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Meet Jan. 27 to try to save Hay Gulch

A steep, shady V-shaped mile of hill gives way to open green meadows and streams as you wander north down County Road 120.

A few years ago, I used to ride my bike through a peaceful, beautiful Hay Gulch. The road was fine, hard-packed and solid under my tires, and the sun at my back was a warm bath. In late spring, the oak lining the road burst into a green tunnel, as leaves came out seemingly overnight. Hay fields were a sea of emerald-green promise. Bull snakes sunned themselves on the empty road, sprawling full length, absorbing heat to drive away the chill of cool, quiet nights.

Squirrels and chipmunks darted in front of my bike, changed their minds, and then rushed back, diving into the brush. The occasional brown bear would wander down from a mesa, and deer were everywhere. Fruit trees grow at the side of the road near long-abandoned farmhouses reminding us Hay Gulch has been here a very long time – once beautiful, now ruined.

The coal mine has expropriated Hay Gulch, taking it away from the residents. It’s now a road churned to pervasive dust, coating oak and hay fields with a thick layer of dirty brown in summer. In winter, it’s a quagmire of mud, potholes, wash-boarded hills and cavernous ruts. And always, there are the 8-foot-wide, 60-foot-long, 40-ton semis elbowing each other for space on a 18-foot-wide road, leaving no room for biking or passenger car traffic.

It’s sad there’s a tractor-trailer rush hour every day in our once-quiet valley. They line up early down the mine’s drive and out onto the road, waiting for loads. Then they turn around and run back up County Road 120 every few minutes at noise levels equivalent to a cross between a freight train and an ambulance, shattering the peace.

There is a meeting at 6 p.m. on Jan. 27 at Fort Lewis Elementary School. We will be there trying to save what’s left of our neighborhood. Please come, help us tell the planning department and the mine it’s wrong to destroy beauty in the name of industry.

Jean Graham

Hesperus



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