Environmentally responsible, pedestrian- friendly, and economically sustainable. That was the picture developer Dean Matthews painted of his proposed 792- lot “Tottenville” subdivision at an informational meeting Nov. 12 before a crowd of about 70.

Tottenville, which would be built on about 475 acres owned by Scott Tipton near Totten Reservoir east of Cortez, could become the second-largest municipality in Montezuma County if built out as planned. Consequently, it has sparked considerable interest and a number of concerns — among them, traffic and sewage treatment.

On Nov. 12, Matthews attempted to allay some of those concerns.

Tottenville is in a very preliminary stage, with a public hearing planned some time early next year before the county planning commission to see whether the board recommends approval of the zoning for such a high-density development. The county commissioners have the final say over whether the zoning is granted.

The county’s minimum lot size is normally three acres, but smaller lots are allowed in the Urban Services Zone, the zone Matthews and Tipton have applied for. The county land-use code says such zoning is for developments where urban services can be provided. However, Tottenville would not actually receive urban services. Its water would come from Montezuma Water Company and it would have its own sewage-treatment facility and lagoon.

Matthews said he envisions a five phase development that would be built over 15 or 20 years, with the first phase consisting of 106 units and costing about $25 million.

In addition to the estimated 792 single- family homes on lots ranging in size from a quarter-acre to an acre, the development would include commercial districts within each phase, designed so that all residents can easily walk to a café or grocery store.

Matthews said the commercial areas would be designed to service each neighborhood and to “bring outside traffic in” but that they would not harm Cortez’s downtown and would not compete with existing retailers.

Tottenville would have numerous environmentally friendly features, Matthews said:

• Passive solar design would be encouraged in all homes, with building envelopes designed to accommodate south-facing structures. And each house would be equipped with solar panels, which would be owned and maintained by a company of Matthews’. “We want sustainable, renewable energy. This is a responsible way of living,” Matthews said. “We feel this is the best way to develop.”

• Walking and cycling would be encouraged and vehicular traffic minimized. Houses would front on pedestrian/ bike pathways while the actual streets would be behind the homes.

• There would be 120 acres of dedicated open space and wildlife corridors throughout the development.

• Wastewater effluent would be treated and reused for irrigation. Some of the project’s other pluses, according to Matthews, are:

• About 15 percent of the houses would be “affordable and attainable,” at $100,000 to $300,000 apiece, and three lots per each phase would be dedicated to Habitat for Humanity.

• During construction, Tottenville would pump roughly $33 million per year into the local economy.

• It would concentrate growth onto “non-agricultural land bordering Cortez” rather than spread it throughout the county.

“I don’t see a down side to this project,” Matthews said. “If you heard about this project in Colorado Springs, most people would say, ‘Man, that’s a good project’.”

But the audience had concerns, one of which was traffic. Tottenville does not adjoin any highway. As it is planned now, access would be from the west, through an existing city subdivision and onto Eagle Drive, which empties onto Highway 145. A second main access would be via Fairway Drive (which comes out at the Go-fer Store) to the northwest corner of the property.

Matthews suggested the county should also build roads to allow access southward out of Tottenville onto Highway 160. “With the amount of money we’re paying in impact fees, I would hope you would push the county to build those roads to have those cars go south,” Matthews told the audience.

Deb Campbell, a Totten-area resident, asked how many daily vehicle trips the subdivision would generate, saying it could be in the thousands. “These people will bring cars,” she said. “They will not stay in this 475- acre paradise you’re creating.”

Matthews said he has not done a traffic impact study and does not believe the county’s land-use code requires one until after the zoning is approved.

Other audience members asked who would be able to afford to live in the subdivision. Matthews said the development would be marketed on a large scale and that many people coming to Tottenville would provide their own jobs by working out of their homes.

But people questioned whether many residents, particularly those living in the more affordable housing, could pay the homeowners’ association dues, when those dues would have to provide funding for operating the sewage-treatment facility, maintaining solar panels, maintaining roads, enforcing covenants, and running a K- 8 charter school that would likely be built.

“I still see yuppies with heavy coins being more attracted to Durango than here,” said audience member Ned Harper.

Another concern was sewage. The development would have its own system, a low-energy aereated lagoon on five or six acres with constructed wetlands.

“It’s hard to build a small part of a sewage plant,” admitted project engineer Cap Allen, who said most of the treatment facility would be built in the beginning. According to documents submitted with the zoning application, the developers will seek state approval for the full-capacity facility, but “phasing will be used as much as possible as it is not feasible to construct a full facility for the first 100 lots. Full permitting for such a facility is a time intensive process and it is not feasible to have that completed for zoning approval only.”

Whether sewage-treatment approval and other information is necessary for zoning was the subject of a debate between Matthews and the county on Nov. 24.

Matthews said growth is coming to the area no matter what and that he had heard estimates of 5,000 to 40,000 new county residents over the coming years.

“If we don’t plan and design how we’re going to like our community to be, we’re going to have a hodgepodge,” he said.

He said he recognized people’s concerns about the scope of the development. “I understand how big this project is. It’s very large.” But it would not be possibly to create an environmentally sustainable community on a small scale, he said.

“This project is not money-driven, this project is conscience-driven. … I think this is the future of responsible development and responsible living,” Matthews said.

