…Earlier this year an economic analysis was done by the non-profit group Headwaters Economics on the economic importance of National Monuments to local communities. The group’s associate director, Ben Alexander, offered his predictions for the socioeconomic effects a monument designation would have on Chafee County. “Over the last several decades, public lands have been correlated with growth of personal income. In rural areas, public lands are much more important economically.”
Alexander described Chaffee County as an aging population with smaller families, a county where people are not moving in and deaths have been outstripping births in the last decade. For Chaffee County to succeed, Alexander suggested capitalizing on the 80 percent of public lands that are available in the county. He also mentioned Salida and Buena Vista’s “natural positioning” as gateways on the north and south ends of the proposed approximately 20,000 acres of Browns Canyon National Monument.…