|
day. Instead, the U.S. Environmental
<br />Protection Agency, operating with the tacit
<br />consent of President George H.W. Bush,
<br />vetoed the project on Nov. 23, 1990, after
<br />19 months of high -level federal consider-
<br />ation and intense lobbying for and against
<br />the project.
<br />The defeat was followed by the Denver
<br />metro area more or less redefining itself as
<br />a place with urban values, rather than as a
<br />village living off crops, cattle, and oil and
<br />gas produced by the rural areas around it.
<br />Among the many changes that followed
<br />Two Forks was the one -time breaking of
<br />the Poundstone Amendment, when vot-
<br />Hamlet "Chips" Barry was appointed head of the Denver Water Department soon after the
<br />defeat of Two Forks. Under his leadership, Denver Water chose not to attempt to overturn the
<br />veto. 'It's not worth the brain damage, cost or loss of public credibility, " Barry said.
<br />ers in suburban Adams County allowed
<br />Denver to annex a portion of their county
<br />to build Denver International Airport and
<br />ancillary development. The vote also meant
<br />that Denver could redevelop Stapleton
<br />Airport once it was abandoned.
<br />More recently, metro area voters in
<br />eight counties approved a sales tax increase
<br />to finance a $4.7 billion expansion of the
<br />area's light rail system. On the same day,
<br />and despite a severe drought, every county
<br />in the metro area rejected Referendum A,
<br />which would have provided $2 billion in
<br />bonding for water projects.
<br />Denver and its suburbs had earlier voted
<br />to tax themselves to build two sports sta-
<br />dia —one for the Broncos and one for the
<br />Colorado Rockies. The metro voters had
<br />also imposed on themselves a cultural facili-
<br />ties sales tax to support museums, perform-
<br />ing arts centers and the like, with much of
<br />the money going to Denver institutions that
<br />serve the region.
<br />Metro governments also joined to
<br />C3
<br />solve an air pollution problem that was
<br />the second worst in the United States,
<br />after Los Angeles. Finally, a Metropolitan
<br />Mayors' Council now meets monthly,
<br />and has smoothed some of the friction
<br />that previously hampered cooperation
<br />between area governments.
<br />Some gaps remain. Denver's central
<br />library gets no help from the surrounding
<br />area even though suburbanites use it heav-
<br />ily. And Denver's emergency room facilities
<br />are still the sole responsibility of Denver
<br />even though they serve the metro area.
<br />And what of the water needed for
<br />growth? After the Two Forks federal veto,
<br />other Front Range water entities and
<br />water developers, sensing a vacuum,
<br />proposed grandiose water projects such
<br />as the Poudre River Project, American
<br />Water Development Inc. (AWDI) in the
<br />San Luis Valley, and Union Park and
<br />Collegiate Range in the upper reaches of
<br />the Gunnison River. Their assumption
<br />was that a large project would have to be
<br />built somewhere.
<br />Instead the vacuum was filled by
<br />small -scale solutions, such as the joint -use
<br />Western Slope Wolford Reservoir, coop-
<br />eration (sharing of raw water, pipelines,
<br />treatment plants), conservation, drying -up
<br />of nearby farmland, increased reliance on
<br />Denver Basin groundwater, and toilet -to-
<br />lawn recycling.
<br />Superficially, at least, this looks like a
<br />transformation. The traditional solution
<br />to aridity —big dams and aqueducts —is
<br />replaced by governments sharing water
<br />and facilities, conservation, and recycling.
<br />At the same time that Denver -area govern-
<br />ments avoid a billion - dollar investment
<br />in a water project, they invest heavily in
<br />cultural, sports and mass transit.
<br />But these events may be coinciden-
<br />tal, or conditional. If drought persists, if
<br />population growth accelerates, the Denver
<br />metro area may be building dams before
<br />the decade is over. All we can say with
<br />certainty in 2005 is that in a moment of
<br />inspired citizen activism, accompanied by
<br />enlightened behavior at the federal level,
<br />the Denver metro area rowed itself away
<br />from an expensive and destructive piece
<br />of hardware and toward another form of
<br />urban development.
<br />If the Two Forks defeat had represented
<br />a profound societal shift, it should also have
<br />affected the movement that did so much
<br />to make that defeat happen. But looking
<br />back 15 years, it appears that Two Forks'
<br />impact on environmentalism in the interior
<br />
|