It seems too late, at least for many who must daily view the current desecrations. Horse is already out of the barn.

Anyways, good luck to the effort of preventing further eyesores!

"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."
Hunter S. Thompson

Props to Joe Hultquist and Tony Norman for getting this task force in place. I am a member and looking forward to tackling this subject. All meetings will be sunshined so anyone can attend.

has gotten a commitment from KUB to at least study the cost of tearing down the water tower and replacing it with something less intrusive.

By all means, during this time of low cost living, inexpensive food and fuel, and low energy costs, let's check into tearing something down and rebuilding something else.

And even if we don't wind up tearing it down, we'll at least spend the money on a study to look into tearing it down.

Is there an alternative, cheaper, world that some people are living in these days?

I'm all for making sure this kind of thing doesn't happen again, but unless the water tower is leaking mercury, benzene, or e.coli into the local drinking water, leave it alone.

It is definitely NOT too late on this one. Look around, there are lots of ridges left -- all endangered.

I agree -- forget the stupid hideous tower, it's unfortunately too late. Just don't let it happen again.

Had someone erected two or three large windmills on the same ridge, would the response here be the same?

Brian A.
I'd rather be
cycling.

Good question. Has anyone heard of objections to the views of Buffalo Mountain? Maybe the novelty factor helps, though.

But let's also compare benefits. I don't think people see why we need the water tower. Our pressure has been good, and indeed the need for the tower, as I recall, was mostly due to new ridge top developments that have plundered Cherokee Bluff.

However, every kW-hr we get out of wind turbines, assuming we don't grow our power appetite (and why should we?), means that much less coal that doesn't have to be mined off the land (including other ridge tops) and burned in the atmosphere. A lot of pollution is no longer being produced, and that means the resulting carcinogenic particulates, nitric oxides that destroy lung tissue, radioactivity, mercury, sulfur, and CO2--all disappear from our air.

To me the real issue is the granting of high density development in the area around the water tower. the water tower is just one of soon to be many examples why that should never have been done. And a mechanism should be in place to prevent that happening in future. So I assume the ridge top protection will implement very strong zoning constraints to avoid that sort of development in future? Not the kind that get tossed aside at the drop of a hat.

Rumor has it that the owners of the Loghaven property SE of the tower will log the property. Is this a case of "we'll take our trees and go home" if they don't get the development they want? Or it market conditions forcing them to get whatever income they can.

I hope this is just a bluff. It's shortsighted to destroy the value of this property just for spite.

____________________________________
Less is the new More - Karrie Jacobs