The group that has battled artist Christo’s between Cañon City and Salida in shimmering fabric has hammered a final nail in the projectap coffin.
A week after the famed 81-year-old artist his 20-year-old Over The River project to focus on other work, the group — or ROAR — secured a promise that Christo would never try to revive the project and he would permanently relinquish all permits already obtained for the art installation.
Christo’s Over The River Corp. recently filed a motion to dismiss ROAR’s , arguing the appeal was irrelevant since the project was dead.
ROAR, which formed in 2005, wanted more. The group wanted a legally binding document assuring that Christo or his successors would never try to revive the project, which started in 1997 and wound through 13 years of environmental review. The group also wanted all Over The River permits secured from the Bureau of Land Management, Colorado Parks & Wildlife and the Colorado Lands Board were permanently dismissed.
On Friday, the Over The River Corp., the BLM and ROAR filed and Christo’s group promised not to fight for the project any more.
“When ROAR initially filed the lawsuit we characterized our battle as similar to David battling Goliath,” reads a statement from the group’s spokeswoman, Joan Anzelmo. “We promised that ROAR would vanquish Goliath and ROAR did that with this permanent cancellation of the Over the River project.”
