Glenn shares insights into Nestle decision

The Old West saunters comfortably into the New West as Tim Glenn strides through the door of the Dangerous Collective.

At the urging of Bill Donavan, County Commissioner Glenn’s come to the LoDo-esque studio – home to the Salida Citizen online news and information portal, as well as the local affiliate of Resort Sports Network TV and birthplace to random creative projects and spontaneous think tanks – to talk about Nestle.

For the better part of the first hour, the three of us discuss the various ways to define sustainability and the challenges and realities of striving to become a self-sustaining community.

When the conversation turns to Nestle, our discourse with Glenn remains predictably calm despite a subject matter that inflamed emotions over the course of a nine-month public hearing process. In his six years in the public eye as one of the trio of county commissioners, I’ve come to know that it takes a lot to ruffle Glenn’s feathers. Even-keeled, I can’t ever recall hearing Glenn either raise his voice in anger or burst into loud laughter. But I’d expect that of man whose heritage is steeped in raising cows and burying people, and I mean that in the most altruistic sense.

In retrospect, it’s clear Glenn’s decision on Nestle is consistent with a track record of voting for the greater good even when he knows doing so may raise the ire of lifelong friends. By birthright and a world view colored by the clear streams, river, mountain and sky into which he was born, Glenn, a registered Democratic, can’t help but champion the fundamental Western political dyad: fiscal responsibility and maintaining a practical balance between protection of natural resources and economic viability.

Creating a permanent conservation easement on the site where Nestle will harvest 65 million gallons of water a year to sell to consumers as Arrowhead brand bottled water tops the list of benefits Glenn believes the Nestle project brings to the county. If not for Nestle’s eleventh-hour concession to grant a permanent, rather than 10-year, conservation easement on the land, Glenn said he would not have voted to approve the project. Glenn also believes the very real alternative to Nestle could have been another ranching parcel bought and subdivided into two-acre cookie cutter lots dotted with the developer’s choice of modular homes, McMansions or something in between. Glenn points out that such a housing development at the mouth of Brown’s Canyon would be in direct conflict with the Chaffee County Comprehensive Plan and the loud and consistent insistence of county residents that the preservation of the recreation, wildlife and viewsheds along the Arkansas River corridor are a top priority.

As a private water rights holder himself, member of the Arkansas River Basin Roundtable and champion of the county’s recreational in-channel diversion on the Ark, Glenn says it was important to him to ensure Nestle is a water neutral proposition. To that end, during the public testimony it was obvious Glenn took seriously the testimony by the Upper Arkansas Water Conservancy District that Nestle’s lease of 200-acre-feet of Aurora-owned water to replace project depletions could create deleterious impacts in the valley in extreme drought years. Glenn said he also carefully considered citizens’ concerns and county consultant reports warning of the threat Nestle’s pumping operations present to wetlands on the Bighorn Springs parcel. Thus, Glenn considers it a victory that Nestle has withdrawn the Bighorn Springs parcel from its operational plan and that there are conditions in the permit resolution, recommended by county water counsel Jim Culichia, aimed squarely at mitigating UAWCD’s concerns.

On another public hot-button issue, Glenn said he consistently tasked the county’s own legal counsel on the topic of Nestle’s economic impact. Despite every which way he tried to poke holes in the economic benefits picture painted by Nestle, Glenn said he was met with the same reply: 1041 permit applicants, under the county’s adopted 1041 standards, do not have to provide an economic benefit; in fact, they can even be economically neutral, they just can’t have a detrimental effect. Even though Nestle will contribute, at best, a half dozen truck driving jobs and a handful of short-term construction jobs, for some families, Glenn said, paychecks even for just a few months is enough to help them get by especially during this economic downtown.

As with any of the other decisions he’s been faced with as county commissioner, Glenn said he looks at “what we started with, what was proposed, what we ended up with and what would happen if it was denied.” Most importantly, Glenn said, he has to work within the legal realm that in this case, among other things, prohibited him from doing any research into Nestle’s corporate reputation or track record in other communities.

When it finally came time for the commissioners to start the deliberative process, county special legal counsel and 1041 specialist Barbara Green repeatedly reminded the men that they had three choices: approve or deny the proposal as presented or approve with conditions.

I asked Glenn why it seemed the commissioners proceeded directly to “approve with conditions” without providing the public any insights into why the proposal wasn’t flatly approved or denied.

“I can’t speak for the other two commissioners but my mind wasn’t made up until the very last day,” Glenn said. “Out and out denial of the permit . . . well you know what would’ve happened  . . . we would have been sued,” Glenn explained. “On the other hand, some folks thought we should OK Nestle just because they’re a Fortune 500 company. But the conditional approval process allowed us to look at everything, all the pro’s and con’s and do a balancing act.  An outright approval or denial would not have allowed us to look at the project in it’s entirety and would have been a disservice to the citizens of Chaffee County as a whole.”

In the end, Glenn said he believes Nestle does provide a little bit more benefit than detriment to the county, squeezing his forefinger to within a half-inch of his thumb to illustrate his point.

He said he hopes people who are upset with the Nestle decision can take a step back, “look at what (the commissioners) were asked to consider, what we could legally consider and whether we did take public comments into consideration.” In his opinion, the process was “open and good” and the county implemented conditions on the things people had concerns about and even got Nestle to agree to some things that were beyond the county’s authority to require.

Glenn worries about a court challenge to the Nestle decision or the possibility that citizens opposed to Nestle will follow through on the threat to mount a recall campaign.

“The hearing process was divisive enough,” Glenn said. “I saw what happened the last time there was a recall in this county and if that happens now, it will throw us back 40 years. It won’t help bring us together and it will only open the door to the people who already look for opportunities to create wedges in the community.”

However, if the Nestle decision is challenged in court, Glenn pointed out that under the terms of the financial mitigation fund, Nestle will have to pay the county’s legal fees. If Nestle doesn’t pay up, the permit is considered in non-compliance and therefore subject to revocation, Glenn said, slapping his hands against each other in the gesture that signifies washing your hands clean.