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July 22, 2016 <br /> Pueblo Board of County Commissioners <br /> Pueblo Planning and Zoning Commission <br /> 215 W 10th St. <br /> Pueblo, CO 81003 <br /> Dear Commissioners, <br /> We are a group of independent and family farmers located in eastern Pueblo County in the <br /> communities of Vineland,Avondale,and Boone. Many of us are multi-generational and <br /> centennial farms and members of the Pueblo Chile Growers Association and the Arkansas <br /> Valley Organic Growers. <br /> We are writing to request a cessation of new industrial commercial activities on or close to <br /> prime agricultural lands, immediately adjacent rangeland, and the Bessemer Ditch until a <br /> thorough agricultural assessment can be conducted, an updated Pueblo Comprehensive <br /> Plan is in place, and rural zoning regulations are reviewed for appropriate protections and <br /> preservation of local agriculture. <br /> Dr. Michael Bartolo of Colorado State University has often stated that Pueblo County <br /> contains some of the best agricultural land in the western United States. Our agricultural <br /> resources of clean water,good soils, hot days and cool nights are the reasons our Pueblo <br /> Chile, produce, and livestock products taste as good as they do. Much of our farmland is <br /> classified as "prime irrigated soils of national importance". The economic impact of <br /> agriculture in Pueblo County is significant: crop and livestock sales in 2012,were <br /> $51,091,000 (U.S. Census of Agriculture, 2012). Hundreds of long-term, sustainable jobs <br /> and family incomes are tied to our farming activities. <br /> But our communities are changing fast and premium food production land is increasingly <br /> vulnerable to water sales, development,heavy rainfall/flooding events, and impacts from <br /> commercial industrial activities. In the last fifteen years,for example,there have been three <br /> permit applications for large gravel mining operations, a nuclear power plant,and <br /> contamination of wells from the Pueblo Chemical Depot. These types of land uses <br /> represent significant threats to food production and our agricultural resources of soil and <br /> water. <br /> We are concerned about spending our time and resources fighting off corporations and <br /> industrial interests year-in and year-out to secure our on-going farming activities.We need <br /> new solutions and leadership to address this situation. The last Pueblo Comprehensive plan <br /> was published fourteen years ago and contains limited treatment of production agriculture. <br /> In December of 2015 a 25-member working group of farmers, community leaders, <br /> government and non-profit agencies was formed to address the future of the Bessemer <br /> Ditch and the farmland it irrigates. Numerous strategies and plans have been set in motion <br /> by this group,prominently including an agricultural landscape analysis for the County.This <br /> analysis has been fully funded and will be initiated later this summer by the Rocky <br />