Diana Luppi’s objections to signing easement agreements with the Forest Service include several arguments.

• Luppi maintains that the road predates the existence of the national forest and that she therefore should not have to sign an agreement with the Forest Service to use it. She and her attorney, Crystal Sluyter, both said she has a map from 1881 showing the road then.

"(T)he road in question is an unrestricted Archuleta County road leading to a U.S. Land Patented homestead property," she wrote in a letter published Feb. 17 in the Pagosa Springs Sun.

But Sonja Hoie, land specialist with the Pagosa Ranger District, said the Forest Service has no knowledge of the road being so old.

"We don’t have any record of a road there that pre-existed the proclamation of the forest," which occurred around 1905, Hoie said. "Even if that was the case, the county has expressed no interest in acquiring that road."

The courts dismissed Luppi’s claim. "It was totally ignored," Sluyter said.

• Luppi also has argued that the national forest is not truly owned by the federal government, according to court documents.

"Her argument appears to be rooted in a belief that the Forest Service does not actually own the lands that comprise the San Juan National Forest, and therefore cannot legally require anyone to execute an easement agreement. . .," states the order of the Court of Appeals.

The court also rejected that argument.

• Luppi objected to the terms of the agreements, particularly a paragraph regarding fire-fighting costs.

"The contract was so one-sided you would have to be crazy to sign it," she said at the Jan. 13 public meeting in Cortez.

"This contract basically takes away her rights to her property and replaces them with a much less dominant right," Sluyter agreed. "It makes her responsible for any forest fires, for repairing damages. That could mean a whole lot of things.

"What she’s opposed to is having to give up her dominant right for a lesser right and pay for it."

Also, although the agreement is for 30 years, it is revocable at any time by the government, Sluyter said. She also said the policy is unevenly applied, with some people having to sign and others not having to.

But Joyner said the agreement is actually quite straightforward, including the part stating that the grantee "shall pay the United States for all injury, loss, or damage, including fire suppression costs, in accordance with existing Federal and State laws."