Erie’s water is safe
We love the recent news that Erie’s water has been voted the best-tasting in the Rocky Mountain region.
This comes from the American Water Works Association’s annual conference in Keystone.
What were they drinking? Apparently people have been getting used to oil and gas toxins. The pollution is getting so prevalent that people are associating it with the norm! Can we get some lemon with that?
But seriously, we are lucky, in many of our Front Range communities, that we get most of our water from high-altitude reservoirs, not from aquifers that may have been tainted by those damn frackers.
In fact, The Denver Post reports this breaking news: Erie gets its water from … wait for it … the Granby area. By the same token, Denver Water was smart to create Lake Dillon and start draining agua from that area, since the groundwater down along the Front Range is bound to be tainted by oil and gas drilling at some point.
Actually, we are more concerned about air pollution than water quality. It is far more likely that spewing methane will be more of a threat than oil/gas waste finding its way into our groundwater.
But still, we’ve got to marvel at the news that Erie, which lies in the middle of prime fracking country, has been held up as a model for prime drinking water. We sure hope those Granby-area reservoirs don’t dry up and Erie actually has to drill down for its fluids.
Some areas of the country aren’t lucky enough to have higher ground to draw from. It may just end up being our saving grace.
Construction function?
Can anyone tell us the real point of the construction along Highway 119 between Boulder and Longmont, at Jay Road and Niwot Road? For months, we have seen massive backups in traffic, and extensive activity in the medians, but for what? To add a couple of turning lanes?
Here’s how the Colorado Department of Transportation described the project (which, by the way, was originally supposed to be completed last
spring): “As part of the project, crews will reconfigure the
intersections of SH 119 and Jay/Niwot roads, including widening SH 119
to accommodate turn lanes in both the northbound and southbound
directions of the highway, widening Jay Road and Niwot Road to
accommodate turn lanes in both the eastbound and westbound directions of
each, adding medians, improving traffic signals, adding and improving sidewalks, and making drainage/irrigation improvements.”
How about you start using taxpayer money for good rather than evil and do something about the bolus of the snake that builds up at Highway 52, the turnoff to IBM? That’s where many of us who can’t afford to live in Boulder get snarled and have to bail off to side roads.
Don’t get us wrong, it’s been a pure pleasure for those of us who live in the northeast corner of the county to take 95th and 63rd into Boulder, seeing all of those beautiful hawks on the poles and wires (not to mention all of those oil and gas wells). It may take us a bit longer to get to and from work, but it’s much more soothing and therapeutic than sitting in a parking lot on 119.
We can’t imagine what other beautiful details those hardy souls who actually bike to work from the far reaches notice on their way to Boulder, as we whiz by in our SUVs.
Respond: letters@boulderweekly.com
