Comment on Open Space agrees to forgo trail improvement near Rocky Flats in deal with Westminster by David Wood
After all their anti-nuclear (not pro-health) posturing, this is the best Westminster could do to get out of the deal?
They were bamboozled by the usual scare tactics of Rocky Flats Downwinders and the Boulder’s Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center. To call these folks “environmental advocates” is an insult to any environmental group. They aim to close down the Refuge and place it off-limits to humans because of radiation doses (at peak plutonium locations on the Refuge’s eastern edge) about 1000 times smaller than background radiation. This side wins most local political battles (but not those in municipalities with expertise such as Arvada and Boulder), but not federal ones. The Greenway results MATTER in the same way that local support for vaccination (or for anti-vax conspiracies) matters—it assesses whether a population actually trusts science, even if it does not understand it.
Amber Hott, one of the Westminster City Councillors who voted to leave the Greenway project, has been a member of the anti-Refuge and anti-nuclear Rocky Flats Downwinders facebook group since March 2023. Surprisingly, she did not recuse herself from the vote. Nor did Claire Carmelia, a member of the anti-nuclear Physicians for Social Responsibility and a candidate for Westminster mayor. The Westminster vote was 4-2.
