The Open Forum Remembering Two Forks veto as a win for the environment
After reading Jim Scherer’s misleading editorial on Two Forks, my first thought was to let sleeping dogs lie. As EPA’s project manager who reviewed and helped write the veto of Two Forks Dam, I can assure the public it was a “dog.”
Many alternatives were and are more cost-effective and environmentally less damaging. For example, Denver Water had not even installed water meters for its customers. Instead, they charged a flat rate — you could run water 24/7 and still pay the same rate as a conscientious customer.
Two Forks was an economic boondoggle and would have been an environmental disaster. Its Environmental Impact Statement was rated “environmentally unacceptable and inadequate” and didn’t comply with the Clean Water Act. Twenty miles of Gold Medal trout stream would have been lost forever, replaced by a highly fluctuating reservoir that the Army Corps of Engineers admitted would be a worthless fishery and unfit for recreation.
Scherer refused to look at these facts and was removed from the project by an acting regional administrator from EPA’s Atlanta office to handle the Two Forks Project. Two Forks only got as far as it did because of political pressure. Many Federal agencies and their political leaders ignored the law and the public interest.
Let’s remember the true history and be proud the Two Forks veto was a national example of protecting our environment by following the law and being fiscally responsible. about the imminent threat to our democracy. Foreign powers are adroitly undermining our elections through cyber-warfare. They are sowing division by manipulating electronic media. County election precincts have been attacked. Our president welcomes foreign help to his campaign. Mitch McConnell refuses to bring to a vote a bipartisan bill to strengthen election security. This is no hoax! We must listen to the understated Mueller when he tells us these attacks are happening now. We must take actions at all levels to strengthen our election security now. Talk to your representatives and senators now. We need banner headlines or a 21st century Paul Revere to cry out to all Americans of this danger! If not, as the patriotic Mueller fears, the “new norm” of unethical hate-filled political behaviors will continue, greed and foreign powers will reign and our democracy will erode. Headline: “Mueller warns America of grave danger!”
One thing that Robert Mueller’s congressional testimony made clear was that Russia engaged in a serious attack of our 2016 elections and seeks to do so again in the future.
This point was driven home further by an alarming Senate intelligence report released Thursday indicating that election systems in all 50 states were likely targeted by Russian hackers.
Why in the world, then, would Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell block advancement of legislation aimed at securing our elections from foreign interference?
I suppose he seeks to avoid the political optics of Republican senators being on record voting either for or against such legislation while President Trump remains in open denial of any such threats.
Perhaps he wants to avert any awkward consequences of a presidential veto should the legislation pass.
Or just maybe, Mitch McConnell fears the likely results of a free, fair and secure 2020 election.