In late 2016, the City of Thornton mailed outreach notifications to potentially impacted residents of their original, Eagle Lake, pipeline route; providing those residents a means to voice their concerns and complaints to Thornton, as well as Larimer County. Through a continuing series of consultations, Thornton and Larimer County worked hand in hand with Eagle Lake residents as planning partners to create an alternate route which was specifically formulated to remedy the concerns and complaints of Eagle Lake residents.

This was a precedent setting collaboration which resulted in, not only the creation of an alternate route along Douglas Rd., but abandonment of Larimer County’s long standing policy of not allowing pipeline construction within County road ROW. Additionally, it significantly advanced the time-frame for work on Douglas Rd. from long range to immediate status, while also expanding the anticipated width of the road and overall scope of the project, resulting in a hastily conceived plan which would necessitate the taking of private property to accommodate proposed increased road width.

Extraordinary steps were taken in a number of areas to accommodate the residents of Eagle Lake.

When Thornton and Larimer County finalized the decision to encumber Douglas Rd. with Thornton’s pipeline, there was no commensurate outreach to Douglas Rd. residents, a community consisting of a substantially greater number of impacted residents. There was only a notification meeting where the community was told that Thornton had decided Douglas Rd. was their preferred pipeline route and that homeowners would be contacted by a representative from Thornton if their land was needed for the pipeline.

The egregious, discriminatory decision to deprive residents of the Douglas Rd. community the same outreach, consultation, planning partner status as had been accorded the residents of Eagle Lake, was the tipping point at which the Thornton-Larimer pipeline plan went horribly off the rails.

Each of those “No Pipe Dream” signs in yards throughout the community is a reflection of the pain that was unnecessarily created by the Thornton-Larimer Douglas Rd. pipeline decision. That pain has fostered a commensurate and wholly justified deep-seated anger and distrust of Thornton-Larimer, which is exacerbated every time Thornton-Larimer publicly makes a deliberately misleading statement.

There is also the issue of Thornton contacting Northern Water in May of 2017 to negotiate a scheme to change the proposed route of the massive NISP pipeline (so that it too would run down Douglas Rd.), as a means of creating the appearance that Thornton’s pipeline would be beneficial as a “Coordinated Project Opportunity” and would “minimize community impacts”, as cited in Thornton’s 1041 Permit Application.

Which community was benefiting from the specious claim to “minimize community impacts”? Certainly not Douglas Rd. The only impact the Douglas Rd. community had been facing before Thornton altered their original pipeline route was a simple, long range plan to rebuild the road and possibly add bike lanes at some far off future date.

After the exclusive Thornton-Larimer-Eagle Lake planning partnership was completed, Douglas Rd. residents had suddenly been encumbered with not just one, but two massive pipelines and a significantly wider road with increased truck traffic and taking of private property to accommodate the expanded (84’ total ROW) road width.

It is hard to imagine a more ill-conceived debacle had Thornton-Larimer deliberately set out to create one. Who of you would like to have been excluded, blindsided, silenced and marginalized in this manner? Behind those yard signs are people. They matter and they should have been treated fairly and with dignity. They deserve no less.

Rather than having their PR Firm plant misleading articles in local newspapers, I would urge Thornton to take a more human approach to resolving the cited "outrage" that they are responsible for creating.

As a first step to resolving this calamity, I believe it is both prudent and imperative that Thornton, Larimer County and Northern Water hold a joint public question and answer meeting (with prior written notification mailed to all impacted residents), at the earliest date possible, to address these and other ongoing related citizen concerns.

If there is nothing to hide, why hide it?