What lies beneath?

Heron Pond - untouchable - 54th and Washington St.

Robbin' the 'Hood
by Tom Anthony

Today I declared bankruptcy, and three days ago I witnessed the unanimous testimony by three RNO’s objecting to the permanent disposal of 180 acres of toxic waste five minutes’ from Coors Field, one minute from my house and the North Metro commuter rail station site, and adjacent to the Platte River Greenway. It’s been an exciting week in Denver County.

In terms of the Bankruptcy declaration, since a local Development Company bought my Promissory Note and accelerated the interest rate to about 45% retroactive about two years, even I had to realize that paying $2,000 a day interest on non-cash flowing property was going somewhere dark.

Don’t ask whether I live virtually inside the Denver Stock Show, but if I did you can imagine I also took a casual interest in the announcement that Denver and Aurora were contemplating a substantial new taxpayer subsidy for relieving the National Western of its next 29 year obligation to pay the City and County $1 a year for the existing 2 million square feet of space the Denver taxpayers built for it so the “stockmen” and their wives and kids would rent hotel rooms in Denver County in January; and provide them a brand new $500 million facility next to the airport so Aramark Catering can sell $8 beers to conventioneers who will never actually have to drive past Purina.

You also want to understand we have a “green” business trying to obtain a $50,000 national “green” grant for a fish farm on Claude Court (read about that in YourHub.com) possibly to assuage the national EPA conscience for “washing its hands” of the Region 8 EPA and Denver City Council- approved the plan to allow permanent toxic seepage from 100 acres around and under Heron Pond into Denver’s only river. Could I believe I actually heard Fonda Apouloupoulous of the Colorado Department of Public Health and the Environment say in the Public Hearing that if kids tried to play in Heron Pond they’d just build a bigger fence around it? Huzzah for the future quality of urban life and Public Health Care!

I did hear myself tell the Denver City Council that my assessed property value had dropped 25% in one year. Amortize that! Compounded! Confound it! Since Region 8 EPA, can call “in situ encapsulation” a “Cleanup” we might as well agree that “transitioning” our recreation center was “a step forward.”

Truthfully, we’ll suggest that if you spilled maple syrup on your mom’s Persian Rug and then threw Clorox on it and dumped epoxy on it to keep the moths out and your dad said that was a “cleanup” not everyone would agree. In the case of the Denver City Council, Jeannie Faatz was the only “mom” in attendance. And in the case of Globeville, throwing the neighborhood out with the Pondwater seems to be the order of the day. Thank goodness we won’t have to get our fish from the river; the Government is giving our tax money to a private fish farm which will grow algae-eating fish for us to consume, at a subsidized price, without fear of the contamination from Heron Pond!