Redstone Rafting Guide Urges Wild Scenic Status for Crystal River

Glenwood Springs —Can the Crystal River get a Wild and Scenic designation before it’s too late? That is the question driving one of the letters to the editor this week, and it comes from a neighbor who spends her days on the water.

Renée Thibodeaux, who lives in Redstone, wrote to the Post Independent after reading a piece on the river’s future. She doesn’t mince words about what she sees when she steps onto her raft.

“I have seen rivers wild and I have seen rivers tamed and dammed, and each offers a valuable lesson,” Thibodeaux wrote. “Wild rivers teach about life, balance and healthy relationships; dammed rivers teach about death, malnutrition and disequilibrium.”

To hear her tell it, the river is a classroom. She describes watching bears hunt along the shores and reading books on beaches that still exist because the sediment hasn’t been stripped from the water. The river rises overnight with snowmelt or rain, and she hops on her raft to ride the waves. It’s a living system that changes with the seasons, she says, and she never takes it for granted.

The stakes are high because the Crystal is one of Colorado’s last free-flowing rivers. We’ve already fought to keep it from being dammed, and while we won those battles, Thibodeaux argues the threat is always imminent.

“Wild and Scenic designation offers the strongest protection available for a river, and I believe the Crystal is absolutely worthy of this protection,” she wrote.

She notes that local stakeholders are chime in on the issue, which she finds encouraging. The designation provides a way to protect the river while still respecting property owners and others who depend on these waters. For folks around here, that balance is crucial. The river isn’t just a scenic backdrop; it’s an economic and ecological lifeline for the valley.

The question is whether the federal government will act while local voices are aligned. Thibodeaux hopes her voice joins many others in a “loud, well-rooted plea” to ensure the river can keep teaching generations after us about life.

The check that never arrived

While Thibodeaux is focused on the long-term health of a river, another letter focuses on short-term financial promises. Tim Burns from Glenwood Springs is tired of waiting for money that was promised but never delivered.

He points to a pattern in recent years involving the “Trump Dividend.” In February 2025, President Trump said Americans should expect a $5,000 check funded by savings from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. The checks never went out.

Then, in November 2025, Trump promised a $2,000 “tariff dividend” for middle- and moderate-income Americans, telling reporters the payments would arrive “probably the middle of 2026.”

Burns notes that it is now ten months into 2026, and he is still waiting.

“I can support this offer under one condition, Mr. Trump: Send me the $5,000 first!” he wrote. “You know what they say, ‘Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.’”

For residents who are feeling the pinch of inflation and rising costs, that skepticism is understandable. The math hasn’t held up for many households when promised relief arrives a year late or not at all.

The contrast between the two letters is stark: one looks upstream to protect a natural asset for centuries, while the other looks at a wallet and asks for cash that was promised last year. Both reflect a community that is paying attention to what’s coming down the river and what’s missing from their bank accounts.

Thibodeaux closes her letter with a note of hope, believing that a solution can be found to ensure the river remains protected. But as Burns puts it, trust is earned in increments, and right now, the checkbook is empty.