To the Editor:

An echinacea tea bag tag has a Vincent Van Gogh quote, “If one truly loves nature, one finds beauty everywhere.” As the area stands today, there are a thousand paintings, poems, and photographs waiting in the former wet land/gravel pit flood plain that the University wishes to develop as its “South Campus”. It is my wish everyone in Boulder, looking with Vincent’s eye, visits this site to see what will be destroyed should this project go forward. It will never be the same again. Intrinsic to its natural wonder is its open accessibility and availability of multiple footpaths to navigate the area. Again, all this will disappear if the University and the City Council have their way. Construction traffic of out-of-town workers will further clog rush hour traffic, and needed parking will consume acres of the site, And public access will disappear completely during the City’s flood mitigation efforts (which have yet to meet federal standards). Mitigating flooding of houses built on a historic flood plain may well prove to be a fool’s endeavor. My crawlspace in Martin Acres flooded not from Skunk Creek overflowing its banks, but from soil saturation and ground water rise. Rather than seeing the natural world as a source of beauty, the vision of the University and of the City seem clouded with consumer dollar signs. We must stop eating the Earth. CU South/ Just Undo It. 

RP