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Glenwood Springs, CO Colorado

Presidents Day is portrayed by portraits of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln who, respectively, presided over drafting of our Constitution and prevented the disintegration of the United States.

Washington, as general of our American army, aided by France, became our first president. The Democratic party now appears to claim Thomas Jefferson as their original leader, but Jefferson, who strongly stood for independence of an educated public, would probably have rejected today’s leadership.

Abraham Lincoln, our leading Republican president, kept the United States united, freed the slaves, gave use our Homestead Act, and reminded us of what our forefathers accomplished.



President Grant gave us the mining claim law of 1872. The homestead and mining laws accelerated the productive growth of America to the Pacific Ocean as an agricultural, industrial and technological power, aided by immigrants seeking freedom and opportunity.

Now radical environmentalists encouraged by the Carter, Clinton and Obama administrations are desperately trying to reverse America’s natural resource production to no production by creating monuments, parks, wildernesses, etc. Examples of what the radicals, not the normal environmentalists, are doing follows:



1. The Sierra Club is trying to get the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge converted to wilderness, thereby eliminating the expansions of Prudhoe Bay-type oil production eastward.

2. The Carter administration converted three times as much wilderness, such as locked-up land in Alaska, as existed in the lower 48 states.

3. The great Quartz Hill molybdenum deposit in southeast Alaska, discovered and developed by an American corporation, was made so difficult, if not impossible to operate, that the deposit was sold to a foreign company, which is holding it as an asset.

4. Radical environmentalists are trying to stop construction of coal exporting ports in Longview, Wash. The construction cost would be about $100 million, employing 125 workers, 75 of which could become permanent. Montana and Wyoming mine about 500 million tons of coal per year, increasing production that could be exported from Longview to China.

Multiple uses of all America’s needed natural resources everywhere, found by exploration and development for production, must be the solution to America’s radical environmentalists.

Dooley P. Wheeler, Jr.

Rifle

John Martin needs to get his facts straight regarding East Elk Creek Road. Perhaps if he had ever hiked the road, as I have hundreds of times, he would know it is impossible to get to the Flat Tops or Dotsero from there. That’s because a mile past John Kelly’s property, it turns into a foot trail.

In my opinion, it would be a travesty to pave this small stretch of road for several reasons, the most important being it would expose New Castle’s water supply to potential pollution, with devastating results. The trail is also one of the few places in New Castle that a fisherman can access, as almost all of East Elk Creek passes through private land.

As a disabled Vietnam veteran who seeks the peace and quiet of the wilderness, I find this small stretch of dirt road to be one of the last best places I can go to fish, walk and enjoy the wild. I hope my fellow citizens of New Castle will join with me in letting the town council know there is little to be gained by moving forward with any plan to further pave the planet.

Allen Orcutt

New Castle


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