CAN WE JUST KEEP IT SIMPLE?

(DECIDING GREELEY’S FUTURE)

Mary Gauthiere/Greeley Tribune 10/24/2020

Snow falls.  Snow melts.  It drains into the Poudre River.  It follows the river to the Bellvue Water Treatment Plant, or it is stored in mountain reservoirs.  When needed, it flows by gravity to Greeley.  We buy all the good surface water rights we can.   We enlarge our reservoirs as much as we can.  When they can’t hold any more water, we stop building.  Our houses go up in value because we are fortunate to live in such a beautiful place with such pure water.  We maintain our quality of life!

OR…

We drill into an aquifer for our water so that we may grow beyond our means.  The water has uranium, arsenic, and selenium in it.  The water is very expensive to treat.  We send this water to Greeley.  When we draw down the aquifer, we recharge it with our clean mountain water that has already been treated at the Bellvue Water Treatment Plant.  The water reacts with the uranium deposits in the aquifer.  It dissolves even more uranium that needs to be removed, or… we just dilute the uranium water into our clean water and call it good.  Greeley’s reputation for quality water is destroyed.  Our home prices go down.  Our quality of life goes down.  Some people move away.  Others cannot move away.  We worry about what the water is doing to us and our children.  We stay, but life is never the same!

The “we” in this story is you and me.  We are currently living the first reality.

But we will be living the second reality if we let this happen.

Don’t let it happen!