by Jim Lockhart
The Sierra Club's Pikes Peak Highway lawsuit has resulted in the focusing of a considerable amount of national attention on the Pikes Peak Highway issue. Most recently, a story appeared in The New York Times, October 11, Sunday (front section, p. 20). In this article, Pikes Peak Highway Manager Hans Schalk is quoted as saying that "This a national monument that has been neglected" and as calling upon Congress to pay to fix it. The City's most recent local statement on the issue, in The Gazette, September 23, (p. news1) likewise admits problems caused by operation of the Pikes Peak Highway and acknowledges that a 10-year timeframe for implementation of erosion and sedimentation control measures is "reasonable," but seeks to shift a large part of the blame for Highway conditions onto the Forest Service, the federal agency which issues the permit allowing the City to operate the Highway.
On the legal front, the City has filed an answer denying the Sierra Club's allegations of Clean Water Act violations, but also instituting a cross-claim against the Forest Service, stating that as owner of the Highway, the Forest Service was obligated to control any discharges of gravel which violate the Clean Water Act, and that the Forest Service therefore bears financial liability for all or part of any judgment against the City.
As the City's statements reveal, its willingness to admit erosion and sedimentation problems on Pikes Peak is not matched by an equal willingness to admit responsibility for causing the problems or to address the problems within a reasonable timeframe. The City continues to state that funds for Highway improvements must come from the Highway operation itself, even though its year-round operating season and expensive gravel-spreading operation make savings of the necessary magnitude impossible. The City continues to seek to raise outside funds through its Pikes Peak Preservation Initiative, while at the same time undermining any chance of fundraising success by issuing public statements downplaying the seriousness of the problem and denying that it is worth spending City money to remediate. Particularly if it expects other to contribute, the City must take the lead in funding a solution to the problems which its own operating practices have caused.
In short,
although there is ever increasing optimism that we will win the battle on the facts in the legal arena, we should not lessen our efforts to bring the City to the bargaining table with a reasonable and workable solution. We urge you to call or write the Mayor and City Council and express your opinion.October 1998 (Reprint from the Timberlines November 1998)
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Pikes Peak Highway - Calendar of
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Things You Can Do - Links -
E-Mail
Pikes Peak Regional Group,
Rocky Mountain Chapter
of the Sierra Club
131 Williams Street, Colorado Springs, CO 80905-1413 - Phone: (719) 592-0963
Last updated February 02, 1999.