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Bottled water must be a booming business. Every time I go to the supermarket, I see more brands next to the Deep Rock. The local saloon stocks several varieties. Even more surprisingly, there are people who aren't embarrassed to be seen drinking Perrier in there.
Meanwhile, Rep. Pat Schroeder is after the Army to pay for purifying groundwater in Adams County. Water from wells that supply about 30,000 people contains traces of TCE, a chemical which dissolves grease in workshops, causes cancer in rats, and damages nervous systems in humans -- an effect which may explain why Adams County officials say and do the things that Adams County officials have said and done lately.
Schroeder says the TCE came from the Rocky Mountain Arsenal, and so the Army ought to pay. The Army, however, has not admitted responsibility; it will likely be years before the matter is settled.
Until then, some enterprising Adams County residents could get in on a growth industry by entering the market with a unique product:
Weak-willed wimps sip imported Perrier. Real men
guzzle swig after swig of official U.S. Army RAMBO WATER,
made the American Way right here in Commerce City. It's
spiked with macho miracle ingredient TCE. This pure Rocky
Mountain Arsenal water is power water -- powerful enough to
cause real earthquakes. Available wherever fine
carcinogenics are sold.
They aren't the only Coloradans who could share in the
bottled-water boom. The Arkansas River, whose waters I live
by, occasionally adds a new dimension to the phrase
Colorful Colorado.
The river turns orange every time
the Yak Tunnel, up by Leadville, lets loose with another
load of accumulated mine drainage -- toxic heavy metals
like cadmium, zinc, silver, manganese, lead and
arsenic.
Our congressman, Ken Kramer, sometimes mentions getting the Environmental Protection Agency to apply Superfund money to the Yak Tunnel. But you know how it is -- Colorado Springs always wants another military payroll, and Kramer is a busy man who can't be expected to find time to attend to each and every little problem in his district.
Perhaps Kramer could spare a few minutes, though, to help our depressed economy by arranging for a Small Business Administration loan for a bottling works. Then we could promote our water with ads on MTV:
Kids! Have trouble finding glue and paint-thinner to
sniff? Then check out High Country Heavy Metal Water, which
oozes out naturally from adits and stopes way up in the
highest part of the Colorado Rockies. Impress your friends
when you take some to the next Twisted Sister concert --
Heavy Metal Water does for your body what Heavy Metal Music
does for your mind.
Fairness, though, demands that other depressed areas be able to share in this good fortune. Happily, towns throughout the state have a marketable product because they have Giardia lamblia in their drinking water.
G. lamblia is a microscopic parasite which causes giardiasis, a long-running disease whose symptoms include nausea and diarrhea. On a hike last summer, I must have imbibed from the wrong creek, and so I could start promoting this bottled water with my own testimonial:
It's hard to stick to a diet. And exercise is a lot
of work. But you still want to lose weight, right?
Then it's time you discovered Chief Ouray's Revenge,
a special natural tonic made exclusively from Impure Rocky
Mountain Spring Water. After just one dose of Chief Ouray's
Revenge, I lost ten pounds in less than a week -- without
going on a special diet, without exercising. In fact, I
hardly even got out of bed.
That's just the start of the variety we could enjoy. Try the mysterious Martin-Marietta Lixivium. Cramp your style with a Coliform Cooler from the wells of scenic Chalk Creek, in the heart of the mountains. Enjoy a sparkling Rocky Flats Infusion, which gives you a radiant tritium glow, much like the uranium luminescence from the famous Cotter Water of Cañon City.
This could be the beginning of new industry and
prosperity throughout the state. As the saying almost goes:
One man's profit is another man's poison.
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