Coal Creek Canyon Community Blog

Here is a good reminder for us all up here…

http://wildobs.com/kathykeating/2008/7/30/what-a-bear-can-do-while-searching-for-food

For more information visit: Colorado DOW ‘Living with Bears’

Visit the Home of Monsterville

Monsterville makes up a community of people up
and along Camp Eden Rd. in Coal Creek Canyon
that love a safe and fun filled Halloween. Trick or
treaters of all ages are welcome, but you must
be in costume to get candy.

Trick or Treat at houses
with lights on:
Camp Eden Rd., Sunny Dr.,
Katie Ln., Aspen Dr.,
Linn Ln., & Ronnie Rd.

From: Erik Gasner
To: customer@ferc.gov;
Subject: Gross Dam Reservoir, Colorado Expansion
Date: Mon, 1 Sep 2008 10:23:45 -0600

Hello. I just wanted to post my disapproval to the Gross Dam Reservoir expansion project being proposed by Denver Water. As a mountain resident who will see no benefits from this project, it is disheartening to know that I will be inconvenienced in many ways by this expansion if it is allowed to go forward. These comments are in regard to FERC Project No. 2035.

-The res. would be closed to recreational use (it just opened for use a few years ago).

-Expansion will invite more urban sprawl down the mountain from me (even after the housing bubble has burst, Denver Water keeps projecting growth based on a pre-housing bubble paradigm, and Denver Water does not impose the maximum mandatory conservation practices which mountain residents abide by year round on their town residents). Denver Water claims a water shortfall will be coming by 2016, but this figure does not apply the new reality of our economic situation. Mini-malls, civic centers, and sprawling communities all complete with lawns, flowering shrubs, and non-native trees which annihilate our water resources are not going to be built anywhere near the speed or number they have in the past 30 years.

-With the res. capacity weakened in the next few years of proposed construction we will be unable to airlift and fill to trucks water for the very real threat of major forest fires (a huge safety concern).

-The environmental impact statement which Denver Water is putting together is, of course, downplaying every end of the impact this will have on our community (habitat loss, dangerous 18-wheelers and dump trucks on our narrow two lane paved and dirt mountain roads -up to 100 per day, 7-days a week, for 4-6 years-, increased travel time for mountain residents, safety concerns driving with these trucks all winter long).

-Our community has also fought proposals to start a quarry for concrete in our community several times. Denver Water says they will explore other ways of getting concrete to the proposed construction site (via rail for example, even though there is no way the rail company will be stopping at the reservoir on its mega cross country transit route) So, if the dam project moves forward we are sure we will again be fighting a renewed battle against a quarry.

-Finally, Denver Water has put together a standard P.R. campaign designed to assuage these exact concerns by glossing over them or concealing the true cost of this expansion in every sense of the word. They hold ‘public meetings’ while most people are at work, and invite ‘public comments’ at their offices-where they are not required to pass them along to FERC who oversees this issue.

As the Federal entity designed to grant or deny this expansion project, I and the citizens of Coal Creek Canyon Colorado encourage you to see through the smoke and mirrors of Denver Water’s campaign to get a very small benefit from a long, protracted, inconvenient project; an expansion which will compromise our recreational use, habitats, wildfire safety, road conditions, travel time, driving safety, the battle against urban sprawl, and the threat of quarries in our small residential and rural mountain community. PLEASE DENY ANY AMENDMENTS TO THE ONLY 54 YEAR OLD GROSS DAM RESERVOIR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sincerely,

Erik Gasner