Quick Take
Nearly a decade after its designation, Cotoni-Coast Dairies National Monument is set to open next month — protected by deed restrictions even as threats to public lands loom in D.C.
Santa Cruz County’s own national monument is poised to open to the public next month, nearly a decade after President Barack Obama formally added it to the country’s roster.
Yet, in recent months, the sense of anticipation surrounding the 5,800-acre Cotoni-Coast Dairies, near Davenport, has had to compete with rumblings in Washington, D.C., about rolling back some of the United States’ national monument protections and selling off public lands for development and resource extraction trades.
Sara Barth, executive director of Sempervirens Fund, the eco-nonprofit that led the push for Cotoni-Coast Dairies’ inclusion as a national monument, called the issue, broadly, “alarming and disturbing,” but offered hope that the sprawling property would be spared.
“That conversation is something I think everyone who loves our natural lands should be worried about, and I am worried about it,” Barth said last week. “But this particular monument, I think, is uniquely situated to be insulated from that discussion.”
That’s because when the Trust for Public Land donated the property to the Bureau of Land Management in 2014, the federal agency explicitly agreed to a series of tight deed restrictions that not only govern BLM’s use of the land, but all future owners as well.
The deed, which works like a contract, mandates that the property shall be used and managed for open space and public recreation, and prohibits commercial timber harvesting and the use of motorized off-road vehicles.
However, the real foresight came in what the Trust for Public Land held onto when it gifted the property to BLM. According to the deed, the Trust for Public Land still maintains mineral and water rights. By contract, regardless of who owns the property — whether the federal government or a future private buyer — the Trust for Public Land will still own “all minerals, oil, gas, petroleum, and other hydrocarbon substances” as well as the property’s geothermal steam and water. That means no mining, no drilling, and no selling any of property’s natural resources without consent from the nonprofit.
Andy Schiffrin, a longtime county legislative analyst who helped establish the protections, said local residents feared the sale of the property to BLM because of the possibility that the federal government would eventually commercialize it into a mining or timber operation.
“It’s not surprising people are nervous about what the Trump administration might do, but I don’t think this is an area we need to be very worried about,” Schiffrin said.
Although she feels sure that the property’s deed will protect it from any commercialization, Barth said nothing in the deed prevents it from losing its national monument status, or being sold to a private buyer.
Last month, Utah Sen. Mike Lee, perhaps the most hawkish legislator when it comes to capitalizing public land, retracted a proposal that could have accelerated de-designations and sell-offs of national parks, monuments other public land. Still, Barth said the issue is likely to loom.
“The public shouldn’t get too comfortable in thinking there is no problem here — vigilance is still needed so that it remains a national monument,” Barth said. “If it lost its designation as a monument, there would be a loss in financial investment and interest and attention from the federal government to preserve this place.”
Schiffrin acknowledged the Trump administration’s willingness to test the bounds of power in D.C., most notably by ignoring court rulings and attempting to overturn parts of the Constitution. Yet, Schiffrin said if Trump attempts to delegitimize land contracts, such as the one agreed to by the federal government on the Cotoni-Coast Dairies property, it would do irreparable harm to a pillar of the country’s economy.
“I guess he theoretically could ignore a land contract but hopefully the courts wouldn’t allow it to happen,” Schiffrin said. “If people can’t rely on contracts, and the federal government can just ignore them, then it undermines our entire economic system. It would all collapse.”
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