How many tourists would Colorado’s proposed new national monument bring?

GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. — The debate continues over a proposed national monument in southwest Colorado.

The Dolores Canyons National Monument would be the largest in Colorado, and roughly the same size as all of Colorado’s nine current monuments combined.

The proposed monument sits in a sparsely populated area south of Grand Junction, where Colorado Department of Transportation traffic counters show only 580 cars pass through each day.

“It’s the part of Colorado most people haven’t found yet, and I hope they never find it, to be honest with you,” Matt Barnes said.

Barnes lives in Dolores and is in support of the proposal to make the area a national monument. He’s concerned increased visitation could destroy the landscape and has fears exploratory mining could have a negative impact as well.

“We can either let the change happen, a tidal wave that washes over us, or we can figure out how to lead the change,” Barnes said. “I come down on the side that it’s usually better to lead the change, if you can figure out how.”

It remains unclear how many visitors the monument would attract each year, but some who live in the area are concerned they wouldn’t be able to keep up with increased tourism.

“There’s no way we could keep up with thousands of people,” Jane Thompson said. “We’re not going to have big incomes with tourism, and we’re not going to be able to take care of them.”

Thompson runs the local historical society in Nucla, a community built upon the area’s rich mining history. She wants exploratory mining to remain in place, and has concerns over what the monument would do to her community.

“We’re not prepared for it, and there’s no extra money that comes along with a monument,” she said.

Records show nearly 500,000 people visited Colorado National Monument near Grand Junction last year. Other more remote monuments like Canyons of the Ancients see fewer than 100,000 visitors a year.

Both sides say that makes it hard to know just how many new visitors a monument designation would attract.

“It’s a fair question: ‘Will more people come here?’” Barnes said. “I don’t know the answer to that. People are coming here though, either way. That’s the part I think we already know. I would love it if this could be a secret monument, but I also know there’s no such thing, and in a lot of ways, the secret’s already out.”

President Joe Biden has not yet offered any insight into whether he’s considering the declaration or not.

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