Beavers, billionaires, and backlash in Colorado

Buc-ee’s multi-state expansion plans have hit a dam in Colorado: The Texas-sized gas station-chain known for its brisket, beaver swag, and bathroom bragging rights is facing serious resistance over a new location it’s planning to build off the I-25 highway near Palmer Lake, a city between Denver and Colorado Springs (pop. 2,500).

The company and local officials say the planned location, a 74,000-sq.-foot store with 60 gas pumps and parking for nearly 800 cars, would generate $1 million/year in tax revenue for the city, a 30% increase from its current levels.

But that’s not compelling to many residents, who want to heave the Beave. They say any commercial development could impact already strained water supplies, add light pollution, and damage local mom-and-pop businesses.

They have a powerful ally: Billionaire land baron John Dutton Malone, the second-largest landowner in the US, whose portfolio includes 17,000 acres near the plot of land in question. Malone—who called the Buc-ee’s beaver mascot “an invasive species from Texas” in a local newspaper guest editorial he co-wrote—has offered to foot legal bills for opponents if needed, and to buy the land in question rather than have Buc-ee’s develop it.

Zoom out: This development/conservation back-and-forth isn’t isolated to Colorado. The western US lost 6.6 million acres to urban development from 2017 to 2022, an area about the size of Massachusetts, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation.