Laserfiche WebLink
<br />needs of the metropolitan area for many, many years to come. The <br />project has been studied and re-studied over many years. No other <br />alternative meets the requirements of the present and future sys- <br />tems: nor does any alternative provide the flexibility and depend- <br />ability which a water system for a metropolitan area requires. The <br />need for an adequate, dependable water service to the people of a <br />large metropolitan area must not be taken lightly. Some so-called <br />necessities of life can be tampered with -- not so with a water <br />system. <br /> <br />Opponents of the project have advanced no reason why the <br />people of Denver are not entitled to an adequate water supply. <br />Their only quarrel must be that they as laymen, have decided that <br />they disagree with the experts' definition of .' adequate. " <br /> <br />The "true fact" of the matter is that opponents of Foothills <br />are using this as a tool to advance their political philosophies; <br />pOlitical philosophies which are not held by those whom the people <br />have elected to public office. Questions dealing with land use <br />planning, urban sprawl, air pollution and population growth are <br />wrongly associated with Foothills. The task of a public utility <br />must be to provide its service to the people: to respond to the <br />pOlitical decisions made by the people's elected representatives. <br />Foothills is designed to be flexible enough to respond to the future <br />choices of the people, whatever they may be. In 1918 the people <br />of Denver, by City Charter Amendment, "created a nonpolitical Board <br />of Water Commissioners." This decision to remove the provision of <br />potable water from the political arena was wise then: it is wise <br />today. <br /> <br />If the emotional rhetoric is stripped from what should be an <br />uncontroversial decision by a utility to expand to meet demand, the <br />question surrounding the Foothills component of the utility system <br />boils down to a question of accepting an expert's deliberative <br />definition of adequate service or a layman's definition of adequate <br />service. The definition to choose should not be in doubt. <br /> <br />In the course of evaluating the proposed Foothills project, <br />the Federal decision-makers must consider various alternatives, <br />both structural and non-structural, to the construction of the <br />proposal. A number of such alternatives have been suggested and <br />described in the FES for Denver's applications. A critical evalua- <br />tion of those suggested alternatives from a professional, water <br />utility standpoint follows. <br /> <br />STRUCTURAL ALTERNATIVES <br /> <br />None of the suggested structural alternatives to the use of <br />the 243 foot high Strontia Springs Dam and Conduit No. 26 are trulv <br />viable alternatives to those features of the project which are - <br />proposed by Denver. The United States Forest Service, Bureau of <br />Land Management and Secretary of Interior, in arriving at decisions <br /> <br />-5- <br />