Letters - Wednesday online

Christo's project will cause lasting damage to area

I read with interest The Gazette's article on Rep. Lamborn's support for the Christo Over the River Project. It concerns me that one of our elected representatives would issue a press release that details their obvious lack of knowledge about an issue they vociferously lend support to.

Christo is trumpeting that the OTR Project would bring revenue to Colorado to the tune of $195 million over a two-week period, that's true. The Christo OTR Plan, Appendix J2.1.2-1 anticipates 380,000 visitors during the two-week viewing period. Christo's estimates mean that each person viewing the OTR Project will spend over $500 each. This is not realistic by any stretch of the imagination.

While Christo claims to pay for "all costs" of the project, he ignores the very real costs to the residents and users of Big Horn Sheep Canyon, and makes no provision for these people. How will he reimburse the heart attack victim for the loss of his life because he could not reach urgent medical care due to traffic gridlock during the construction, and resultant display ? How will he reimburse the ecology for the damage to the ecosystem from his industrial assault on the canyon, portrayed as a "gentle disturbance;" 1,100 days of drilling and installation of anchors, many of which will be left. All this done without leaving a trace? Any reasonable person knows this is entirely propaganda, of the most distasteful kind, as it's completely without validity.

By Christo's own reckoning, the Arkansas River valley will accrue only 8 percent of the two-week economic benefits of the OTR Project, while the same area will bear 100 percent of the negative economic and other impacts (environmental, safety, wildlife, way of life) over a three-year period. This cost-benefit analysis may make sense for Denver, but it makes no sense at all for the Arkansas River valley.

Nowhere in the BLM's Resource Management Plan are projects of the nature of the OTR considered. This is especially of concern since portions of the OTR Project are proposed for lands within the Arkansas Canyonlands ACEC. Areas of Critical Environmental Concern (ACECs) are places in Colorado that receive special recognition because of the quality, uniqueness and significance of their natural and cultural resources.The massive industrial assault Christo proposes to install the OTR Project is inconsistent with the values for which the ACEC was designated and inconsistent with BLM designated management for this area. The statement "It is significant that the artists themselves called for the EIS, showing their commitment to protecting the environment" is completely false. The artists, were forced to pay for the EIS if they wanted the application process to proceed, and did so when the BLM came to the conclusion that there was no way the environmental assessment alone would allow the project to proceed.

Viewing the display from underneath ? Unlikely, as total gridlock on the highway will stop anyone from accessing the river at all.

Rep.Lamborn, while you are charged with the representation of the people in the districts this display is proposed to occur in, you are woefully misinformed as is evidenced by your press release. Your statements say to me that you are in favor of trashing an area of critical environmental concern so the "artists" can make a buck and hopefully, after the costs have been paid, there will be a few dollars left over for the people of Colorado. That you would publicly endorse such thinking without making an informed decision replete with facts on the issue, is a matter I shall give much weight to in my decision when election time comes. I urge everyone interested in this debacle to visit roarcolorado.org/ for the rest of the story.

Marshall Nichols, Howard


Over the River is out to lunch

U.S. congressman Doug Lamborn supports Christo's "Over the River" art project, which, if approved, would drape fabric over about nearly six miles of the Arkansas River between Cañon City and Salida. Lamborn said he's sympathetic with area residents concerned about the impact of half a million people descending on the valley for two weeks. Christo clearly forgot to tell Lamborn that it will take two years to build and one year to dismantle this project.

Estimates are 25,600 cars per day for two weeks. This does not include the number of cars that will come before and after the two-week period. All those cars on narrow, two-lane Highway 50. People will be stopping and starting to gawk. 25,600 cars in one day will bring hwy 50 to a grinding halt. How in the world will ambulances or fire trucks get through 25,600 cars? They won't. It will be simply impossible on that narrow road. With 25,600 cars a day there will be plenty of accidents. And with the high winds the canyon gets a helicopter rescue will be unlikely.

Do you really think with 25,600 cars a day rafting and fishing companies will even be able to operate? There is no way they will be able to drop off and pick up their clients with that kind of traffic. Fishermen will simply stay away from this area. The highway 50 canyon is notorious for high winds. With thousands of cables stretched across the river all it will take is high winds and these cables will sag to head level if not break altogether. Think about what will happen to you in your raft as you try to float under a drooping cable.

Did Christo explain to Lamborn about the construction/destruction of new roads on the opposite river banks to make thousands of anchor points by drilling into rocks, etc.? This area is one of the largest bighorn sheep habitats in Colorado. There will be huge negative impacts to other animals and birds (eagles) trying to get to their main water source only to find it covered for six miles.

Three years of construction/destruction will no doubt drive them off.

