Hurd hears Dolores River and Medicaid concerns in Towaoc
The congressman has not taken a position on the proposed national conservation area on the lower Dolores. On Medicaid, he said he wants to preserve the program but called its spending growth unsustainable.
U.S. Rep. Jeff Hurd, the Republican who represents Colorado’s 3rd District, spent part of Friday in Towaoc moving between tables of constituents, and two subjects dominated: the proposed national conservation area on the lower Dolores River, and what Medicaid changes mean for Southwest Memorial Hospital.
It was a small, informal gathering rather than a town hall. One commissioner told the county board on Tuesday that he had gone down to the casino for it, that constituents were seated at round tables of six or seven, and that Hurd worked the room before leaving for La Plata County.
The conservation area
Colorado’s two senators support legislation creating a national conservation area on the lower Dolores. Hurd has not taken a position on it. He told constituents he had heard concerns that an NCA could later be converted into a national monument.
Amber Clark of Dolores River Boating Advocates, who was there with the group’s Jay Loschert, told him no president has converted an existing NCA into a monument, and pointed out that locals declined to create an NCA at Canyons of the Ancients before President Clinton designated that monument instead. She said a stakeholder group has been working on the river since 2008, and set out the trade the proposal is built on: a Wild and Scenic River designation would carry a federal reserved water right, and concern over three native fish species could also lead to water being set aside for them, while the NCA would take a Wild and Scenic designation off the table, protect existing water rights and limit new development.
“The goal was to find a balance where the federal reserved water right was taken off the table but this amazing place was also protected,” she said.
Hurd said he had voted against selling major tracts of public land and that he is “looking at it carefully.”
Medicaid and the hospital
A constituent who came to talk about the local hospital said reports that Medicaid cuts threaten Southwest Memorial Hospital’s viability worry her, and that losing the hospital would be “a disaster for the community.”
Hurd said he wants to preserve Medicaid but that the growth in its spending is unsustainable, and he defended the stricter eligibility documentation requirements for able-bodied adults in H.R. 1, the budget law he referred to as the Big Beautiful Bill. He compared Medicaid spending to an engine with a leak, saying that adding more oil does not fix it. The constituent replied that the documentation requirements have increased verification work without reducing enrollment as intended, and that less oil does not fix a leaking engine either.
Energy
A business owner near a proposed solar project in Montezuma County — Joanne Davis, who with her husband owns the Dolly Wampus Chocolate Factory — raised her concerns about it. Hurd said energy demand will keep growing and described work with Rep. Susie Lee, a Nevada Democrat, on a bipartisan bill to promote geothermal power, which he called reliable and said Southwest Colorado has “huge potential” for.
The Current is not naming the constituent who raised the hospital: she spoke for herself rather than for an organization.
This brief is based on KSJD’s report of October 26, by Gail Binkly, and on the Montezuma County commissioners’ meeting of October 27.