Colorado: A History of the Centennial State, Fifth Edition

21. Environmental Challenges

369 21 On May 13, 1970, the Rocky Mountain News proclaimed , “Jubilant Denver is winner in 1976 bid for winter Olympics.” Bankers, executives, and politicians celebrated the seemingly good news as “another jewel in Denver’s crown.” Some people, however , thought the jewel was a wart. Denver Post columnist Joanne Ditmer feared “a solid line of phony Alpine motels and condominiums from Denver to the Loveland ski area.” Another Post writer, Tom Gavin, charged that the Olympics were backed by “the same watch-us-grow, bigger-is-better, chamber of commerce whoop-de-doo that spawned sell-Colorado programs of the past.”2 Frugal Coloradansbalked at the “$100MillionSnow Job” and bridled at the tactics used to promote the event. In a moment of candor John Vanderhoof, who became governor when John Love resigned in mid-1973, admitted that in negotiating for the games the boosters had “lied a bit.”3 In 1971 anti-Olympic forces including Richard D. Lamm, a Democratic state representative from Denver, organized Citizens for Colorado’s Future, which rallied voters to defeat funding for the games in November 1972. In November 1974 Olympic-slayer Lamm beat Vanderhoof to become governor. As he celebrated his victory Lamm proclaimed, “The political climate is changing.”4 The change became obvious as early as 1972. That year Floyd Haskell, a former Republican turned Democrat, If increasing wealth and expanding choices, not simply growth, are the goals that drive economic development, and are the major purposes of a political culture, they have to be achieved in a way that preserves environmental and other values, because amenities are an increasingly important part of what people are seeking.1 —PhiliP M. Burgess, 1991 environmental Challenges DOI: 10.5876/9781607322276:c21 chapter twenty-one 370 won election to the US Senate by defeating three-term incumbent Republican Gordon Allott. Democrat Patricia Schroeder took the First Congressional District seat, becoming the state’s first female congressperson. Conservative Democrat Wayne Aspinall, a Hercules among Colorado representatives, wielded his power as head of the US House Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs to win major water projects for the state, but in 1972 promises of dams no longer impressed voters as they once had. Alan Merson beat Aspinall in the Democratic primary, and Merson, in turn, was defeated by Republican Jim Johnson. The revolution continued in 1974. Thirty-four-year-old Tim Wirth ousted veteran Republican politician Donald G. Brotzman to become a member of the US Congress from the Second Congressional District. Gary Hart, a thirty-six-year-old lawyer, defeated Republican Peter Dominick for the US Senate, giving the state two Democratic senators for the first time since 1941. Hart saw the political changes in the early 1970s arising from complex factors, among them “a freshness, a newness,newfaces,peopleintunewithmodernissuesandmoderntimes.”Former governor John Love judged, “The sea change in Colorado politics occurred with the Olympics . . . Prior to that time the state was pretty well in agreement on growth policy.”5 In the early 1970s, matters that had once concerned relatively few people—air and water pollution, urban sprawl and open space, preservation of wilderness, scenery and historic structures, the dangers of radioactivity, survival of endangered species, the merits of renewable energy, and conservation of resources— became significant political issues. Love and Hart were correct. Fresh, often youthful faces made a difference. Gaylord Nelson, a US senator from Wisconsin, spurred the movement in Denver on April 22, 1970, when he told an audience of 5,000 that the environment mattered. The message touched many. Under the guidance of Nelson and environmentalist Denis Hayes, “Earth Day,” previously pushed by peace crusader John McConnell, became a national event celebrated annually on April 22. Governor Richard D. Lamm advocated controlled growth to protect the environment and questioned construction of more freeways because they generated more urban sprawl. (Denver Public Library, Western History Collection.) environmental challenges 371 Paradise lost For more than 11,000 years, humans have profoundly affected Colorado. Some archaeologists think prehistoric hunters eradicated large animals such as the wooly mammoth. Thousands of years later, Native Americans’ huge horse herds stressed the plains environment, and trappers ruthlessly killed beaver for their pelts. Hunters drove the bison to the brink of extinction, and non-native animals such as cattle and sheep occupied the bison’s home. Industrialists and settlers befouled the air with smoke from coke ovens, smelters, and coal stoves; polluted streams and riverswithsewageandindustrialwaste ;andplowedupparched land...