The biggest subdivision ever proposed in Montezuma County appears to be headed for a hearing before the planning commission despite a letter from the planning director stating that the zoning application was incomplete and should not move forward.

On Nov. 24, developer Dean Matthews pleaded with the county commissioners to allow his proposal for “Tottenville,” a 792-lot subdivision east of Cortez, a hearing before the planning commission, and won their reluctant but unanimous consent.

“If you don’t submit a bunch of this [information], it’s going to be hard for them to make a decision,” warned Commission Chair Gerald Koppenhafer. “I don’t have any problems sending it to the planning commission, but if they don’t like what you submit, they’re going to reject it.”

The hearing date had not been scheduled as of press time, but the hearing is likely to draw a great deal of comment, if early meetings on the topic are any indication.

The area to the north and east of Totten Reservoir (shown here with the western shore in the foreground) would become the home for a 792-lot “eco-village” if plans for the development are approved.

When Matthews held an informal, informational meeting on Nov. 12 to talk about his plans for Tottenville, about 70 people showed up. And a crowd of about 25 came to the commission meeting late on Nov. 24 just to listen to the procedural debate on what Tottenville’s next step would be.

Matthews and the landowner, Scott Tipton, submitted an application to the county on Oct. 23 asking for urbanservices zoning on 475 unzoned acres near Totten Lake. Urban-services zoning is for areas where urban services can be provided; it allows for higherdensity development than the county’s normal three-acre-per-lot minimum.

On Nov. 3, Planning Director Susan Carver sent a letter in response stating that more information would be needed before the application could be considered by the planning commission.

Carver wrote that, because of the subdivision’s potential for significant impacts, the county needed more specifics, including, among other items:

• Preliminary-plan maps with more detail than the original submittals; • A traffic-impact study;

• A drainage study showing existing watercourses, irrigation ditches, pipelines, wetlands and more;

• Evidence that the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment had approved plans for Tottenville’s sewage-treatment proposal;

• A preliminary draft of protective covenants;

• A geologic-hazards report.

“Your application is considered incomplete as you did not submit the required submittals. . . Therefore, no further processing of the application shall occur until the deficiencies are corrected,” Carver wrote.

But Matthews’ attorney, Kelly McCabe, told the county commissioners that requiring so much information before the zoning was approved was “getting the cart in front of the horse.”

Commissioner Steve Chappell, however, used the same metaphor to describe what Matthews was seeking. “This is certainly a different approach,” he told Matthews. “It’s the cart before the horse. You’re asking the [planning] committee to make a decision without knowing what’s going to happen.”

‘Building a city’

The argument, which continued for an hour and a half, centered on whether the decision to grant zoning to a tract of land is important enough for the county to require detailed information before that decision is made, or whether the detailed studies can be provided later, after the zoning has been granted and a final plan is being considered.

McCabe and county officials debated the requirements of the county’s land-use code and state law. McCabe said Carver was asking for a “site-specific development plan” and that Colorado law said “once you get a site-specific plan approved, you have created vested rights.” He said this was too early in the process to be requiring such a plan.

But Bob Slough, attorney for the commissioners, said the land-use code does allow planners to require more information if they need it in order to decide zoning. He said the term “site-specific development plan,” which was used in Carver’s letter, should not be used when talking about a zoning application, but that her request for more information is “very appropriate to bring these issues out.”

Matthews argued that all he needed in order to apply for zoning was an application form, map, proof of ownership and a pre-sketch plan, and he had submitted those. He said doing the studies that Carver was asking for would be very costly.

“It’s $60,000 to $80,000 for a traffic impact study. If I get turned down [for urban-services zoning] and I’m back to three-acre lots, I’ve lost that money,” he said.

County Administrator Ashton Harrison said Tottenville’s size — which could easily be 2,000 people — justified the request for more information.

“What’s being proposed is bigger than the town of Mancos and the town of Dolores,” Harrison said. “It’s building a city. What Susan has required is very necessary stuff for building a city from scratch. Fifteen years from now [the projected buildout period], we have a new city in the unincorporated area of Montezuma County that the county’s responsible for, with no city council and no town board to take care of things.

“When Susan asked me to read this letter, I thought she was being easy on them.”

Planning-commission member Jon Callender, present at the discussion, said the planning board had met preliminarily with the applicant and had also asked for more studies. “I person- ally will ask for the information in that letter before I could possibly make a decision,” Callender stated.

Serious information

Some of the major concerns that county officials had were Tottenville’s traffic impacts and the viability of its sewage-treatment system, which would include sewage lagoons.

Carver said all she had was third-hand information from Matthews that he had talked to the state health department and Colorado Department of Transportation, and that he would need to show that he had state approval for Tottenville’s central sewage system and for highway access.

Matthews insisted that he could not get the health department or CDOT to give him permits until he has the zoning in place, so he knows how many units he can have.

At the moment, traffic from Tottenville is slated to have highway access from Highway 145 through existing city subdivisions. Matthews said he has a letter from the city of Cortez stating that the city’s streets are adequate to handle traffic coming from the subdivision onto Fairway Drive, Golf Course Lane, and Eagle Drive (yet to be built).

Carver, however, said she interpreted that letter differently.

