Episode 5: What Is a Conservation Easement, and Why Does It Matter?

One thing that really strikes me about driving from Denver into Boulder County is that you don't really feel like you're leaving one place until you reach the Boulder County line. And this route takes you through several cities, but apart from the signs letting you know that it's switched, you can't really tell that you've left one. But once you reach the county line, there's this noticeable shift away from development and into agricultural fields. And this continues throughout the county.

For my commute to the parks and open space building in Longmont, I come from the south along 287. You really get the sense that you're leaving Lafayette and passing through several miles of agricultural fields before you reach Longmont. At first glance, you may think this is happenstance and that it's inevitable that those fields will also eventually be developed. However, for the majority of those fields that I pass, that's not their fate due to a very conscious decision to protect those agricultural lands, either by purchasing them outright or by using a tool that many people may not know that much about called a conservation easement.

And conservation easements are not just located in this part of the county, right Liz?

That's right, Tim. But you began describing your approach into Boulder County from the south and my daily commute takes me into Boulder County from the north. I spend about four miles on Highway 287, which is a highway that runs north-south through Boulder County. And during those four miles, I pass three and a half miles of lands that are protected by conservation easements on either side of Highway 287. It's pretty incredible. Along that corridor, there's only that half a mile stretch that I don't drive by a conservation easement property. And they're located all throughout the county, not just along our commutes.

The conservation easement properties, they actually comprise about 40% of Boulder County's open space. While most local listeners and Colorado visitors may be familiar with parks and open space from the incredible recreation opportunities on our county parks, over 40,000 acres are protected by conservation easements that remain in private land ownership.

So today, we're here to talk all things conservation easements. I'm Liz Northrup, the conservation easement program supervisor. And I'm Tim Carden, the conservation easement stewardship specialist. And together, along with two seasonal employees, we are the Boulder County Parks and Open Space Department's conservation easement program. Thanks, everyone, for joining us on today's episode of Voices of Open Space. Tim and I are really excited to talk about conservation easement properties and how the county's partnership with private property owners has led to the preservation of over 40,000 acres of land.

So Tim, why don't you start us off with the basics for those listeners that might not know. What exactly is a conservation easement?

In really simple terms, a conservation easement is a voluntary agreement between landowners and Boulder County to protect certain conservation values on a property. And those conservation values can be:

The wildlife habitat that's present there,
Wetlands or riparian habitat,
The agricultural production of the land,
Any historical structures that are there,
Or just general open space preservation.

Each conservation easement is unique to that property, and the specifics are worked out between the original landowner and the county based on the conservation values that are there. In general, they protect the conservation values by limiting the uses on the property and limiting the amount and location of structures that can be built on the property. Conservation easements are only put on properties voluntarily by willing landowners, and they remain attached to that property even after it sells to another landowner.

One thing I think that's also important to note is that conservation easements are not unique to Boulder County. They're actually present throughout Colorado and throughout the nation more generally. Boulder County is such a unique place, and we have such unique communities and ecosystems. So to be able to preserve more land with private landowners is an incredible opportunity that Boulder County has taken advantage of. So it's great to be a part of that.

Definitely. And it sounds like what you're describing are property restrictions, so restrictions on property rights. I'm sure some listeners are going to be wondering what are the benefits for a landowner who might be agreeing to restrict their property to protect the conservation values. So I'm wondering if maybe you can talk a little bit more about that and what might motivate someone to preserve their land.

There's quite a few different types of benefits that a landowner can get from a conservation easement. One example is they can effectively donate the value of that property. Some of those restrictions have a value associated with them, so that land is effectively losing that value. And once that is donated to the county, there are various tax credit programs where they can be awarded these tax credits both through the state of Colorado and at the federal level. The landowner can receive a tax credit based on that value of those property restrictions. Boulder County also will occasionally pay you for the property restrictions on a conservation easement. So we'll occasionally pay you for the property restrictions on a conservation easement. And so that's essentially a direct payment to a landowner, kind of similar to a sale. But again, it remains in private ownership.

