SandBoxBlogs: Glenwood Springs Post Independent/Your Letters "Take time to study compressor impacts"

(See related stories and public comments here and here)

If you are not of a certain age and/or never lived rural while growing up, you probably have no idea how a party line telephone system worked.

Or remember Lily Tomlin and her 'one ringie, dingie...two ringie, dingie' schtick.

You may know how to text message however.  May even understand the basis, theory and execution of mass viral marketing.  Or simply know  what you know because you've experienced the fast thumb action of your teens sneaking their phones at the dinner table or been the receiving end of the power of the internet.

The concept of them all is the same.

What happens when you take an aging 'party liner' who literally has an entourage wake tailing her at all times  and put her in the media spotlight?

Why, it's safe to bet that she's going to get on the horn and stay glued to it for as long as anyone can be 'stirred into action'.

The days of party lines and gossip chains of the old school really passed quite some time ago.

Instead, what we have now in this day and age, in a growing portion of the social classes, is something called tolerance and equality.  Good communities just don't suffer covert bullies well anymore.  Not much room at the Inn.

You see, an 'aging party liner' could take a different track and probably find more respect for her position if she did so.  There were so many great suggestions from the general public on the CMC compressor station story when it broke (click links within post) that show the way.

Join our trusted, respected and appreciated CMC Trustees instead of the fauxtrage in the background.  The compressor station must happen.  It is a given and is coming.

Wouldn't it be nice to find a home for it and a way to make it fit in to the Spring Valley community instead of this old, tiresome and blatantly obvious PR push?

just sayin.

David Evans:
"I recently searched Wikipedia for more information about gas compressor stations like the one proposed for the Colorado Mountain College campus. I learned that “Natural gas compressor stations are known to cause many environmental problems, including air pollution, water pollution, soil contamination and noise pollution.” Some sites have emitted extremely high levels of carcinogenic and neurotoxic air pollution.

I watched videos on YouTube that documented extreme noise emissions, explosions and fires at several gas compressor stations. The Hollywood film “Erin Brockovich” documents one community's difficult fight to stop and clean up chromium VI and other toxic chemicals that were released into the soil and aquifer from a gas compressor station.

Any decision to install a gas compressor station on CMC's residential college campus should be made with very careful consideration of the risks involved and the measures the gas company is planning to make sure that the above environmental problems cannot happen in this installation.

The articles in the Post Independent I have read describing this proposed installation have not mentioned any such due diligence on the part of either SourceGas or Colorado Mountain College.

Spring Valley is a very quiet, environmentally clean corner of the Roaring Fork Valley. It's better to take the time and do the work to be sure that this is a good decision."

"Unapologetically pursuing and tracking patterns within the news others make since 2010."

SandBoxBlogs: Glenwood Springs Post Independent "SourceGas compressor proposal on hold for six months"

(See update to this post here)

How subtle is power abuse?  For that matter, how corrosive can it be when it seeps into the lifeblood of a community?  A region?  How about the ability to take on a life of its own when it has the power of media in its back pocket?

Powerful enough to sway policies?  Develop a loyal 'following' of possibly weaker individuals?

Strong enough to last for say...oh, '40 years' or more?  Tenacious enough to insist on using the same (or similar) methods over and over again to get what it thinks it wants from others?

'Shame, shame' on 'anyone' who would resort to such tactics as to condemn a revered institution such as CMC.  (See related story and public comments here)

SandBox thanks CMC and our Trustees for bringing upstanding leadership, so many wonderful programs and excellent stewardship of public trust to our mountain communities.  You are appreciated.

John Colson:
"“They did hear loud and clear, do not do it at this location,” said Marianne Quigley Ackerman. Her father was among the ranchers who donated land for the college...." (Read more?  Click title)

"Unapologetically pursuing and tracking patterns within the news others make since 2010."

SandBoxBlogs: Glenwood Springs Post Independent "Compressor station plan causes uproar"

(See related stories and public commentary here)

John Colson:
"....Marianne Quigley Ackerman, whose father was another of of the ranchers who donated land for the college campus, said as much in a letter to neighbors that she provided to the Post Independent.

“The project is being ‘fast tracked' through our county process because, according to SourceGas, it has been budgeted this year and has to be built this year or [it] will lose funding,” Ackerman wrote.

Ackerman called that a “very weak excuse for a zoning change of this caliber with long reaching negative affects.”...."  (Read more?  Click title)

"Unapologetically pursuing and tracking patterns within the news others make since 2010."