Mt. Front Range Trash

I sure know how to show a girl a good time. Cathy and I took off for our Sunday-afternoon drive, heading north from Denver on Interstate 25 until, just short of the Erie exit, I spied a photo I wanted to take of rapidly-rising housing set against the backdrop of the snow-capped mountains.

One thing led to another. Soon we were exploring the sides of what I will call Mt. Front Range Trash. Surely locals have a nick-name for it. This is what, in my childhood days, was called a dump. That was in Fort Morgan, where refuse was dumped along the South Platte River and then burned. It was very stinky. Even tires were burned.

Now, we dispose of our garage in more sophisticated ways. This is a landfill. The official name is the Front Range Landfill. The website has this to say about it: “The Front Range Landfill started operations on June 6, 1996, to serve the disposal needs of the northern Front Range region. Its permitted foot print is 326 acres on the 460 acre site with a 70 million cubic yard capacity. The landfill has the capacity to serve customers for decades. Each year, the landfill generates over $2 million that is given back to the community of Erie for its beneficial use.”

The same website explains that methane is captured from the landfill then burned to create electricity, which is sold to United Power, the electrical cooperative serving the area,

I feel a certain attachment to this place, and now I understand why. Some of my trash has been buried in that landfill. Seen from a certain perspective, it looks a bit like some of the alpine slopes of the mountains in the heavily minded Mosquito Range near Alma and Fairplay .

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