Marty Durlin

Online Editor

When the U.S. Army established the 235,000-acre Pinon Canyon Maneuver site in the 1980s, it used eminent domain to take property. Now the Army wants 400,000 acres more, and a group called Not 1 More Acre — made up of ranchers in southeastern Colorado –  is afraid they’ll use eminent domain to take it.

The group has filed an open records claim to get an accounting of plans for the site, which the Army wants to expand in order to “accurately simulate anticipated, actual, combat conditions” in the Middle East.

A 2008 federal budget law signed by President Bush in January contains a one-year moratorium on the Army spending any money on the Pinon Canyon expansion. The amendment was sponsored by Colorado Representatives Marilyn Musgrave (R) and John Salazar (D).

But another law passed by Congress, the 2008 Defense Authorization Act, contains an amendment which requires Army officials to deliver a report on why it wants a larger Pinon Canyon, the effects of an expansion on the community and other training options. That clause was proposed by Colorado Senators Wayne Allard (R) and Ken Salazar (D).

Rancher Mack Louden said the Army should observe the one-year moratorium. “They are ignoring all the voices of democracy opposed to the Pentagon’s plan, from the community and county level, through the state Legislature and right up to the U.S. Congress,” he said, according to a report in the Pueblo Chieftain.

See High Country News’ October 2007 story, Eminent domain’s poster children, for more.