Paul Fox hits the brakes, and his pickup swerves onto the shoulder of 62nd Avenue, in the industrial fringe of Adams County. A dump truck roars by, shaking the ground as it passes, but Fox doesn't notice. He's pointing out the window toward a huge mound of dirt, weeds and buried debris that was once a landfill.
John Johnston
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"This whole place is supposed to be covered up, but shit just blows off," he says. "You can see it for miles. It looks like the hills are on fire, but it's actually the [methane] gas coming out."
He shifts the Ford into gear, looks to his left, looks to his right, then hits the accelerator. A moment later, he's on the roadside again.
"See that shit here?" he asks, gesturing toward a hunk of trash poking through the dirt. "This whole hill is full of crap. The weight of the stuff on top is pushing trash out the sides. Sometimes you can just see shit sticking out of it. And the smell. Aw, the smell. Rotten eggs."
He checks traffic, punches the accelerator and continues the tour. A Beach Boys CD bounces beside him on a seat cluttered with news clippings, legal documents, loose papers and a videocamera. "This might make you sick," he says, heading toward a nearby marsh. "This is the grossest shit you've ever seen."
Over the past three years, Fox has come to know practically every plume of coal ash, every washed-out ravine and every animal hole dug into the side of the old Browning-Ferris Industries landfill at 6100 North Pecos Street. He has patrolled the perimeter of the 60-acre site time and again, snapping photos, shooting videotape and scribbling notes on alleged violations of state and federal environmental law. "See that?" he asks, looking up at a streak of gray dust spilling along a ridge. "That's coal ash from the power plant. It's supposed to be covered up, but when it rains, it washes right down. And Clear Creek is only a hundred feet away."
Fox is not an attorney, not a health official, not an environmentalist. Far from it, in fact. He's an entrepreneur who dreams of opening a topless club directly beside the old dump. But the man who owns the landfill, Phil Spano, stands in his way.
Late last year, Fox blew the whistle on what turned out to be illegal dumping on Spano's land. In December, the state shut Spano down. As a result, Fox found himself squaring off against one of Adams County's most powerful figures, a 73-year-old businessman known for his political contacts and campaign contributions. In March, Spano hit Fox with a lawsuit -- a slap suit -- charging him with trespassing, slander and lost business. Now it's Fox who stands to lose everything.
"He can take my house. He can take my vehicle. He can take every penny I have for the rest of my life," Fox says of his nemesis. "He can break me."
Fox wheels his faded pickup into the weedy lot where he wanted to build his strip club and opens a storage garage that houses a half-dozen cars, musty carpet rolls and assorted restaurant equipment. He wipes off two chairs, drags them near the door and sits back in the afternoon light.
He is 44 years old, single, with no kids. His hair is short, brown and bristly, his mustache is short, brown and bristly, and his eyes, also brown, are ringed with deep crow's feet. On this day he wears a yellow polo shirt, faded blue jeans and old running shoes. He speaks slowly and deliberately, with the agitated tone of someone who has waited a long time to say what he has to say. And he has a lot to say, digressing frequently into alleged instances of favoritism and coverups in Adams County.
Fox has been everything from a construction supervisor to a strip-bar manager. In 1997, after working a few construction jobs and running a few topless dance clubs throughout Adams County and Boulder, he decided to open his own adult-entertainment emporium, called 9 1/2 Weeks. If he could get a liquor license, it would be a topless bar; if he couldn't, it would be an all-nude dance club serving juice, coffee and soft drinks. He had it all planned, even drove every mile of industrial Adams County looking for the ideal location. When a two-acre truckyard on Pecos hit the market, he made his move. The place seemed perfect: close to I-76, set back a mile from neighborhoods, surrounded by railroad tracks, lumber yards, storage lots and the old landfill.
But after Fox filed his application, county officials balked. A self-storage lot across the street had moved a trailer onto its lot for an on-site caretaker. Since county law prohibits exotic dance clubs from operating within 1,500 feet of a dwelling, officials refused Fox's application, arguing that his proposed club would be detrimental to the area.
Fox couldn't believe it: The trailer hadn't appeared until afterhe had filed. So he sued. While his case worked through the federal court system, Fox tried to open a bikini go-go dancer bar a few miles away. But again, he was challenged.
