Location is the problem

My concern with Boulder County’s proposal to build a composting facility isn’t that we don’t need a composting facility. We do.

Rather, my concern is that the proposed facility is in the wrong place, because it would be located on land that was purchased as open space. When open space is purchased, the intent is that the land is permanently protected and that it remains open.

In 1994, shortly after voters approved the first open space sales tax for the county, an open space conser vation easement was purchased on the Rainbow Nursery property south of Colo. 52.

The purchase was intentional. The land is in the open corridor along U.S. 287 between Lafayette and Longmont. It is part of a vast area of agricultural land that is now part of Boulder County’s open space holdings. It is part of an important visual buffer along 287 that maintains the open space feel of the county.

Since 1994 until today it has appeared on county open space maps as open space. Using this land for an intensive composting operation would set an exceedingly bad precedent, undermining the permanence of acquired open space by allowing its use to be changed to something other than open land.

A composting facility of the magnitude proposed is a significant violation of open space values. Hundreds of truck trips and industrial-type operations on the site are far from what was originally intended for the land.

The proposal is a violation of the intent of Boulder County’s voters, who have been ver y generous in their support of open space and the taxes it requires to own and operate an open space system.

My hope is that the county will do the right thing and avoid this theft of land from our open space system. The voters were assured that open space would remain as open space.

Let’s not violate this public trust. ron STEWART

Longmont