Copyright 2006 Denver Publishing Company
By BILL SCANLON
Rocky Mountain News (Denver, CO)
BOULDER, Colo. — The City Council made American Indians happy but Celestial Seasonings executives furious when it voted 6-3 Tuesday night to locate a new fire training center near the famous tea maker, rather than near a sacred Indian site.
The night started as a near love- fest, with some council members congratulating themselves and their staff for finding an alternative site to Valmont Butte, which many American Indians consider sacred because of the anthropological finds there and the existence of a sweat lodge.
American Indians thanked council members for their sensitivity.
Then, officials representing some of the large corporations near the alternative site adjacent to the Boulder Reservoir spoke.
They said they’d never been informed that the so-called Wells property near their businesses was even an option.
David Zeigard, senior director of operations at Celestial Seasonings, said he wasn’t told until Tuesday afternoon that the fire training site might be built close to his company.
“We’re extremely concerned,” he said. “There are going to be 70 fires a year there.
“Our receiving dock is due south of where the center would be built. It may cause contamination of our botanicals.”
Zeigard noted that Celestial Seasonings manufactures enough tea annually to fill 1.6 billion tea cups and that it’s reputation as an environmentally sensitive company is dependent upon uncontaminated natural ingredients.
Zeigard said he’s not sure what the company would do if the fire-training site was built close by but that “as a public company, we need to do everything we can to oppose this.”
Boulder Deputy Fire Chief Frank Young said he had called Celestial Seasonings and invited someone to attend a public hearing on the matter slated for Jan. 16.
But Zeigard said notes from that same Jan. 16 meeting quoted city officials as saying they’d talked to officials at some of the companies near the site - but not to those at Celestial Seasonings.
Young said the current fire training site is within 150 feet of some houses and that there are few complaints.
He said the nearest house or business to the Boulder Reservoir site is about 1,000 feet away. He added that the site, including a five-story tower, will use clean wooden pallets as fuel that shouldn’t cause harmful airborne pollutants.
Three council members who opposed the motion to locate the training center at Boulder Reservoir cited Celestial Seasonings’ concerns but said they were more worried that the American Indians’ victory would be temporary, followed by a devastating loss.
American Indians and historic preservationists banded together this week to form the Valmont Butte Heritage Alliance, hoping that if the council said “no” to the fire training site there, the alliance could raise some $2 million to buy the property from the city and preserve it as a museum and anthropological site.
But the Alliance’s fundraising partner, Trust for Public Lands, isn’t so sure.
The Trust certainly would like to help save the butte, but “this is going to take a big effort,” said spokesman Jason Corzine. “It’s not going to be very easy, but we’ll give it the old college try.”
Those words sounded risky to council members Tom Eldridge and Andy Schultheiss, as well as Mayor Mark Ruzzin.
“This whole solution rests on whether the Trust for Public Lands can raise that money,” said Schult-heiss. “If not, the property will have to be resold to an industrial developer.”
With Boulder still not fully recovered from sharp downturns in sales tax revenues, it doesn’t have the luxury of paying $6.2 million for a fire training center at the Wells property then just forgoing the $2 million or so it could get from selling the Valmont Butte property, he said.
Better to build the fire training center at the Valmont Butte site, where it could coexist with an American Indian museum, and the anthropological sites could be preserved, said the three council members who voted against the measure.
“The Native American interest in this site will be worse off” if the fundraising effort falls short, Schultheiss said.
“It’s a huge risk. If it doesn’t come through, we’re in a big pickle.”