The competition is high in Washington, D.C., to gain federal funds for land acquisition throughout the country. But thanks to Colorado’s Congressional delegation and the Trust for Public Land, some of those federal funds will be used close to home. Last week, the United States Forest Service allocated $850,000 from the Land and Water Conservation Fund in initial funding for the Ophir Valley Preservation Project.

For several years, the Trust for Public Land – a private, nonprofit organization that specializes in land acquisition for public use – has been working to acquire the mining claim near Ophir. The $850,000 is the first step in acquiring the 1,200-acre piece of land from the Pauls family.

“Our goal for several years now is to purchase these mining claims and then ultimately convey them to public ownership,” said Doug Robotham, the TPL’s state director. “In order to do that, we have been working with the Colorado Congressional delegation and we were able to secure this appropriation in a highly competitive situation in Washington. Only $27 million was made available by Congress to the Forest Service from the Land and Water Conservation Fund for land acquisition around the country [this year]. It’s great that the Ophir Valley is getting $850,000 of that money.”

According to Robotham, the $850,000 appropriation is just the first step in acquiring the land and there is still a lot of work ahead to get the land into the public’s hands.

“We are well short of the money we need to complete the project,” he said. “So we will have our work cut out for us in the years ahead. Right now we are in the process of appraising the property, which should be completed sometime this summer.”

The Ophir Valley Preservation project in the federal fiscal year 2006 was the top priority in Colorado for use of federal LWCF dollars. Appropriations under the Bush administration in 2006 were at historic lows and public land acquisition projects, like the Ophir Valley, received no allocation that year. Colorado Congressman John Salazar has been persistent in past years for land preservation in rural Colorado and the allocation towards the Ophir Valley, for him, is a long time coming.

“I am very pleased the Forest Service is able to provide these funds for the Ophir project this year,” said Representative John Salazar, who’s Third Congressional District includes the Ophir area. “I have requested these funds through the federal budget for several years and have called on the Forest Service to make the Ophir project a high priority.”

For Robotham, the allocation comes at a time where the competition to receive such money is at an all-time high.

“The difficult thing is, in my many years of working the land conservation arena, I have not seen a more competitive environment to secure federal land acquisition dollars,” Robotham said. “It is completely challenging and it is certainly worth doing thanks to the support of the community and Colorado’s Congressional delegation to pull it off.”

“These funds will go a long way to ensuring that valuable open space in the Ophir Valley is preserved for future generations,” Salazar said. “When I toured this land, it was clear to me that this spectacular alpine valley was very worthy of protection. This funding is a critical first step for this project.”

For more information on the work of TPL visit www.tpl.org.