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Durango Herald – City red-faced over the blue ‘punji stick’

March 27, 2008

Action Line

by Mike Smedley

I made the Durango Herald with my inquiry about the Bike Path Punji Stick of Death. Article Follows.
Link to Article on the Durango Herald website

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City red-faced over the blue ‘punji stick’

March 24, 2008

What’s the deal with the metal punji stick along the Animas River Trail behind the fire station? I don’t think the blue paint covering the tip is going to stop anyone from getting skewered. Does it have a purpose? Can the city remove it? – Matt Smith

That 3-foot-tall pointy pole was a waterline marker, according to Cathy Metz, director of the city’s Parks and Recreation Department, who had to do some digging to find out about it. “We had no idea it was there until you called,” she confided. After parks and rec crews visited the site, there was a collective “yikes!” “We looked at the pole this afternoon, and it will be removed tomorrow morning,” she said. That was on Wednesday, and so the marker from a bygone era has gone bye-bye.

But you can view an excellent, and now historic, photo called “Durango Bike Path Punji Stick of Death” at the following link: tinyurl.com/2lljvh.

The pole was installed decades ago to show the location of the underground water line serving the Crestview area, whose residents hate it when Action Line calls their neighborhood Tupperware Heights.

Nowadays, the city uses special sensors to locate waterlines, but it will hold on to the Bike Path Punji Stick of Death just in case.

“We might have to reinstall it along the blind curve behind Albertsons as a way to encourage speeding bikers to slow down,” Metz joked.

Durango Bike Path Punji Stick of Death