As citizens, government officials and business owners grapple with the value of public lands, one things holds true: Federal designation of an area as a national park or monument can help the local economy. The two newest national monuments in Colorado are buoying the communities that surround them.

While the specific contributions from Browns Canyon National Monument in the Upper Arkansas Valley and Chimney Rock National Monument in southwestern Colorado are somewhat masked inside a statewide surge in tourist visits and spending, local leaders in the communities surrounding the two monuments say the gains are significant.

“I can say Chimney Rock has certainly contributed some of the new growth but I’m not sure what percentage of that growth,” said Jennifer Green, the director of Visit Pagosa Springs. The city’s lodging tax revenue is climbing thanks in part to nearby Chimney Rock’s popularity since the Obama Administration designated the historically rich area as a national monument in September 2012.

“If anything, it gives us more of a story to tell and it gives visitors another option for something to do,” Green said.

Rafting trips on the Arkansas River — the most rafted stretch of river in the country — are up 17 percent in the two seasons since Browns Canyon — the most rafted stretch of the Arkansas River — was designated by the Obama Administration as a national monument in February 2015. In 2016, 223,878 commercial rafters floated the Arkansas, the most since the previous high mark of 2007. But there are a lot of factors that play into that spike: water flows, the timing of those water flows, the economic climate for vacationing, gas prices, and more.

There are 52 rafting companies competing for rubber-riding passengers on the Arkansas River and those outfitters spend a lot of money on marketing. Rafters deliver a huge economic boon to the Upper Arkansas Valley and communities like Buena Vista, Salida and Cañon City. Last year rafting on the Arkansas River stirred an economic impact of $73.1 million, more than the impact from rafters on the state’s next four busiest stretches of river combined.

Lodging and sales taxes in Chaffee County — home to Browns Canyon, Buena Vista and Salida — jumped 15 percent, reaching an all-time high of $4.2 million in 2015. But that bump mirrors growth seen across Colorado’s high country, where resort communities have logged record visitation and tourist tax revenue for several summers in a row.

How much of Chaffee County’s tax bounty is attributable to the Obama Administration protecting 21,586 acres surrounding the canyon as a national monument? There’s no telling.

About 5 percent of the visitors who walk into the Arkansas Headwaters Recreation Area Visitor Center in Salida specifically mention they want to learn more about rafting and camping in the Browns Canyon National Monument, said Rob White, park manager for the recreation area.

The management plan for the new national monument — which is part Forest Service land and part Bureau of Land Management land managed by Colorado Parks and Wildlife’s Arkansas Headwaters Recreation Area — is still being crafted. There are no “Browns Canyon National Monument” signs on area highways directing visitors to the state’s newest monument.

“I think that once the appropriate BCNM highway and recreation signage is in place, the monument will indeed draw more visitors to the Arkansas Headwaters Recreation Area and the Upper Arkansas River Valley,” White said. “How many more is a good question.”

A 2012 economic impact report for Chimney Rock compiled by Denver’s BBC Research & Consulting for the National Trust for Historic Preservation reported that Chimney Rock drew about 12,000 visitors a year and about 9,200 of them were visitors from afar. The study, which was based on 2008 visitor surveys, projected that national monument designation would double the annual economic impact from nonlocal visitors from $1.2 million a year to $2.4 million a year by the fifth year of its status as a national monument, or 2017.

A study released last month by the Chimney Rock Interpretative Association shows BBC was overly optimistic. The national monument designation has been a boost to the region, but it hasn’t doubled the money flowing into cash registers. Still, visitation to the monument is up 43 percent since Chimney Rock was named a national monument in 2012.

Surveys by the association show the economic impact of Chimney Rock visitors grew to about $1.7 million and supported 22 jobs in 2016. About half of the visitors surveyed for the 2017 report did not know Chimney Rock — which is open from mid-May through September — was a national monument. Jennifer Green, the director of Visit Pagosa Springs, thinks that may be because Chimney Rock is operated by the Forest Service, not the National Park Service. The designation as a national monument did not come with additional funding for Forest Service management. And Chimney Rock is not part of the National Park Service website that helps vacationers plan trips.

“People who are planning a vacation that includes national parks might not know about Chimney Rock,” Green said.

Still, the national monument designation has been “very positive,” Green said. It has enabled the nonprofit Chimney Rock Interpretive Association to solicit grants to fund a shuttle service set to launch soon. And it’s given tourism promoters in Pagosa Springs, Archuleta County and La Plata County yet another attraction to woo visitors. Vacationers who visit Chimney Rock tend to stay an extra day in the area, leaving more money in their wake.

Pagosa Springs is seeing its lodging tax revenues climb despite a decline in available beds in recent years. Archuleta County’s sales and use tax collections have climbed 33 percent since 2012, reaching an all-time high of $4.4 million in 2015.

The independent nonprofit research group Headwaters Economics in 2014 studied economic indicators in communities surrounding 17 national monuments in the West. Every community saw growth following the designation of a national monument. Per capita income rose in each of the largely rural communities as the monuments helped broaden and diversify the economies in those communities, according to Montana-based Headwaters Economics. The study showed Western rural counties with more than 30 percent of their land protected under some sort of federal designation saw the number of jobs increase at a rate four times greater than counties without that level of federal land protection. Those communities also attracted business owners and entrepreneurs who were lured by the outdoor amenities and lifestyle of the region.

A more recent study by Headwaters in 2016 showed rural counties in the West with the highest percentage of federal lands show stronger income growth, population growth and job creation than the counties with the lowest percentage of federal land.

While Headwaters researchers stopped short of specifically crediting national monuments with new growth, they concluded that federal designation never made things worse.

“We saw nothing to say that designating that land and managing land that way was harmful to the communities,” said Headwaters Economics researcher Chris Mehl. “The trends are there, showing that these federal lands can be an asset to the communities not only for tourism but as an investment.”

It’s too early to isolate those trends in Colorado, Mehl said, especially when monument-spurred growth might be concealed in a statewide spike in tourism, population growth and investment in rural communities.

“Give it a couple more years,” Mehl said.