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Not all that long ago, Colorado was proud of its mountains. But times have changed. Many people want us on Central time, not Mountain time. Mountain Bell may change its name to US West Communications. There was talk of new license plates which did not have the familiar green montane silhouette.
So it must be time to consider eliminating the mountains altogether. The benefits would be substantial.
We pay a gasoline tax of 18 cents per gallon, the highest in the United States. Yet our roads are among the worst; they're so bad that the governor is asking the legislature to raise taxes in an election year.
Why are our roads so terrible when we spend so much? Because our Highway Department must squander vast sums to remove snow from mountain passes and to maintain pavement in severe alpine climates. Just heaving fallen rocks off the highways has exposed the state to tremendous liability. Get rid of the mountains, and our highway problems would vanish.
Consider the water wars along the Front Range. Water is a scarce resource in that part of Colorado, so cities compete viciously for every drop.
Water is scarce because the Front Range cities lie in a rain shadow. Wet clouds from the Pacific Ocean are blocked by the Rocky Mountains. Needed moisture never gets to that thirsty strip from Fort Collins to Colorado Springs. Remove the mountains, and there would be ample water without the expensive formalities of hearings or those tunnels, reservoirs, pumping stations, pipelines and canals.
Without mountains, water quality should also improve. Mountain creeks teem with giardia and coliform bacteria. Along the way, those streams pick up cadmium, selenium, arsenic and lead -- toxic heavy metals that leech out of all those old mines in the mountains.
The mountains also produce the Brown Cloud. The interplay between geography and atmospheric activity is complex. But in essence, the exhaust from a million automobiles is trapped in a bubble over Denver on many winter days. On account of those pernicious mountains, the fumes can't go anywhere. Get rid of the Rockies, and Denver's sky will sparkle.
Our woeful economic state is also the fault of the mountains. The major Colorado industry is real-estate development and speculation along the Front Range. The continued success of this vital enterprise is threatened because the mountains prevent growth to the west.
Of course, there are some human factors to consider in the process of bulldozing the Rockies down to a rolling plain. But those factors are not substantial. Only 190,000 people live in the 27 mountain counties, although they take up 33,689 square miles.
By contrast, the 195,000 residents of Aurora, supposedly a sprawling place, occupy only 62.8 square miles. You could flatten the mountains, build a new city for the former mountain denizens, and still have 21,521,920 acres remaining for profitable development. As a side benefit, this would also solve the issue of where to put a new Denver airport.
It would be best if we didn't worry about accommodating those former mountain residents once their homes had been removed. The people who live in the Rockies are the idle rich of Aspen and Vail. Or else they're the idle poor, found in all other mountain towns. Neither is the sort of hard-working, obedient drone that we need to attract industry and revitalize our economy.
Some fuzzy-minded people might object. Why should the rest of Colorado suffer the loss of the Rocky Mountains, just so metropolitan Denver can have more water, cleaner air, greater subdivisions and a bigger airport?
But when metro Denver has a problem, it already expects the rest of the state to solve it. Rather than abandon its cherished and thirsty bluegrass lawns in the face of an arid climate, Denver dries up some mountain valleys while flooding others. If Denver's air is toxic, that doesn't mean that metro commuters should find a cleaner way to get around. Instead, it means that coal miners on the Western Slope should lose their jobs. It means we can all rise in the darkness during winter. It means our old pickups can choke and sputter on exotic fuels.
Given all that, tearing down the mountains makes sense. The Rockies are obviously all that stands between Denver and true greatness.
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