In fact, the July 15 letter from Jack Nickerson, public-works director for the city, states, “While access would be allowed, traffic impacts created by your development would have to be mitigated by you, based upon the trips generated by the development. Prior to approving such access, the City would require a copy of the Traffic Impact Study in order to determine potential impacts to City streets.”

Slough commented on the drainage issue, noting that the Lakeside development near Totten Lake has its own sewage system and has for years had septic problems that have never been completely resolved, sometimes necessitating county intervention.

He said groundwater in the area around Totten Lake may be lower than normal now because there have been seven or eight years of drought, but if several high-precipitation years should occur, the groundwater level would rise near the surface. “It’s a huge problem out there and a potential liability to the county relating to approving anything out there, and you need some serious information before you approve any of that,” Slough said.

‘Zoning means everything’

But Matthews said this was not the time for him to provide such detailed information. If he gets the zoning he seeks, he said, he will then prepare a detailed preliminary plan, with all the required studies, and present that for county approval. “If I have to do a complete drainage study I have to design every house and commercial building 15 years from now,” he said. “It’s a two-year, $500,000 process just to see if I get zoning.”

He said if the county doesn’t like the plan he presents, it can turn him down at that point. However, the tract would still carry urban-services zoning.

“So you’re saying if the contingencies aren’t met, the zoning goes away?” Chappell asked, as the room full of people shook their heads no.

“Zoning doesn’t mean anything from an attorney’s standpoint,” McCabe said.

“See, our attorney says zoning means everything,” Koppenhafer responded.

“I think zoning is critically important,” Slough agreed.

McCabe said he had only meant that zoning doesn’t grant vested rights, to which Slough agreed.

Matthews was insistent that he wanted to be able to take his case to the planning commission, and that he would offer all the information he could.

All the commissioners expressed doubts about whether the planning commission would find the information adequate to make an informed decision. “If you think you’re going to jump over the hurdles I think you’re going to have another think coming,” Larrie Rule advised Matthews, before the commissioners voted to send the issue on to the planning group.

The planning commission will make a recommendation, but the final decision is up to the county commissioners.

Ed Singer, newly elected president of the Cameron (Ariz.) Chapter of the Navajo Nation, examines data from a wind anemometer. Photo by Sonja Horoshko

The winds that swirl around Gray Mountain in northern Arizona have generated a cyclone of controversy, a power struggle over who will reap the benefits of their energy-producing potential: the Navajo Nation’s central government, or the tiny community of Gray Mountain-Cameron, Ariz.

“For years we have had no room to develop anything or improve our lifestyles,” said Ed Singer, newly elected president of the Cameron Chapter of the Navajo Nation. “Now, it is our turn to take responsibility and profit from it.”

But the chapter is up against a powerful competitor: a corporation started by one of the Kennedys and backed by the tribe’s central government.

At stake is control of a 250-megawatt wind farm, first on the Navajo Nation, that is designed to take advantage of the enormous renewable-energy potential on the sprawling, 26,000- square-mile reservation.

When Singer talks about the dynamic energy in the Gray Mountain- Cameron community — which lies some 60 miles south of Grand Canyon National Park on State Highway 89 — he likes to read from “Arctic Dreams” by Barry Lopez:

“The mingling …[in] border zones … Flying creatures… walk on ice. They break the pane of water with their dive to feed. Marine mammals break the pane of water coming the other way to breathe…in biology these transitional areas between two different communities are called ecotones.”

Singer believes his own community is like an ecotone.

“It’s how we have always been because we are settled in the center between Flagstaff and the University of Northern Arizona, the Grand Canyon and tourist industry and Tuba City,” he said. “We’ve had a lot of practice going back and forth across the three border zones, and we do adapt.”

Two years ago Bruce McAlvain, vice president for corporate development for International Piping Products (IPP) of Texas, arrived at the Cameron Chapter House. He brought with him ideas and plans he hoped to present to the Gray Mountain-Cameron community.

Singer was already aware of the growing interest in the wind on Gray Mountain and the possibility that it could generate electrical power.

“I told him it was the best idea I had heard, the most appropriate use of the land and resources,” he said. “Within two months we had him on the agenda with a resolution to do a wind study.”

After considering the land use and impact issues, the spirituality of wind and the effect collecting it would have on the community, the chapter called for a vote, seeing the project as something the community could support because it could participate in decisions affecting its own well-being and the profits promised some relief for the region’s struggling economy.

The chapter approved it as a Community-Based Initiative under a Navajo Nation regulation giving communities the legal and proprietary right to do business in and for the benefit of their own community.

A 34-year standstill

IPP’s interest in the wind industry began six years ago, McAlvain said, “when we started supplying high-quality- grade steel for the turbine industry. Then we got into other components like yaw bearings, which are what allow the cell to rotate, turn into the wind.”

It was a natural progression from supplying materials to manufacturing to the development side of wind-farming. Because McAlvain is part Choctaw, he began looking at projects on Native American tribal land. It brought him into contact with Bill McCabe, a petroleum engineer at Stanford University who has been a consultant on tribal energy projects for over 10 years.

According to McAlvain, “Bill gave me statistics that show tribes should be receiving roughly $30 billion annually from energy revenues. They currently receive $1 billion.”

