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Castle Concrete from obtaining a land patent on Queens Canyon. Wasson High School a i~»tors used the school's public address system to publicize the SPABA petition drive and distributed the petition to students to sign. In 1985, the city considered cutting off water service to Castle Concrete to force the company to shut down its quarrying operations. The mayor and city council of Manitou, Manitou residents, SPABA and the Sierra Club supported the plan. The measure failed. Then, in the late 1980s, a series of events took place that began to move Castle Concrete and the community from intractable positions toward a resolution of the controversy. Toward the end of 1980s several quarry proposals were being considered by local authorities along the Front Range and the State of Colorado's Mined Land Reclamation Board. This was because continued growth in the state was increasing the demand for rock products. A number of citizens expressed concern about adverse visual effects that the quarries would leave upon scenic landscapes. Two events in the late 1980s prompted political and community action in the 1990s in the City of Colorado Springs and El Paso County. The first was a proposal by Rocky Mountain Asphalt Company to develop a quarry in Waldo Canyon near Colorado Springs. This proposal met strong opposition from citizens who believed that the quarry would have an adverse impact upon visual and recreational resources in the canyon. The quarry was not developed. The other event was a request in 1989 by Castle Concrete to expand Snyder Quarry. Castle Concrete submitted an application to the Mined Land Reclamation Board to amend its Mined Land Reclamation Permit. There was strong local opposition to the permit. The opponents objected mostly to the adverse aesthetic and visual impacts from the proposed expansion. The Board determined that it did not have the authority under the Mined Land Reclamation Act to develop visual or aesthetic criteria for mining operations and it approved the Snyder Quarry amendment application because it met the requirements of the Act. The determination by the Board prompted Govemor Roy Romer and political leaders from Colorado Springs to work together to examine the mountain scars issue. Political and Community Initiatives to Move Toward Resolution of the Mountain Scars Issue The momentum to examine and find a resolution to the mountain scars issue grew significantly when Governor Romer created the State Commission on Mountain Scarring in 1988. The Commission's charge was to examine legislative and regulatory adjustments that should be made to protect scenic backdrops, to examine the technical issues and to identify solutions to mitigate visual impacts. Although the Commission considered the visual impacts from quarries along the entire Front Range, the three quarries in Colorado Springs received most of the attention. There were few, if any, legislative and regulatory adjustments made at the state level as a result of the Commission's review. This was lazgely because visual and aesthetic issues were viewed by the Colorado Legislature as a local problem to be addressed by local governments. However, regarding technical issues and solutions, the Commission generated several ideas about how to mitigate visual impacts from quarries. As the Commission completed its work, the Govemor committed $75,000 from the Colorado Energy Impact Assistance Fund to be used toward the "enhanced reclamation" of the Colorado Springs quarries. Enhanced reclamation was defined as reclamation work to be performed that is over and above that which is required by the Colorado Mined Land Reclamation Act. The reclamation work required by the Act was referred to as "base reclamation." The funds committed by the Govemor were restricted to the purchase of trees, wildflower seed, rock stain and supplies to do enhanced reclamation and had to be matched (4)