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The Fort St. Vrain Nuclear Power Plant has produced more headaches than electricity. It has never run at full capacity. It hasn't generated any power at all for months, and it likely won't until next year, if ever. Public Service Co. has written off Fort St. Vrain, and what happens after that seems to be anybody's guess.
Is it the clever slogan, Colorado. And no place
else,
that attracts those hordes of happy free-spending
tourists? Or is it the prospect of sliding down a snowy
cliff in subzero weather which inspires Texans to visit
every winter? Or do tourists really come to observe
Colorado candidates and elections, so that they can enjoy a
comfortable feeling of superiority -- even if they come
from Bulgaria?
No. The real reason that tourists visit Colorado is the same reason that tourists go to Rome or Jerusalem. People like to look at ruins. They stare at abandoned towns like St. Elmo, marvel at the abandoned grade of the Argentine Central Railroad, clamber across abandoned apartment complexes at Mesa Verde, even gaze wistfully at the headframes and hoist houses of abandoned mines above Victor and Leadville.
Think how many more we might attract if they could wander around the abandoned Fort St. Vrain -- a colossal ruin, bigger and more fascinating any dilapidated opera house, rusting stamp mill or collapsed railroad trestle.
Natural decay has been quite profitable for Colorado. There's also money in preservation and restoration. Consider such attractions as the brewery in Fairplay, the railroad depot in Cripple Creek and Bent's Fort near La Junta. In each case, a historic structure, no longer needed for its original purpose, has become a popular museum.
Fort St. Vrain could become the Colorado Museum of Inappropriate Technology. Its principal exhibit, of course, would be core of the nuclear power plant that was decomissioned because it cost too much and didn't work.
There's plenty of other inappropriate technology to put on display. Trail bikes, for one, and all-terrain vehicles, for another. The argument is that these devices allow people in sad physical condition -- young, old, fat, lazy, whatever makes them incapable of walking -- to enjoy the mountains. Just how much pleasure can the mountains hold when the views are filtered through blue smoke and the cliffs echo with internal combustion?
Another exhibit of expensive technology that doesn't pay would be the Winnebago-style motor home. Design a mountain highway for 55-mph traffic, and it's sure to be clogged by these behemoths crawling along at 20 mph, and weaving dangerously at that. You could get one by making payments of $500 a month for five years. You might use it ten nights a year, which works out to $600 a night plus utilities; even the Broadmoor is a bargain by comparison.
Fort St. Vrain could also display trash compactors, boom boxes, teaching machines, food processors -- for a good idea of possible exhibits, examine the latest catalogs from Haverhills, Tools for Living and The Sharper Image. If we could put all this junk in the Museum of Inappropriate Technology, we might get it out of our daily lives. In the process, we could make some more money off our tourists.
When I mentioned this enchanting prospect to a friend
who has devoted his adult life to studying and hating
nuclear power plants, he explained that such a museum would
be impossible. Whatever becomes of Fort St. Vrain, he said,
the site might remain radioactive for centuries. To contain
leakage, the air and nearby groundwater will have to be
monitored. It's a huge toxic waste site,
he
said.
So why is there all this talk about building a new toxic-waste dump way out in Last Chance? Public Service Co. could make money, raise its standing on the stock exchange and live up to its name by converting Fort St. Vrain into a toxic-waste facility. It's close to Denver with easy access, and the security fences, containment vessels and monitoring systems are already in place. Even if Fort St. Vrain can't be operated safely or profitably as an unnecessary evil, it can serve society as a necessary evil.
Fort St. Vrain could still be a tourist attraction, too. After all, a nuclear power plant converted into a toxic-waste dump is indeed something you might find in Colorado. And no place else.
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