LYONS – The newly elected Lyons Town Board has its work cut out for it, and its members face a short learning curve. For the first time, Lyons has four women on the town board and three men.

According to new Mayor Kris Hicar, "When the new board members stepped up and took their seats, the energy in the room totally changed." Hicar has plans to hold socials once a month so that people can come and talk one on one with town board members and express their concerns.

The new town board, Kirk Udovich, Juli Waugh, Kathy Carroll, Tina Schooler, Brian Donnell and Peter Baumgartner, has just two members who were on the board last year, Donnell and Baumgartner. Hicar said, "I want everyone to come to the meetings prepared." That has not always been the case in the past.

Other new things that Hicar wants to implement are to create a schedule of all meetings, committees, commissions and boards and to list the times of meetings and all the members on the boards and committees. "We also need to resolve the Bohn Park issue," she said. "We need to let Boulder County know that we want to work with them. I want people to become fully informed and I think that it is up to the mayor and town administrator to get information onto the town website."

Hicar has been working with the Colorado Community Revitalization Association, CCRA, a branch of the Colorado Department of Local Affairs, DOLA. The CCRA is planning to visit Lyons and look over the downtown area to give suggestions to the town board that can help with community revitalization. Hicar also said she wants the board to have a code of ethics, to revisit the 500-foot rule for liquor establishments, and to work on the leash law for Bohn Park.

"For me the goal is to have people be open-minded and openhearted," said Hicar. "I want people to ask questions. There are a lot of positive things going on out there."

One of the issues that the new town board will have to deal with is finding ways to generate revenue for the town. The Lyons budget for 2008 is $6,109,565. Finance Director Janice Saeger said that for the last three years Lyons has issued 40 to 50 building permits per year. The town collects about $37,600 in permits and fees for each new home. That amounts to close to $2 million a year. This year Saeger said the 2008 budget has only 25 residential building permits added in to keep the estimate conservative. "At the time we did the budget, 25 building permits was considered conservative, but it may not be conservative enough," said Saeger.

One of the last spots that the town has to build out is the eighth filing of Lyons Valley Park subdivision located near the high school. Currently the town and LVP are engaged in a law suit over a land dispute with the Loukonen Brothers Stone. Michael Markel, the developer at LVP, will not be pulling any building permits until the lawsuit is settled. The seventh filing in LVP is now completed. "If we have less than 25 permits issued this year, then we would have to cut the budget," said Saeger, adding that build out could occur in about five years.

The town has 155 residential lots left to complete build out and then the only building that will occur will be infill lots.

Another issue that the town board faces is the debt which the Town has incurred. The town still owes $1.67 million on the Dougherty electrical substation. The substation was supposed to cost $1.5 million but it ended up costing $2.29 million. "We have been paying down that debt," said Saeger. The town took out bonds in 2003 and 2006 to pay the debt.

To help the new town board come up with solutions for the issues they face, Town Administrator Howard Armstrong has proposed starting an economic development council to brainstorm ideas and present alternatives and ideas to the town board. "I am formulating a list of names right now; we have about 20 people on the list to consider," said Armstrong. "I hope to have the council in place in about a month. I want this group to be broadly based with a cross section of people interested in economic development. We (the new council) want to put together a comprehensive plan that the board of trustees can consider for adoption. We don’t want to compete with anyone. We want to work together with all the groups in town, the chamber of commerce, the downtown improvement committee and others."

Mayor Hicar said that the town has options. "We still have time," she said. "We are doing okay with the budget for now. We have time to work on the problems."

LONGMONT – On March 26, around 60 people showed up in Longmont, for a presentation given by Coloradoans against Resource Destruction, CARD, a small collaboration of regular folks like you and me – to take on a classic David and Goliath scenario.