Some landowners also just, you know, they have multi-generations on a piece of land. They have these deep connections to it and they want it to remain in agriculture. They kind of willingly do this knowing that if their family can't continue with the farming operation, they at least know that that property will remain in agriculture and not get developed further.

And then something that's a little bit more unique for Boulder County is as a county government, some of our original conservation easements were formed through the planning process. A very frequent one is a rural subdivision in which a landowner may have been granted a few extra development rights in a very clustered portion of a property in exchange for putting a conservation easement over a much larger portion of that property and to protect the conservation values that are there. So that's a little more unique that we have here in the county. We do have quite a few conservation easements that have come about from that land use planning process.

And I think it's important to note that Boulder County has a really strong support from our residents who time and again continue to tax themselves to support open space. And it's those open space sales tax dollars that our colleagues use to compensate those landowners who are agreeing to those property restrictions.

And that deliberate planning effort that you've been talking about where we are choosing to preserve open space, that's a good lead in to why do we do this? People might be wondering why is a local government using this tool for private land conservation? And the answer to that question is really rooted in the Boulder County Comprehensive Plan, which is the guiding document used to define goals, policies and priorities for the county.

The Comprehensive Plan contemplates several methods for preserving open space and channeling development into the incorporated cities and towns throughout Boulder County. One of those methods that's contemplated in the Comprehensive Plan are using conservation easements to preserve open space.

So I think it's important for listeners and for residents to remember that open space preservation is not just about public access and trails and parks, but also includes things like preserving agricultural lands and working farms, preserving wildlife corridors and protecting sensitive ecosystems.

So again, here I am, I'm coming back to these things that you talked about earlier with those conservation values and what the conservation easements are written to protect. Boulder County has such a rich diversity of landscapes and communities, and many of those are worth preserving. So it's exciting to get to take part in that work.

Definitely. Yeah, it's great to be a part of protecting those extra conservation values that the public may not think about on a kind of day to day basis.

And another exciting aspect here for us is that the first conservation easement that was signed in Boulder County was in 1975, which is very exciting because our department is celebrating their 50th anniversary and our department was founded in 1975. So it's a nice coincidence that we get to celebrate not only our department, but the conservation easement program and the county's efforts to preserve open spaces and conservation easements.

Yeah, and it's really great to know that the county has been protecting these extra private lands for 50 years, essentially now with that first one being recorded in 1975.

I think sometimes it's helpful, too, for the listeners to really understand, like, well, if I haven't really heard of a conservation easement and you've been doing this for 50 years, is that because we were kind of one of the original ones or do a lot of other organizations that hold conservation easements, have they also been doing this for 50 plus years?

I think that's a great point. I have a cool story that kind of illustrates how innovative Boulder County has been using conservation easements as a tool for open space. I, in the past, attended a national land conservation conference to learn about this work and develop professionally, and I attended a session that was based on managing older conservation easements.

And the room was full of over 100 people listening to the presenter. And the way the presenter started the session was to ask everyone to stand up. So here I am in a room full of over 100 people standing. That person asked people to sit down based on how old their oldest conservation easement was. So they started in the 2010s and people started sitting down, then the 2000s, then into the 1990s. And I started looking around the room realizing the amount of people standing up was dwindling very quickly. And then into the 80s, so many people sat down. And by the time he got to the 70s, I looked around and I was still standing because our first conservation easement was in 1975. I was one of maybe five people still standing up in the room at this national land conservation conference.

And it just really struck me that I was able to work for an organization that's been using this amazing tool for decades to preserve open space. So I think that just goes to show how innovative Boulder County has been and how forward-thinking they were even in the 70s to begin preserving open space using this unique tool, a conservation easement. It's really exciting kind of hearing that story and hearing how we really were kind of one of the first ones, particularly in Colorado, to kind of widely adopt the use of conservation easements. To kind of see how the program has grown since those initial ones were originally signed into the program that it is today.

