A personal face is emerging from what many consider to be a disaster in the Colorado Conservation Easement program. At the second meeting of its kind in southeastern Colorado, approximately 40 landowners gathered in Rocky Ford Monday evening where some shared accounts of well-intentioned conservation efforts gone horribly wrong.

A conservation easement is an attempt to preserve open space in Colorado by limiting development on a specific piece of land. In exchange for placing an easement on their property, landowners are given a federal tax benefit and a state tax credit to use or sell.  At this time problems stem from either not being able to sell their credits due to controversy surrounding appraisals or being aggressively audited by the Internal Revenue Service over credits sold.

One of the purposes of these initial meetings is to obtain a firm idea of how many farmers and ranchers are affected, what part of the process fell apart for them and to what degree. The other goal is for landowners to begin brainstorming ideas for solutions.

J.D. Wright of Olney Springs, vice-president with the Colorado Association of Conservation Districts and holder of a conservation easement is one of the group’s organizers and has tirelessly fought to shed light on what is happening. “Folks, we have to get together on this and hold together,” he told the crowd. Wright encouraged those in attendance to share the stories of what they’ve been through, and to write to their senators and representatives. “Those people in office need to know how you’ve been affected,” he said.

As some of those stories were shared what emerged were unbelievable accounts of battles with the IRS that have stretched on for years and financially and emotionally exhausted landowners.

The process of placing a conservation easement is somewhat complicated and costly. The donation of the development rights on property (the easement) must be handled by a land trust. These trusts have guidelines and directives the landowner must follow as well as lists of suggested professionals that may be used to carry out these directives. Each and every landowner present Monday evening claimed to have carefully followed those guidelines, yet they now find themselves on the brink of bankruptcy, quite possibly losing the very land they were trying to protect.

In turn, the land trusts claim to have followed guidelines set forth by the state of Colorado upon the establishment of the conservation easement program. Many questions surround the situation but what is becoming clear is a loosely constructed program with too little foresight has resulted in heartache for farmers and ranchers not only in southeastern Colorado, but the entire state.

July 28th in Rocky Ford has been tentatively set aside for the next meeting. Lawyers will be on hand to answer questions and further plans to meet with legislators will be discussed at that time. More details will be announced at a later date.