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Mountain News: Slow, local food in the news

WHISTLER, B.C. – From Whistler to Aspen to Vail, food continues to be at the forefront on the minds of many people in the mountain towns. Of great interest in recent years has been the idea of eating local.

WHISTLER, B.C. – From Whistler to Aspen to Vail, food continues to be at the forefront on the minds of many people in the mountain towns. Of great interest in recent years has been the idea of eating local.

In the Eagle Valley, where Vail is located, a local book club chose “Plenty: Eating Locally on the 100-mile Diet” as the book for common reading.

Is that realistic? After all, the old-timers ate local, but they ate an awful lot of sauerkraut. Cabbage was relatively easy to grow. Even in summer, the menu is rather limited.

Selection is broader in the Whistler area, where the elevation is only 2,000 feet. There, organizers for four years have held a bicycling event called the Slow Food Cycle to draw attention to the agricultural munificence of the nearby Pemberton Valley. This year 2,300 people pedaled their way past farms, stopping along the way to buy foodstuffs and learn about agricultural operations, reports Pique newsmagazine.

Prompting the event was concern that the farms, which are described as having some of the best soil in North America, were facing danger of development.

In Aspen, long-time environmental activist Lester Brown last week also spoke about food — but within the context of the changing climate. His point is that a lot of food is inextricably global — and likely to become more so.

Central to Brown’s argument is new and alarming evidence of the melting of glaciers, not just in polar regions but in the Himalaya of Asia. That mountainous region provides the headwaters for two of the world’s great rivers, the Yellow that flows through China and the Ganges of India.

Lingering snowmelt through summer creates year-round flows for these rivers. Without this, they will become seasonal rivers, making it more difficult to sustain the wheat and rice crops of the two countries, the world’s most populous. That, in turn, will swell demand for food from the rest of the world, said Brown, who is president of the Earth Policy Institute.

 

Money to burn

ASPEN, Colo. – Bummed about the 12 miles per gallon your SUV gets when gas is $4 to $5 a gallon? Think of what it’s like to hurtle across the landscape in a Gulfstream, an airplane of choice for billionaires.

The newest iteration of the Gulfstream, a model called the G-V, burns 400 gallons of fuel per hour when in the air, but more when taking off.

The math of travel by this, among the most fuel-efficient of private jets, is staggering, points out the Aspen Times’s Scott Condon. He interviewed Cliff Runge, the former operator of a business that serviced private aircraft at the Aspen-Pitkin County Airport.

“On an average three-hour trip, a GV will burn 7,000 pounds of fuel and travel approximately 1,500 miles,” Runge said. That works out to 1.5 miles per gallon.

The economics look better with eight passengers, with the Gulfstream getting about as good as a single-occupant Hummer or some other SUV that gets 12 miles per gallon.

All of this matters in that Aspen has staked out a path to shrink its carbon footprint.

An inventory conducted by the city government, as part of its Canary Initiative, found that 44 per cent of the city’s greenhouse gas emissions were caused by air transportation, with about half that as the result of private jets.

A new study conducted by the airport found a much smaller direct carbon footprint, partly because many people traveling to and from Aspen use other airports. As well, the airport figured only one part of a round-trip should be credited to Aspen, whereas the city’s inventory figured both legs of the round-trip.

 

Vail Resorts building green

VAIL, Colo. – Somewhat quietly, Vail Resorts has chosen to make its real estate developments significantly more environmentally benign. Most remarkable of all are plans for a new project at the base of Vail Mountain that is called Ever Vail.

The project, which is penciled in as a $1 billion development, has applied for platinum certification under the LEED program. Platinum is the highest and most rigorous of four levels of LEED, a process sponsored by the U.S. Green Building Council.

The website for Vail Resorts — which also operates five ski areas — says that the project will use a variety of new renewable energy sources for heating and electrifying of the Ever Vail housing and commercial spaces.

For example, small hydraulic turbines, called microhydro, are to be installed in Gore Creek, to create electricity used for street lighting. Also planned is installation of ground-source heat pumps, which tap the year-round temperature of the ground 8 to 10 feet below the surface, which is at 55 to 60 degrees. Buildings are being designed to best employ passive solar heating during winter months.

As well, some of the roofs are to be covered with dirt and planted with grasses, to reduce the runoff and improve insulation.

Water reclaimed as snowmelt is to be used as “gray water” in the toilets, to avoid the use of treated, potable water. A “closed-loop” gray water system is planned to wash all snowcats and snowmobiles used for operations at the ski area.