Powertech Uranium Corp., a Canadian company, owns the mineral rights to about nine square miles or 5,760 acres of privately owned farm land, 11 miles northeast of Fort Collins, between Nun and the Larimer/Weld County line. This land is scheduled for desecration and eventual death. "We are talking about uranium," as Colorado Senator Brandon C. Schaffer, Assistant Majority Leader, eloquently stated at the opening of this meeting. "It’s a substance that is inheritably dangerous. We can not afford another Rocky Flats."

In the northern half of the Centennial Project area, farm land will be subject to "in-situ recovery". This is the polite version of "in-situ leaching" whereby drinking quality water, taken from the Laramie-Fox Hills aquifer (in excess of around one million gallons per month), is chemically modified then pumped under pressure down wells, diffuses through the ground and is then sucked out bringing with it the dissolved uranium, together with metals such as selenium, molybdenum plus arsenic.

To "optimize" extraction a grid of wells is needed: an aerial view shows a landscape pock-marked with wells. This is not a "benign" form of mining as the Canadian corporation, Powertech Uranium, would have us believe.

Uranium is a naturally occurring element and when left undisturbed, it has no impact; it is chemically locked underground and immobile. If taken to the surface and concentrated, it does become dangerous. Interestingly enough the emitted radiation is not the biggest concern – it doesn’t penetrate the skin. However when inhaled or ingested, the uranium radiation wrecks havoc at a cellular level. A Navajo population living in a reservation near uranium mining operations in southern Colorado witnessed 1500 percent increases in testicular and ovarian cancers in children. Wind-blown and waterborne radioactive particles are real health concerns. Northern Weld County is one of our windiest places – hence the wind-farm just north of Centennial Project. Remember those tailing piles?

Water is a precious commodity. The Laramie-Fox Hills aquifer is part of the Denver Basin aquifer, approximately 7,000 square miles along the Front Range from Wyoming to Colorado Springs and east to Limon. In 2001, there were 33,700 recorded wells into this aquifer. In 2000, the rate of population growth in Colorado At 30.56 percent was ranked number 3 in the U.S – suffice to say, it’s likely many more Coloradoan families are now dipping into this aquifer. Pressurized water carrying dissolved uranium, forced through underground cracks and fissures to potentially contaminate groundwater and ultimately this aquifer, is a real concern. In-situ retention ponds holding contaminated waste water and "bleeding" of uranium-laden water onto the ground around the well during the extraction process are more visible risk factors.

According to presenter Dr Michael Paddack, MD, who practiced in Cortez and witnessed first-hand the disastrous health effects on the Navajo, the Colorado Medical Society passed a resolution against uranium mining because of the radiation issue. Furthermore, the National Academy of Sciences states there is "no safe level of exposure to (uranium) radiation." It is widely recognized that cleaning-up uranium mining sites to achieve previous background levels of contaminants such as uranium, selenium, arsenic, molybdenum and more, is virtually impossible and many previous uranium mining sites have become superfund sites. Any previous uranium mine is at risk of being redeveloped including the site just north of Lyons in Spring Gulch. Want to learn more, concerned about an old site near you? Well sorry, you can’t, it’s a secret per the 1872 Mining Law.

On March 28, the Colorado House of Representatives gave initial approval to House Bill 08-1161 which would require mining companies to show they will reclaim and restore groundwater to pre-mining quality or to state standards. It also would require mine operators to notify all landowners within the vicinity about the proposed permit. This is not just a local Lyons or even Colorado issue – it’s a grave national concern, as confirmed by the representative speaking on behalf of U.S. Senator Ken Salazar (D. Colo.) Who is said to be "tracking it closely." However, in anticipation of HB08-1161 having a tough time with the more conservative Colorado Senate and the fact that mining companies, seeing better opportunities in the Senate, are focusing their lobbying efforts there, it behooves us to make our voices heard directly. Stop and write your senator now. The bill is scheduled to go before a senate committee on April 17.

Visit the Coloradoans against Resource Destruction (C. A.R.D.) web site for more information: http://www.nunnglow.com/

Deirdre Butler lives with her husband Peter in the Apple Valley area. The Butlers are from England and recently became U.S. Citizens. They both volunteer for many environmental programs.