Colorado Springs Independent|January 3rd, 2018|Letter to Editor

It’s interesting — and frustrating at the same time — to see the anger and uproar from environmentalists in recent news stories surrounding the blue picture frame at Garden of the Gods and the power plants in Colorado Springs.

With regard to the “Blue Frame,” people act like it was in a wilderness area instead of being in an urban area. The big picture, though, is this supposed environmental concern for the region with regard to the power plants. These plants were installed in the area of high-density power consumption, which at least makes this large population center responsible for their consumption.

The recent ideas are to put the undesirable power-generating alternatives out in the country disguised as “green technology” — wind turbines and solar panels euphemistically referred to as “wind farms” and “solar gardens.” That sounds so nice and harmless and makes people feel good about themselves as they look around their urban areas, and as long as they don’t have to see these behemoth eyesores with the required transmission lines it’s all good.

I understand that the image of Colorado (at least among Front Range urbanites) doesn’t include the plains, but that shouldn’t give them the right to trash out this area of relatively undisturbed land to feel good about themselves.

I just hope that real environmental groups will step up and see these things for what they are — a huge increase in the destruction of the environment. If people in urban areas really cared for the environment they would want power generation to be confined to the area of consumption instead of increasing their footprint out in the countryside.

— Pierce Pritchett, Yoder