And I know you're going to talk a little bit more about that now. Boulder County Parks and Open Space has about 40,000 acres of open space. It comprises 40% of Boulder County's portfolio of open space alongside the properties that Boulder County owns and manages. And that's 40,000 acres of conservation easements. Conservation easements specifically, privately owned conservation easements. If you do the math with how many acres there are in Boulder County and how many acres are preserved, it's about 8.5% of Boulder County's land is preserved under conservation easements, which I think is just very cool.

Yeah, it's incredible. And people might be wondering, well, 40,000 acres, that's a lot. How many conservation easements are there and how many do Liz and Tim have to manage? We have to manage over 850 conservation easements, which kind of leads into our bread and butter, which is conservation easement stewardship. So when we talk about needing to manage these restrictions and check up on them, we refer to that as conservation easement stewardship. So we go out to these properties. When Boulder County agrees to be the steward of a conservation easement over a private property, we're taking the perpetual responsibility to ensure that the terms of this agreement are upheld forever. And we hold those terms in trust for the public. We manage those.

So like you mentioned earlier, these restrictions remain attached to the land even when it sells to a new owner. So let's talk about stewardship. Conservation easement stewardship, it's our everyday job. And Tim, your title is conservation easement stewardship specialist. So why don't you take the lead on telling everyone what that looks like? What is conservation easement stewardship?

I think one way to sort of also put in perspective for the conservation easement stewardship aspect is that, number, the 40,000 acres split between 850 properties. I've heard of other conservation easement holders in Colorado more generally that also hold 40,000 acres, but that's split between about 50 different properties. So one extra kind of challenge that we have is that that acreage is split between a lot more landowners. So our season, it always gets going with trying to coordinate a monitoring visit with each individual landowner. And that obviously presents a couple of logistical difficulties. And so we're really happy that we have the two seasonal staff to kind of help divide up that workload between us as well. So I had to throw in a good mention of both of our seasonal employees too.

Yeah, it's a lot of outreach that we have to do during a monitoring season. Definitely. We first notify the landowners. We do like to meet with them if it's possible. It's always better to hear from them directly whilst we're out on the land, get the story about what's happening and ask them a few questions about the property too. But landowners don't always have to be there if they can't quite make it. Again, trying to fit in the 850 properties, it gets a little complicated logistically.

Once we kind of schedule a time with the landowner and we're out on the property, primarily we're taking a look at what the current condition is of the property and if there's anything that really jumps out that has changed. So let's say there's been a new structure. We will also look out for more land management kind of questions. So one aspect we look out for quite frequently are noxious weeds. These are non-native vegetation species that were brought into the US for a variety of different reasons, but they've essentially escaped what they were originally brought in for and they cause various environmental and economical harms. They can be damaging both to the native landscape and also to agricultural crops. And so the state of Colorado has designated certain invasive species as noxious weeds. So those are things we'll look out for whilst we're on the property because again, they can detract from those conservation values and it could be an area that the landowner isn't as experienced in.

And so we like to be a helpful resource rather than solely going out there for just checking out on the restrictions on the property. We do like to be a helpful resource or we can help kind of guide them on noxious weed identification and a few other land management questions that they may have such as wildfire mitigation. That's a pretty big one right now. It's also great that we're part of the wider parks and open space department because it means that we have access to a lot of natural resource experts and we can share a lot of that information with our landowners.

If there's a particular land management problem, having on their property don't necessarily have the knowledge or tools equipped to deal with that. For example, if it's a property that's really interested in wildlife habitat, they may not know as much about forestry and we have some foresters on staff that can kind of help provide some extra guidance there. So we like to be this helpful resource as well.

