Here we go again.

Apparently the No Pipe Dream group finds a conspiracy behind every bush along the Poudre.

First it was NISP, Larimer County and Thornton Water ‘colluding’ to come up with a solution that might solve many issues before the County regarding their proposed pipelines. When that went nowhere they’re now trotting out the conspiracy between Larimer County, Thornton Water and Eagle Lake to deprive residents along Douglas Road.

What they won’t admit is that the Douglas Road option is the best solution for the pipeline route especially since the locate information shows that the pipeline can be constructed completely within the road right of way. Without taking a tree, fence or anyone’s property. This is a property rights issue, not an us vs. them issue they are so desperately trying to paint.

As president of the Eagle Lake HOA through all of this, I can emphatically say that the version presented above is full of misrepresentations and outright falsehoods. And they know it.

The late 2016 meeting showed a preferred pipeline route through the middle of Eagle Lake, across private property and a wetland area, then up through Woody Creek and across HWY 1 into other private property near the Tri-Lakes area before heading east under I-25 to a storage facility. The pump station was located at the very end of Water Supply Reservoir #4 close to homes in Eagle Lake, Braidwood, and on Starlite Drive.

With much concern about this route across private property, between homes, and through people’s back yards, I organized and our HOA paid for a meeting at the Northside Aztlan Center between Thornton Water, the Braidwood, Woody Creek and Eagle Lake HOA’s plus private property owners in the path of the pipeline including residents from Starlite Drive, some of whom did attend that meeting. Larimer County was not invited nor were they represented at that meeting which occurred on February 27, 2017. No one along Douglas Road was invited because Douglas Road was not considered a route at that time – the County had told Thornton that they couldn’t use the public Right of Way there because they didn’t know what their long term plan was for the road or whether they might need to use it for some other purpose.

A heated and lengthy discussion about the pipeline route was had that evening with Thornton agreeing to reconsider the route. Residents made it clear that we did not want it going through private property and to find options that either used public land, Thornton’s own land from farms they had bought, or across open ground that did not bisect property or people’s yards. That was the last face to face meeting I or anyone from the Eagle Lake HOA had with Thornton Water before the September 2017 public meeting where they revealed their new route that named Douglas Road as the preferred path for the pipeline.

What changed in the interim were two decisions by Larimer County; 1) to include Douglas Road in the revised County Master Transportation Plan (concluded in August 2017) and 2) to allow Thornton Water access to the Larimer County Right of Way for pipeline construction. Neither of which I or anyone at Eagle Lake were consulted about or had a hand in deciding beforehand.

To say that “Through a continuing series of consultations, Thornton and Larimer County worked hand in hand with Eagle Lake residents as planning partners…” is a fanciful recreation of something that did not happen. Also “Extraordinary steps were taken in a number of areas to accommodate the residents of Eagle Lake”? What steps were those? Over half of our 80 plus resident’s homes also use Douglas Road for access to their properties. And this – “The egregious, discriminatory decision to deprive residents of Douglas Road the same outreach, consultation, planning partner status as…Eagle Lake” I can only call a deliberate falsehood to create a neighbor vs. neighbor attitude for the motivation of creating victimhood status. Us vs. them. Something they stated they didn’t want to do but purposefully have.

On several occasions I have asked this group to sit down and discuss options and opportunities for all parties to work together on this – that would include Larimer County and Thornton Water. At each instance, they have refused. They would rather perpetrate falsehoods about how this process has played out and don’t want to hear any solution that includes Douglas Road because it is the one that makes the most sense and there are no victims there, just temporary inconveniences. Just like all the other construction projects we see around Fort Collins. Their strategy of espousing platitudes, emotions and moral indignation is not the same as trying to provide solutions.

I’m sure that if the shoe was on the other foot and the original pipeline route came out of Terry Lake instead of Reservoir 4, came across Terry Point instead of Eagle Lake, down through the Point Townhomes into Terry Cove instead of Woody Creek and then up to Hwy 1 through Terry Shores instead of the Tri Lakes area, they would have called for a meeting with Thornton Water. And once the public Right of Way of Douglas Road was determined to be the best route – one that completely utilizes public, not private land – the residents would have been happy with that solution.

It will be nine months since the Douglas Road route was identified for the pipeline until the public Planning Commission meeting in May. What else needs to be said? Douglas Road is really County Road 54 – the people’s road we pay taxes for, not someone’s private drive. Let’s use it for what it was intended – public transportation and public right of way.