Dolores River monument plan sparks sudden opposition in western Colorado
In the past 10 days, nearly 2,000 people have signed an online petition opposing a proposal that asks President Joe Biden to designate a national monument around western Colorado’s Dolores River. “I think it absolutely, positively could be a threat,” petition organizer Sean Pond told The Colorado Sun. … Pond once had a career in the nuclear industry in the West End of Montrose County, home of the Uravan Mineral Belt, which is one of the country’s richest caches of uranium and vanadium. Now he rents paddleboards and off-road vehicles to tourists. He says a monument designation would bring crowds that could lead to future bans on motorized travel, which would hinder grazing and hunting. He worries a monument would ban mining in an area where residents have spent almost half a century waiting for a nuclear revival that would resuscitate uranium mining and milling.
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