The Worst Water Year, the Forest Service & Who Commands the Revised Management Plan Process?
- Anne Boswell Taylor
- 3 days ago
- 6 min read
by Norman L. Kincaide, Ph.D.
Colorado is experiencing the worst Water Year ever recorded. A well below normal snowpack was exacerbated by warm temperatures in December, January and February, followed by the hottest March on record. The remaining snow months of April and May proved very disappointing. This year’s mountain snowpack has been the lowest on record. Statewide, median snow water equivalent (SWE) as of April 13, was 19%. The peak snowpack was very low, 51% of average statewide and a month early, followed by rapid melting in the unprecedented March heat wave. The worst of these circumstances fell upon the Arkansas River Basin, where the SWE on April 13, 2026 was 10%. In the Arkansas River Basin peak snowpack was 38% of median on March 10th, which melted off early because of record March temperatures. This resulted in the worst stream flow ever recorded on the Arkansas River at Salida.
At sixty out of sixty-four measuring locations across Colorado with fifty years of data, 2026 had the lowest SWE on April 1. The worst years for snowpack in recent times were 1977, 1981, 2002, and 2012. As of April 1, 2026, this year is well below all of those. Consequently, this situation has implications, not only in the Arkansas River Basin, but all those states relying upon Colorado’s snowpack for agricultural, municipal, recreational and storage use.
For the Purgatoire River at the Ninemile Dam gauge this resulted in zero cubic feet per second (cfs) flow from July 1 to August 15, 2026. Along with this data there was a period of six days from August 7 through 12 where temperatures were above 100 degrees with two days with highs of 106 (Rocky Ford temperatures). This left the Purgatoire River at Ninemile Dam with shrinking pools of stagnant water. Fish cannot survive under such intermittent stream flows accompanied by horrendous heat. Field trips to the Ninemile Dam never disclosed any dead fish in these stagnant pools, nor was there any odor of such. This indicated no presence of fish species at all. Turtles, toads and frogs can survive in those pools, but fish will die after a few days.
Yet the Forest Service clings to the notion of Wild & Scenic River Eligibility for the Purgatoire River and Picket Wire Canyon as free flowing in its August 2026 Revised Management Plan Newsletter. Establishing a Wild & Scenic River in the Comanche National Grasslands only provides incentive for wider exploitation and introduction of Incrementalism to expand the Wild & Scenic River corridor beyond its established boundaries. Is this Forest Service Wild & Scenic River Eligibility for the Picket Wire Canyon an administrative and bureaucratic hill to die on or is it expendable? Without the bureaucratic drag of the Wild & Scenic River issue, the Forest Service could devote its entire time, energy, and expertise to the Comanche National Grasslands revised management plan.
Which raises the question of who commands the Cimarron and Comanche National Grassland revised management plan process? The Forest Service or the nonprofits? Forest Service management plan team bi-weekly meeting agendas from November 2023 to September 2025 never reference allotment owners or grazing associations. Tribes are referenced twenty times and were to be notified nationally of the revised plan process. The Nature Conservancy (TNC) was hired as a contractor and is referenced thirty times.
The Nature Conservancy elevated the Picket Wire Canyonlands as one of its biggest conservation priorities with over 600,000 acres that TNC and its partners have conserved. The plan revision also coincides with the Colorado Parks & Wildlife’s focus on habitat conservation and restoration efforts in the Purgatoire River Watershed, with species connectivity, which means landscape corridor connectivity resulting in more control through perpetual conservation easements or outright land purchases. Forest Service staff, the Tribes, TNC, CPW and other contractors were notified of the plan revision long before the allotment owners and grazing associations. The Defenders of Wildlife sent a 33-page comment on the Comanche Grasslands Draft Assessment in favor of Wild & Scenic River designation to the Forest Service on December 11, 2025, long after the comment deadline in September.
The Forest Service floated the Wild & Scenic River eligibility for the Purgatoire River during the worst water year ever recorded in Colorado. Wild fires have raged across the state, the worst being the Aspen Acres fire in the San Isabel National Forest. The Forest Service cancelled office hours in La Junta for August 18, 2026 and will resume office hours in September or October. The virtual public meeting scheduled for Tuesday, August 25, 2026, was also canceled. The target for releasing the draft management plan was October 2026. How has the reality of the worst water year on record and an extremely volatile wildfire season affected the Forest Service ability to deliver a revised management plan?
