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Mountain News: First electric car station in Jackson, Wyo.

JACKSON, Wyo.
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Taking charge Jackson Hole, Wyo. recently welcomed its first electric carport. Whistler has eight electric car charging stations, including the one pictured above. File Photo

JACKSON, Wyo. — Jackson Hole has its first charging station for electric cars, with three more planned, But will they benefit the environment — or just provide a way for cheap fuel?

Electric cars are expensive, but electricity itself is always far cheaper than gasoline. The environmental gain depends upon where you plug in.

The Colorado-based Southwest Energy Efficiency Project crunched the numbers and found that even in Colorado, with a significant amount of so-called "clean energy" now on the grid, electric cars don't necessarily represent a net reduction in carbon dioxide emissions. That will change, however, as natural gas replaces coal for production of electricity. By 2020, electric cars emerge as winners.

But there's a second environmental metric to consider. Burning gasoline and diesel produces volatile organic chemicals, the precursors for lung-damaging ground-level ozone. In that regard, electric vehicles in Colorado already beat both gasoline and natural-gas fuelled vehicles.

Wyoming? Overall, it gets 95 per cent of power from coal, by far the most of any state. Electric cars don't help in reducing greenhouse gases.

But then, in this, as in so many other ways, Jackson Hole is different from the rest of Wyoming. Most of its power comes from hydroelectric dams. So that makes electric cars a net winner.

New Vaspen bottled 'craft water'

GYPSUM, Colo. — A new bottled water called Vaspen is to be distributed late this year, playing off the names of Vail and Aspen.

The water will come from neither, but rather from springs at Sweetwater Lake, on the Flat Top Mountains. It's 97 kilometres from Vail and 122 kilometres from Aspen.

The Aspen Times reports that SCC Partners Group has raised $6.9 million and hoped to raise an additional $12.5 million at a meeting with potential investors. Steve Miller, a principal in the corporation, says he and partners hope to compete against other high-end waters such as Fiji, Volvic, Perrier, San Pellegrino, and Evian.

Miller told the Times that Americans have been spending $1 billion annually on premium bottled water, and the high-end segment of the market has been the fastest growing. Just as people are looking with greater interest at craft beers, wines, and spirits, "they're moving toward craft water."

The water at Sweetwater isn't really sweet, but rather has a natural alkalinity that gives it a distinctive taste without being overpowering, Miller told the Times. Plus, he said, it provides natural electrolytes to make it appealing to the health conscious.

But sweet, he said, is not a universally accepted flavor, and hence would not be a good brand name.

He and partners bought the Sweetwater Lake Resort in 2004. They have a water decree and can store water. They intend to build a 30,000-square-foot building for their plant, employing 35 workers on site.

Time grows short for settlement

PARK CITY, Utah — The story about what will happen to Park City Mountain Resort has been kicked down the street.

A district court judge in Utah recently signed the order evicting Powdr Corp. from that portion of the ski area owned by Talisker and operated by Vail Resorts. But he also ordered Powdr and Talisker/Vail Resorts into mediation, to see if they can resolve the issue to allow for continued operation of the ski area.

Powdr and its predecessors had leased the top two-thirds of the ski area from Talisker for about 40 years on a deal struck by previous owners of the property. Somehow, a renewal requirement in 2011 was missed by Powdr, and Talisker promptly announced it would not renew the lease. Vail then leased Talisker's local ski area, The Canyons, and also Talisker's land underlying the Park City Mountain Resort.

The Park Record notes the hearing attracted a larger number of people from the community than had been the case previously. In an editorial, the same newspaper suggested why: "Many Park City businesses and property owners and employees are living day to day with a shadow over their investments and livelihoods."

The paper noted that, "heated rhetoric of the last few weeks suggests the two entities are miles apart from working out a sale or lease that would knit the PCMR-owned base facilities and the ski terrain back together." But, added The Record, "the two must reach a deal or accept responsibility for creating an unskiable mountain surrounded by empty parking lots and a bitter community."

Some in the community have rooted for Vail, thinking it more capable of establishing Park City as an intermountain resort. Others worry about Vail's growing dominance in the ski industry.

