I write this letter in support of Black Mountain Disposal and its owners Elaine Wells and Jeff Pratt.

The company and its owners are not the evil empire that the local media and county politicians and bureaucrats have made them out to be. The company is not “big oil” held by some foreign corporation. It’s a locally owned small business.

I have known the owners and the founder of the company, the late Loran Wells, for over 35 years. I watched Black Mountain Disposal grow from a dream of Loran’s into a successful business for the last 25 years. Over those years, they’ve made continual improvements, both physical and operational, in order to stay in compliance with the ever changing and increasingly restrictive local, state and federal environmental laws and regulations.

Another thing they’ve had to deal with that wasn’t necessary 25 years ago when they built the site on the vast, wide-open spaces of the DeBeque cutoff are residents who have built homes next to the industrial business.

Black Mountain has stated that they want to do a total remediation of the site, and I’m certain they will. But by closing them down and shutting off 100 percent of their revenue for a month, the county has effectively hamstrung them and their ability to address the concerns. In this day of huge bailouts of major corporations by our federal government, the Mesa County government has essentially delivered a death sentence to Black Mountain. I urge them to reconsider.

PAT PAGE
Durango

This entry was posted on Monday, September 22nd, 2008 at 3:30 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.