Congressman Lamborn should study Christo's previous failed project in Rifle, Colorado in 1971. Christo's Curtain hung for 28 hours before the canyon gusts destroyed the project. There are still remnants of Christo's "art" work in that area.

Why in the world should a private individual be allowed to destroy the banks of a river for six miles with no practical purpose? Heck, you can't even camp by the river yet BLM is going to allow this kind of destruction so Christo can make some money selling pictures? This isn't about art. As always this is about money and greed.

Joel Cline, Colorado Springs


Stahl behind times on climate change news

Phil Stahl writes: "Don't blame the sun for climate change." Instead, he continues to try to blame human consumption of fossil fuel for current "climate change."Stahl obviously hasn't been keeping up with the latest scientific discoveries.

He claims "In fact, though the Maunder Minimum (1645-1715, also known as the "Little Ice Age") is clearly defined by the relative absence of sunspots, neither of the other two variable periods (the Sporer Minimum and the Medieval Maximum) is." How ingenuous. First, the "Little Ice Age" ended about 1840, following the Dalton Minimum, not the end of the Maunder Minimum.

Secondly, there is no data about sunspot numbers during the Sporer Minimum or the Medieval Maximum because science hadn't learned there was even such a thing as sunspots during that period. Finally, new studies regarding the amount of Beryllium-10 in Greenland ice cores DO show a direct relation between solar activity and cosmic ray interaction in the Earth's atmosphere (Be10 is an isotope produced in the atmosphere by cosmic ray collisions with atoms of oxygen and nitrogen).(1.) He quotes at length from the works of John Eddy - published in 1979 - 30 years ago. Climate science didn't end in 1979.

Stahl further makes a major blunder by referring to a Physics Today article (Jan 2009, "Solar variability does not explain late 20th Century warming"). What he failed to mention is that it is an opinion article, not a science article. It isn't a peer-reviewed article, as he implies.

There are some things that just don't add up, and Stahl's continued emphasis that human burning of fossil fuel (putting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere) is causing the Earth to heat up to "unacceptable, catastrophic" levels. However, there has never been any scientifically proven study that proved this beyond even a modest doubt. The entire global warming scare has been generated and maintained based on computer models that cannot even "predict" climate events in the past, much less the total variability of the Earth's climate.

The entire "climate change" scenario is merely a political ruse to curtail the activities of certain nations, most notably the United States. It has done one thing, however, that it should get credit for - it has forced us to study more closely the variability of climate, and to look for scientifically-verifiable data that could explain that variability. That greater study over the last 10 years has led to new knowledge about the role of the sun's variability, the magnetosphere and cosmic rays, water vapor, oceanography, sunspots, and orbital mechanics, plus many others.

Most of the recommended "actions" that have been presented to "address" climate change won't do much for the climate, but they will devastate the pocketbook not only of Americans, but of people all around the world. That impact must be considered in conjunction with any possible adverse conditions arising from "global warming." There are dozens of articles that predict the costs to be tens of thousands of dollars a year for individuals and businesses, leading to the largest, deepest recession the world has ever experienced, for the possible mitigation of "global warming" by about 0.1 degree Celsius.

Phil Stahl believes in human-caused climate change. He has a right to that opinion. He does not have the right to insist it be accepted as irrefutable, especially in light of an increasingly large body of data that indicates he's wrong. Nor does he have the authority to insist that what was "leading edge" thinking 30 years ago should be the final answer to the question of anthropomorphic climate change. As one wag said, "everyone's entitled to their own opinion, but no one is entitled to his own facts." Refusing to acknowledge new facts as they become available is not the attitude of a serious scientist.

Mike Weatherford, Colorado Springs


Headline downplays need for safety while refueling

As a petroleum industry safety consultant with over 30 years in the industry, I find the description of the accident as a "freak accident" by The Gazette as irresponsible ("Fiery crash at a west-side gas station kills 18-year-old woman," March 17). Gasoline is a IB flammable liquid with a number of toxic components. Were gasoline not so necessary in our day-to-day life, untrained people would not be allowed to handle it. In fact, gasoline dispensing by the public is prohibited in two states. Ask any petroleum service worker what the greatest hazards are at a gasoline station and the answer will invariably be traffic and the public. Our routine exposure to gasoline causes a great deal of complacency with regard to safety at fueling locations. Far from a "freak accident," this was an accident waiting to happen and one about to happen someplace else.

By referring to this as a "freak accident," The Gazette assigns a lesser level of culpability to those who cause these accidents through their inattention and negligence. Many fuel dispensing sites are poorly designed for the volume of traffic at the site and drivers are, as a rule, unaware of the consequences associated with recklessness in proximity to such a highly flammable liquid.

Regularly, I see the public fueling while practicing potentially dangerous activities (motor running, smoking, cell phone usage, fueling containers which are not resting on the ground, ignoring static electricity issues by re-entering the vehicle during fueling, etc.). It is truly a wonder that more accidents do not occur at these sites.

