Photos taken on June 7, 2023 show muddy, eroding logging roads from the “Antelope Park Forest Health Project” dumping sediment into a stream flowing directly into Longmont Reservoir, drinking water supply for the city’s 98,885 residents. [1]
A formal complaint was filed last week with CDPHE’s Water Quality Control Division, which asked for GPS coordinates to investigate the alleged violation.
The Antelope Project gouged out miles of new roads above the reservoir to facilitate so-called “wildfire risk reduction” logging over 3,000 acres in Button Rock Preserve adjacent to Hall Ranch Open Space west of Lyons in Boulder County. The taxpayer-subsidized logging is courtesy of Colorado State Forest Service, Boulder County, and City of Longmont, under the umbrella of the St. Vrain Forest Health Partnership. [2]
Photos show thick layers of sediment coating rocks in the streambed directly below muddy, eroding logging roads. Sediment can also be seen collecting on cement at the intake pipe for the drinking water supply a few hundred yards downstream.
Ironically, much of the justification for logging the otherwise protected Button Rock Preserve is to “protect the quality of water…as it relates to resiliency in the event of a wildfire.” Instead of the theoretical possibility of erosion from the natural and essential process of wildfire, the logging roads have guaranteed major deposits of sediment in the drinking water supply. [3]
Independent, non-agency-funded studies conclude that not only won’t logging stop large wildfires, it can make them burn hotter and spread faster by opening forests to sunlight and wind. [4]
Indeed, the entire premise of logging to create “historical conditions” of parklike forests due to “overgrown” stands and “unusual” high-severity wildfire has been repeatedly debunked by multiple studies in peer-reviewed journals. Contrary to the industry/agency narrative, these studies find that western forests—including in Colorado’s Front Range—prior to fire suppression did grow densely and did experience high-severity wildfire. [5]
“This spring at a public meeting we warned the St. Vrain Forest Health Collaborative of the near-certainty of erosion from gouging out logging roads on steep slopes above our drinking water supply, but they ignored our concerns,” says Josh Schlossberg, Longmont resident and Colorado steering committee member of Eco-Integrity Alliance. “Which is why we’re calling for an immediate moratorium on all so-called ‘wildfire risk reduction’ logging in the state until independent scientists and concerned citizens can meaningfully engage in the decision-making process.”
The mission of Eco-Integrity Alliance is to unite the grassroots environmental movement through common campaigns of mutual support. More at Eco-IntegrityAlliance.org.
[1] https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1IHgMrqWz_uu6PSCua1reoZhukZWn4xBd?usp=sharing
[2] https://nocofireshed.org/fires/antelope-park/
[3] https://www.longmontcolorado.gov/home/showpublisheddocument/17289/636207692217330000
[4] https://www.energyjustice.net/files/biomass/library/Carey-Schumann.pdf
The Colorado Smokescreen 
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