IPP looked at four possible projects but selected Gray Mountain as the most promising renewable-energy site. When the community chose McAlvain and IPP, the company set up a not-forprofit named Independent Power Projects.

Its mission provides a working template for other tribal energy projects, educating the community for the time when it would assume the responsibilities of shareholders and decision-makers. It includes a board of directors appointed from the Gray Mountain- Cameron area.

McAlvain and IPP were granted a conditional-use permit from the central government in Window Rock to begin a feasibility study.

Around the same time, a major hurdle fell away with the removal of the Bennett Freeze — a 34-year moratorium on construction and development around the Cameron-Gray Mountain area. The ban had been imposed in 1974 on 1.5 million acres of Navajo- Hopi land by former U.S. Commissioner for Indian Affairs Bob Bennett, while old land disputes between the Navajos and Hopis were hashed out.

The ban forbade any new construction or even repairs to existing buildings, which stopped nearly all economic development in the area. No schools, no new business buildings, no additions on homes.

During those standstill years, however, five transmission lines were built across the Gray Mountain-Cameron area, claiming land for easements for the lines.

The transmission lines were controversial.

“No one in our community knows who delegated the authority to seize the land by eminent domain,” Singer said. “We have asked central government many times and never get an answer. In addition to the effects of the Bennett Freeze we also lost 150 feet from the center of the transmission lines out. When you multiply that by hundreds of linear miles it represents thousands of square miles and a great loss to the future economy.”

The lines are owned by power companies and consortiums such as Arizona Public Service, Western Area Power Administration (WAPA), and El Dorado Energy, owned by Sempra Generation, which sells electricity to the wholesale power markets of Nevada, California and the southwestern United States.

Two coal plants in the Four Corners region already use the transmission lines and a third, the controversial Desert Rock, to be located at Burnham, N.M., is in the planning stages.

Green lights ahead

But the lines may prove a boon to the wind project.

As part of its agreement with the Cameron Chapter of the Navajo Nation to provide community benefits in return for the opportunity to conduct a wind-feasibility study, International Piping Products did improvements such as de-silting this stock pond, which sits under two of the five transmission lines that cross the Gray Mountain area. Photo by Sonja Horoshko

The cost of transmission lines is a significant factor in any power project but particularly relevant to the economic feasibility of the Gray Mountain Wind Farm. Because the lines are already in place, “we — the community of Gray Mountain — are in the queue, at the head of the line,” Singer said.

“In addition,” added McAlvain, “The Moenkopi ISO station is in place.” Electricity is routed through that point two miles south of Cameron to 30 million Californians via a long-distance, high-voltage transmission system that delivers wholesale electricity to local utilities for distribution.

Also helping out the wind farm is a federal tax credit for companies that generate wind, geothermal, and ‘closed-loop’ bioenergy.

And California is requiring 33 percent of its electricity come from renewable sources, McAlvain noted.

McAlvain began the feasibility study with the full backing of the community. They assembled a Navajo crew, training them to construct the anemometers on Gray Mountain to measure the velocity, direction, volume and consistency of the available wind.

IPP got its conditional-use permit in August 2007 and the first anemometer, a 50-meter, went up in October. It measured and collected data for a year, said Singer, a member of the anemometer construction crew. “In the subsequent summer [2008] we put up five more 60-meter towers.” IPP also would like to put up five more anemometers to “fine-tune” the best spot for the turbines.

During the construction phase, negotiations between Sempra Energy of San Diego, Calif., and IPP began. IPP’s proposal to do the initial feasibility stage included researching the best fit for an energy company to join the development team after the feasibility study was completed.

The people of the Cameron Chapter approved Sempra Generation as the company of their choice. Sempra began holding community workshops to answer questions and build a coalition anticipating the time when the changeover would take place from IPP as lead developer to Sempra. The project seemed to have nothing but green lights ahead.

A surprise development

But in spring 2008 the situation suddenly became more complex. Word began to circulate that Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley and the Diné Power Authority (an enterprise of the Navajo Nation) had signed an agreement with Citizens Energy Corp. in Massachusetts to construct a wind farm on Gray Mountain.

The Arizona Republicreported on March 28 that, “Hundreds of windmills reaching nearly 400 feet into the sky could begin sprouting on the Navajo Reservation north of Flagstaff under a new agreement to harness wind energy for electrical use.”

The article said that the Navajo Nation had announced that it would partner with a Boston-based company called Citizens Energy Corp. to build the Diné Wind Project, the first commercial wind farm in the state.

“The enterprise was sealed this month by Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley Jr., other key tribal officials and Citizens Energy Chairman Joseph P. Kennedy II, a former U.S. congressman and son of the late U.S. Sen. Robert Kennedy and Ethel Kennedy,” the Arizona Republicsaid. Kennedy started Citizens Energy about 30 years ago as a nonprofit to provide low-cost heating oil to families. According to Citizens’ web site, “Citizens Energy is heavily involved in the wind energy industry through its for-profit division, Citizens Wind.”

Back in Gray Mountain, Singer had just finished reading “Cape Wind: Money, Celebrity, Class, Politics, and the Battle for Our Energy Future on Nantucket Sound,” by Wendy Williams and Robert Whitcomb. The book describes the controversy over a proposed wind farm in Nantucket Sound; much of the opposition is from the monied people who own beachfront property there, including the Kennedys.

