Week 5 overview

[Brandon Martin]

This week I have been working on printing out "exceptions" for each property that we are working on a Baseline Inventory Report. The purpose of this task is to see if there has been any prior work done on the land such as natural gas digging, oil well excavation, uranium mining, fiber optic cable installation amongst many other things. An exception is way of separating a part of the land that has undergone and developmental purposes that will not be included in the conservation easement. When I am out in the field, I have to be able to draw a detailed map of what is on the land. The complete purpose of the conservation easement is to keep the land in its natural state. If there was an exception from about 20 years ago and the activity has ceased, that part of the land needs to be added to the conservation easement. If there are any traces of prior activity, it is my job to investigate for evidence and to use my best judgement as to what happened, and what the environmental impacts are. The approach I use is what gives the land the best value by means of preservation. I.E.If there was an oil head on the middle of one of the fields that had not been used for quite some time, there will be evidence left behind that degrades the quality of the lands natural state. There is a lot of history at each one of the sites I've been to, some of the "exception" documentation dates all the way back to the 1800's. And some of these documents have been in the hands of Presidents of the United States during those time periods. I thought that was an interesting little tid-bit.

Additionally, I have continued editing some of the reports on a rough draft and have been reading some very important information about the climate, water rights, topography, wildlife values, and many other items that are important to Northern Colorado. This internship has provided some detailed insight into the importance of keeping land that way it is. Humans leave a footprint not matter where they go and not matter what they do in the environment. I am learning that what happened within many years of the past still is having an impact on the land today. 1 major item that I noticed is wind erosion causing blow-out spots on cropland. This occurs when the land is not taken care of very well by a farmer and the quality of the soil decreases. 1 year of bad farming for crops such as winter wheat can take nearly 2-3 years to repair. I am becoming skilled with knowledge I am learning from this internship, and hope to continue to improve.