Land acquisition or 'land grab'?
Dick Foster, Rocky Mountain News
Published May 18, 2007 at midnight
Virtually all land between Trinidad and La Junta is considered subject to the Army's plan to expand its Piñon Canyon maneuvers site. Hundreds of landowners are worried that theirs will be taken.
An even darker vision grips them. They circulate maps purportedly from the Army that suggest the new expansion is only the first in an 18-year plan to take 2.5 million acres, stretching east and south toward the Oklahoma and Kansas state lines.
Fort Carson officials have denied any plans to expand beyond the 418,000-acre proposal, saying the map may have been part of planning in the past but it does not represent the Army's desires now.
Whether 418,000 acres or 2.5 million, the landowners didn't want the first Piñon Canyon Maneuver Site in the 1980s, and they don't want this one either. It will evict them from the land.
The Army had to invoke eminent domain on more than 100,000 acres to acquire its first maneuver site. The landowners here still remember it. What the Army calls land acquisition, they call a "land grab."
Featured
-
DNC in Denver
Complete coverage of the 2008 Democratic National Convention.
-
The Crevasse
A five-part series that examines one tragic day on Mount Rainier.
-
Deadly denial
Sick nuclear workers applied for government compensation but most haven't seen a dime.
-
Final Salute
The Rocky followed Maj. Steve Beck as he took on the most difficult duty of his career.
-
'Colorado's burning'
Coverage of the state's worst wildfires.
-
Columbine shootings
Coverage of the April 20, 1999, shootings at Littleton's Columbine High School.
-
The Crossing
Colorado's deadliest traffic accident killed 20 children on Dec. 14, 1961.
-
Osveli's journey
Osveli Sales left Guatemala for a better life. Two months later, he came home in a box.
-
Wake for an Indian warrior
Oglala Sioux bestow a tribute to the first tribal fatality in Iraq.
