Lamborn: Make peak a monument
U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn says a mountain as famous as Pikes Peak deserves to be a national monument, a federal designation bestowed on some other natural landmarks, including Devils Tower and Mount St. Helens.
But when he announced Friday he has formed a committee to explore the possibility, the news came as a surprise to the various agencies who manage the mountain, including the U.S. Forest Service, Colorado Springs Utilities and the city-run Pikes Peak Highway, none of whom were consulted. And some aren’t sure a national monument designation is needed.
Officials said that, aside from possibly boosting tourism, the designation could have little impact on the mountain or protection of the land.
“It would promote tourism,” Lamborn said Tuesday. “There are people who love to go around and visit the national monuments around the country and the national parks.”
Brent Botts, district ranger of the Pike National Forest, which owns the land on the mountain, said the 5 acres on the top of the peak are a national historic landmark, so designated in 1975.
The rest of the mountain — besides the Pikes Peak Cog Railway line — is federal land not threatened by development, he said.
“I think it’s already been protected, that the landmark status does that,” Botts said. “I don’t know what more the monument status would provide, at this point.”
Lamborn said he was approached with the idea by Terry Sullivan, president and CEO of Experience Colorado Springs at Pikes Peak, the visitors bureau, who will chair the exploratory committee.
Sullivan was not available for comment Tuesday, but Amy Long, director of marketing and membership, said it has long been a goal of Sullivan’s.
“It’s just one more thing we can use to market the region and one more avenue of exposure,” Long said.
No details have been worked out, and it is unclear how being a national monument would affect the 500,000 people who drive, ride or hike up the mountain each year.
“I really don’t have any idea at this point,” said Jo Behrens, a senior analyst at the Pikes Peak Highway.
Officials at Colorado Springs Utilities, which gets about 20 percent of its water from Pikes Peak and the surrounding slopes, were taken aback by the announcement.
“We just found out about it recently,” said Utilities spokesman Steve Berry. He did not know how national monument status could affect water projects.
Lamborn said the committee will probably take two or three years to study the possibility.
Proponents said national monument status could increase funding opportunities, especially for a new Summit House, which is sinking into the mountain tundra. But Botts said that isn’t the case.
Even as a national monument, Pikes Peak would continue to be administered by the Forest Service and subject to the same funding process it is now, Botts said.
Plus, under a court order, officials must use money collected from tolls on the Pikes Peak Highway for paving of the road, which is expected to be completed by 2012, Botts said.
The city of Colorado Springs runs the highway and Summit House, under a permit in effect through 2020.
The law that governs national monuments, the 1906 Antiquities Act, was designed to give the president quick authority to protect “historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest.”
The law’s authors intended it to protect small prehistoric Native American ruins from trophy hunters.
There are 70 national monuments, and some U.S. presidents have used wide interpretations in creating them. President Bill Clinton created 16 in his two terms, while President Bush has created two, an African burial ground in New York and a northwestern Hawaiian islands marine reserve.
CONTACT THE WRITER: 476-1605 or scott.rappold@gazette.com