Until the news began to break about Citizens Energy, the people of Cameron-Gray Mountain had never seen any company officials in their community. They were surprised about the agreement among Citizens, the tribal government, and Diné Power Authority.

The Diné Power Authority, said McAlvain, “is supposed to remain neutral. How can they represent the people when they have an agreement with Citizens and give them preferential treatment?”

The community with the transmission lines crossing it, which had been strangled by the Bennettt Freeze until 2006, had not been asked to partner in a project that would construct hundreds of wind turbines on its land with no direct benefit guaranteed to the people living around them.

The Kennedy charisma

In April, Joseph Kennedy Jr. flew to Window Rock to speak to the Navajo Tribal Council. On April 24, 2008, the Gallup Independent reported, “The trademark Kennedy charisma and impassioned speech brought the Navajo Nation Council to its feet as the eldest son of the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy spoke of the poverty of Indian nations and prejudice in Congress against Native Americans.”

According to the Independent, Kennedy reminded the council that “human beings aren’t all-powerful, that we don’t have some God-given right to just dig up and develop anything and everything that we see to the detriment of local communities as long as some people can get rich.”

The newspaper story continued, “…Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley Jr. announced Monday during his State of the Nation address that the Nation entered into an agreement in principle with Citizens on March 12 to explore wind energy development.”

Gray Mountain-Cameron residents wondered why the Navajo Nation had entered into an agreement in principle without their input.

The story said the venture is expected to create up to 150 temporary construction jobs and 10 to 20 permanent jobs, and provide about $3 million in annual tax and royalty revenues, with an option for the Navajo Nation to acquire majority ownership at some future date.

Kennedy was quoted as saying, “… one thing you’ve got is wind; and you’ve got sun … and with that we can make money.”

Nothing wrong with that, said Singer, except, “Isn’t this the same man who didn’t want his viewshed spoiled by a wind farm in the waters off the shore of Nantucket Sound where the Kennedy family compound is located? Without asking us, Citizens Energy contracts for his company with the central Navajo government to dig up our land and put a wind farm in our immediate backyard. He must think we don’t read and that we’ve never heard about Nantucket Sound.

“It’s OK with him to put what he does not want to look at from his beachfront property in our back desert yard. We all read the book [‘Cape Wind’]. We have heard the radio program where he likened Nantucket Sound to the great national parks. Do they really think we are going to let Citizens Energy up on our mountain?”

But Citizens Energy continues to insist it has business on Gray Mountain. “They are very aggressive about going on the mountain as if they have a right to walk on our property,” said Singer.

“They show up with flyers to hand out at the Western Navajo Nation Parade, which we know will just confuse the people and consequently the project. They show up at planning meetings with requests to get on the agenda for the next chapter meeting.”

At a recent meeting, McAlvain said that the Citizens representative told him and a representative of Sempra they are not backing off the project.

Even so, when Citizens officials asked the chapter to pass a resolution granting them development rights, the community responded with an emphatic “no!” At the same meeting a woman asked the Citizens representative, “What part of ‘no’ do you not understand?”

But the partnership between DPA and Citizens is in place. And Ted Bedonie, the outgoing chapter president, supports Citizens, even though the community he represents has selected IPP and McAlvain.

A place at the table

The first phase of the feasibility study found that the net capacity of the wind is 33 percent. The capacity factor is the actual energy produced over a given period of time divided by the energy that could be produced if the generator ran at full rated capacity during the same period of time. Most wind farms have a capacity of 30 to 40 percent.

The 33 percent figure could be enough to make the Gray Mountain farm profitable, especially considering that its infrastructure is already in place. In fact, McAlvain believes, “It is plausible that a 1,000-megawatt facility could be built there someday.”

But who will ultimately operate and benefit from the wind farm?

The matter is bogged down in legalities at the present and is being reviewed by the Navajo Nation’s attorney general, according to Singer.

Singer ran for president of the Cameron Chapter in November and won. He takes office in January. “Because a component of our local government was not supporting the resolution that the community passed to develop a wind farm with IPP, I ran for the office.

“I want the wind farm to come to fruition. I see it as the single biggest economic impact that can happen in our part of the country. I want to negotiate a better position because we have lived too long with the power lines, the Bennett Freeze and all the recreation activity around our community.”

The people of Gray Mountain- Cameron are suspicious of Kennedy’s energy company. They say this is the people’s land and they have not given Citizens Energy permission to be up on the mountain.

But one way or another, things look good for the future of renewable energy on the reservation.

McAlvain is optimistic. “Now that the local government has a new president I feel we will be able to capitalize on our momentum. The community embraces the project. The key to success is still the people in the community. If they want it, it’ll happen.”

Singer strongly believes in the wind farm. “We are turning to nature and natural cycles. I think the Native Americans have always been more in tune with that and I think from here on the Native American has to be at that table whenever renewable energy is discussed.”

It’s a frosty November morning in Towaoc, and a handful of people are hard at work.