And so we're visiting with the landowners. We're hearing from them if they have any future plans. These stewardship visits are a really good chance to connect with the landowners in case they do have plans to change anything on the property coming up. And this way we can kind of help guide them through what they're trying to do and ensure that that's staying consistent with the conservation easement. And if something needs to be changed ever so slightly, it's certainly easier to do that early in a planning process rather than wait till something's being built in the wrong location. Exactly. So these regular contacts with landowners, it's a really helpful way to kind of ensure that that doesn't happen.

We also take a lot of photographs when we're out there. We do have various kind of camera devices with us and we'll document the conditions on the property. It's just a way to kind of continue through time, checking on how those conservation values are doing and if there are any kind of extra resources that we can help the landowner with, like those noxious weeds. That tends to be a pretty big one that we encounter.

Yeah, it's really exciting to be able to see how these properties evolve over time. And as we're preparing to go out on these site visits to see who saw what last time they were out there and where should we go this time. And it's really fun to explore all the nooks and the crannies of these properties and collaborate with our amazing colleagues who have this depth of knowledge that we might not have as stewards of these conservation easements, but the knowledge they can share with us and then that we can share with the landowner is incredible.

I have a really kind of rewarding story from working with one landowner. I was out on a monitoring visit and got into this like nook and cranny of their 1500 acre ranch and found myself staring at a patch of noxious weeds like you had mentioned before. They were just kind of hiding out, but the plants were huge and I could tell they'd been there for a while and just no one had seen them. So I brought the information back and talked with the landowner who wasn't aware that they were there and had the best intentions to control the population, but it was a big population. So I approached our invasive plants team to see if there was anything they could do to help or any advice they could provide us. And it turned into this beautiful partnership where our invasive plants team was able to help organize a volunteer event where volunteers actually went out to the conservation easement property with the landowner's permission and pulled a whole bunch of these weeds. Just seeing how many they pulled and their progress, it was incredible. The next year we were able to go back to that location to check on the population and it was almost gone. So we together with the landowner had gotten this population to a point where they could control it and they intend to moving forward. And I just think that's one of the most rewarding aspects of our job is finding these hidden gems, these hidden populations of noxious weeds and working with the landowner to correct that. By doing so, we saved some populations from moving into an adjacent county owned open space property. So really caring for these lands, it's rewarding and it's fun to see our monitoring work lead to a cool project like that.

Definitely, yeah. That's one of the joyful aspects about getting to visit these properties kind of year after year is noticing maybe there is this problem like this noxious weed patch and then being able to help them provide those resources so that it's not just, here's a problem, you deal with it. We're here to help kind of figure that out as well.

Sometimes we also learn from the landowners. They have a wealth of knowledge about various topics that they're doing on their land specifically. Some fun examples I have is there are quite a few agricultural conservation easements, particularly in the sort of plains portions of the county, so the non-mountainous areas. It's a very agriculturally productive land and we have a whole variety of agricultural producers here in Boulder County, some more kind of conventional farmers and then we also do have some trialing more sort of organic and regenerative methods.

And I actually had a really interesting visit with a regenerative farmer. They were explaining their whole process to me in which they were trying to increase their soil productivity. They had a bit of a kind of degraded soil quality and they just weren't able to get the kind of crop types that they were hoping to. They're really trying to increase more on food production rather than a hay production. And so they brought in some pigs to help kind of tear up the land a little bit and start aerating it and providing some extra nutrients into that soil. And that's something, you know, that's usually done with tractors and big equipment and things. And they were using these livestock to be able to do that. And then they would come in and plant a cover crop, which again, they would help kind of fix extra nutrients into the soil. And then they also provided an extra nutritional source for those pigs to come back through. And after a few years of doing that, they found that they really increased those soil nutrient levels to the point they're able to put in kind of more standard vegetable crops again.

