Rhonda and James Waschke are living on the edge — and it’s keeping them nervous.

"You hear so many rumors, you don’t know what to believe," Rhonda Waschke said Wednesday. "Who knows what they’re going to take?"

The Waschkes’ farm in Dolores County borders on BLM property that was considered for designation as the "Canyon of the Ancients National Conservation Area."

Like many other landowners who have private property lying within or near the boundaries of the proposed conservation area, they are apprehensive about what changes a new federal designation might bring to the area.

Last week, Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell announced that, because of vocal opposition to the plan, he was no longer pushing his bill to create the conservation area on 164,000 acres west of Cortez. His announcement was greeted with mingled relief and apprehension from many neighboring residents, who now wonder whether President Clinton will declare a national monument instead.

Many residents’ concerns revolve around what the boundaries of any new area might be. At least two different maps have been circulated showing the proposed conservation area, but Campbell’s bill stated that the final boundary would be delineated after the bill was passed.

"Everything we farm could have been in what they called the borderline," Waschke said. "I don’t know what the borders are. I’ve seen three or four maps. I saw one and it took our whole place, even where we live, so who knows?"

The Waschkes farm mostly Anasazi beans, she said, and they worry that the federal government might restrict their operation if it borders on the new area.

"Beans are considered highly erodable because they’re a row crop," she said, adding that the government might not want such farming in any "buffer zone" by the area. Campbell’s bill specifically said there would be no such zone.

Waschke was disappointed that Campbell withdrew his bill because she thought it provided some protection for historic uses, and now worries that a national monument will be forthcoming instead. She said no new designation is really needed to protect the area’s many Ancestral Puebloan ruins.

"I think we’ve been doing a pretty good job of preserving the places around here," she said. "You get a bunch of tourists in, and it looks like the Indian ruins are going to be a lot more threatened than with just us here."

Under the orders of the Montezuma County commissioners, the county planning department has been mapping and documenting historic access into the area proposed for a national conservation area west of Cortez.

There are approximately 56 different parcels constituting inholdings within the 164,000 acres tentatively proposed for the NCA, according to Loretta Murphy of the planning office. The parcels belong to 31 different owners.

That figure does not count landowners whose property adjoins the proposed area.

Eldon Zwicker, who said he owns approximately 2,000 acres within or near the NCA, worries that a new designation will mean an eventual end to cattle-grazing and his family’s livelihood.

"We’re not real pleased with the way things look now," Zwicker said. "This land is essential to our livestock operation. If we have to scale down, it takes a chunk out of your operation."

Campbell’s bill had stated that grazing would continue to be allowed on the NCA, but Zwicker was skeptical.

"They might allow it temporarily, for a year or two," he said, "but I think they’ll stop it before long."

Darrell Veach, a McElmo Canyon rancher, said he has 6,000 deeded acres within or adjacent to the area and has leases on 4,000 acres of BLM land. His father homesteaded on the land, he said, and since then the family has made numerous improvements to both the private and public rangeland.

Those improvements include putting up fences, reseeding areas, and creating some 60 little reservoirs on his and the BLM’s property that water both livestock and wildlife, he said.

"The BLM has never put a penny into that land, never," he said.

Veach said he was "relieved" when Campbell abandoned his bill and now hopes that Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt will not urge Clinton to create a national monument.

If a new designation is made, Veach said, it will mean his land will be condemned.

"They’re going to take it," he said. "The only thing we can go on is what they’ve done in the past in other areas, and they come in and take it."

Ann Hindmarsh, who owns property surrounded by BLM land near Mesa Verde National Park with her husband , said she found Campbell’s bill scary because of its vagueness about the actual boundary of the new area.

"Even scarier than that was they don’t write the rules and regulations for four years after they get it declared," she said.

She said farmers and ranchers are concerned that any new designation will mean "more government regulations" and that people will be essentially "locked out."

"This area was basically formed from agriculture, and now they’re just trying to squeeze us out," she said.

But another man with lands adjacent to the proposed NCA had a different view.

"I’m not concerned a bit about it," said Galen Larson, who owns 360 acres adjoining the area. "Somebody said I’d be gobbled up, and I said, ‘Hooray! Maybe we can get some money out of the place.’