Colorado lawmakers have reintroduced a bill that would form a national conservation area over highly contended land in southwest Colorado.

U.S. Sens. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper recently announced legislation closely resembling a proposal from 2022 to add protections around public land along the Dolores River. The Dolores River National Conservation Area and Special Management Area Act would cover about 68,000 acres of red rock canyonlands.

The scope is much smaller than a national monument designation floated in recent years, spanning nearly 400,000 acres. But the proposed conservation area is larger than one Mesa and Montrose recommended last year: 29,806 acres that environmentalists called “inadequate.”

Bennet touted the bill as “a balanced, sensible way forward to resolve many long-standing disagreements, protect the river for all parties and provide long-term certainty for generations.”

A statement from Montezuma County commissioners called the proposed national conservation area “an acceptable compromise between the various stakeholders interested in utilizing water and land resources in and along the Dolores River.” Dolores and San Miguel counties also expressed support, along with the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe.

Local governments have long rejected another designation that’s been eyed over the years: a Wild and Scenic designation, the nation’s highest form of protection for free-flowing rivers. Some have seen that as too restrictive, while others have seen necessary benefits for the Dolores.

In more recent years, the larger national monument idea similarly reignited debate spanning the better part of two decades — that of conservation and federal overreach.

Some see the land, water, fish habitat and cultural sites as worthy of higher guards in the face of a changing climate and development possibilities. Others see those possibilities needing to be preserved, for economic and national security reasons. The Dolores River landscape encompasses the Uravan Mineral Belt, storing minerals seen as key to nuclear development and clean energy.

The national conservation area proposal has underscored fundamental differences felt across the region — underscored also by the Gunnison Outdoor Resources Protection Act (GORP). Bennet and Hickenlooper have also reintroduced that bill focused on 700,000-plus acres in the Gunnison River Basin.

Wrote Montrose County Commissioner Sean Pond: “What’s happening in Dolores, Montezuma and San Miguel Counties with the Dolores National Conservation Area, and now in Gunnison County with the so-called GORP Act, isn’t about protection, it’s about control.”

Pond’s social media post continued: “We can’t stop these federal land grabs one county at a time. It takes all of us standing together with Western Colorado grit and saying no.”

Al Heaton, a rancher with operations in all three counties within the proposed national conservation area, in a statement cited “benefits for the native fish, scenic area, recreation, permitted federal land uses, private land values and water rights.”

Heaton added: “I hope this bill can go forward in the bipartisan way we have shown is possible with the diverse local groups that put this proposal together.”