THE DOLORES RIVER winds through the valley in this view looking downriver from Stoner on Monday. The county is starting work on developing a plan to address growth in the scenic valley.

By Gail Binkly
Journal Managing Editor

Recent controversies over gravel pits and a golf-course proposal have prompted the Montezuma County commissioners to mount an effort to develop a comprehensive plan for the Dolores River Valley, the commissioners announced Monday.

The plan would be an addendum to the county’s overall land-use plan. The commissioners hope to have it completed within a year, a goal they acknowledged was "ambitious."

The board voted 3-0 to direct Mike Preston, the county federal-lands coordinator, to look into possible energy-impact funds that might be available through the Department of Local Affairs to help with the project, which he said would cost approximately $100,000.

"We want to get off and moving with this," said Commissioner Gene Story.

A tentative budget calls for the county to provide $15,000 cash and $35,000 "in-kind" through staff work, Preston said. The county hopes to obtain the other $50,000 through an energy-impact grant.

The county will soon begin advertising for persons to serve on a citizens’ working group similar to the one that developed the county’s comprehensive plan. However, the group won’t really get down to work till the spring, Preston said, because first the county needs to compile data about the Dolores River Valley so the working group has some basis for its decision-making.

The plan will cover the Highway 145 corridor to the Dolores County line as well as the West Fork of the Dolores River, again to the county line. The Dolores County commissioners will be able to be as involved in the planning as they would like, Story said.

Preston said the county had decided to "form some planning goals to guide future development and mitigate adverse impacts" of growth along the river corridor. "We know there are changes ahead in the Dolores River Valley," he said. "How do we want to guide that and what kind of effects would growth and change have on the valley?"

Among the issues the plan should address, he said, are water quality and quantity, watershed conditions, agriculture, land ownership and land-use patterns. Other topics include scenic assets — "right now, this is a pretty scenic valley," he said — and public access to the river and public lands. "This is probably going to be more and more of an issue," Preston said.

Infrastructure will be another major issue to be studied. For instance, said Story, "if you start talking about a sewer line up the valley, all of a sudden you open it up for high-density development."

A number of different scenarios for growth are possible along the beautiful riparian corridor, the commissioners noted. Possibilities range from condominiums and three-acre-lot subdivisions to "rich-person scenarios" such as one occurring in Archuleta County near the Piedra River, where one person has bought up numerous ranches and is consolidating them.

The county’s tentative time line for developing the plan calls for mapping and inventorying during the first three months. In the next three, the citizens’ working group would be oriented and would review the data, study development in other scenic valleys, and formulate alternative scenarios.

In months seven through nine, the group would evaluate the different alternatives and conduct public meetings on the ideas, and in the last months the plan would be drafted, finalized and approved by the planning commission and county commission.

In other business Monday, the commissioners:

• Voted 3-0 to give 1,500 yards of three-inch gravel to the Boy Scout camp on Haycamp Mesa.

• Unanimously appointed members of the Community Corrections Board to three-year terms. Reappointed were Vici Worcester of the Montezuma County Sheriff’s Office and citizens Elsie Gree, Fred Thomas, and Rita Burke. Graham Johnson of Cortez was appointed as a new member.