KevinInColorado
Gold Member
- Jan 9, 2012
- 7,044
- 11,395
- Detector(s) used
- Minelab Gold Monster 1000, Grizzly Goldtrap Explorer & Motherlode, Gold Cube with trommel or Banker on top, Dream Mat combo sluice, Angus Mackirk Expedition, Gold-n-Sand Xtream Hand pump
- Primary Interest:
- Prospecting
Fullpan suggested a thread on working with local authorities to improve access for gold prospectors so I'm starting it with a story about the creation of the Arapahoe Prospecting Park on the west edge of metro Denver.
It was my best friend Don who first had the idea. The place had been the site of one of the very first towns in Colorado, established by miners at the very beginning of the CO gold rush and had been mined by locals ever since. The history of this place would make a whole post on its own but let's skip past that to the process of creating the park. When Don started talking about preservation of access and even of the history, there was a lot of confusion about ownership and local govt jurisdictional authorities. The key area turned out to be owned by the county but not by the parks and open space authority which is a separate legal entity. It was in the boundaries of Whaetridge which had banned prospecting in their parks but generally didn't care about this area since it wasn't a developed park.
Don started conversations with the local state representative, a state wildlife biologist, a lawyer (to understand ownership and neighboring real estate rights), and other experts. I reached out to the state office of tourism where I had an acquaintance. All those we contacted were vaguely supportive but said we needed to align the county and the city. With supportive quotes in hand from state experts Don went to the county with his pitch about preservation, tradition of small scale mining and tourism. He pointed out how few places had been designated for open, small scale mining on unclaimable land and the tourist appeal (do come visit!!). Between us prospectors, there's actually quite a bit of diggable land in the area but not labeled as such. The county expressed interest but also concern about neighboring landowners potential issues with it and the desire to respect the cities resistance to this activity. But complexity and extra hoops just don't stop us! We met with various parties at the creek in. March of 2012 and did some demos, helping state, federal and local administrators how to sluice...and we got snowed on! Still a good day, you could feel people relax as they saw the real activity and how easy it was to clean up after ourselves. The state riparian specialist talked to the group about water quality and high water affects on our holes, etc.
But then things slowed down. Turned out the property next to our targeted land was up for sale. To avoid negatively impacting the sale, the govt officials decided to hold back so a new owner could be included in the discussion. Well with undeveloped land a sale could happen quickly or after many years. Our strategy? Don tracked down the property mgmt staff at Cabela's...they bought the land and then decided to build on another site so they wanted to sell. After many months of back and forth at a snails pace, Cabela's said they were fine with the park moving forward! Coors, just up stream said the same. So after more public meetings, the county leased the land to the city for $1/year with a lease stipulation that it had to be managed as a prospecting park!! At this point, the lease gets signed...spring 2013. It takes until fall for the city to go thru it's public process but the park became official in October.
The irony of all this is even as our rights were formalized as small scale miners and citizens doing a traditional activity, Don was hit with a downside. Like Terry Solomon, here on tnet, Don leads prospecting adventure outings. When the land was just ill governed county land, he was allowed to do this commercial activity there but once it was a park, no more of that :-( He took it all in stride, he's a great and generous man who did 95% of the work because it was the right thing to do. His upside is that he made great contacts at Cabela's and is parlaying the connections into a commercial relationship, good for him!
The whole thing took almost two years and a lot of creativity (Don and I spent a lot of time on the phone talking our way through the issues and players) but hey we did it...well mostly he did
It was my best friend Don who first had the idea. The place had been the site of one of the very first towns in Colorado, established by miners at the very beginning of the CO gold rush and had been mined by locals ever since. The history of this place would make a whole post on its own but let's skip past that to the process of creating the park. When Don started talking about preservation of access and even of the history, there was a lot of confusion about ownership and local govt jurisdictional authorities. The key area turned out to be owned by the county but not by the parks and open space authority which is a separate legal entity. It was in the boundaries of Whaetridge which had banned prospecting in their parks but generally didn't care about this area since it wasn't a developed park.
Don started conversations with the local state representative, a state wildlife biologist, a lawyer (to understand ownership and neighboring real estate rights), and other experts. I reached out to the state office of tourism where I had an acquaintance. All those we contacted were vaguely supportive but said we needed to align the county and the city. With supportive quotes in hand from state experts Don went to the county with his pitch about preservation, tradition of small scale mining and tourism. He pointed out how few places had been designated for open, small scale mining on unclaimable land and the tourist appeal (do come visit!!). Between us prospectors, there's actually quite a bit of diggable land in the area but not labeled as such. The county expressed interest but also concern about neighboring landowners potential issues with it and the desire to respect the cities resistance to this activity. But complexity and extra hoops just don't stop us! We met with various parties at the creek in. March of 2012 and did some demos, helping state, federal and local administrators how to sluice...and we got snowed on! Still a good day, you could feel people relax as they saw the real activity and how easy it was to clean up after ourselves. The state riparian specialist talked to the group about water quality and high water affects on our holes, etc.
But then things slowed down. Turned out the property next to our targeted land was up for sale. To avoid negatively impacting the sale, the govt officials decided to hold back so a new owner could be included in the discussion. Well with undeveloped land a sale could happen quickly or after many years. Our strategy? Don tracked down the property mgmt staff at Cabela's...they bought the land and then decided to build on another site so they wanted to sell. After many months of back and forth at a snails pace, Cabela's said they were fine with the park moving forward! Coors, just up stream said the same. So after more public meetings, the county leased the land to the city for $1/year with a lease stipulation that it had to be managed as a prospecting park!! At this point, the lease gets signed...spring 2013. It takes until fall for the city to go thru it's public process but the park became official in October.
The irony of all this is even as our rights were formalized as small scale miners and citizens doing a traditional activity, Don was hit with a downside. Like Terry Solomon, here on tnet, Don leads prospecting adventure outings. When the land was just ill governed county land, he was allowed to do this commercial activity there but once it was a park, no more of that :-( He took it all in stride, he's a great and generous man who did 95% of the work because it was the right thing to do. His upside is that he made great contacts at Cabela's and is parlaying the connections into a commercial relationship, good for him!
The whole thing took almost two years and a lot of creativity (Don and I spent a lot of time on the phone talking our way through the issues and players) but hey we did it...well mostly he did
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