The Grand Junction Area Chamber of Commerce is squarely opposed to protecting Colorado residents’ safety when it comes to oil and gas operations, and is demonstrating this by siding with oil and gas companies in an ongoing court case filed by Colorado children who feel their health, safety and the environment are threatened by overly permissive drilling and fracking activity.
Category: Public health
Environment, Ethics, Pollution, Public health, Safety, Weird Grand Junction Stuff
Spring Open Burn Season Fouls the Air, Casts a Pall over the Grand Valley
by 0 Comments
• •
It’s springtime and open burning season is upon us once again, giving Grand Valley residents sore throats, burning eyes, runny noses, headaches and asthma attacks. Beautiful spring days that dawn clear and bright are soon fouled by dense plumes of smoke that drift across the valley forcing people to close their doors and windows and grab their inhalers. KKCO 11 News on March 16 said, “Add in an early allergy season and you have a recipe for a breathing disaster.”
And a disaster it is, for many people, and not just for their health, but for their property, too.
Corruption, Crazy Republicans, Elections, Energy, Environment, Ethics, Extremism, politics, Public health, Stupid Republicans
Mesa County Commissioner John Justman’s Smug Attitude Toward Constituents
by 3 Comments
• •Check out this online exchange between Mesa County Commissioner John Justman and one of his constituents:
On December 14, a Mesa County resident posted a link to an online petition titled “Defend the Arctic Refuge from Oil Drilling” on Facebook along with the comment “Tillerman will drill this.”
The person was referring to Donald Trump’s secretary of state nominee Rex Tillerson, the former CEO of Exxon, who has made drilling for oil his life’s work.
Surprisingly, the first person to chime in in the comment section below the post was none other than Mesa County Commissioner John Justman, who wrote “Good Job Tillerman,” signaling his approval for drilling the Earth to death while repeating the misspelling of Tillerson’s name.
In response, the constituent wrote:
“John sometimes I think you say these things to be funny. The truth is this time it is NOT funny. You will be dead before your grandchildren will have to deal with a entire change in the environment you and I have taken for granted. Today the North Pole had a high of over the freezing level and the “heatwave” is suppose to continue. These fragile areas have iconic creatures you and I are familiar, but your grandchildren will watch the last of those animals perish. If you believe that is good, then I question your fitness to serve as a Commissioner. That position takes great analytical and practical thinking about today and the future.”
To this take-down, Justman thundered back:
Environment, Ethics, Human rights, Pollution, Public health, Safety, Weird Grand Junction Stuff
City Council to Consider Ban on Open Burning at Tonight’s Meeting
by 2 Comments
• •Does the smoke from open burning make you choke?
Corporations, Equal rights, Ethics, Extremism, Health care, Human rights, Public health, Secularism, Separation of Church and State, Women
Why We Should be Glad To Have an Alternative to a Catholic Hospital in Mesa County
by 3 Comments
• •While the above video is a humorous review of the dangers Americans face when using Catholic hospitals, the main points it makes are dead true. Catholic hospitals can endanger patients’ lives because of the many restrictions placed on their medical care by Catholic dogma.
Advertising, Corporations, Ethics, Gun violence, Public health, Women
Pinkwashing Gun Deaths: Sportsman’s Warehouse’s “Shoot for a Cure”
by 2 Comments
• •It’s October again, that time of year when pink gets slapped on all kinds of products, from toasters to waffle makers to beer pong tables, and ads urge people to buy stuff to prevent breast cancer.
Now Sportsman’s Warehouse has jumped into the fray, running newspaper ads selling pink guns and urging people to “shoot for a cure.”
Ick.
How inappropriate is this?
Let’s count the ways.
Consumer advocacy, Democracy, Ethics, Fake patriotism, Hunger, politics, Poverty, Public health, Stupid Republicans
Mesa County Blocks Access to Food Assistance Program, Loses Out on Critical Economic Benefits
by 11 Comments
• •Half of Mesa County residents who are eligible for food stamps get them, while the other half who apply are routinely turned away.
Rose Pugliese, the Mesa County Commissioner who leads the Department of Human Services (DHS) commission in charge of managing food stamp programs in Mesa County, has picked nasty public fights with county DHS management (video) and follows her predecessor, Janet Rowland, in trying to restrict Mesa County residents from participating in federal food assistance programs.
