In a popular Substack publication called Asterisk Magazine, a California physicist named Casey Handmer wrote a great piece titled “It’s 2024 and Drought is Optional,” about desalination technology. But he also touched on an even more fundamental point about how people don’t want to think about the importance of infrastructure. “The past century of prosperity has produced a culture happily ignorant of this weight-bearing infrastructure — a culture foreign to, if not hostile toward, the idea that humans can positively improve the natural environment.”

Indeed, mankind is the only species that not only can improve the environment, but regularly does so, on purpose. That’s because people believe nature has its own intrinsic value, completely apart from their need for food and shelter. Nor has any nation ever done more to improve the environment than ours.

I was reminded of how much one state has done to recover various species, for example, when Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) transplanted 26 Columbian sharp-tail grouse into Grand County. Officials highlighted 25 years of work in restoring the once-threatened species, work with which I was proud to be associated at the time. During the administration of Governor Bill Owens, the state worked to recover and restore many endangered species, including Canada lynx, desert bighorn sheep, moose, river otters, black-footed ferrets, boreal toads, greater prairie chickens, and a dozen species of fish. The Columbian sharp-tail grouse was one of the nation’s top conservation success stories, growing from near eradication to an estimated population of 10,000 on the Western Slope today, no longer listed as threatened and easily sustaining a regular hunting season. CPW has continued for years to relocate and establish new populations, such as in Middle Park, Eagle County, and Dolores, with impressive success. The Grand County population appears to be adapting well and within a few years will be thriving.

Columbian sharp-tail grouse are Galliformes, the order of ground-feeding birds that includes quails, partridges, pheasants, turkeys, chickens, ptarmigans, and grouse. The sharp-tails have a black V on their breast, orange eye combs, and males have a spot of purple on their necks. They once occupied 22 western Colorado counties but were nearly hunted to extinction.

Reports about the Grand County relocation said the species have “maintained a stronghold in Moffat, Rio Blanco and Routt counties that is now the foundation for new populations.” But that is only part of the story. The other part is not often mentioned – how did they establish such a stronghold in northwest Colorado?

It is a fascinating tale that started quite by accident, because of the requirement for reclaiming abandoned coal mine land in Moffat County. As the ColoWyo open-pit mine finished one section and moved on to the next, its owners had to restore the previous location, and they did so by working with the real unsung heroes of this story. Because they sought to restore the land with native plants, they worked with a new facility called the Upper Colorado Environmental Plant Center (UCEPC), established in Meeker in 1975 to supply native plants for reclaiming mines and oil shale sites. It was the only source for plants native to the western high deserts, and could produce them in large enough quantities for landscape-scale restoration. UCEPC is a non-profit 270-acre facility owned and operated by the Douglas Creek and White River Conservation Districts, and for 50 years has served landowners and agencies in Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming.

The recovery of Columbian sharp-tail grouse was a tremendous success because of the restoration of large swaths of native plant habitat on reclaimed coal mines in Moffat County. That happened because of the work of Colowyo Coal and the UCEPC, not because of anything the federal or state governments did. The Center doesn’t toot its own horn much, just quietly does its vitally important work, but it is nationally known and has helped spawn similar facilities in numerous states. In fact, it has helped the U.S. Department of Agriculture restore plant species through the West, and its work has benefitted a dozen national parks from Yosemite to Grand Teton. UCEPC is unique in its work on revegetation of high-altitude sites, increasing productivity of cold desert grazing lands, restoring riparian zones, improving water quality, and especially enhancing habitat for wildlife like deer, elk, antelope – and sharp-tail grouse.

We don’t normally think of old coal mines as contributing to environmental improvement, but every good story has multiple sub-plots. This one is a classic case of people working together to improve the environment.

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