La Plata County, Colorado

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While business boosters view A-LP as an economic windfall, others consider it a pork barrel fiasco that would bring serious negative change to the social structure of the county (primarily, by introducing a large number of transient workers), dry up the lucrative local river-rafting industry and erode the riverine ecology below the pumping station. One of those speaking out against A-LP is artist Stanton Englehart.

Stanton was born locally and has lived in the area 56 of his 58 years. A visionary painter of interpretive Southwestern landscapes, Englehart is also an environmentalist, a philosopher, a teacher, a long-haul road bicyclist and a preeminent fly-fisherman. He spoke with me while standing waist-deep in cold mountain water, working a long arc of fly line above one of his favorite riffles on the Animas.

We have great scenery . . . and recreational variety—but you can't live on those things alone.

"The reason I've remained in southwestern Colorado all my life," he began, "is that it puts me on the edge of four different environments. Two hours north and I'm high in the San Juans, as beautiful a range of mountains as exists anywhere. Two hours west and I'm on the edge of Monument Valley and the canyon country of southeastern Utah. And separating these two ecosystems is a transitional zone of pastoral farmland. South two hours, into New Mexico beyond Farmington and Shiprock, and I'm out in a desert area with blowing sand and tumbleweeds, rattlesnakes, real heat, big distances. Finally, two hours east and I'm traveling along the foothills of the mountains—from Bayfield to Pagosa Springs and on east—big cattle ranches and excellent wintering range for elk and deer.

"The biggest threat I see to all of this glorious natural diversity is the relentless push for growth. I just don't think that any of the southwestern Colorado counties have ever had anywhere near the kind of planning that's necessary to deal with the remarkable filling up with people I've observed in my half century and more here. I would like to see a lot more-and better-resource planning, more open land, clustering of development, less construction on scenic hillsides, building along the edges of valleys rather than ripping right through their hearts.

"But instead of well-planned growth, I see houses strung out helter-skelter, roads scarring once-pristine hillsides. I see power lines strung along ridges where they clutter the view and reduce the scale of the landscape. I see virtually no concern for aesthetics anywhere. I'm not very optimistic. Most of the change I've seen here in the past 20 years or so has not been positive. The Animas—La Plata Project would be a continuation of this trend.

LA PLATA COUNTY FACTS

Area

Colorado 103,595 sq. mi.
La Plata Co. 1,692 sq. mi.

Population

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