Children, Diversity, Equal rights, Ethics, Extremism, Health, Human rights, Intolerance, LGBT issues, politics, Propaganda, Public health, Secularism, Separation of Church and State, Women
Delta County School Board Rips Off Kids
by 28 Comments
• •The Delta County School Board is violating state and federal laws in order to keep students from getting medically-accurate sex education information, and it seems to be by design.
Last October, the school district hired controversial abstinence-only-before-marriage pontificator Shelly Donahue as a sex education speaker for students. According to students, this was the only “sex education” the Delta County School District provided them, and the school board and district administration apparently consider this an adequate sex education.
Far from it.
For those who aren’t familiar with Shelly Donahue, she is an evangelistic Christian abstinence-only speaker who rakes in government grant funds by giving “WAIT” (“Why Am I Tempted”) training in public schools. Donahue’s website says
“She is passionately committed to Jesus Christ as the ultimate answer to the teen sexual activity problem in America. As a motivational speaker and a leading sex education expert, she is making a significant impact for the Kingdom of God!”
In her talks, Donahue dishes out vast amounts of medically inaccurate information to kids and uses broad, simplistic analogies that convey stereotypical images of what boys’ and girls’ personalities are like. She includes liberal doses of religiously-based, guilt-and-shame to frighten students out of having sex before marriage.
Aesthetics, Equal rights, Human rights, Public health, Religion, Safety, Secularism, Women
Community Hospital: a Welcome Secular Option for Mesa County
by 1 Comment
• •Community Hospital will open its long-awaited new hospital on G Road near 24 Road on March 17.
It’s a gorgeous building, with beautiful main hallways, state-of-the art equipment, large windows on every floor, wonderful views and tons of light. It has 44 private rooms and a new labor and delivery center with extra beds for family members and jacuzzi tubs, all inside each of the exclusive individual birthing suites. The new emergency room is much bigger and better equipped than the old building’s, and the hospital has lots comfy waiting areas throughout for families and friends of patients.
The hospital employees who took the time last Saturday to give the public tours of the new building were enthusiastic about the move to the new facility and obviously very dedicated to their jobs.
A Very Important Option
In addition to its great new building, Community Hospital also offers Mesa County residents another very important value: it’s a secular (non-religious) hospital that can offer full service medical care to everyone.
St. Mary’s Hospital and Medical Center, a Catholic facility, is the biggest hospital between Denver and Salt Lake City, but because what happens at St. Mary’s is guided by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (pdf) rather than by the most informed decisions of doctors, Catholic hospitals can deny people access to many important and necessary health care services and procedures.
Aesthetics, Environment, Health, Pollution, Public health
Burn Haze Has TV Weather People Recommending Grand Valley Citizens Close Windows and Doors
by 0 Comments
• •Thinking of moving to Grand Junction?
You might want to think again. It’s spring open burning season — something people moving here rarely hear anything about from the Chamber of Commerce relocation packets, or from their realtors. Thanks to the cultural throwback of open burning, an acrid pall hung across the Grand Valley today as open burning season began. The air smelled as bad as it looked, too, reeking of burnt wood and rubber, and driving people indoors to escape the respiratory effects of the smoke.
Aesthetics, Environment, Pollution, Public health, Safety, Security, Weird Grand Junction Stuff
Grand Valley Residents Jump the Gun on Open Polluting Season 2016
by 0 Comments
• •Spring Open Polluting season is almost here in Mesa County, but many landowners who are eager to burn leaves and trash can’t wait. They’re jumping the gun and polluting their neighbors’ air earlier than the law allows.
Open Polluting Season in the county officially starts on March 1 and runs until the end of May. During this time, area residents can legally burn yard debris and force their neighbors inhale the smoke without concern for the health or welfare of anyone around them. The County also permits open polluting in September and October. During these months citizens are allowed to pour trash into the Grand Valley’s air and suffocate nearby residents with clouds of stinky smoke during the five most beautiful months of spring and fall, ironically at the same time outdoor temperatures become most conducive to enjoying outdoor activities.
Ethics, Public health, Safety, Security
Public Restroom Review: Western Colorado Botanical Gardens/Las Colonias Park
by 6 Comments
• •Hold your nose, open the door and peer into the new public restrooms at the Western Colorado Botanical Gardens parking lot, and you’re in for a big, pleasant surprise.
The facility is brightly lit, remarkably clean, spacious, and warmed just enough in February to take the edge off toilet seat butt shock. All the stall doors are intact, have sturdy latches and, in a huge plus, the toilets are automatic flushers! No more being forced to look at the objectionable results of the last user’s (or should I say “loser’s”?) failure to flush.
