THE SKY IS FALLING

Jim,

In about ten years of traveling back and forth from Telluride to Moab and the last eight years of traveling from Santa Fe to Moab, forth and back, we’ve never noticed the high level of truck traffic as we did yesterday. (Saturday)

Coming back into Moab after 6 SUPERB DAYS of camping on the rim of the Green River canyon--never moved our Jeep once--we saw a possible outcome of this apparent increase in heavy duty traffic.

We were southbound about 200 yards from the north end of the Colorado River bridge when an area above the East side of the road the huge boulders/rocks (Wingate sandstone) gave away.

I drove off, WAY OFF, for my side of the shoulder, as rocks tumbled down ON and in front of, a northbound automobile.

The (woman) keep control of her car and steered it ahead and eventually off the road on to her shoulder.

(Great job of heads-up motoring! )

My wife Dianne went over to her assistance while I started clearing the highway of rocks and auto parts.

Some other old duffer, like me, stopped, got out on the road and started trying to slow traffic down.

The traffic wasn’t having any part of slowing down or stopping or even trying NOT TO RUN OVER US.

(Incredible behavior!!!)

In any event, the woman was so shook up (later . . . NOT during the event) that Dianne had to dial 911 for her.

Her car was totalled.

We fueled up and continued driving back to Santa Fe.

While driving and reflecting upon the incident I surmised that the Colorado River bridge (Highway 191) is subjected to constant flexing because of constant and unrelenting tonnage going over it ( in both quantity and frequency ) that it MAY not have been designed for.

Metal fatigue is exacerbated by the constant flexing of the media, irrespective of the bridge design, per se.

The Moab town council might want to instigate a bridge inspection.

On the other hand, collapse of the bridge might bring the town of Moab and its residents some well-deserved, albeit temporary peace . . .

Gary Eschman

Santa Fe, NM

GRAVEL PIT AT WESTWATER...

Just wondering if you are aware of the permit application for a 1500 acre gravel pit adjacent to the Westwater put-in. I’ve not been there(that I can remember) but from what I’ve been told it’s within spitting distance, literally.Seems like a big project. This is what I’ve heard. The owners are from Aspen. The projected earnings for the first phase is 26 million dollars. The BLM has tried unsuccessfully to purchase the land, unaware of and before the application, for uses I’m not aware of.

Until last week the Rangers at the put-in were unaware of the plan. I heard they were shocked and appalled when the were informed. The pit is certified, meaning they can sell to UDOT and the like.

That’s all I know. All came from the best of sources, technically still hearsay though. . Always enjoyed reading your paper.

Thanks,

Sam Stallings

Key West, Fl

WISE WORDS

Jim,

An old Omaha Indian, reflecting on how things had been in his youth, expresses the sense of nature that formed traditional native Americans of the plains: "When I was a youth, the country was very beautiful. Along the rivers were belts of timberland, where grew cottonwood, maple, elm, ash, hickory and walnut trees, and many other shrubs. And under these grew many good herbs and beautiful flowering plants. In both the woodland and the prairies I could see the trails of many kinds of animals and could hear the cheerful songs of many beautiful living creatures which Wakananda [the divine] had placed here; and these were, after their manner, walking, flying, leaping, running, playing all about. But now the face of all the land is changed and sad. The living creatures are gone. I see the land desolate and I suffer an unspeakable sadness. Sometimes I wake in the night and I feel as though I should suffocate from the pressure of this awful feeling of loneliness.

Anonymous

ANOTHER VIEW ON THE FUTURE AND OIL

Dear Jim

We have a life style that we grew up in and have embraced in our various ways. Motels are expensive, and many of us children of the ‘60s have a higher required comfort level than they once had (my self included).

I happen to work for ConocoPhillips Alaska currently and have had a variety of points of view presented to me. An interesting view was a talk that Jim Mulva, the President of the ConcoPhillips main company presented to the US Chamber of commerce. Essentially he said that the energy density of petroleum products, the the vast infastructure we have built up is not going to be replaced over night, and that there were plenty of hydrocarbons left to develop if they were allowed to do so. These big companies also want to own the next technology I imagine and will most likely have a large piece of defining them.

Personally I am offended by the whole holier than thou thing of driving the high dollar hybrid car while the 5,000 (+) sq ft house with the big glass exothermic front is heating up the surrounding country. In Alaska, heating the surrounding area happens to a larger extent of course.

Yuppy professionals in general seem to like highly engineered exotico to supplement their lives, just as long as the material does not come from anywhere around them and the manufacturing is done in Japan , or Sweden, or somewhere other than around them.

