Letters

Las Vegas has a dreadful problem which requires mostly just energy and willingness to resolve.  

It’s our wasteful outdoor lighting infrastructure and practice which results in loss of the night sky experience, an unattractive townscape, quite an enormous electricity loss, unwanted light trespass and glare, and a generally unhealthy  environment. With no loss of security or utility, and with financial benefit from Day 1, we can start the process of fixing this.  

Thank you to all those in our community who supported, donated items to and attended the rummage sale fundraiser on June 2 on Jackson Street for PROTECT San Miguel County (People Respecting Our Tierra, Environment, and Cultura Together).

We are up against one of the wealthiest, most powerful, and most polluting industries on the planet — the oil and gas industry. Thank you to all who are working so hard to keep our region protected. Let’s stay united.

Bobbie Ehrlich
Antoinette Fox
Carole Silon
Las Vegas

Recently some campers, having passed several signs that prohibited fires except in developed campgrounds, built a campfire in a crispy dry meadow along the Pecos, above Cowles.  

The next day, in the afternoon, coals still produced steam when we poured water on the abandoned fire ring. Some coals had fallen out of the ring and burned the surrounding grass.

San Miguel County’s moratorium that bans the state from issuing permits for fracking and drilling will expire Feb. 12, 2013. A decision on whether to ban drilling permanently or allow fracking in the county will be in front of the commissioners within the next eight months. They will be faced with the choice that offers them one of two options — either protect the citizens’ water, air and ecosystems or bring economic growth to the county in exchange for the natural resources, water and natural gas.