Sierra Club suing Springs Utilities
Thank you, City Council, for rejecting this extortion attempt by the Sierra Club to coerce the city into shutting down the Martin Drake Power Plant. And thank you, Bernie Herpin, for standing by your belief in the proposed upgrade of the plant. From what I’ve read, it looks promising, perhaps lucrative. It would help if Neumann would provide his financiers (utility ratepayers) with timely, published reports on his progress. What are we getting for our money?
What would motivate Sierra Club to demand we stop the upgrade, other than an agenda that specifically includes discontinuing the use of coal for any purpose, regardless the cost? When they first threatened to sue, they said they want the city to pursue more solar and wind energy sources. Perhaps the Sierra Club staff engineers can tell us what combination of solar arrays and wind turbines would replace the generating capacity of Martin Drake. Where would they be located and at what cost? But wait! The Sierra Club doesn’t have any staff engineers; only staff attorneys. Like petulant children when their irrational demands are denied, they respond, “You’ll be sorry!”
They claim that CSU has violated the Clean Air Act. Jerry Forte, CEO of Colorado Springs Utilities says the utility has complied with all federal rules and regulations. If he is bluffing he should be fired immediately. If he is not, we should look Sierra Club in the eye and say, “Bring it.” In the event that Sierra Club follows through with its threat, is it possible to countersue to recoup the cost of the litigation?
Wes O’Dell
Colorado Springs
A very different reaction
Re: The Dec. 16 letter describing the Colorado College students’ presentation on fracking as “boisterous, long on passion and short on facts and not a credit to the college”, I had a very different reaction. Their arguments made a lot of sense to me.
Water is the lifeblood of our country, needed for food production and for the needs of our ever-expanding population. If five million gallons, on average, is used in every fracking operation and our city anticipates more shortages, shouldn’t we place more value on our clean water?
And why should private citizens be allowed to have any fracking at all on their property inside the city when we know it affects air quality (particulate matter and fumes) and produces continuous noise from truck traffic? Shouldn’t we ban all such activity within city limits?
Thanks, students, you did well.
Dorothy Bradley
Colorado Springs
Really excellent article on AARP
This short note to applaud Barry Fagin’s Gazette column of Dec. 13 entitled, “AARP has its head in the sand about Social Security benefits.” Thank you for taking the “Association of American Reactionary Paranoids” (that’s good!) to task. I am a 72-year-old retiree and former AARP member. I renounced my AARP membership several years ago after realizing what a roadblock they have regularly been to necessary domestic financial reforms.
Your article focused on Social Security but, as I’m sure you know well, AARP leadership is also brain dead with respect to Medicare and reforms necessary to contain costs in that arena.
I will never again have anything to do with AARP and I sincerely hope your article will convince a few others to abandon that despicable group.
Thanks again for a really excellent article.
Stan Hughes
Colorado Springs
Dealing with school violence
School violence is not an epidemic. If it were we would hear about it more often. It is rare and when it occurs it is tragic.
Attempts to regulate arms have not worked.
Another man also attacked students at another elementary school Friday. This knife wielding man left 22 children and one adult injured in central China. There is a difference in the lethality between a knife and a gun. But, in both cases, the assailants were allowed to roam the school hallways far too long.
This is terrorism. Israel has dealt the most effectively with terrorism. They have not had a successful attack on students since the teachers were armed after the Ma’alot massacre in 1974. How many students would be alive at Columbine if the faculty were armed? How many Virginia Tech students would be alive if Professor Liviu Librescu, a Holocaust survivor, could have done more than block the door with his body while his students escaped?
Unfortunately, the only way to stop such a tragedy is to have someone there armed and ready to stop them. Two or three resource officers are not enough. There are too many doors to guard. It would take too much time to notify resource officers that a shooting is occurring, locate the shooter, and cross the campus to confront the perpetrator.
Here is a solution.
• Each school staff and faculty member must immediately get a concealed carry permit. If the teachers are unwilling to protect our children should they be allowed to teach them? Should they be allowed to teach if they would get angry and shoot a student?
Teachers are vetted and should have no problems passing a concealed carry permit background check and training. So what’s the issue?
• Allow school staff and faculty to carry concealed weapons. The “gun free school zone” hasn’t worked. The perpetrators are not stupid, just evil.
Part of the deadly calculus is how long they can walk the halls before someone can stop them.
Albert K. Sweet
Colorado Springs