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  Home Page » News » Research Center To Shut

Research center to shut

Cuts in funding, questions about activities lead to CSU's decision

by Garrett Andrews
Herald Staff Writer Colorado State University is closing its San Juan Basin Research Center in Hesperus - the old Fort Lewis site - in response to a cut in state funding and ongoing questions surrounding its research agreement with the State Land Board, The Durango Herald learned Thursday.

"We're now in the process of phasing out operations at the Hesperus site," said Lee Sommers, director of the CSU Agricultural Experiment Station in Fort Collins.

The center will close for good June 30. The research center is the only one of the eight statewide CSU agricultural experiment stations closing in response to a 5 percent drop in higher-education funding.

Sommers was in Durango on Thursday to tell the center's three full-time employees their positions were being eliminated. He said the university planned to announce the closure later in the fall, but was prompted to act sooner because of an investigation into the status of the leases in Hesperus by The Durango Herald.

Lease problemsBecause of past practices that violate its lease with the State Land Board, CSU was told in February that the center had until Oct. 1 to get in compliance with its lease, sign a new lease and pay regular rent, or get off the land. The day before the notice, the research center had issued a notice of default to the Elk Research Institute, which subleases about 1,200 acres from CSU.

Explaining the CSU notice, Brownell Bailey, director of the State Land Board, cited instances of for-profit hunting, the presence of an interagency fire crew, regular 4-H gatherings, noxious weeds, lack of a grazing-management plan and comprehensive species list, inattention to historical buildings and failing to draft a valid research agenda.

According to the Colorado Department of Natural Resources, FLC received just $8 from operations on its Hesperus Trust lands last year. Before CSU announced it was closing the site, Bailey said that was unacceptable, especially when considering CSU pays no rent on the parcel.

A letter sent from the district office to the extension center even questioned the legitimacy of the research being conducted.

"Actually, CSU is the party in violation of their lease by not controlling weeds or maintaining improvements or conducting meaningful research," said Kit Page, southwest district director for the Land Board.

This month, Page called the situation in Hesperus "urgent," and Bailey said some facilities in Hesperus are in "disrepair."

"I don't have a problem with 4-H on the property or fire district occupancy or helicopter fire services, but it's not in CSU's research lease," said Bailey, who took over as director in May and said he has made accountability a priority at the Land Board.

In a letter to the southwest district office dated April 3, and uncovered by a records request from the Herald, CSU attorney Jason L. Johnson denied CSU was in default of its lease.

"The University disagrees with the State Land Board's assertion that the University has failed to maintain improvements on the leased premises. In fact, Fort Lewis College has recognized and appreciates the University's efforts to maintain those improvements."

For insurance purposes and because both CSU and the Elk Research Institute have not paid adequate rent to the beneficiary of the Hesperus Trust, FLC, Bailey told CSU it will have to sign a different lease that accounts for the other activities occurring at the site. For eight months, the recession evaporated funding for higher education in Colorado, and CSU deliberated what to do with the Hesperus research center.

HistoryThe Hesperus land is recognized in the area for its cultural and historical importance. The 6,500-acre parcel is the home of the original Fort Lewis, a frontier Army outpost that was converted into a Native American boarding school in 1910. The land and some of the buildings later served as the original home of Fort Lewis College, before the school relocated to Durango, 14 miles away, in 1956.

Since then, CSU has conducted herd-management, grazing and high-elevation crop research, held classes and retreats, and maintained the site. The 1982 lease signed by CSU and the Land Board includes a rental payment stipulation, but the 1991 and 2002 lease extensions do not require payment for the land.

The property is owned by the state. The State Land Board manages CSU's lease and the sublease CSU keeps with the Elk Research Institute. As the beneficiary, FLC receives money from the land to help pay for the college's Native American student tuition waiver fund.

FLC spokesman Mitch Davis said the news of the closure was a surprise, but a pleasant one.

"We see this as a great opportunity," he said. "We were planning to take over the property anyway. We'd suspected something like this would happen, but 2010 is quite a bit faster than anybody here expected."

The closure was news to the Land Board, as well.

"This comes as a surprise to me. They had a lease that was supposed to run until 2017," Bailey said.

'Quiet divorce'The lease disputes stem from 2002 and the "quiet divorce" of FLC and CSU. FLC previously had been under the authority of CSU as a member of its statewide system, but legislation established FLC as an independent institution with its own board of trustees. Murmurs that the university was inadequately funding the center followed the split and the subsequent land settlement.

Further problems arose from the relationship between both schools and the Elk Research Institute  which first signed a lease with CSU in 2005 and since has been accused of selling "hunting opportunities" (2-year-old bull hunts for a suggested donation of $2,900, according to a brochure) while posing as a research nonprofit and conducting no valid research about chronic wasting disease.

CSU gave Elk Research Institute Director Barry Dyar 30 days to cure several violations of the sublease, including fencing off more land than was specified in the agreement, constructing a well on the property and failing to work jointly on beneficial scientific research. No further legal action was taken.

In a letter dated Feb. 23, sent to then acting director of the State Land Board, John Brejcha, FLC President Brad Bartel accused the Elk Research Institute of "serious violations" of its lease with CSU.

"After four years of the institute operating on this property, it is apparent that while research on chronic wasting disease was the justification for the institute's free use of these Colorado trust lands, the institute's major activity is the operation of an elk hunting park."

Dyar said he operates the elk institute as a labor of love, losing about $1,000 of his own money monthly. On a tour of the facility, he was quick to point out the problems on the CSU-leased land adjoining the property, and to talk about the charitable aspects of his institute. Dyar said his opponents simply don't like his methods and are unwilling to examine his research or hear him out.

"I don't understand why they don't like us," he said.

A surprise to employeesBefore they leave, center director Doug Zalesky, a research scientist who lives at the site, and full-time research associates Clayton Shonk and Dan Selzer will oversee the transfer of equipment and cattle to CSU's Beef Cattle Improvement Center in Saratoga, Wyo., and the Eastern Colorado Research Center in Akron.

Zalesky gave a full site tour to three Herald journalists Wednesday. He said Thursday the news came as a shock.

"Well, this is obviously a surprise to us. We're just going to try to deal with this situation as best we can," he said. "We're still kind of in shock, to be honest."

Ken Francis, chairman of FLC's 15-member Old Fort Lewis Task Force, which has been drafting an action plan for the site, said the group has scheduled a meeting to address the development.

"We want and need a good working relationship with the State Land Board, because they are the trustee of the property," he said. "But nobody cares about that property more than Fort Lewis College. It's our heritage. It's our future."

gandrews@durangoherald.com