Wendy Haugen, executive director of the Foundation for the Protection of Animals, cuddles two strays rescued on the Ute Mountain Ute Reservation by its animal-control personnel. The tribe is working with Haugen’s foundation and For Pets’ Sake Humane Society to sponsor a twice-monthly spaying-neutering clinic to reduce pet overpopulation on the reservation. Photo by Gail Brinkly.

Dr. Susan Grabbe’s mobile veterinary clinic, housed in a van, is parked outside a small former office building that serves as the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe’s animal shelter. An extension cord stretches out the door from the building and is plugged into a port in the side of the van.

Within the shelter, electric heaters are belching out hot air to dispel the chill in the central room, whose barebones furnishings consist of a table, a few chairs, and a plethora of pet carriers, some housing dogs or cats, some empty.

It’s time for the reservation’s twice-monthly spay and neuter clinic, an effort undertaken by the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, For Pets’ Sake Humane Society and the Durango-based Foundation for the Protection of Animals in an effort to reduce pet population on the reservation and find homes for rescued strays.

It’s 8:30 when I arrive, but already the operation is in full swing. One dog is out in the van, being spayed. Wendy Haugen, executive director of the foundation, and Bill Williams, board member of For Pets’ Sake, are organizing paperwork.

George Wells, director of the tribe’s Wildlife Services Division, walks in the door, which is cracked open by the extension cord. “How about putting a sheet over this to keep it warmer?” he suggests, and goes in search of duct tape or tacks.

The rest of us set out to see which animals are being housed in the other rooms. All have their own little stories. Behind one door are stacked cages for small dogs. Today there are four young puppies, short-haired and mottled brown and black. “I think they’re border- collie mix,” Haugen says.

In another room are two cats, a plump Siamese male and a gray-andwhite female. Both are very friendly, purring loudly when picked up. They are “surrenders” — house pets given up by an owner who moved.

“There are so many cats, it’s hard to find homes for them,” Haugen says sadly. “We did have four beautiful, healthy kittens here last time and they went to Marian [Rohman, president of the For Pets’ Sake board] and they may be adopted at the adopt-a-thon this weekend.”

In a back room is a shy but pretty dog, medium-sized, short-haired and rangy. Her paws are white; the rest of her is tan with brown stripes. When I ask what breed she might be, Haugen laughs. “I think she’s 100 percent reservation dog! She might have some border collie, maybe some boxer.” To me she looks part greyhound as well.

In yet another room is a puppy that everyone is hesitant to pick up because it tried to bite Wells when he rounded it up on the reservation.

Last, we discover a little black dog with a very long snout, huddled timidly in the back of a big carrier in a hall. He was so still, we didn’t notice him at first.

Wells calls him “Jungle Dog” because he was found living under a dead bush. “He had a little tunnel in the branches under there. It was real hard to get him out,” Wells says.

Wells is a jovial jokester who likes to reminisce about the days when there was a trading post in Towaoc. As a boy, he used to listen to the elders who gathered there to drink coffee and swap tales, all speaking in Ute. “It’s not like that any more,” he sighs.

Back in the main room, Stephanie Collins joins Haugen and Williams in doing paperwork and tending to the animals. Collins, a young woman living in Shiprock, N.M., was hired as the tribe’s animal-control officer in October. She is taking classes at Diné College and studying to become a veterinarian.

A woman comes in to drop off a female Airedale and a male Pekinese/dachshund to be fixed. The procedure will be done for free. “They’ll be ready after 4,” Haugen tells her, and the woman kisses the dogs and leaves.

The clinic has been in operation for five or six years, Williams says. It started when his wife was working for the tribe and began taking home some of the more adoptable dogs she saw running loose and getting them fixed.

Williams, who does grant-writing for For Pets’ Sake, says the first time the organization applied for a grant from the Colorado Pet Overpopulation Fund, it included a component to do spaying and neutering on the reservation. “We have been earmarking 25 percent of whatever we get for Towaoc, to do free spaying and neutering here to help the community,”

Williams says. Once or twice a month on Thursdays from September through May, the clinic is in operation; 10 to 15 animals a time are spayed or neutered.

“Last year we had enough money to do two clinics a month,” Williams says. ”At this point we’re a little low, but Wendy’s going to give us some money. She’s been very generous.”

Haugen came to Durango from Portland, Ore., in January 2007. An animal- lover all her life, she has worked as a veterinary assistant, a zookeeper in Chicago, and an animal-control officer in Madison, Wis., and then in Portland.

When her stepmother died of lung cancer in 2006, she left Haugen money to create a foundation for animals. “It was her gift to me,” Haugen says. Haugen moved to Durango to be near her father and started her 501(c)(3) organization, which helps fund spaying and neutering, promotes humane education, and helps in animal-rescue efforts during national disasters. She learned of For Pets’ Sake, which helps companion animals in Montezuma and Dolores counties, and decided to help them out any way she could.

“For Pets’ Sake is the best organization I’ve ever worked with,” she says. “They have a very active board — these people aren’t just on the board for something to put on their résumé. I hold them up as an example for other organizations.”

Haugen starts taking the puppies out of their cages, one by one, holding and fondling them. The pups have been at the shelter about a week and a half, Collins says. They were in very poor condition when she found them, “nothing but skin and bones,” but they’re recuperating rapidly. Collins has been taking them outside for walks and trying to socialize them.

