First They Gave Us Wolves, Now They Want Our Property.
When wolves were reintroduced to Colorado, it wasn’t ranchers, farmers, or rural communities who asked for it. It was voters along the Front Range — most of them hundreds of miles away from the places where wolves now roam. The measure barely passed statewide, but on the Western Slope, where the wolves were actually released, it was opposed by wide margins. That didn’t matter. The decision was made, and our communities were left to live with the consequences.
Now, just a few years later, the same pattern is repeating itself. A new push is underway to overturn more than 150 years of Colorado water and property law through what’s being called a “Right to Wade.” The proposal would give outsiders the legal right to walk and wade across private property, stripping away rights that have been bought, sold, taxed, and respected for generations. If passed, it would amount to one of the largest government takings of private property in U.S. history. And once again, it’s not the people who will bear the cost who are demanding this change — it’s groups based in Denver, Boulder, and out of state.
And in some ways, the consequences of this new fight are even more far-reaching than wolves. Wolf reintroduction brought loss and disruption to ranchers and wildlife managers, but the Right to Wade threatens the very tax base and legal framework that sustain entire communities. Property values could collapse, county revenues that fund schools and emergency services would shrink, and the stability of Colorado’s water law — the backbone of our state’s growth — would be thrown into chaos.
This is about more than wolves or water. It’s about the growing divide in our state between those who live close to the land and those who make decisions from far away. It’s about respect — or the lack of it — for neighbors whose lives, livelihoods, and property are directly affected by these choices.
People on the Western Slope are not against conservation. We’ve been stewards of the land and water long before there was a ballot initiative or a state agency to tell us how to do it. We’ve raised families, built businesses, and supported schools and local services through the property taxes we pay on lands now under threat of being taken. What we ask for is simple: fairness, honesty, and respect.
Colorado cannot thrive if rural communities are treated as testing grounds for ideas dreamed up in cities or pushed by out-of-state groups. If our state is to move forward, it must do so together — with a true respect for the people who live closest to the land and water that define Colorado.