The most irritating thing about all of this "global warming hoorah" is the refusal to acknowledge the fact that the world has been warming up for a long time. If that was not the case there would still be glaciers in the southwest desert. I don’t doubt the dramatic increase in population has contributed to it, but it only contributed to it it did not cause it. The real problem here is over population. It really does not matter what we do as individuals in a consumptive society to anybody or thing except to ourselves. There are plenty of new people to buy that stuff we choose not to buy. People lament how poluted China is getting while driving to Walmart to go "sport shopping".

The price of fuel affects every facet of our lives, and it seems that people would rather be mobile than to eat a higher grade of meat, or that fancy wine that they used to consume. That mobility we have enjoyed is envied and copied by all of the emeriging economies.To a large degree environmental opinion is like religion. You can live your values (or not), but it is difficult and rude to enforce them on others that do not believe the way you do, and desire the lifestyle you enjoy.

Robert White

Anchorage, Alaska

ANOTHER COMMENT ON BNW

Jim,

Well received the book in the mail and it was a two night read, it was everything I feel and more, but if one thing resounds the most is that none of us can look back. At 60 years old I have about 55 years of fond memories (the first 5 don’’t count, I was just shitting my pants) I grew up in a Leave It To Beaver type family but the fond memories I have of camping in the Sierra Nevada’’s no one can take away. I’’m a fellow outdoors man who loves the desert (high & low) and all of the lands in between, yes people in general bug the shit out of me but I have come to accept that they’’re all different from me. I’’m not a tree hugger, I don’’t hate loggers, hunters, fishermen, bird watchers, and the rest of the endless list, I just want my own space, and it’’s getting harder to find. I’’m not a religious person, but after I die it would be nice to think I could sit and have a conversation with a fellow explorer from another century. I think we’’re all explorers one way or another even if one never leaves N.Y. City . I guess what I’’m trying to say is hang on tight; change is coming and always will, your chosen path is to publish what is wrong with the system and hopefully sway popular opinion, good luck in your endeavors, me, I’’m an explorer (in my own mind), I try not to look back because it pisses me off, I’’m teaching myself to look forward, your book in a way helped me deal with it.

Thanks

Don Edelberg

Elk Grove, California

POVERTY FLATS, UTAH - A Modest Proposal

It its latest incarnation under ownership by international developer Leucadia, Inc., Cloudrock has been speaking of how it embraces "new urbanism." This concept applies to the design of towns and cities, not to rural destination resorts. A central concept of "new urbanism" is mixing commercial and residential uses in a walkable community design, as you find in European towns. In light of the type of development proposed by Cloudrock, complete with a village/town square and its own "Cloudrock Code," Cloudrock may well be on its way to becoming a true town. A lot us suspect that Cloudrock anticipates incorporation as a municipality when it achieves sufficient resident population to satisfy the Utah Code criteria for the minimum. If Cloudrock incorporates, then it becomes autonomous in respect to land use planning and regulations. The Village of Cloudrock could produce its own land use code that permitted any combination and density of commercial and residential it pleased, anywhere within its boundaries it desired.

At the February 14 County Council hearing, a council member questioned whether the new Cloudrock development was indeed a town instead of lodge. "It has the potential to become a town." Grice continues by saying "it’s not a retail town . . . .[w]ell, I see coming back to you time and again making changes and sliding in that direction." The Cloudrock development agreement makes specific (if vague) reference to "small retail", which is not included in any version of our LUC. In addition, the application states that the accessory facilities to be located at the Wilderness Lodge will include a creek pavilion, and an event amphitheatre or conference center. Transcripts of hearings includes references to"shops, post office, . . . "

It is time to remind everyone of my modest proposal to incorporate The lands inside the Spanish Valley Water and Sewer Improvement District boundary plus Spanish Valley in San Juan County as the town of "Poverty Flats, Utah." The developers of Cloudrock are not feeble of wit. Grice’s nose is dead on. I too predict that we will see Cloudrock come back again and again asking for small incremental changes. They may or may not already plan to incorporate as a town once the development is well underway and they have enough legal residents (registered voters) living in Cloudrock to meet state code requirements for municipal incorporation. However, if Grand County does not cooperate with granting the requested amendments to their PUD over time, it will make incorporation as a town more attractive because it permits them to amend the development as they please.