The fun thing is, you know, getting to go back year after year is kind of you can see the area that they first showed me on is just where the pigs have come through and we planted a cover crop. And then here's one that's a few years older that it now has that successful vegetation, vegetable production happening on it. It's really fun aspect to kind of see that. And again, that's us learning from the landowners too. It's so fun to learn from landowners and it's nice. You know, we've been talking about some properties that are closer to town in the plains as opposed to in the foothills and mountains. We also have a lot of fun hiking around and monitoring our mountainous properties. Definitely. We get to go to some unique areas of the county. And we get to see a lot of wildlife and just really enjoy what these conservation easements are preserving. I remember hiking to meet a landowner west of Eldora. It was pretty far out there. And Eldora, for anyone listening that's not familiar, is a town that's west of Boulder. And it's very far west up into the mountains. I was walking with another colleague and we were just, you know, hiking down the trail and there was a creek nearby. And we turned the corner and all of a sudden we were face to face with a moose. We sure took a step back and made sure that moose had enough space to proceed on its way without us bothering it. But when we got to talk with the landowner, he said there's moose there all the time. And it's one of his favorite animals to watch walk through the creek. So just seeing what we're preserving and bumping into it on the trail is just so fun. And I love seeing it.

And how about you? Do you have any fun wildlife stories? Yeah, well, I think sometimes too it's the wildlife that sees us that we don't necessarily see. So I was on a conservation easement in Left Hand Canyon. I was walking around on the monitoring visit. I did notice this landowner put up several trail cameras. I saw a couple of the trail cameras that I walked straight past. So I was probably going to be on those. And I knew the landowner would share that. But they were fortunate enough to share other sightings that they have seen from those trail cameras. On that visit, two hours earlier, the camera had picked up a mountain lion. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, we knew we were in mountain lion habitat and we saw various signs of them. But we did not see a mountain lion with our own eyes by any chance. But it was definitely there and they were definitely probably seeing us. And obviously we take various precautions when we're in the mountain properties to be careful about any kind of wildlife situation. It does kind of help show, you know, that was just two hours of a difference. And I completely did not see this mountain lion. But knowing that they're there and that knowing that this is a property that's kind of contributing to the habitat. It's another kind of rewarding aspect that we enjoy seeing.

It's not all fun and games. We do have various reporting activities that we have to do. And sometimes, unfortunately, you know, there could be a violation of the conservation easement. And we do have to deal with those. And so I think we'll take a little bit to talk about both the reporting aspect and what we do if we find a conservation easement violation happening on the property.

Yeah, I think that's a great segue into talking about, you know, how we have a lot of fun on our site visits. We enjoy meeting with people. We enjoy seeing wildlife. But you're right. People might be wondering, what do we do if we see a violation and what are some of those common things that we find? When we do find something, we always approach the conversation with curiosity. We want to understand why they happened and how can we work with the landowners to rectify them. You and I both have found great success in having open dialogues, open conversations with people. And we can often work together to find out a solution that both protects the conservation values of the property and allows that owner to use the land as they were hoping to and to be able to do some of the things that they want to do. It's a delicate conversation when we do find something, but we've had success in talking with people and working with people to correct those. And definitely taking a sort of educational approach is when we do encounter violations, it's not necessarily that a landowner was fully aware that this would definitely be against it and they're going to go ahead and do this.

Exactly. Often most of the time is they didn't realize that that was necessarily a component of the conservation easement. And so, for example, we often have building envelopes to find where they can build certain structures and the landowner may not know exactly the boundary of that building envelope and start planning hopefully before the building is constructed. But maybe there's a sign of some foundation work or something where it's going to be a little outside of that building envelope. And that's a conversation with a landowner to kind of help remind them about that building envelope requirement. It's a structure they could still have on the property, but we just have to move it further into that building envelope so that it stays in a place that's designated for it and has least impact on the other conservation values on that property. And so talking with them about why something could be a violation of the conservation easement, understanding what they're doing, we can really help try and switch that back into something that is compliant with the conservation easement. By having this approach, I found that landowners are much more willing to talk with us in the future when they have additional plans, knowing that will help steer them in the right direction rather than immediately be there just to say no outright. That definitely incentivizes them to talk to us a lot more and kind of keep that communication going.

