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Ute Water’s Hunter Reservoir Expansion Project has become a Fen Flagship — hardly treated as a “modest expansion” by our Environmental Protection Agency and, as a result, by other government agencies forced to participate in this ecological disaster du jour.
The Hunter Reservoir expansion will inundate as much as 2 acres of fen. By comparison to other Grand Mesa reservoir expansion projects being delayed because of fen, 2 acres is huge. And many of us who have immediate ties to Grand Mesa reservoirs have a hard time understanding the concern created by fen near reservoirs.
We have many reservoirs on Grand Mesa where fen is currently inundated — and the fen seems to thrive. We have one reservoir where the fen is so prevalent it floats and, as a result, has been mined for years to prevent having the floating fen clog the reservoir spillway and create a safety hazard. Will that have to stop now – safety hazard be dam(n)ed?
The Overland Ditch and Reservoir Company has been attempting to complete the government permit process to expand our 6,200-acre foot reservoir by 970 acre feet. The project is delayed because .06 acres (yes, six 100ths of an acre) of fen might be inundated for up to 10 days a year. There are many times that area of adjoining fen is already inundated every year and has been for many, many years. That fen is flourishing. That fact, by the way, seemed to surprise our EPA fen watchdogs!
Questions to our political representatives seem to fall into a muddy abyss.
Oh yes — the EPA is not interested that the Overland could rejuvenate acres of nearby fen in return for inundating the .06 acres. If mitigation is not a solution – what is?
THOMAS HOWE, President
Overland Board of Directors
Hotchkiss
5 Responses to “Fen on Grand Mesa”
Posted March 27th, 2008 at 9:04 am Login to Send PM Report this comment
I would say the EPA needs an attitude and an ineptitude adustment.
I am positve the locals know what is best for the area, not some EPA guru buried under piles of paper in some office.
I think the EPA and the environmental groups have the same thing in common; when they first got started they actually did some good things, now they are out of control, stop progress and drive up prices to no ones advantage but their own as they create thier own job security.
Posted March 27th, 2008 at 9:19 am Login to Send PM Report this comment
Well Mr. Howe,
I suppose you could show the EPA officials the 10h Amendment to the United States Constitution, and ask them to point out exactly where in the Founding Documents their job is “specifically enumerated”.
If the Overland ditch company would be interested in setting up a legal fund to push that issue, I am certain that you would be inundated with donations.
I most certainly would be very close to the top of the list of donors.
Posted March 27th, 2008 at 9:32 am Login to Send PM Report this comment
Hmmm, I thought the “Regional Policy on the Protection of Fens” was a USFWS policy, not EPA. And I thought the policy was based on the “important hydrological and water quality functions” they perform in addition to the fact that they take thousands of years to develop and are thus “essentially irreplaceable” (to quote some of the language from the amended policy).
It’s interesting that Rexall is positive that “locals know what is best” but yet he doesn’t even know what the policy is or whose it is.
Posted March 27th, 2008 at 9:46 am Login to Send PM Report this comment
Just guessin’, but I will put more credibility in the words of Mr. Thomas Howe on this subject.
“The Overland Ditch and Reservoir Company has been attempting to complete the government permit process to expand our 6,200-acre foot reservoir by 970 acre feet. The project is delayed because .06 acres (yes, six 100ths of an acre) of fen might be inundated for up to 10 days a year. There are many times that area of adjoining fen is already inundated every year and has been for many, many years. That fen is flourishing. That fact, by the way, seemed to surprise our EPA fen watchdogs!”
Mr Howe is a “local”, who, by his own personal experience, not only knows what is best, but whose policy it is.
But typical of bruce86, no logical position other than what his betters in the media and the party tell him to think.
He fails to direct his attack to the originator of the thread, but a contributor with his very own thoughts on the subject.
Posted May 12th, 2008 at 6:19 pm Login to Send PM Report this comment
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