Democracy, Economics, Education, Ethics, Extremism, Food, Health care, Hunger, Intolerance, Magical thinking, politics, Propaganda, Public health, Safety, Security, Stupid Republicans, Weird Grand Junction Stuff
Slap Down! Mesa County Commissioner Scott Mcinnis Rebukes Ultra Right Wingnut, Defends All the Good the Federal Government Does
by 19 Comments
• •In a jaw-dropping political turnabout at Monday’s (2/8/16) Mesa County Commissioner meeting, the county’s farthest ultra-right wing nuts out-right winged the regular right wing nuts, resulting in arch conservative Commissioner Scott Mcinnis strongly defending — yes, defending — all the good the federal government does for Mesa County citizens and our quality of life.
The fireworks started with a discussion of whether Mesa County should accept a $2.1 million grant to build a detention pond in Bosley Wash at the bottom of the Bookcliffs. The wash has been the site of several flash floods in recent years resulting one person getting killed, several private properties being repeatedly covered in mud and silt and massive mudflows pouring over I-70. Bosley Wash endangers a total of 200 properties near the base of the Bookcliffs between Clifton and Palisade.
Consumer advocacy, Corporations, Energy, Environment, Ethics, Fracking, Health, Public health
Whitewater-Area Residents, Ignored by Mesa County Commissioners, Still Suffer from Frackwater Odors, Illnesses
by 10 Comments
• •On November 23, 2015, residents of Whitewater, Colorado submitted a letter to Mesa County Planning Department and the County Commissioners asking for permanent relief from the odors and health problems they have been suffering from Alanco Energy Services’ Deer Creek frackwater disposal facility.
Residents of the Kannah Creek, Bridgeport Road and the greater Whitewater areas have formed a community advocacy group called the Whitewater Community Alliance. They have complained to the County since 2013 of loss use of their property due to the noxious odors emanating from the Deer Creek facility.
Residents report getting headaches, sore throats, nosebleeds, nausea, asthma attacks and malaise when the odors engulf their properties. The smell and accompanying illnesses are worst at times of high humidity, in the late evening and early morning hours. People who have visited the area surrounding Alanco’s waste pits describe an unbearably strong, metallic-excrement odor and complain of sore throats lasting hours to days after the visit.
Aesthetics, Health, Pollution, Public health, Safety, Security
What the Grand Junction Economic Partnership Won’t Tell You About the Grand Valley
by 3 Comments
• •The Grand Junction Economic Partnership (GJEP) recently revealed an attractive new website to try to lure more educated people to relocate to Mesa County, but it avoids telling the whole story about what people face when they move here.
Hazardous Waste Capital of Colorado
One important thing people need to know when considering a move to the Grand Valley is that Mesa County is the hazardous waste dump capital of the state. Mesa County is home to the largest radioactive hazardous waste repository in the state, the Cheney Repository, a 94 acre industrial waste site completed in 1994. The Cheney site sits on the flanks of the scenic Grand Mesa, near another hazardous waste site the Mesa County Commissioners approved in 2012, Alanco Energy’s Deer Creek frackwater disposal site. That facility currently consists of 8 acres of open evaporative ponds. Trucks of full of contaminated frackwater drive from rig sites for hundreds of miles around to dump their loads there, and the noxious odors emanating from the Deer Creek facility have been making Mesa County residents for miles around sick with headaches, vomiting, sore throats, bloody noses and respiratory illnesses. Despite years of pleading for help, the county commissioners have done nothing to help the situation. Alanco owns another 160 acres at the same site, and hopes to expand its stinky frackwater and other hazardous waste dump operations. Given the hearty embrace the Mesa County Commissioners have given past hazardous waste dumps, it’s likely to happen, too.
Children, Health, Hunger, Poverty, Public health
Grudgingly Spending Money on Halloween Candy? Here are Some Candy-Free Alternatives
by 0 Comments
• •Many people think Halloween means handing out candy, candy and more candy. But desperate attempts by local dental offices to reduce the harm candy poses by buying back Halloween sweets by the pound, combined with sharp increases in childhood obesity, diabetes and dangerous nut allergies are all making many people re-think the Halloween candy-fest, and rightly so.
There ARE many items people can hand out on Halloween that are healthier, safer, more useful and even more fun for kids, and that cost about the same as candy.
