I am hopeful that Albuquerque does not actually build a river walk on the Rio Grande. The Mayor announced that as a possibility today. I know that San Antonio did it and it is a center piece of commerce in that city. At the same time our city might be one of few left in the country that has a relatively wild river still running through it. The trail system along side the Rio is a nature walk in which one can see coyotes, beaver, owls, eagles, foxes and other human beings. It is very unique for a city our size and I hope Mayor Berry opts out of putting fast food on its shores.
Trying to get things done on the Rio is close to impossible at best anyway. The overlapping juridstictions of the Bureau of Reclamation, the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District who claims ownership(unproven), and other agencies such as the State Engineer, Fish and Wild Life Service, and State Parks will make things more difficult. The amount of money spent in meetings and courtrooms will outstrip the development. I think it might be better to put money into sports complexes, bike trails and other amenities.
5 comments:
Jim, agreed. Good point about the Conservancy District.
I think there's plenty of open space for a river walk, and it would offer some additional attractions to the city. Of course, proper planning, design, and review are critical.
That would indeed be a tragic error. You state the case well.
What's that place on the south side of Central, where they have the little train and the buildings that look like they were designed by the people who designed Long John Silver's? Why not say that's a River Walk and call it a day?
The Bosque Trail is sweet, leave it be.
On an issue you raised this week, I see the Journal has reported today on the city's tests for ash in the water. While trying to leave the impression that the filtration system is taking out all the contaminants, the writer was careful not to actually say that, qualifying, well down in the story, that the amount not filtered out is nothing we the people need to worry about.
The concerns raised by two of your readers, whether or not there are contaminants from the fire retardants in the water, and whether any radioactive material was washed into the water supply, were ignored, and the Journal didn't bother or didn't know enough to ask about those.
As for fire retardants, we can at least take comfort in the fact that those are going to be diluted over the area of the entire Rio Grande watershed.
Nuclear material is another story. There is no diluting that. One of the groups trying to monitor that situation says that burrowing animals are bringing radioactive material to the surface, so your reader is correct to worry about it ending up in Albuquerque's water supply.
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