The issue is not just the cumbersome 2012 Planning Rule, it’s how it is used to skew the process in favor of those who do not live in, work on, maintain, improve and nurture the grasslands. The Forest Service and their contractors know the revised management plan process. Whereas allotment owners and grazing associations deal with this process once or twice in a lifetime and were the last to be notified. How much does the TNC and other nonprofits influence the revised management plan?
Ranchers and farmers are faced with a once in a lifetime opportunity to comment or add to the administrative record for a revised land management plan. Whereas, TNC, Defenders of Wildlife, The Sierra Club and other nonprofits spend all of their time, energy and resources commenting on and adding to the administrative record of revised management plans or other federal government projects. Nonprofits are given special treatment, tours, liberal access and inside connections to the Forest Service, Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, and other government bureaus. All of these entities, government or nongovernment, covet a slice of the grassland’s management pie chart. All the while putting pressure on and diminishing the importance of the allotment owners and grazing associations.
The Stewards of Liberty addressed the influence of nonprofits on the National Park Service in: “The NGOs Behind the National Parks.” The premise is “NGOs are participating from within a formally constructed partnership system, and that translates into the private lobbying of a public entity from a seat at the decision table.” This applies to the Forest Service as well. How much influence does TNC alone have on the policy making apparatus of federal land management?
The Association of National Grasslands held a meeting at Little America in Cheyenne, Wyoming, August 17, 2026, attended by Chief of the Forest Service, Tom Schultz and Representative Harriet Hageman of Wyoming. Barb and Zane Leininger of La Junta, attended, they were able to speak with Rep. Hageman concerning the troubling issues with the Cimarron and Comanche revised management plan process and the potential influence of TNC and NGOs on the process. The Association passed a resolution opposing the establishment of Wild & Scenic Rivers on National Grasslands to accompany an existing resolution against Wilderness Areas.
Allotment owners and grazing associations are being pressured from several avenues of influence and power: Forest Service, CPW, TNC, 2012 Planning Rule, and Wild & Scenic River eligibility issue. The main question is: Will their official comments and engagement in the process have any impact on the revised management plan as opposed to the array of government and nongovernment entities with direct inside connections to the Forest Service and the plan process?
Sources:
Russ Schumacher, Colorado State Climatologist: Status and outlook for the ongoing drought, Lower Arkansas Water Conservancy District Board Meeting, April 15, 2026.
Peter Goble, Assistant State Climatologist: Lower Ark Drought Conditions Update and Seasonal Outlook, Lower Arkansas Water Conservancy District Board Meeting, August 19, 2026.
Purgatoire River at Ninemile Dam gauge near Higbee (PURNINCO):
FOIA Request, Filed September 2, 2025, Second Document Drop, June 12, 2026, Kincaide 2, Internal Communications, Internal Meetings, Bi-Weekly Meeting Agendas. Tribes referenced: 11/15/2023; 10/24/2024; 3/5/2025; 4/2/2025; 4/16/2025; 4/30/2025; 5/14/2025; 5/28/2025; 6/11/2025; 6/25/2025; 8/5/2025.
TNC referenced: 3/6/2024; 3/20/2024; 5/15/2024; 5/29/2024; 10/2/2024; 11/13/2024; 12/11/2024; 1/8/2025; 2/5/2025; 2/19/2025: field trip to La Junta, March 4-5, 2025; 3/5/2025; 4/2/2025; 4/16/2025; 4/30/2025; 5/14/2025; 5/28/2025; 6/11/2025; 6/25/2025: https://FOIA Kincaide 2, Internal Communications, Internal Meetings, Bi-Weekly Meeting Agendas.
The Nature Conservancy, Stories in Colorado, 15 Must-Visit Road Trip Destinations Across Colorado, 13. Picket Wire Canyonlands. https://www.nature.org/en-us/about-us/where-we-work/united-states/colorado/stories-in-colorado/recreation-road-trip/
CPW Habitat Conservation and Connectivity Plan, December 2024
FOIA Request, Filed September 2, 2025, First Document Drop, March 25, 2026, 2025-FS-R2-09429-F-Kincaide 1, 07 References, Conley References, 20251211-DOW comments on CCNG Draft Assessment PDF. Defenders of Wildlife, Conley to Davis, December 11, 2025, pp. 1, 32. 2025-FS-R2-09429-F-Kincaide 1, 07 References, Conley References
Email: August 17, 2026, Pike & San Isabel National Forest Monthly Newsletter, August 18, 2026.
Email: Pike & San Isabel National Forest to Norman Kincaide, August 19, 2026.
American Stewards of Liberty, “The NGOs Behind the National Parks,”
August 12,2026: https://americanstewards.us/the-ngos-behind-the-national-parks
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