Colorado Preservation, Inc is thrilled to partner with CBS Colorado this year in celebration of Colorado's 150th anniversary. CBS Colorado is proud to tell the stories that have and continue to shape the state. Throughout the year they will be honoring our state's history; the people, places and defining moments of the past, while celebrating the voices, cultures, and institutions of today. As part of CBS Colorado’s commitment to Colorado communities and this year long commemoration, the station is partnering with CPI and its Endangered Places Program to raise awareness for the state's threatened resources to include its historic structures, heritage landscapes, and buildings that require long-term preservation and support.

Donations to this campaign will be collected now through December 31, 2026

By focusing on contributions to CPI and the Endangered Places Program, the public and CBS Colorado will play a role in saving these historic structures that have served an important role and have connected communities in Colorado for many years.  Throughout the year stay tuned to learn more about the places CPI is working with as CBS Colorado highlights the ideas, innovations and leaders shaping Colorado's next 150 years.

Click here to learn more about CBS Colorado commitment to the Colorado 150

URGENT: This Friday, July 24, the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation votes on a drastic rewrite of Section 106, the federal law that has protected America's historic places for nearly sixty years.

These revisions as proposed would demolish our ability to identify, evaluate, protect, and preserve historic places affected by federally funded, permitted, or approved projects. CPI strongly opposes these proposed changes and is deeply concerned about their impact if adopted.

Under the proposal:

• Federal agencies would no longer be required to tell the public a project is happening. Public comment becomes optional at their discretion.
• Agencies would judge their own projects and could cite the cost of even looking for historic resources as a reason not to look.
• Colorado's State Historic Preservation Office would lose its role in determining what is historic and what will be harmed, with those decisions handed to the federal agencies proposing the projects.
• Survey results would no longer have to be documented to state standards. Colorado's SHPO could not require state inventory forms, and newly found resources would never enter the statewide historic resource database, so each project's discoveries would be lost to every future review. Agencies alone would decide how much survey work is enough and could cite the cost and time of looking as reasons to look less.
• Effects on a historic place's setting and viewshed would be eliminated from review. Only direct physical changes to the property itself would count as harm.
• The definition of “historic” would be narrowed to include only built, bounded places. Sacred sites, cultural landscapes, and trail corridors would no longer qualify, no matter how significant.
• Required Tribal consultation would effectively be confined to reservation boundaries. Sacred mountains, waters, and gathering places beyond tribal lands would rarely qualify as historic under the new definition, so no consultation would be triggered.
• Indirect and cumulative effects would be eliminated from review.
• Local governments would lose their guaranteed seat at the table along with historic preservation organizations like Colorado Preservation, Inc.
• Mitigation would no longer be worked out collaboratively. Instead of reaching a signed agreement with the SHPOs and THPOs on how harm will be avoided or reduced, agencies could simply issue a decision announcing the outcome, and any agreement still signed would have to include a promise not to sue

YOU CAN ACT BEFORE THE VOTE

Email the ACHP at [email protected] or call (202) 517-0200. Reference the draft revisions to the 36 CFR Part 800 regulations, ask that the Council delay Friday's vote, and ask that your message be shared with the full Council.

Contact Senators Bennet and Hickenlooper and your U.S. Representative noting items from this post that you disagree with to push the urgency.

If passed, once the proposal is published, the public gets just 30 days to comment.

CPI will provide everything you need the moment that window opens.