Well, one of my favorite things about this job is talking with people and helping them to understand what the terms are of the conservation easement and what they were intended to protect and how we can work together to continue to protect those conservation values. You know, my background is in natural resources, and I've always been passionate about protecting our lands. So this has really been a dream job for me. I continue to be inspired by people who choose to own and manage conserved land. It's really a joy to work with people who are passionate about preserving their private land in partnership with the county. And I think both you and I work really hard to build the trust of our landowners and to work with them. And we also try really hard to build the trust of the public as stewards of these conservation easements. We just really take the responsibility seriously and we're excited to provide this service for the residents of Boulder County. Meeting with landowners and talking with them and hearing their stories, I've always felt that that's the best and the most inspiring part of this work.

In that light, it feels like a great time to introduce a guest that we have here with us today. Keith Owen, who is a conservation easement landowner, is here today to talk with us about his experience owning and managing and conserving his land.

All right. Well, welcome, Keith. Thank you so much for joining us today on our podcast journey. You and your late wife, Jan, you entered into a conservation easement with Boulder County in the year 2000, which is 25 years ago now. You've got 78 acres near the city of Longmont, which is in the northeastern portion of Boulder County. Can you tell us and the listeners what inspired you and Jan to place your land under a conservation easement?

Probably inspired by Mel Stonebreaker. Out of the blue, we had already owned the land for 22 years at that time, and I had a nursery on the property. It was a second career for me. And I never thought about the easement program. But Mel called out of the blue one day. Apparently, Ron Stewart, who was a county commissioner, had approached him about our land from the standpoint of preserving the corridor of Left Hand Creek, the riparian corridor and the movement of wildlife.

I remember telling Mel we had 78 acres. We could have sold 38 to anybody, and they could have built a house. We had no intention of selling that ground. So I told him they didn't have to put us in the easement program. They didn't have to give us money. They didn't have to do anything. And he said, "We're not going to live forever," which was a shocker at the time. And so he was the inspiration.

And it was really easy because the county's values and our values were in perfect harmony. We wanted to keep the land open. We wanted to make it beautiful. We wanted to improve it, if you will. With the nursery, it was important to provide windbreak, which windbreak can also be wildlife cover. And so we put lots of windbreak in, thousands of trees. And in so doing, we brought in an awful lot of wildlife. All they ask is a place to loaf once in a while. They're not bothered, and it's quiet. And so the nursery was a magnet for lots of animals.

So Jan and I talked about the program. And because we were in perfect harmony, and we knew that perpetuity was really important. I'm not naive enough to think that the land is going to be as it is today, 500 years from now. Zoning can only do so much. Zoning changes with political parties and political will. But the conservation easement really locks it in much stronger than the agricultural zoning would do.

So he was the inspiration, and it took about two or three evenings that Jan and I discussed it, and we decided to do it. Because every conservation easement, my understanding, is different. We had an attorney that worked with the county to protect our interests, and the county was protecting its interests. It was a marriage made in heaven. We were very happy to do it. We received some financial compensation at the front end, which helped. It's been a win-win for 20, 25 years now.

Yeah, Mel Stonebreaker was a former land officer with Boulder County Parks and Open Space, and he worked with many, many landowners throughout the county to preserve not only open space, but conservation easement properties as well. And I think he's touched a lot of people, so it's very cool to hear he's part of your story.

I met him socially one evening and spent quite a bit of time at a party talking to him. He had been in Shanghai, I believe, for some period of time, and a very, very interesting person. Very, very fair.

Yes. The whole easement program from our standpoint, the trust is perfect.

Yeah, that's amazing. I mean, it's been wonderful.

Yeah, I worked with Ariel, I worked with Melissa, you a little bit, Tim in the future, probably. Yeah, I sing your praises that way.

That's great to hear.