“They eat a lot!” she adds.

Collins’ job involves a lot of driving as she tries to collect strays on a reservation of 993 square miles. “I’m on call and I have to drive up from Shiprock,” she says. “And it’s a little hard to set a trap on one side of the reservation and then go check one on the other side. I tried to get George to hire another animal- control officer, but they don’t have the money.”

Collins also picks up pets and transports them to the clinic for people who want to have them fixed. She even drives to White Mesa, Utah, to collect animals on the Ute Mountain Ute reservation there.

“We have had really good support from the tribe, from George and Stephanie,” Williams says. “We couldn’t get these clinics to work without the animal-control department to bring the pets in.

“They have really been super cooperative. They have been trying to get a real physical shelter, too.”

Williams is easing the timid “Jungle Dog” out of his carrier. Jungle Dog seems skinny and droopy. Williams starts petting him, but the dog is quiet. He was scheduled to be neutered today, but it’s decided he isn’t in good enough shape, so Williams gives him food and water. He perks up and begins sniffing around the room.

Haugen is still playing with the pups. They are lively, wriggling bundles of energy. She calls the La Plata County animal shelter to see if they might take the dogs and try to get them adopted. The shelter agrees so long as the pups don’t have parvovirus, a contagious, deadly dog disease.

“They think there’s a lot of parvo on the reservation,” Haugen says. She says she’ll test one pup, paying for the test herself. It’s a simple procedure; we wait tensely for the results. After about 10 minutes, she gets them — negative.

The pets that have been brought in for the free spaying and neutering are recovering in their cages. One dog named Cupcake is tossing his cookies pretty regularly as a result of the anesthesia; Williams cleans it up.

The total number neutered today isn’t quite enough to make it worth Dr. Grabbe’s while to spend an entire day on the reservation, so Haugen and Williams decide to have the pups fixed as well. One by one they’re taken to the mobile clinic. Soon they’ll be on their way to Durango.

Williams brings out the shy gray-andbrown dog and begins feeding her treats by hand to get her used to people. Her long tail wags happily. “When I was here last time, you wouldn’t even let me talk to you,” he tells the dog.

“This is good to see,” Haugen says, “but then what do you do with her?” She christens the dog “Cheyenne.” We all wish we could keep her, but all of us have full complements of pets already.

Around mid-afternoon the clinic winds down. It’s agreed there will be another one in two weeks. Williams can’t be there but Haugen says she can manage with help from Collins.

So, two weeks later, I return rather apprehensively to see what has become of the strays. Grabbe is busy operating on the two cats and five dogs that have been slated for operations today. Grabbe, a new member of the For Pets’ Sake board, provides her services at a discount to help out the organization.

Haugen is pleased because someone has brought in a purebred Chihuahua for the free neutering. “It’s really cool when people bring in their purebreds to get them fixed,” she says.

Haugen and Collins are eating sugar cookies for breakfast and doing more paperwork. We show each other pictures of our pets on our cell phones and digital cameras, and they update me on the animals from two weeks ago.

Jungle Dog was taken to the Cortez Animal Shelter and adopted. The pups went to La Plata County. Williams is thinking of keeping Cheyenne. And the “mean” puppy that tried to bite Wells has become much friendlier and is able to be handled. A puppy-rescue place in Brighton, Colo., might take him.

But there’s a new batch of dogs to deal with. And the two affectionate cats are still in the shelter, still eagerly purring when they’re picked up. Their fate is uncertain; they’ve already been here a long time.

“Be sure to put in your article that there are some really nice animals to be adopted from Towaoc, and they’re spayed and neutered for free,” Haugen tells me.

I already know that. I adopted a rez cat last winter, a tuxedo with a torn-up tail that was rescued miraculously through Wells’ efforts. She’s one of the sweetest, funniest cats I’ve ever owned.

“And be sure to tell people to check off that box on their state income-tax form to give to the Colorado Pet Overpopulation Fund,” Haugen says as I start to head out.

Then she and Collins are back to work, cuddling puppies in between filling out forms.

“This is my favorite thing to do,” Haugen says. “I look forward to every single Thursday.”

Since the November election, when incumbent commissioners Gerald Koppenhafer and Larrie Rule were reelected easily, the county commission has taken pretty much the same stance on land-use decisions that it had before.

The board has proven sympathetic to gravel pits and related operations, but has taken a dim view of commercial or industrial enterprises that seek to expand in agricultural areas.

On Nov. 17, the commissioners granted unanimous approval for a high-impact permit and a special-use permit for a gravel-mining and -crushing operation at 39238 Highway 160 that will be the third in a one-mile stretch west of Road 39.

Some three dozen people attended the public hearing and half of them made comments — all opposed to the gravel pit. However, operating under amendments to the land-use code adopted in July that specifically allow gravel operations on agricultural land, the board gave approval to Four Corners Materials to operate on land owned by the Eldon Simmons family.

The commissioners stipulated that the hours of operation be 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., cutting one hour off the evening closing time as proposed by Four Corners, and that there be a yearly review of the gravel mine to check on how any complaints from neighbors were being handled.

Peter Kearl, resource environmental manager for Four Corners Materials, successfully argued that the river gravel in a nine-mile strip of land running through the Mancos Valley was some of the best gravel to be obtained in the area.

