Email Subject Heading: Public comment concerning Save the Stacks
Mr Puga,
I am a supporter of Save the Stacks and I wanted to share a message with you.
Thank you and your team’s work concerning the El Paso exASARCO site. Especially your website and blog that allows me to stay in touch with the issue given my lack of free time.
I was part of the community action against the ASARCO permit renewal and during that time I became familiar with the site, it’s history and it’s contamination. It is very important to me that the site be cleaned up as well as possible. I understand that idea of what ‘cleaning up the site’ means is an enormously complicated conversation involving nonsensical ranting and serious reasonable conflicting viewpoints. (And plenty of in between.) I really appreciate that as far as I can tell you and yoru team have stayed as close to the science as possible and have remediated as much as possible as cost-effectively as possible while providing clear documentation of each step.
I believe you have provided good leadership and clear communication to the political community in El Paso and I thank you for that. It would have been very easy to just send memos and then bring down the towers.
I’d like to make the following points (I don’t know if your website addresses these, i haven’t been able to read everything)
1. I am unconvinced that the tiny budget and resource set you were given is enough to adequately clean the site for normal industrial use. There is endless possible amount of work to do but the community of El Paso should have a plan for returning the site to residential use. That plan would outline what would need to be done and what any potential new source of funding should be used on. Please do not hesitate to document what you believe to be the correct course of future action for the next owners. I understand that this might dissuade potential buyers -the idea that there is a giant document saying they haven’t done enough- but El Paso deserves the respect that document would demonstrate. We deserve nothing less then the best information and the highest quality of life.
2. I really like the idea of putting the eye of Sauron on the top of the tower. That would be hilarious, cool and awesome. It would immediately put El Paso on the global map and would have untold cultural value. for those who think this is Silly I would like to remind them that the Eiffel Tower was just a dumb idea ridiculed by most of Paris. Weird stuff can be cool and since we do not have to build the Tower of Mordor, only maintain it, I think it would serve El Paso well to try it out.
2.B. In that vein is there any way we can put an eye up there just to see how it looks at night?
I thought I had something else but I have to get back to work.
I have no time or money to dedicate to this cause (other more important personal projects demand my attention) so I thank you for receiving my e-mail and allowing this to be part of the discussion.
Thanks to you and your team,
Joachim Schalk
UTEP Area resident most of his life