Jeff Hurd

Editor:

This is an open letter to U.S. Rep. Jeff Hurd, R-Grand Junction.

The current land swap you are proposing will not benefit the general public or your constituents on the Western Slope.

The Out of Bounds Ranch, owned by B. Scott Smith and Tiffany Smith, seeks to possess 2,158 pristine and irrigated Bureau of Land Management acres near Cottonwood Pass and also Fisher Creek in Glenwood Springs in exchange for 2,103 acres of private land at Timber Valley Ranch (1,020 acres) and Cow Creek Ranch (1,083 acres) near Rifle.

For the land exchange, the Smiths would buy Timber Valley Ranch, which has steep terrain with pines, oak brush, pinyon-juniper and sagebrush. It is advertised as a hunting paradise.

The Smiths also would purchase Cow Creek Ranch, which has steep terrain with pines, oak brush, pinyon-juniper and sagebrush — and abundant wildlife for hunting.

This would be exchanged for the 2,158 acres coveted by the Smiths, land with excellent irrigation water rights, where the Consolidated Reservoir supplies many neighboring ranches in this area.

So basically, the Smiths will buy steep, brush country outside of Rifle and trade it for verdant, irrigated, natural wildlife habitat in the Roaring Fork Valley. This is not a fair trade.

This land swap will not benefit your constituents. I point out that you and Republicans are abandoning “We the People” for the extremely wealthy in our nation. BLM lands are supposed to be “Our Land” not land for the wealthy just because they can take what they want.