"Both PCMR and Vail have told The Park Record they have the community's best interests at heart," concludes the Record. "Frankly, we are skeptical."

More debate about a town at Squaw Valley

SQUAW VALLEY, Calif. — To become a town or not? That's the question at California's Squaw Valley, the ski area that Denver-based KSL Partners bought several years ago and has begun pouring money into. Part of a 2011 plan is to substantially expand and upgrade the commercial base, by up to 1,000 new residential units.

That plan has been downsized, but it sparked a drive to create a municipality, to ensure greater local control, with occupancy and other sales taxes to pay the bills. But KSL opposes incorporation, arguing that the town could not support its own operations. It has reportedly bankrolled $121,000 of efforts to oppose incorporation.

And the Sierra Sun reports that two local lodges, Squaw Valley Lodge and the Resort at Squaw Valley, have also asked to be excluded.

The core argument is whether a local municipality could pay for its own operations. KSL argues that it would not. But the group called Incorporate Our Valley says it can.

In the ski world, most base area developments have become formal municipalities. Vail, the ski area started in 1962, and the ski-area operator, then called Vail Associates, fully supported incorporation in 1962. Snowmass Village was created after the launch of ski area operations.

But here and there can be found other governing models. Beaver Creek has a special district, but no town. Ditto for Copper Mountain. Teton Village, at the base of Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, is similarly not a town.

Fish fossils show how we came from the seas

BANFF, Alberta — Fossils of a sardine-sized fish recovered from Yoho and Kootenay National Parks in Canada have excited a team of paleontologists.

The species of fish, Metaspriggina walcotti, is now recognized as one of the world's first vertebrates, coming out of the warm Cambrian seas 505 million years ago.

Paleontologists tell the Rocky Mountain Outlook that the fish represented something of a missing link in the development of jaws. They had an idea of what the ancestor of more modern fish probably looked like, but they had no evidence. This is the evidence.

Why so much jawing about ancient jaws? "There's an enormous amount of interest in how jaws evolved," explained Simon Conway Morris, of the University of Cambridge. "Because once they did," literally a whole new world opens up for the vertebrates, because you can chew, grasp, grind, crunch, nibble..."

Grizzlies in Montana get change of scenery

WHITEFISH, Mont. — Two young female grizzly bears have been captured in the Whitefish Range, which is located north of Whitefish, Mont. The bears were released about 322 kilometres northwest in the Kootenai National Forest, located in the extreme northwest corner of Montana.

The Whitefish Pilot notes that the bears had no history of conflict, but are part of an effort to augment the population in the Cabinet Range. They are the 12th and 13th grizzlies to be released into the range since 2005.

Cannabis in news of many ski towns

VAIL, Colo. — In 2012, when Colorado voters were asked to legalize sale and use of cannabis for recreational consumption, 75 per cent of voters in Vail said yes.

But that doesn't necessarily mean Vail residents want those cannabis sales to occur in Vail. When RRC Associates recently polled residents, non-resident workers, and non-resident property owners, only 31 per cent supported sales.

The survey revealed a sharp division in opinion based on age. Among those 34 and under, i.e. the Millenials, 68 per cent supported a recreational marijuana retail business within Vail. This compares with just 14 per cent among those 65 and older.

A majority of Gen Xers and Baby Boomers also opposed cannabis stores.

That said, year-round residents were twice as supportive of recreational cannabis sales as part-timers in Vail.

Vail, meanwhile, has delayed a decision about whether to allow cannabis sales for another year, providing more time to evaluate the experience of other jurisdictions.

That doesn't mean people in Vail will have to go far to buy their THC. Five stores are currently selling marijuana for medicinal purpose in the nearby Eagle-Vail and Edwards communities.

Foreclosures down, building up

AVON, Colo. — The real estate economy continues to recover broadly in mountain towns of the West.

In Avon, a commercial building with offices called Brookside Park is being retrofitted into 16 lofts averaging 1,500 square feet. "It's going to be very urban, very lofty," says Frank Navaro, managing principal of Navaro Lowrey, the project's developer.

Writing in the Vail Daily, a real estate broker notes the foreclosures in Eagle County, where Vail and Beaver Creek are located, may hit 100 this year.