We should consider a pre-emptive strike. If we incorporate all of Spanish Valley south to Blue Hill into a municipality, then GW&SSA could become the municipal water and sewer utility and the San Juan County Commission no longer has sovereignty over land use planning and zoning within the Poverty Flats city limits. If the citizens of Poverty Flats decide to zone the areas in the San Juan County part of the city as residential only, they can do that and nobody can tell them they must do otherwise. If Cloudrock is within Poverty Flats’ municipal boundaries, then it is the Poverty Flats Planning and Zoning Commission and City Council that make the zoning decisions concerning the Cloudrock land base. This strategy would deal with two current land use issues which are a bone of contention: (1) the development creep of Cloudrock from rural destination resort into a commercial and residential "village," and (2) the issue of land use planning and zoning in southern Spanish Valley which is in San Juan County, where the San Juan County Commission is seen as lusting after the tax base created by zoning large-scale commercial development.

Southern Spanish Valley was known as "Poverty Flats" in the early part of the 20th century. Using the name for a town is restoration of this historic custom. Having Cloudrock and Spanish Valley located in the town of "Poverty Flats,Utah," might not keep

the rich weasels away, but it would at least select for those with a sense of humor.

Lance Christie

Moab, Utah

SNOOKERED IN CARBONDALE

Stiles -

JUST THIS MORNING, I read some more pages from your tourism book. I am a slow reader, preferring to take in well-considered words one crap at a time. Deep thinking helps to aid digestion in all facets of the human operation, although any orthopedist worth his bone saw will tell a potty lingerer that it is unhealthy to read in squat for more than a chapter, depending on the tome…

Today, a grimy, cold-hearted Colorado fall day, my progress (?!) in Brave New West made it to the chapter focusing on Disco Boy and the calamitous, theme park fantasyland that has become of Gateway, Colorado.

I have camped along the Dolores River for years, often in large, unruly groups prone to loud explosions and nudity. Twice a year, our gang of overwrought ski bums gathers on the shores of the Dolores to unwind and take our yearly sandstorm scouring. Sometimes we float. This May, as I was getting read to shove off from the river access, I was accosted by a pith helmet wearing, bullhorn yielding Discovery Channel goonette on a golf cart. *SCREECH*SIR PLEASE DO NOT USE THE GATEWAY RESORTS RIVER ACCESS. WE HAVE A GUIDED TOUR ARRIVING ANY MINUTE, AND WE NEED THE SPACE FOR OUR BOATS. SIR, DRUG USE IS NOT PERMITTED ON GATEWAY GROUNDS…*SQUAK*

I sat in awe, only slightly comforted by knowing that the nasty bug going through our camp had culminated in an impressive and turbulent power washing of the Adobe Fueling Adventure restroom facilities just minutes before. The transformation of Unaweep Canyon was complete. The fun was dead, buried under tons of kaki laundry.

So what would happen after reading your chapter on hypocritical corporate environmentalism? Why I open the days paper here in the Hipster Capitol of Garfield County, Colorado, Carbondale, and see that the Colorado Supreme Court in their bid to properly poison the town water supply shot down one of our very own proud western Ranchers, the Snooks.

Our story would fit right in the pages of BWN. Here, a BIKE manufacturing corpo, Garry Snook, is found to be polluting our water supply near its headwaters on Nettle Creek, from the yon reaches of his palatial mesa top estate, which borders wilderness and sits immediately above the towns water plant. When confronted by the city, who discovered that workers at Snookville had buried the creek with construction debris (three times) forcing the city to shut off its water supplies, and worse, that his workers were applying pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers to the land and that it was seeping into Nettle Creek, he does the only thing reasonable. He sues for the right to pollute our water supply to keep his (native) weeds dead and deader.

A legal battle ensued for six years, and was finally resolved recently, when the Colorado Supreme Court voted 7-0 in favor of the Town of Carbondale, upholding the original ruling, made in 2003 by then 9th District Chief Judge Thomas Ossola, who had ruled Snook to be negligent in damaging the Carbondale water supply. †

In our local newspaper, Snook complained: "We give money to a lot of environmental causes, including ones here in the valley...Their depiction, we believe, was unfair. Regretfully, with the court and their ruling, we won’t be able to actually address the issues."

Snook, who founded Performance Bikes, a mail order bicycle company whose relentless promotions of the sport, nay the lifestyle, of mountain biking undoubtedly contributed to the mass screwing of Moab and small desert towns everywhere, now sitting on top of a (transitional) mountain town, pissing in the stream. Fitting eh? Perhaps the revised edition of Brave New West can squeeze this little ditty in someday.

Corby Anderson

Carbon-dale, Colorado