Some people worried about the environmental degradation involved in pumping water from a spring to a truck filling station, and then sending those trucks, dozens a day, from Buena Vista to Denver to satiate the world’s seeming insatiable demand for water in little plastic bottles. Others were concerned about potential damage to the aquifer. Others thought the whole approval process was a little whack.
“„Back in July 2008, while a member of the Chaffee County Planning Commission, I foolishly wrote a letter to the Mountain Mail expressing my vision for the future should the Nestlé water application be approved.
“„I envisioned “an average of 25 tanker trucks, one every hour, 12 hours a day, lumbering out of the ‘well screened’ loading station onto U.S. 285 and heading up Trout Creek Pass with a line of frustrated and enraged drivers in tow, and then a repeat up Kenosha Pass,” and I wondered “how many deaths this ‘negligible’ operation will contribute to an already dangerous highway.”
“„The negligible operation was the Nestlé version of what they were planning to do to us. That letter resulted, rightly, in my being asked to recuse from further participation on the application.
“„Unfortunately, that vision, with respect to traffic, has already been fulfilled, and only by the grace of the Almighty was no car present in either direction when the loaded tractor-trailer crashed.
“„Milt Francis