It Turns Out Kids Love Alternatives
For several years at our house, we did an experiment. We offered trick-or-treaters two different bowls of goodies to choose from. One contained “good” candy, like Hershey bars and Snickers, and the other contained small, party favor-like toys like rubber spiders, Mardi Gras-style necklaces, glow sticks, toy trucks, etc. It turned out the kids took the toys over the candy by about a 3 to 1 ratio. The party items cost about as much as candy, too. You can find them in the party sections of big box stores like Wal Mart, K-Mart and Target, and there are lots of similar fun little items at dollar stores around the valley. Several kids in our family have diabetes, and one has a severe peanut allergy, so knowing the dangers candy can pose to some kids, we decided to stay on the safe side this year and just offer toys instead. The kids seem to love it.
Consumer advocacy, Corporations, Democracy, Elections, Environment, Grassroots advocacy, Health, Human rights, politics, Pollution, Public health, Safety
Community Rights Ballot Initiative Coming Back in 2016
by 0 Comments
• •Coloradans for Community Rights (CCR) is gearing up to once again put a Community Rights initiative on the 2016 state-wide ballot.
A Community Rights amendment doesn’t ban anything. Instead, the measure establishes that communities in Colorado have a definitive right to local self-government. That is, the new law would give people, not corporations, the dominant authority to decide how to best protect health, safety and welfare in their own communities and surrounding natural environments. Basically, the measure would allow communities to decide, free from corporate or state interference, whether to allow corporate projects that could negatively impact their safe and healthy environments.
What does this measure mean to citizens on the western slope?
The Community Rights Amendment would, for example, give Mesa County residents living around Alanco’s stinky Deer Creek frackwater ponds the right to disallow this land use in their area. It would also give Paonia residents the right to keep drilling and fracking activities away from their schools, residential areas and organic farming districts. Corporations and their trade groups could no longer sue communities over decisions to keep dangerous or noxious industrial activities out of their area. The amendment would also prevent corporations from suing communities that vote to enact living wages, or ban GMOs (genetically modified organisms), for example.
On August 17, CCR submitted the official ballot language for the 2016 Colorado Community Rights Amendment to the Colorado Legislative Council. The ballot measure is very short, only about 200 words. After the ballot language is approved, CCR will organize a state-wide campaign to gather the number of signatures necessary to qualify the measure for the November 2016 statewide ballot.
CCR tried to get a Community Rights measure on the 2014 statewide ballot, but legal challenges by corporations opposed to the measure succeeded in delaying the signature-gathering phase of the effort until it was too late. This time, CCR has started work early enough that they will have a better shot at getting the measure on the ballot and passing it.
Efforts to pass Community Rights Initiatives are also ongoing in New Hampshire, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Washington.
Pop culture, Public health, Safety, Security
Independence Day Mayhem in Mesa County
by 0 Comments
• •Independence Day is Mesa County offered fun for some, but caused a tremendous amount of trouble and expense for citizens in the evening due to multiple fireworks-caused fires, intoxicated drivers, people angry at neighbors who continued to blast fireworks off late into the night, loose dogs running scared and a host of other problems.
Someone using illegal fireworks started a major fire at 26 and G 1/2 Roads around 10:00 p.m. on Independence Day. The fire lit up the night sky with an orange glow and could be seen for well over mile away. The fire caused evacuation of several houses and burned a wood pile and barn. Grand Junction Fire Department engines 4, 5 and a BLM brush truck responded to the fire. Despite the glow of the fire being visible and smoke smell filling the air for miles around, people living in the immediate area continued blowing off illegal fireworks, which were visible in the night sky along with the blaze.
Fires were also reported on Buffalo Drive on the Redlands and Bean Ranch Road in Whitewater, where a fire initially reported as 100 ft in diameter quickly grew to 1/2 acre by 11:00 p.m., with flames visible from Highway 50. The Bean Ranch Road fire was reportedly on BLM land with no one attending to it.
It was also a busy night for law enforcement. An elderly woman at 2856 1/2 Elm Ave. called law enforcement at 11:16 p.m., extremely anxious about fireworks being thrown into her yard and threatening to go outside with her gun and kill the people who kept setting them off if law enforcement didn’t come immediately and make them stop.
Law enforcement responded to many calls regarding intoxicated people stumbling around at Lincoln Park and on the streets, as well as drunken drivers throughout the valley weaving and going going off the sides of roadways. At 11:12 p.m., an intoxicated man reportedly passed out on the street approximately 200 yards east of 30 and E Roads. Stray dogs were reported running loose from Loma to Orchard Mesa and Animal Control was called.
Another brush fire was reported on Highway 50 at mile marker 47 at 11:06.p.m.
“We’re getting slammed,” law enforcement reported.