Jared Polis appoints Ken Salazar to resolve San Luis Valley battle over billionaire’s ranch
Ken Salazar has been a U.S. senator, secretary of the interior, Colorado attorney general and ambassador to Mexico.
The native of the San Luis Valley was just appointed to a much more local role in politics. Gov. Jared Polis, by executive order, put Salazar in charge of resolving the fight between the billionaire owner of the Cielo Vista Ranch and the heirs of a land grant whose rights go back to 1844, before Colorado was a state.
Salazar, 70, was appointed “special envoy” by Polis this week and directed to “facilitate conversations and form a recommendation related to long-term disagreements” over the land, which has been fought about in court for decades.
Salazar was at the state Capitol last year to encourage lawmakers to pass a bill that helped stop construction of a fence around the Cielo Vista Ranch. “I love this state from one corner to another, from the south to the north, from the east to the west, and my place in my home in the San Luis Valley is something which is near and dear to my heart,” he said then.
That 8-foot tall fence, a wire grid with barbs at the top and bottom, has since been officially found to have a negative effect on wildlife. An 83-page report released this summer said the fence is potentially detrimental not only to the federally listed Canada lynx and silverspot butterfly, but could harm everything from the northern leopard frog, to eagles and hawks, to cutthroat trout, to deer and elk.
The ranch is about 83,000 acres in Costilla County, and its history dates back to the Sangre de Cristo Land Grant, a result of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo between the United States and Mexico. Settlers in the area, and their heirs, were given access to hunt, graze livestock and gather timber on the land, even as it has been owned by private landowners over the decades.
“We can and must do better than eternal litigation and conflict in our Colorado for all,” Polis said in a news release announcing his executive order. “Coloradans in the San Luis Valley deserve a real seat at the table when it comes to decisions that shape our communities.”
Polis called Salazar a “trusted voice in the valley and the right person for the job.”
Salazar said he planned to listen closely and ask the right questions.
“I’ve spent my life in the San Luis Valley, and that’s why I know how much this land means to the people who have called it home for generations,” he said.
The battle over the fence has dragged on for several years. Construction, including a bulldozed path through piñon trees and sagebrush, began in 2020. It was halted in 2023, after about 20 miles of fence line was erected, when Costilla County commissioners won a temporary injunction against ranch owner William Harrison, who purchased the ranch in 2017.
In a different court battle, heirs of the land grant won the right to keep grazing sheep and cattle on the land, which they call La Sierra. But the ruling in May ended their right to collect firewood in a 233-acre buffer zone around Harrison’s new 7,000-square-foot house on the ranch.
This week’s executive order says Salazar will produce a report on his findings and recommendations for “paths toward resolution” by Oct. 7.
The process will include “structured engagement sessions” in the San Luis Valley.