."

Hefley also objected to his fellow solons introducing such a bill before a study is conducted and a positive recommendation made by the National Park Service, action required by legislation he sponsored in 1992.

"Congress should not be passing legislation that authorizes a new national park without following this process," he said.

McInnis noted that the proposal also has the strong support of Babbitt and President Clinton as well as most state and local officials.

"I commend Congressman Hefley’s constructive scrutiny, but I strongly disagree with his conclusions," he said. "As this process unfolds, I’m hopeful that he will reconsider his position and join our efforts to protect this national treasure."

But Hefley, the longest-serving of the state’s six House members, said McInnis had not even discussed the proposed change with him before announcing his proposal.

"It’s normal, if something like this is suggested in your state, for everyone to go along with it whether it makes any sense or not," he said, "and I don’t think it makes any sense. Being on that committee, we review so many of these things, and I guess Iquite critical of what we elevate to park status.

"I do not support going ahead and making it a national park at this time," he added. "If the Park Service comes up with a good argument after it goes through the process, I could change my mind, but at this point, I don’t think so."

McInnis will carry the bill creating the new national park in the House next session, according to Chaney, and Allard will carry it in the Senate. Campbell, who recently championed the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park legislation, also supports the proposal.

But Hefley predicted that the bill would have a "hard time" getting voted out of the Natural Resources Committee, particularly if McInnis tries to circumvent the involvement of the Park Service.

"Until it’s gone through the process, I would say that it has very little chance of passage," he said.

Chaney said Monday that acting swiftly to increase protection of the area is essential because efforts to tap the huge aquifer beneath the periphery of the monument and pipe water out of the valley are ongoing.

"Some of the areas within the sand deposits and watershed of the park that we know are critical in terms of its preservation are currently involved in some water- development schemes," he explained. "To postpone the legislative process to do a lengthy study to determine what we’re already, through science, fairly well aware is the case probably wouldn’t make too much sense.

"The legislators have picked this up as an issue because the water-development threat is also a threat to areas outside the park," he added, including the adjacent Baca and Zapata ranches. "That’s been a thorn in the side of the San Luis Valley for a while."

And although the National Park Service hasn’t gone through the process cited by Hefley, he said, the monument’s recently revised management plan also recommended a study to determine its relationship with adjacent lands.

"We’ve learned through research over the past several years that there’s some very strong connections to land outside the monument," he said, explaining that pumping massive amounts of groundwater out of the basin "would have a serious impact on our surface-water streams and just muck up the whole sand-cycling system that supports the dunes and lets them retain their shape."

Along with approximately half the 100,000-acre Baca ranch, the proposed expansion would also include a 30,000-acre bison operation on the Zapata ranch that belongs to the Nature Conservancy, Chaney explained, and this use would not change. The Nature Conservancy, which buys up lands to preserve them from development, fully supports the park proposal, he said, and would probably continue the demonstration project within the park should it be authorized.

"There aren’t any parks I’m aware of in the system that have the kind of opportunity we have here to encompass the majority of the system that affects its major resources," he said.