Rags Over the Arkansas River, or , is not giving up in its fight to thwart artist Christo’s plan to drape the Arkansas River in shimmering fabric.
The volunteer group filed a motion asking the Colorado Court of Appeals to re-hear its appeal of a Colorado State Parks decision allowing the project.
The that the parks division’s approval was arbitrary and violated its own rules when it opted to pursue a cooperative agreement with the artist instead of a special activities permit, but concluded the decision would have been the same if the agency had followed its rules.
In its motion for a rehearing, ROAR argued that if Colorado State Parks had followed the correct special activities permitting process, it would have denied the project because its impact is inconsistent with area management plans. ROAR also argues that Colorado State Parks rushed its approval a week before the agency merged with the state wildlife commission, which opposed
ROAR has seen four of its legal challenges fail to stop the project, which Christo and his late wife Jeanne-Claude first proposed in 1996 as an artistic display of suspended fabric over 5.9 miles of the Arkansas River between Salida and Cañon City.
The group in January to U.S. District the Bureau of Land Management’s 2011 approval of the project.
Jason Blevins: 303-954-1374, jblevins@denverpost.com or twitter.com/jasonblevins
