Pueblog USa
Sunday, March 05, 2006
Conduit II
Additional thoughts on the proposed conduit to give good water to the Lower Arkansas; as if they didn’t have any such stuff at THIS time.
You may have guessed….
I think all of these activities—increased sewage spills from Colorado Spring, [relatively]sudden interest in a project begun over 40 years ago, the proposed Colorado Springs Southern Delivery System (SDS)—are related.
As I said, politics, when played well, is a lot like a game of chess. The land is the playing board. The playing pieces are the things that the politicians put into place; bridges, roads, dams, pipelines, etc., etc., etc. Sometimes the playing pieces may be psychological factors in order to motivate the supporting pieces—over which the politician/players have little direct control—to move to a desired position; supporting or opposing the particular objective.
Putting a playing piece on the board positions the player, i.e., the politicians, to achieve a particular action, which is the objective of the game. In doing so, the player limits the options open to the opponent(s). If someone spends so many millions of dollars to build something, like a conduit, it’s only natural that follow-on activities should try to take advantage of the existence of the conduit. Or consider it an intersection on the interstate.
Such is the nature of the game. Put your pieces in place and, in the end, ‘checkmate’, as the Jeff Goldblum character in Independence Day would put it.
However, is that the best game possible?
Seriously. As I’ve always said, in order to achieve the optimum result, one should look to get ‘out of the box’. Especially if it’s a box of a political construction.
The point here is that there is, as usual, more than one way to skin a cat. The problem is in trying to choose the best way to go about it. Especially if it’s a particularly BIG and unusually ‘vicious’ cat. They get that way.
My thoughts are that we should go back to the drawing board on this matter.
I think we need to look at this from a ‘root-cause’ perspective, wherein we would examine the long-term benefits and problems from a statewide perspective. It’s pretty obvious, even to the most casual observer, that the SDS has state-wide—from the Fountain to the Kansas state-line—implications. Therefore, it should be examined at that and, considering that Kansas is involved, federal levels. As of this point in time, it seems to me, according to what I’ve read in the Pueblo Chieftain, that the only serious players have been Colorado Springs and Pueblo; with Florence and some folks down the Arkansas thrown in because they’re beginning to get a clue about the matter.
Back East, someone came up with an idea. An idea that I think we should seriously consider. Why? Because it would be the honest way to go about coping with this serious issue.
More on that later this week….
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