“The future for aggregate-mining operations for Montezuma County is this strip,” Kearl said.

He also made the case that it would not be cost-effective for Four Corners to haul gravel from a pit it operates near Hesperus.

One area resident, Betsy Harrison, asked why the company couldn’t buy the aggregate it needs to make concrete and asphalt from already-existing mines such as the nearby Noland pit.

But engineer Nathan Barton said Sky Ute, which operates the Noland pit, would not sell to a competitor, and Rule agreed, saying that when he was in the concrete business, Four Corners would not sell material to him.

Several people asked whether the gravel mined by Four Corners would be sold out of the county. Koppenhafer said very little likely would be.

“If aggregate goes out of here it will probably be to Dolores County,” Koppenhafer said. “They trade equipment and other things to Montezuma County for hard rock because there is none in that county.”

But many Mancos Valley residents are unhappy over what they see as a proliferation of industrial operations in their scenic neighborhood.

Missy Miller of Road 38 said she lives within one mile of the operations and is concerned about the cumulative effect of three gravel pits within our agricultural area — the large truck traffic, particulate dust, noise and light pollution. . .”

During the Noland pit’s operation in 2007, she said, she was frightened to turn left onto Road 38 because of the large trucks “barreling down on me.”

Four Corners Materials is being required by the state to make acceleration/ deceleration lanes at the turnoff to its property.

Several residents commented that Four Corners is owned by a large corporate based in Washington, D.C. “It’s not just a local guy,” said Silvia Fleitz.

Fleitz also read a letter written by Patricia Burke of Road H, who said, “The spine of our valley is becoming an industrial park, with all of the distractions and destruction that come with this. . . When land was vast and uninhabited our closest neighbor was a mile away [and] we didn’t have the responsibilities we have at the present time.”

Felicity Broennan of Road G agreed. “We’re watching a beautiful agricultural valley turn into an industrial use and I’m so saddened by that,” she said. “We have a huge pit operating there now and another pit that’s been approved (by McStone Aggregates). It just seems to me this is insanity to have three pits in a row all operating at one time.”

Tom Vaughan said that, with each new high-impact permit that is approved, “a new status quo emerges,” making other, future operations more likely.

Mancos-area resident Dick Perry speaks out against a proposed gravel-mining operation at a Nov. 27 public hearing. The pit was approved, but must undergo yearly review. Photo by Tom Vaughan/FeVa Photos.

He also said it was difficult to ensure that standards set by the county are followed. “It should not be left to affected citizens to have to hire lawyers to ensure county standards are being met.”

“You’re making a decision that is going to affect this area for a long, long time,” Dick Perry, another neighbor, advised the commissioners.

But both the commissioners and company officials noted that gravel is in constant demand and that sources are limited in the area.

The hearing was slated to be followed by another public hearing on whether to grant Four Corners the necessary permits for an asphalt operation at the same site. But the gravel-pit hearing lasted so long, the commissioners postponed the asphalt hearing until Jan. 12 at 2 p.m.

That discussion is expected to be even more contentious, as Mancos Valley residents have been plagued in the past by noxious odors from a dif ferent asphalt operation. A different public hearing on Nov. 10 drew a smaller crowd, but was interesting because of its ramifications for claims of “grandfathering” for activities that occurred prior to the land-use code’s adoption in 1998.

Richard Vukelich, owner of a two-lot subdivision on Road F near the airport, was seeking commercial zoning and a high-impact permit for an auto-repair and towing shop on the smaller lot, which is three acres and unzoned. The other, 17-acre lot is zoned AR 10-34.

Vukelich said he’d bought the subdivision two years ago and that it had been used previously for a commercial purpose and had been sold to him as a commercial tract.

However, the planning commission had recommended against the commercial zoning, noting there were no surrounding uses that were commercial.

Several neighbors raised objections before the county commissioners. They said the only previous business on the site was a semi-repair and towing shop and that he had expanded that usage by hauling in numerous old cars.

“I believe, as the planning commission does, that this is spot zoning,” said Betty Morris, who lives west of Vukelich. “From Road 21 to the airport except for his three acres is all agricultural/ residential. If it’s zoned commercial and he sells the property, then something could go in there that is even more detrimental.”

Carol Crane of Road F also said he was expanding the “grandfathered” business. She said he had a sign saying junk-metal cars were wanted. “Are we starting a junk yard?” she asked.

Planning director Susan Carver said there were commercial tracts on Road G and that the airport is also commercial.

But commission attorney Bob Slough said the nearest commercial properties were a mile away and that “there’s an argument there” that it would be spot zoning to give the tract commercial zoning.

He also asked whether Vukelich was, as neighbors said, storing used cars on the AR 10-34 tract, “because a person shouldn’t be allowed to create a junkyard, or whatever it is.”

Koppenhafer said, in his opinion and based on an appellate-court decision involving a commercial warehouse that had sought to expand near Mancos, “any expansion of the [grandfathered] use is going to be illegal.”

The commissioners voted 3-0 to define the grandfathered use on the three acres as a towing and truckrepair business only and to deny the request for commercial zoning and a high-impact permit. They also told Vukelich to remove the junk cars.