Yeah, it's very true. And we enjoy working with you, too.

Yeah, so why don't you tell us about your experience stewarding your conserved land? What's the most rewarding aspects of owning and managing conserved land? The perpetuity angle, the fact that we know it's going to be the way it is now for a long period of time. I don't have children, and I'm getting up there in age, so the land will probably change ownership here in the near future. And I hope the county does a good job of keeping the future landowner in line. Tim and I will do our best, that's for sure. Well, that is important to me. It's important that I have the knowledge that you're there to do that.

Sometimes I envision some really wealthy guy out of Boulders going to buy it and put a couple of horses on the property and not care about it quite the same. The nursery was the second career for me, and I really get excited about it. It was the greatest thing I ever did. I planted the first tree on my 39th birthday, and I did that for 25 more years, being outside, walking on the ground every day, not wearing a coat and tie. It was just wonderful. But also walking on the ground, you develop a love for the ground. You really do. Land grows on you.

Omel came out. We'd already been there 22 years. So I already felt an awful lot of affection for the land. The nursery business was hard on the land. I used to cringe. I didn't know that was a new career for me. When the time came, I really wanted to pay the land back. That's really true. It provided quite a bit of revenue, a wonderful lifestyle, and now it was time to preserve it or conserve it. And I like to think that the insect life and the wildlife and little things you can't see that other people know about on the soil are doing very well, thank you. If it hasn't been disturbed now for 13 years, it was the last time that land saw a plow. And plows are really difficult on land. Never again will that land be plowed.

Well, we can sing your praises too. So in 2023, you even won a conservation award in environmental stewardship from Boulder County. And for those listeners, Boulder County issues conservation awards annually to honor individuals or groups of outstanding individuals and their contributions that they've made to Boulder County. And you were awarded one of those in 2023 because of the work that you did recovering the land from the tree nursery. You transitioned it into more of a natural native grasslands and you incorporated the grazing of cattle and really wanted to, like you said, heal the land from the more intense use of the nursery business. So can you tell us a little bit about your journey doing that restoration and all that work?

Yeah, it was really a pretty easy decision to make. The 78 acres that I own has never been leveled. Much of the land in Boulder County has been leveled for irrigation purposes by big machinery. I'm very happy that my land, our land, was never leveled. But that makes it virtually impossible to irrigate. The only way to do it would be a sprinkler like Nebraska, these big circular sprinklers. But we have huge Cardenwoods on the property and I'm not about to take the Cardenwoods down. And I planted thousands of trees that would have to come down, wildlife cover. So it was easy to say let's put the land back to native grass. It took four years. I was pretty, I wasn't young at the time, but I was in pretty good shape. And I worked really hard for four years establishing native grasses, dry land with no irrigation. Because irrigation would be a full-time job and very expensive. I think this is the best use for that land. I might have to convince the Boulder County Treasury Department sometime that this is the best use. But I think I can. Because if you're looking at about $200,000 to irrigate the property, recovering that money on 78 acres of alfalfa would be impossible. So the grass is doing very, very well.

I found out from Boulder County experts. That's another thing the easement did for me. It gave me access to experts that I didn't know that I could. But after I went into the easement, I did use Rob Alexander and Steve Sauer and other people for their expertise and they helped me a lot. I found out from them after a period of time that I needed either buffalo or cattle on the property. The grasses won't do well if you don't graze them. So the county helped me find a fellow named Andy Breiter. He uses my old office building on the property. But he grazes very scientifically to improve the grass. He's a marvelous individual who wants to bring agriculture back full force into Boulder County, and he has a dream to do that. It's fun to be around him and hear his dream. He knows everybody in the county associated with agriculture, and he's done a wonderful job on my ground of grazing it properly so that the land is, the grasses are responding to that grazing. It's a beautiful stand of native grass. No maintenance at all. And I'm too old to farm and I don't want to farm anymore. I am too old to farm. I would encourage landowners to consider native grasses and it's certainly good for wildlife.

