FILE – In this March 11, 2005, file photo, cattle graze in the lower Imnaha Canyon in northeastern Oregon, several miles from the Idaho border. Western Watersheds Project, an environmental group, says the U.S. government is running a secret cattle grazing program in six western states and won’t release details, according to a lawsuit filed Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2019. in U.S. District Court. The group says the program puts private ranchers in charge of grazing on public lands without regard for wildlife such as sage grouse and endangered salmon. (AP Photo/Jeff Barnard, File)
Jeff Barnard
Colorado counties received a collective $14.4 million in federal land payments from October 2018 through September 2019, the state auditor reports.
The transfers are primarily royalties from mineral leasing through the Office of Natural Resources Revenue, at more than $7 million. But the payments are also from timber, power generation and other sources.
Weld County received the largest payment, at nearly $5 million, through the Bankhead-Jones Farm Tenant Act, which allows the federal government to acquire “submarginal” land for conservation. In return, the U.S. Forest Service pays 25% to counties of all receipts from grazing, forestry, mining, and energy production on federal land. The previous year, Weld County received $5.3 million for nearly 200,000 acres of land.
Timber payments statewide amounted to more than $2 million, while power sales only totaled $15,047.
Among Colorado’s 64 counties, only Crowley and Pitkin counties did not receive any direct federal payments through the reported programs. Denver received $186,000, all through mineral leases. Adams and Arapahoe counties received over $200,000 combined from mineral leases, while Jefferson County’s $134,000 came from both timber and mineral sources.
The auditor’s office noted that not all federal payments to localities were reported. Because “there is no state law specifying how FS Bankhead-Jones, BLM Bankhead-Jones, and Fish and Wildlife Refuge Revenue Sharing payments are to be spent by the counties,” they are considered payments to the counties themselves. However, Colorado law directs that timber receipts go partially to public schools, and as such they were not included.
