However, there is another issue that we can do something about to provide a much better future. When Hickenlooper took water out of the Animas for a drink, I guarantee it was not downstream from our wastewater plant in Santa Rita Park.

I have been fishing the Animas River for 17 years, and the section below where the treated wastewater is returned to the river has slowly degraded. The last time I fished it, I found a stretch of river that had a chemical smell and no life under water. I said to myself, “I am not fishing here again.”

This summer, I took my granddaughters to Santa Rita to watch the rafters, and much to my embarrassment, they wanted to know what that “awful smell” was.

I am not a city planner, but I do know Durango and the county have grown and will continue to do so. We have neither planned nor budgeted very well for a new waste treatment plant, and now we have a big decision to make.

Santa Rita Park has become a major hub of water sports and other tourist activities. Our tourist bureau is even located there. It does not make sense to me to build or remodel a sewer plant right in the middle of one of the biggest attractions in our town.

I am aware of some of the many issues involved in moving the treatment plant and cost is certainly a huge factor. It’s going to be expensive no matter what we do, but I hope that when my granddaughters bring their children here for a visit they won’t say, “It still stinks like it did when I was little. What were they thinking?”

Sam Stites

Durango