Reading the Grand Junction Sentinel paper a few years ago, there were at least three articles on the tamarisk that grow along the Colorado River, proclaiming that each one consumed between 200 to 300 gallons of water per day. These people, I presume, are very well educated to come up with their facts and are as wise as a tree full of owls, reading many books – and I mean thick ones – to come up with these statistics.

Now, wouldn’t it be just good old common sense, if it is true that cutting down a tamarisk after consuming this much water, it would spray like a garden hose and the river would become a creek before reaching Lake Powell?

The truth is a tamarisk needs very little water to grow, and in cutting it you will see not one drop of water. What do they think, that we’re a bunch of dumb a’s to swallow their facts?

Probably the same caliber of people as some of you may remember back years ago, when there was talk of capping the Atlas tailings pile. They suggested crushing the material from Round Mountain in Castle Valley and hauling it down SR 128 to the Atlas pile.

Can you imagine what a scar this would leave on Round Mountain, as well as the heavy traffic on the river road? How often do we see smart people make bad decisions?

And the same goes for Matrimony Spring being torn out by the same types of people. It kind of reminds me of Russian tactics: “To hell with you people – we know what’s best for you.”

—Brig Larsen

Moab