Eldorado Mountain / Dowdy Draw

OSMP Board of Trustees Meeting Comments October 11, 2006
Guy Burgess

NOTE: After these comments were made, OSMP decided to retain the under the powerline alighnment and continue to deny access to the Flatirons Vista.

As someone who has made something of a career in environmental dispute resolution, I'd like to start by complimenting the Department on the process used to secure public input on the Eldorado Trail Study Area. Still, the test of environmental decision-making is not the nature public input process but the decisions that are ultimately made.

At first blush, you seem to have crafted a workable compromise. From what I've been able to gather everyone seems equally disappointed. Still, when I look at the plan I am struck by its missed opportunities.

It seems to me that the Department's mission is pretty clear. You need to find ways of equitably maximizing visitor opportunities while maintaining a high degree of environmental protection.

Key to success of such a balancing act is the active pursuit of the least restrictive way of achieving each environmental objective. Also key is the avoidance of policies which do not balance the costs of visitor restrictions with comparable environmental benefits.

Here I feel that the current plan has serious shortcomings. I'll offer a couple of examples.

First, current trail alignments strongly discourage or outright deny visitor access to the grand vistas off the north rim of the Rocky Flats Mesa (both east and west of Doudy Draw). I can't figure out how the environmental benefits these alignments could possibly justify their costs, in terms of lost visitor opportunities. Surely the Department could push the ground nesting bird protection area back 100 feet and allow visitors to enjoy the view from the rim. Similarly, it could push the least part of the Spring Brook trail out the rim.

This is the big, Flatirons vista / Dowdy Draw overlook--the best view on the whole hike. Surely they could have found an environmentally responsible way to let people see the view away from the power lines!

Flatirons Vista trail is really the access road for the power line. OSMP seems to think that, if it good enough for Public Service trucks, it's good enough for OSMP visitors.

By the same token I can't figure out what environmental benefit justifies funneling all those visitors under the high-tension power lines. Would you like to listen to the wind whistling through these power lines? Or, or would you like to listen to the birds?

There are lots of other examples:

• Why are equestrians arbitrarily excluded from a program to evaluate the environmental impacts of off-trail visitation?


• Why doesn't the plan take advantage of the opportunity to offer visitors a chance to literally walk along a beach visited by dinosaurs?

Correcting these oversights would be pretty simple. All it would take is the political will to move a few lines on the map and make corresponding changes to the text. The failure to make such changes would say a lot about how much you care about the quality visitor experiences.

Remember, OSMP visitors are your natural allies. How sustainable do you think the environmental movement will be if you treat them like enemies?

See Final OSMP Plan