GRAND COUNTY, Colo. — While it's not yet confirmed, rumors swirling around social media suggest the 50th anniversary of the "Rainbow Family Gathering" could take place in Colorado, and local and national officials have taken notice.
“We are aware of the likelihood of the 2022 world rainbow family gathering happening in Colorado, and the possibility it could take place in Grand County," said Grand County Sheriff Brett Schroetlin in a statement. "While it is too early to know with any certainty; it is our understanding that historically the location of the gathering is not determined until after their Spring Council in June."
He adds that they're in 'preliminary discussions' with the United States Forest Service, "as the event would most likely be on public lands."
"Our local, state and federal partners will be prepared should the event materialize and we will strive to minimize the local impacts it could bring to our community," the statement read.
The Forest Service actually has a specific incident management team to handle monitoring the events while partnering with local law enforcement wherever they take place.
9NEWS sat down with that team's public information officer to better understand their experience with the group's gatherings, and what to expect if it indeed comes to Colorado.
What is the Rainbow Family Gathering?
Hilary Markin with the Forest Service, has been with the National Rainbow Incident Management Team since 2019, and helps monitor the events with their safety plans.
"So they're a loose-knit group of people who typically gather on national forests to kind of pray for world peace, celebrate life, discuss political and environmental issues, that's kind of what our understanding is of the group," she said.
Reportedly, locals near where the gatherings happen look down upon the Rainbow Family Gathering participants because of the amount of time they spend on natural lands.
The people within the group have been described as "hippies," and hundreds of violation notices have reportedly been issued by local authorities.
The first gathering took place in 1972 in Grand County, suggesting that for its 50th anniversary, the group would set up there again.
In 2019, the gathering took place in Northern Wisconsin, and there was a gathering in New Mexico in 2021.
Come June, Markin said the group will hold its vision council where the location is actually announced.
In recent years, the Forest Service expects anywhere between 2,000 and 10,000 people, but Markin says it depends on the location and how easy it is to access that location.
"We do have criteria that we typically look for when we're working with them. Most of those that have been there before are aware what we're looking for and they ultimately, you know, they're by and large peaceful group...they want to learn about the local area and work with us to protect it," Markin said.
However, a large gathering in a natural forest in Colorado comes with risks, Markin acknowledges.
Risks
Typically, a group larger than 75 people would need a special use permit from the Forest Service, but because there's no governing body or a single leader for the gathering, Markin explained that it poses challenges.
"An organized group that has a leader, you know, then you come to the national forest and apply for a special use permit. And then we work through the special use design criteria to see, is this event going to be permitted on the national forest? What kind of stipulations will be put in place? And we issue you a special use permit if we can agree upon the different criteria that we're looking for," she explained.
Instead, they treat the gathering as "an incident."
"Just like we would a fire or other all risk incident. We bring in an incident management team that's familiar with how these work and really focus on protecting the natural resources and protecting the visitors that are on the national forest," Markin said, acknowledging the environmental risks that come with a large gathering in the forest.
"Trees are always a big concern of ‘where is all this waste going to go?’ And so we've got design criteria of how to deal with those waste. How far away from water sources, all of that, those specifics go in to try to protect the natural resources. And then we have our law enforcement officers and our resource protection folks out there making sure that they're complying with that design criteria," Markin explained. "Like what areas would we say no to if the Rainbow Family would like to go to a certain area? There may be a protected area or wilderness or something like that that would restrict them from going there."
Regarding wildfire concerns, Markin says they're usually prepared for a fire risk, and staff is heightened when there's a fire risk.
"Depending on what the fire danger level is, we have fire staffing happening on the forest just naturally, that's an automatically occurring thing, but we know we have an incident happening. If we know that fire danger is higher, we will up that staffing level, so we're connected," she said.
Markin brought up an example from 2019, when her team explained to gathering goers about milkweed, an important plant to the monarch butterfly, and she recalled several members going around trying to protect those plants.
When it comes to parking, Markin explained that the event turns into a sort of traffic operation.
"So that's a big thing when they do choose a location is thinking about parking and traffic flow for the incident. You know, if it's a - it's a one way in and one way out situation, where is it safe for cars to park to maintain ingress and egress in and out of that location? So we put up no parking signs, so it becomes kind of a traffic management thing," she said, adding that they make sure a path for emergency vehicles is available.
While the team has prepared year after year, they usually don't get much notice where exactly the gathering is planned.
The guessing game
As officials keep a close eye as to where the event will be, Markin said it's usually pretty difficult to pinpoint in advance.
"And so it's really challenging to decipher what's real and what's not real when you're reading the different sites and areas until they actually put out the, you know, ‘this is where Vision Council decided on, and here's where we're going to land,’ You don't get much information," she said.
Markin shared a story of 2019, where they had established the incident management team at a spot they thought they would be, but were actually 50 miles away since the group had moved at the last second.
"And they chose a great spot where they ended up, but we were planning for them to be about 50 miles to the south originally and then they came up north further," Markin said.
Overall, Markin says a plan will be in place for when the group announces its location.
"We work with the forest where this incident is going to occur and we put a resource protection plan in place as if it was a special use permit," she said.
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