My Page: Ken Wright

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Improving on Nature

It’ll be a massive work of art: a rippling roof of fabric covering the Arkansas River Gorge east of Salida, Colo., for more than six and a half miles. Tentatively scheduled for two weeks during the summer of 2009, the “Over the River” project would be comprised of nearly a thousand nylon panels hanging between 10 and 24 feet over the river, anchored by cables to 2,400 cement blocks placed along the banks. The panels would let light and water through, and move in the wind. And that has many residents along the Arkansas River concerned. [more]

Livin' La Vida Local

My son and I slept out last night. How could we resist? First, there was the full moon. An enormous, glistening thing, rising right over Raider Ridge like a huge glowing eyeball. Staring us down. Daring us. And then there was the fresh snowfall. At longfreakinglast. Snow. Right here in the Four Corners. So the air is sweet and rich and crisp and spiced with that wintery-mountain scent that we have been deprived of this desert-dry winter. There was also our backyard, and the side of College Mesa at the end of our block, and the p-j-coated Raider Ridge laying under the full moon, and the distant sandstone waves of Carbon Mountain and its sibling ridges rising south of town – all these luminescent and seemingly black-light-lit landmarks with their whitewash of fresh moon-lit snow. And then there's the sheer, rich tradition of it .... [more]

Wolf Creek saga continues

“Like you, we would like this project to be over and for you to start construction of your village,” said the e-mail to Bob Honts, spokesman for B.J. “Red” McCombs, the billionaire developer who wants to build a major resort on top of the remote Wolf Creek Pass in southwestern Colorado. Those words are polite enough encouragement and assurance. Unfortunately, they were written last summer by H. Mark Blauer of Tetra Tech, Inc., the contractor hired to perform an independent evaluation of the environmental impact a controversial road across Forest Service land required to access the $1 billion development. [more]

Animas-La Plata Project revisited

It’s an epic story: First proposed a hundred years ago … finally approved by Congress in the 1968 … slipped past both the Endangered Species Act and economic logic … finally wrapped in the politics of Indian treaty issues … It’s a story that is a parable of the modern West, all packed into an expansive, expensive, and downright bizarre tale. It’s a story fit for a movie. The movie that finally tells the story of the Animas-La Plata Project debuted Thursday at the Durango Independent Film Festival. “Cowboys, Indians, and Lawyers” will be screened again at the Abbey Theatre at 3 p.m. Saturday, March 4. [more]

Recreational water rights

In most places, water is for swimming, for drinking, for growing crops, for keeping the grass green and the flowers pretty. In Colorado, though, it’s also for fighting. This is the lesson the City of Durango is in for as it joins several other municipalities in the state looking to set aside a water right to guarantee in-town river recreation. Following a vote by the city council last week to create a boat park on the Animas River, the city decided it will apply to a local water court to have recreational in-stream water rights adjudicated to maintain flows through the park. [more]

Four Corners Stew

When the Bush Administration announced last May its long-anticipated revision of the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, it didn’t bode well for the nation’s remaining 58 million acres of unprotected road-free lands. This plan replaced the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, which was passed in January 2001. The National Resources Defense Council called the 2001 rule “the most significant conservation measure in United States history�? for its protection of nearly one-third of national forest land in the country. In response to this in Colorado, groups now are presenting their reports and stances on the issue to the governor’s Road Area Review Task Force, a bi-partisan 13-member panel created to help decide the fate of Colorado’s roadless areas. And leading the charge for protecting those areas is a most unlikely duo from Durango, representing a most unlikely organization. [more]

Student activism lives

“Our society is set up in a lot of ways to frustrate young people. You’re told how to make a difference, then hit walls,�? observes the new coordinator of Fort Lewis College’s Environmental Center. “But the more you can give people a sense that hope is possible, the more we can cure the cynicism that plagues this generation.�? Such is the positive vision that Marcus Renner brings to the Environmental Center – and, he hopes, beyond. “The Environmental Center can do this entire region a service,�? Renner proclaims. [more]

Four Corners Stew

Well, you know things are weird when they issue a wildfire alert in February. On Wednesday, the National Weather Service placed areas in southwestern Colorado below 8,500 feet under a red-flag alert. Usually this time of year those areas are under snow, instead. The cause of the alarm – aside from a snowpack at about fifty percent of normal (definitely half-empty rather than half-full) – was a dry (what else?) front that brought with it strong winds reminiscent of April more than mid-winter. And with the arrival of that gusty front came first a silver-white sheen that soon gave way to a semi-opaque mist-like dust that blotted out even the nearby foothills above Durango. A little airborne piece of the Utah desert delivered right to our dusty doors. Better that than forest-fire smoke, though. And at least it wasn’t the Train ... or a new power plant. [more]

Breaking Myths

We living in the modern West, like folks everywhere, have our favorite gripes. For those of us in southwestern Colorado, though, a new study just cut the legs out from under a few of our favorite complaints. Guess what: Second homes are not sprouting up like thistles. Most of those second homes that are popping up are not starter-castles. And, in fact, growth in La County as a whole is really pretty moderate. These and other insights are found in the first phase of the study “The Social and Economic Effects of Second Homes in Southwest Colorado.�? [more]

State Rep Calls for Probes

Letters between attorneys for the billionaire developer of the proposed Wolf Creek village and Mineral County officials who approved the project in the fall show the developers guided the approval process, project opponents charged yesterday. Colorado Wild acquired the documents after a Colorado Open Records Act request in September 2004. Key drafts of the letters, though, that the group claims clearly show the county and attorneys for B. J. “Red�? McCombs working together had been withheld by the county from documents first turned over last year following the request. Also on Monday, state Rep. Mark Larson, R-Cortez, who has been a growing critic of the project and the role of the Forest Service in the development’s approval process, announced he will introduce a bill in the Colorado House that will call for a independent federal investigation into the lobbying by the developers. Larson also said he is seeking a separate state probe into Mineral County’s controversial approval of the project and subsequent withholding of the key documents on the approval. [more]

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