Code Neon Blue!

This is the Arkansas River.

You can’t see my house from here, but it’s about two miles upstream and half a mile to the left.

I do not like the idea of a billion gallons of water contaminated with lead, cadmium and Lord alone knows what else whooshing by down here, bringing all the birds and fish it killed upstream as it goes.

I’m weird like that.

The ongoing screw-ups and circular finger-pointings surrounding the situation up in the Leadville mines that makes this toxic overflow a potential threat have been going on since AT LEAST 1995, and maybe longer than that, from what I’ve read. And you can pretty much put what’s actually been DONE about it so far in your eye and never blink.

So a guy named Tom Weins, State Senator for the area, gets the idea to use this new-fangled web thingie to whip up some public outrage and attention, partly by starting a web site: http://www.savethearkansasriver.org/

The plan worked, because the affected government agencies, who seem to have more lead in their butts than Leadville ever THOUGHT of producing, have been shamed into action…maybe. In time? Maybe. We can hope.

But what is bothering me now are the folks I think of as being on MY side of the political spectrum, in favor of saving the Earth and all that, who are all PO’d about Weins’ website. Why? Because…he might be getting some political gain out of it.

I’m not 100% sure HOW he’s going to gain, since the mayor and some of the Leadville citizens are furious over the fallout from the revelation of the problem. Costing the town and the people there money can’t possibly be good for getting future votes, and getting a reputation as a guy who will kicks up a huge fuss instead of working quietly behind the scenes with The System won’t make him more liked by the Powers That Be. But maybe that’s one of the many things I don’t understand about Politics.

Yeah. The guy’s a Republican. Some of them HAVE to be right about things SOME of the time, right? Law of averages and all that?

As I said in my comments on Colorado Confidential,
I bet if that Weins guy was a Dem, we’d be pinning a medal on him and treating him to a ticker tape parade for being such a super-duper friend of the environment.

But that’s just my opinion. Why not go to the site and read the links and comments (especially the comments!) for yourself?

Maybe even leave one? Help save my favorite backyard river?