Denver Direct: Denver’s City Park as Radionuclide Dump

Hopefully, many residents who live around City Park will come together to fight the degradation of this once-beautiful park. Given the complicity of the Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News, who have refused to report the facts about this (why? their own toxic wastes from printing inks and solvents are among the radioactive and toxic mix at Lowry Landfill now being piped with sewage water to the system being used to fill City Park lakes) the public has been left in the dark about what's REALLY going on. This deal, what basically amounts to a criminal conspiracy, was all negotiated in secret by the Webb administration with this region's worst polluters, like Coors, and now Hickenlooper just plays along. So a plutonium-contaminated Superfund site is now being recirculated back into the public domain, and all done at public expense using millions from our tax dollars so the big polluters in this region could escape liability for their damages at Lowry when it should have all been treated onsite at their expense. Instead, they got their patsies in local government to "hush it and flush it."

A CU prof and her Environmental Studies students revealed all of this in the late 1990's and tried to stop it before the flush began a few years ago. To try to shut her up about it, the polluters and the Denver Post got the CU administrators under their thumb to can her and try to paint her as a wacko. She had won a federal whistleblower case over this in 2000 though, before the then-incoming Bush appointees reversed the judge to protect the polluting corporations' interests. She lives in Congress Park and now works for a non-profit group. You can check out her continuing research and why there has been such a rash of dead ducks at City Park in recent years, the canaries in the coal mine, so to speak. Denver residents need to get busy and not duck this important issue, if they love City Park and the surrounding neighborhoods whose residents have all been hoodwinked over this.

See www.rmpjc.org/deadducks

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Anonymous is referring to Adrienne Anderson, a well-known environmental advocate - who has spent years of her career focused on radiological contamination issues from federal facilities. Her passion is well documented.

Seems like the problem at City Park may be biosolids related, as opposed to radiological. Metro wastewater has an innovative biosolids management program - and optimization efforts are to be expected. The trick is getting folks to evaluate whether such improvement IS necessary and feasible. When folks are not on the same page of understanding, people on one side think there is a conspiracy in progress - and people on the other think they are uninformed alarmists spreading 'urban legends.' Essentially, we are observing a communication problem.

Everyone involved in these kinds of projects usually ARE trying to do the 'right thing,' and believe themselves to be advocates for public health and the environment. Could those lovely lakes be improved by re-evaluating the efficacy of the biosolids program? It's worth a try. Give people a chance to show you how good they are. Call Metro wastewater - and ask them to explain the science behind their biosolids program. Everyone may learn something new together, and the lakes may thank us too.

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Anonymous #2 is quite right that we are having a communications problem here.
I understand that bio-solids are separated, etc. resulting in 70-80 dry tons being hauled away each day. What I am, and have been discussing, is the liquid component, the sewage effluent, not the bio-solid component.
The word “sludge” was used loosely and now we are off on a tangent.
Back to the liquid component. Normal sewage, now charged with Lowry toxins goes into the recycling plant where it is treated as normal sewage. No attempts are made at removing the permitted pollutants.
This discussion has caused some to think that I am against the recycling system. Not so. Just don’t let the Lowry toxins be dumped into our intake (sewers) – very simple. Keep everything else going and then we won’t have worry about the spray from the Prismatic Fountain.

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I love Colorado. I've been a resident of City Park West for over 15 years and I use (used) the park everyday. I want river water in City Park and Washington Park's lakes and fountains. I want river water to water the grasses and fields. I want river water to water the grounds at the middle school in North Park hill. I want river water to water the grounds of the zoo. Just like it's always been. I do not want polluted radioactive waste labled as” recycled” water used anywhere in the city of Denver. We've already polluted for six months we must REVOKE Permit No. 2360-3-1A NOW!

Careen Warren

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