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Among the natural hazards of the West is a considerable susceptibility of western lands to erosion. It was this weakness, accompanied by speculative farming on an unprecedented scale, that led to the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. As part of its response to the blowing topsoils of that era, the Federal Government began buying back land that had been put into farming, and converted it back to some form of rangeland. Much of this land has been converted into National Grassland, including this section of the Pawnee National Grassland, in upper Colorado. There is still controversy attached: the land is grazed by livestock owners, who lease the land from the Federal Government and run animals there under supervision that some argue is not stringent enough.
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