Poverty, Community and Conservation in Colorado: An Analysis of the Adaptive Challenges that Face Rural Colorado as it Makes its Way into a New Century Filled with Challenging Social and Environmental Issues

Policy Questions:

How can the residents of Nucla, Naturita, and Telluride utilize the uranium conflict as a basis for a broader solution? How can they proactively establish a long standing intercommunal partnership to increase the economic capacity of the region while still addressing the legitimate concerns surrounding the practice of job creation at the expense of human and environmental health?

Problem Statement:

The social problem that confronts these three communities includes both rural poverty concerns about environmental contamination. The systemic conflict between conservation and economic development is further exasperated, though, by the tendency of stakeholders to look to federal regulators to affirm or deny a single viewpoint. This method often results in a resolution that is heavy-handed, divisive, and poorly contextualized. The potential benefits of a community-based solution rooted in shared environmental interdependence has largely been ignored.

Background Context:

This conflict pits the wealthy vs the poor, the educated vs the uneducated, and the environmentalist vs the laborer in an unnecessary example of intercommunal environmental-classism. It reaffirmed the idea that caring about the environment, or even the environments effect on one’s own long term health, is a luxury only afforded to the wealthy. Yet, sources as diverse as the Conservation Fund to global academic literature on community-based-conservation argue against this preconception. Communities like Nucla and Naturita, who have a strong communal identity and cohesive social relationships among residents, could be the strongest defenders of regional environmental health if shown viable alternatives. Effective community-based conservation is a conservation strategy that seeks to protect larger tracts of land by encouraging local stewardship and integrating social and environmental priorities. Given this dynamic, it is essential that Sheep Mountain Alliance acknowledge the socio-environmental dimensions of the dispute and consider investing resources into conservation strategies that increase the prosperity rather than its hardship of local residents.

This conflict is really something of an enigma. On one side, this uranium mill represents a single lifeline amidst the bleak landscape of rural poverty. Yet, simultaneously Nucla and Naturita are welcoming back an industry that had caused many of residents’ family and friends to die of cancer. Indeed, Uravan, the uranium mill town where many of them had previously worked, was deemed so radioactive that it had been fenced off, shredded and buried under the ground, buildings, streets, trees all together. Still even miners who suffered the worst like Larry Cooper don’t have the opinion one might expect. When asked about the uranium mill in Uravan, Larry acknowledged that he got cancer from the mill, and yet in the same breath expressed that he thought life in Uravan hadn’t been quite so bad. The cultural traditions Nucla and Naturita had developed for their communities stood fast even in the face of the most fearful consequence imaginable, death. Within this context, one would be hard pressed to find a more effective conservation strategy than redirecting this communal strength encouraging Nucla and Naturita to preserve their culture, health, and environment together.

During the film Uranium Drive In, during one of the public hearings, Ayngel passionately points out that the town of Naturita has been struggling for some time and that any one of the protesters could have brought in jobs instead of Energy Fuels, but they didn’t and that they should remember that as they stand in opposition. They could have reached out in collaboration to develop economic alternatives instead of relying on litigation. The development of a more vigorous tourism base, the development of an economy based on uranium sites restoration, or even the development of a strong forest product business would have gone further in providing a long term solution than litigation. With favorable options, these two small towns could diversify their economy and bring more stable long term economic conditions and an improved long term socio-ecological relationship to the region. The real intractable problem here is the creation of those intercommunal bonds that will strengthen Naturita against the threat of environmental degradation in the future. The socio-ecological relationship is a two way street, and because of that there is no better early warning sign for impending environmental degradation than an area rife with human desperation.