An effort by a local landowners group to overturn the Canyons of the Ancients National Monument was met by a blunt rebuke from Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R-Colo.) on Tuesday.

Chester Tozer, president of the Southwest Colorado Landowners Association, presented a petition to Campbell at his home in Ignacio on Saturday asking him to introduce a concurrent resolution to abolish the newly designated Canyons of the Ancients National Monument west of Cortez.

In response, Campbell penned a letter to Tozer criticizing Tozer’s role in blocking community support for Campbell’s legislative efforts to designate the area as a national conservation area earlier this year.

"As you remember, I introduced S.2034 after (Interior) Secretary (Bruce) Babbitt threatened to have the President declare the Canyons of the Ancients National Monument by administrative decree under the Antiquities Act," Campbell wrote in a letter dated Sept. 19.

"I believe that an introduction of a bill was the lesser of two evils since we had no other option because it would have let the residents of Montezuma County help shape a movement they could live with. Unfortunately, because of your opposition I could not find any consensus from which to work. The environmental community and the Ute Mountain Tribe also went on record as being opposed to the bill.

"Because of the lack of consensus on any effort to head off a presidential decree, I abandoned the bill. For this I was criticized by the press and you did nothing to defend all action I took primarily for you," wrote Campbell.

At a recent meeting of the BLM’s Southwest Regional Advisory Council, Tozer admitted that the group had opposed the NCA legislation because they believed the monument designation would be "easier to overturn."

A spokesman for Campbell, James Doyle, said Tuesday that it was a shame the group opposed the legislation because an agreement between all of the differing factions could have set a national policy standard for legislated conservation areas.

"When the jungle drums of extremism started to sound, Senator Campbell just threw up his hands and said, ‘This is just not worth it,’ " explained Doyle. "They would have had far more influence on public policy by being part of the NCA process than they ever will now."

Citing a "total absence of local consensus," Campbell suspended action on his bill to create a national conservation area on 164,000 acres in Montezuma and Dolores counties on March 25.

At the time he warned that President Clinton might react by declaring the area a national monument instead.

"I want to warn all those involved that they are taking the risk that the president will declare the area a monument.. ," Campbell said in a press release in March.

"I also want to emphasize that in developing balanced land-management plans, everyone has to be prepared to give up something. It is a shame that extreme voices on both sides of the issue would rather lob bombs at each other through the press than actually get something done."

The landowners group had hoped that Congress would use the Federal Land Management Policy Act to overturn the monument. FLPMA provides Congress 90 days to overturn a proclaimed national monument by passing a concurrent resolution. The monument was proclaimed on June 9.

Campbell explained in his letter to Tozer that the monument would be "almost impossible to change" because the Senate currently has less than three weeks to pass bills or resolutions. In addition, resolutions cannot force the administration to act, and a bill could be vetoed, filibustered, or held until Congress went out of session.

Campbell reiterated in the letter his opposition for the administrative decree. "I did not like the way this monument was designated. It was wrong and locks local people out of the democratic process, but very simply put, you had your chance and you blew it," he wrote.

"For Mr. Tozer to completely abandon Senator Campbell and then solicit his support is about as disingenuous an act as I’ve ever seen," said Doyle.

Tozer submitted a petition with more than 300 names to Campbell, which he said Tuesday were gathered within a 36-hour period.

But Campbell responded that those names "may not represent the majority of the residents who live in Montezuma County," and that he would not introduce a resolution without supporting resolutions from the Montezuma County commissioners, Cortez City Council, Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, and Colorado Legislature. He would also need support from Governor Owens and Rep. Scott McInnis to proceed, Campbell wrote.

Josh Penry, spokesman for McInnis, who sponsored NCA legislation in the House, said that McInnis had received the petition as well.

"We’re with Senator Campbell on this one. If they can demonstrate the level of local support that he asked for, then we’ll talk," Penry said.

Campbell wrote that he would have replied to each person on the petition, but their addresses were not listed, so he submitted a copy of the letter to the Cortez Journal.

On Tuesday afternoon Tozer said he had yet to receive Campbell’s letter, but that the landowners will continue gathering signatures to petition other elected officials to act on their behalf. He couldn’t be reached for comment on Wednesday.

Doyle said that the monument could have been prevented had the extreme interest groups compromised by supporting the NCA.