So how has your experience, no pressure, I know this is me asking you, but how has your stewardship experience been with the county over the years, having people come out and monitor your property? It's been very, very good. I think partly because the harmony, I think the county knows that if I'm doing something wrong, they can correct me and I will apologize for having done it wrong. It isn't a case of trying to get away with something. And so it's been very, very easy. There's been two or three suggestions and they were right. In one case, I was dumping water into an irrigation pond we have, and I was creating some erosion in so doing, and I should have seen that. It was Ariel at that time that said, you can stop that erosion very easily. And I did.

I guess my last question for you is, do you have any advice for others who might be considering conserving their land with a conservation easement? I think the advice would be to recognize that every easement is different. I would suggest they get a lawyer who maybe has worked with the county before would be good. And the county will work with them on this very nicely, I'm sure. They should spell out exactly what they're doing now and how they can continue to do that in the future. So there's no misunderstanding, which is the only thing it would be. And if they think in terms of forever or in perpetuity, I think they too will realize how important it is that some things remain the same for a long period of time. Yeah, it's really special when you can feel like that'll be forever. It is. It's very special. Yep. Very important.

I truly can't thank you enough for being here today and sharing your story. It really is such a privilege to have worked with you over the years, and we really, really appreciate the kindness and the welcoming spirit that you always show to me, both me and my staff, former staff, I'm sure future staff. So it's really appreciated more than you know, and I just want to thank you so much for being here. Thank you for that.

Well, that was really great hearing from Keith all the story about why he protected his land with a conservation easement. It really kind of drives home to me, you know, these are the stories that we get to hear from landowners on a sort of day-to-day basis when we do our stewardship visits, and it's fun to be able to share that with the audience just now. And you can really get a sense of how passionate Keith was about protecting his land and wanting to ensure that it's going to remain as a sort of open space use going forward into the future.

He has such a great story from that conversion from that tree nursery into more native grassland habitat, being able to do that within the confines of the conservation easement, but also relying on some of those parks and open space experts we were talking about earlier and how he was able to utilize some of their knowledge to make sure that happens, as well as, you know, working with his ranch manager, Andy there. He was a huge part in helping to convert that property into that grassland.

You know, hearing Keith's story, and we hear it each time that we go out and visit his property. I remember just last year when you and I and another staff member went out for the monitoring visit and all three of us just got to hear and see Keith's passion on his property as he was showing us around. And, you know, you hopped in his UTV with him and he was driving you along and me and the other staff member were kind of jogging behind you and we came up and we crested this hill not too far from his house, but it pokes through the trees and there's this opening and you can look and see into these grasslands that are recovering and there's cattle grazing and further to the south is the creek and it just really puts into perspective how much Keith cares for his property.

These relationships we get to build and these stories we get to hear, it's just, there's nothing more rewarding. It's so fun. Yeah, it definitely is a nice rewarding aspect and being able to share that today was a really great thing for Keith to do too. Yeah, it was great for him to join us. And I wonder, you know, if people want to learn more, where can they learn more about conservation easements? You know, as Keith mentioned, all conservation easements are unique and it's quite a big topic so there's only a certain amount we could cover here today. Mentioned, all conservation easements are unique and it's quite a big topic, so there's only a certain amount we could cover here today. But the show notes that are attached to this episode, they have some extra resources that people can look into.

So the conservation easement program's website's on there, as well as a few extra documents about conservation easements in Boulder County. And then there's a few links to some external organizations as well. There's plenty of goodies in the show notes for people to dive into more detail.

Thanks Tim and thanks for joining me on the podcast today. This was great. You bet. Thanks to everyone who took the time to listen to this episode today. Tim and I love this work and it's an honor to protect open space in Boulder County.

We'd also like to thank Longmont Public Media for the recording space today and invite you to follow us on social media, including Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube. Please continue to listen to this podcast series on your favorite listening platform.