Tony Rieck, Colorado Springs


Balink the weak link in clerk's office

Bob Balink is always full of fear that people are actually going to vote in their elections. Here is the problem ( I am a precinct committee person); In my precinct more people vote Mail-In (MIB) and turned in their ballot prior to election day at the level of 41 percent On the day of election another 11 percent turned their MIB ‘s in personally, trudging down to drop them off at your office on Cascade Ave. All told 52 percent voted MIB. Those who Early Voted (EV) at an election center numbered (10 percent) or less than all those who turned in their ballots to your office on election day. Meaning almost 63 percent voted before election day, practically two-thirds of the electorate! Leaving 28 percent who went to their traditional polling place to cast a vote. My wife was a polling place judge and she told me she was bored to tears after the early morning rush! After 9 AM about two or three people came in per hour.

Each of these polling places have many election judges, most often in pairs from each major party who administer voter verifcation, ballot assignment, polling place facilities, electronic ballot reading machines, and electronic keypad voting machines, and for much of the day they just sat there doing very little. At my precinct cast there were 282 votes at the polling place, out of 790. Most of those 282 were cast in the first three hours of the day.

There would be no chaos Mr. Balink, the chaos is in your office. All that would have to be done is for each polling place to have a ballot box be available for those who have MIB and to drop it off no different than the ballot boxes you have at the County Clerk's offices a month ahead of time. Those MIBs would then be collected separately and delivered to the processing center to be counted. This is not rocket science.

Now here is the problem: We found up to 50 people per precinct who were recorded as having MIBs supposedly sent to their homes and who never received them. Then another set of persons who were recorded MIB requested and never had them sent out! At least 50 persons per precinct, some precincts had more! We know for we were calling all these people the final weekend of the election across El Paso County and telling them their only recourse was to go down to your office and get this rectified or they had to vote Provisional at their polling place.

Further we also found other occasions that voters who had received MIBs, sent them back only to find that they were subsequently purged from the voter roles, during the final weeks before the election. Curiously many of these citizens had their birthdates "curiously" recorded erroneously in your County Clerk's record where they personally maintained was correct on their application and ID. This would mean their record conflicted with the national ID cross check, and poof without notice they were purged. Now I personally talked to persons who had come into your offices to register. Could this have been a systematic data entry error in your offices? These and other irregularities have been forwarded to the authorities to be investigated.

The problem is Mr. Balink is that your office is seriously incompetent. That is established. Is it untrustworthy? That is for others to judge. The chaos however is plainly inside your own organization. The chaos is that Republican, Unaffiliated, Democratic and third-party voters want to vote MIB and you can't find a way to serve them efficiently or competently. It is the same attitude that caused a chaos that you created by simply not answering your own phone and passing it off to another county department. The chaos is simply our county has to rely upon you to run an office that was once run efficiently before you got there.

Bob Nemanich, Colorado Springs


Notice needed of pet ban at events

Although touted as one of the most dog-friendly cities in the country, Colorado Springs did not live up to its reputation on Saturday, 14 March during the annual St Patrick's Day parade, held in downtown Colorado Springs. Pets were not allowed to attend the parade - perhaps for good reasons; however, although the event was well publicized by the Gazette (what there is of it) as well as by KOAA 5/30 TV, no mention was made of the pet ban. In fact, in the Gazette GO magazine this week, on page 3 there was a full page dedicated to the event which featured a third page picture of a Basset Hound who was in last years parade! What kind of message does this photo send to the general public? In their efforts to promote this fun event they told people what to bring, chairs etc, but failed to mention one very important thing NOT to bring. Your pets!

We, along with our dog Kelsey and dozens of other dog owners were met by signs, "No pets allowed," along with a police officers doing their jobs enforcing the pet ban, when we attempted to enter the parade route. The fact that the No Pets Allowed signs were up at some of the access points to the parade, but not at all, indicates that this no pet order was determined well in advance of this event. However, no where can I find any reference to this no pet ban made in any of the advertisements for the parade. Why?

In post parade reporting, if you and KOAA were to report the "whole" story, then you needed to report the fact that dozens of Colorado Springs residents were denied enjoying this event because they were not informed until they arrived at the event that their pets were not allowed. No mention was made of this fact on KOAA or in the Gazette in follow up stories.

Effective communication is an art. In this case effective communication was not properly executed by either the Gazette or KOAA.

One simple line in a print advertisement or on air statement stating "No pets allowed" could work wonders and could help prevent what occurred to me and many many others on Sat leading to great disappointment. In the future, as a service to the pet owner population, please inform us as to what public events our pets are and more importantly, are not allowed to attend in advance of the event.

Drew Alexa, Colorado Springs