Post by jonsdigs on Dec 2, 2008 16:29:13 GMT -5
Saving Manitou from an ocean of trouble
November 22, 2008 - 5:00 PM
R. SCOTT RAPPOLD
The Gazette (Colorado Springs)
MANITOU SPRINGS • Sally Thurston says she saved Manitou Springs.
It's a bold claim, coming from a mild-mannered 60-year-old bed-and-breakfast owner, and she smiles when she says it.
But it might be true.
"I did," said Thurston, owner of the Blue Skies Inn on Manitou Avenue. "That is my contention, that I saved Manitou."
An old well on her land was leaking and in danger of bursting. It was no ordinary well, but a 635-foot straw accidentally punched into the city's mineral springs 30 years ago, when a 80-foot-high geyser of metallic, fizzy water burst from the ground. It took three weeks to shut off then.
Lawsuits and headaches have flowed from it since. After experts warned of the threats of the well bursting - the city's beloved mineral springs running dry, sinkholes forming in downtown Manitou, the contamination of Fountain Creek - Thurston found herself facing tens of thousands of dollars in costs to fix a well she had been told was plugged when she bought the land.
"It was a disaster waiting to happen," said University of Colorado research associate Fred Luiszer, the foremost expert on Manitou's unique hydrology.
Full Story
Fred Luizer, PhD. is a Fellow of the NSS and did his doctoral dissertation on the karst development in the Manitou Springs area. He belongs to the Colorado Grotto.
His Site
November 22, 2008 - 5:00 PM
R. SCOTT RAPPOLD
The Gazette (Colorado Springs)
MANITOU SPRINGS • Sally Thurston says she saved Manitou Springs.
It's a bold claim, coming from a mild-mannered 60-year-old bed-and-breakfast owner, and she smiles when she says it.
But it might be true.
"I did," said Thurston, owner of the Blue Skies Inn on Manitou Avenue. "That is my contention, that I saved Manitou."
An old well on her land was leaking and in danger of bursting. It was no ordinary well, but a 635-foot straw accidentally punched into the city's mineral springs 30 years ago, when a 80-foot-high geyser of metallic, fizzy water burst from the ground. It took three weeks to shut off then.
Lawsuits and headaches have flowed from it since. After experts warned of the threats of the well bursting - the city's beloved mineral springs running dry, sinkholes forming in downtown Manitou, the contamination of Fountain Creek - Thurston found herself facing tens of thousands of dollars in costs to fix a well she had been told was plugged when she bought the land.
"It was a disaster waiting to happen," said University of Colorado research associate Fred Luiszer, the foremost expert on Manitou's unique hydrology.
Full Story
Fred Luizer, PhD. is a Fellow of the NSS and did his doctoral dissertation on the karst development in the Manitou Springs area. He belongs to the Colorado Grotto.
His Site