When green is grey

Dear Editor:

I’ve tried. Honestly. We lowered the heat in the house to 58 degrees last winter. My dog got frostbitten – lost three toes. My 10-year-old’s lips froze.

Ask corn farmers today what they think of defunct ethanol subsidies. Sometimes green is grey. This hydroplant is folly. Hugely expensive. The public was unaware when it voted that the water would come from Maroon and Castle creeks. At the will, it seems, of city engineers, the stream could be lowered by 75 percent.

I live on the river, have for more than 40 years. I have seen what happens when stream flow is reduced by upriver developers: brown water. Dead fish. Wetlands don’t thrive when there is no wet. Scenic aesthetics will alter to the degree that passers-by will think their photos were shot in the Sahara. Climate change is already depleting snowpack. The rivers are shrinking without help from well-meaning City Council. And they do mean well. For example there will be a museum in the new hydroplant. (Try and find it!) And for the citizens of Aspen, their guests, children, nannies -for our visitors – this will be a huge attraction. Like the vomitorium in Rome.

Sensible environmentalists (Connie Harvey, for example) have argued for delay on this factory. Do not sacrifice our rivers. Council has already acknowledged they may have been hasty. Haste makes waste. Waste stinks.

Bob Rafelson

Aspen