Elsewhere in its operations, Vail Resorts is also raising its goals. In Wyoming, the company is aiming for a gold-level LEED certification — the highest ranking next to platinum — for its 12,000-square-foot clubhouse at the Jackson Hole Golf & Tennis Club.

In Colorado, at its corporate headquarters between Denver and Boulder, Vail has been awarded a LEED-CI certification. In California, a restaurant called Powerbowl Lodge being planned at Heavenly is also being designed to LEED standards.

How soon Ever Vail will get built is a matter of conjecture. While Vail Resorts has high hopes of moving forward soon, the company is engaged in what amounts to a shoving match about another potential development site where the ski and real estate company owns the land, but where town officials have teamed up with another development company.

 

One does not equal seven

PARK CITY, Utah – By the simple math of the story, you’ve got to wonder exactly what was going through the mind of a motorist in Park City.

He was driving on a road when he was forced to stop to accommodate seven bicycle riders. The driver, says The Park Record, yelled at the bicycle riders to get off the road and onto an adjoining sidewalk. Three of them stopped, and the driver got out of his car and continued to yell.

These hard words led to punches, kicks and what the bicycle riders claimed was damage of $500 to $1,500 to the chain ring of one of the bicycles. The seven riders pinned the angry motorist until police arrived a few minutes later.

 

Six storeys too many?

REVELSTOKE, B.C. – Once again, Revelstoke will be faced with the issue of how tall is too tall? Developers of a proposed Best Western Hotel said they need six storeys to get the 100 units they believe are necessary to make the venture profitable. Revelstoke’s current limit is three storeys. The developers say they see no choice to make the numbers work. “We don’t have a plan B quite frankly,” developer Fred Beruschi told the Revelstoke Times Review. “Without the extra height it makes things a lot more difficult.”

 

Mountain formally named

PONCHA SPRINGS, Colo. – Several ceremonies have been held this year to formally dedicate the naming of an 11,293-foot peak in central Colorado as Mt. KIA/MIA.

The naming was the result of a passion by retired military officer Bruce Salisbury, who lives in northern New Mexico. Salisbury had originally proposed that the Sheep Mountain near Telluride, one of 29 so-named in Colorado, be renamed Kiamia, to honor those killed in action and missing in action — the KIAs and MIAs, to use the military acronyms.

Salisbury’s proposal was strongly resisted in the Telluride area, which caused a veto by the U.S. Board of Geographic Names. The federal agency demands proof of local acceptance when approving names for mountains.

Finally, after several other ventures, Salisbury found local consent for a name in the southern end of the Sawatch Range, near Marshall Pass. The pass is located southwest of the town of Poncha Springs. However, the U.S. Forest Service demurred about the idea of Kiamia, because it resembled a word in the written language of Southern Utes that means a place for departed warriors. What resulted was the more unconventional KIA/MIA.

Still, not every individual concedes the name. Slim Wolfe, a carpenter from the nearby hamlet of Villa Grove, said that he has a “heap of planer shavings and sawdust out back, which I hereby dub ‘Mount MODD.” That is, he explains in a letter published in Colorado Central Magazine, an acronym for Mothers of Draft Dodgers, “to honor those mothers and fathers who explained to their kids that constructive solutions are more useful than gun-toting arrogance.”

 

War protestors stay on sidelines

TELLURIDE, Colo. – Telluride residents Phil Miller and his wife, Linda, have been protesting the Iraq War from San Francisco to Washington D.C. since before the United States invaded that country. Always, Phil has worn his uniform from World War II, when he was a soldier in the Philippines.

“It’s hard for people to imagine what war is like,” he told the Telluride Watch, describing instances of extreme hunger, great cruelty, and utter lawlessness still etched into his mind more than 60 years later.

They began protesting the testing of nuclear weapons in Utah during the 1950s when the couple lived, with their two children, in Wyoming. Linda did all the formal protesting, as Phil worked for the U.S. Forest Service, and because of federal laws that then existed, could not express his political feelings. Later, during the Vietnam War, Linda worked with conscientious objectors.

Phil continues to march with other veterans in parades, but not while wearing his uniform. “I’m never going to wear my uniform to a patriotic display again,” he said. “I only wear it to antiwar functions.”

That, however, will not include anti-war protests in Denver this week. While the Millers intend to be at the Democratic National Convention, they said they fear protests might harm the campaign of Barack Obama, the Democratic candidate.

Linda told the newspaper that she partly fears infiltration of the protest by those with the ulterior motive of harming Obama’s cause. “I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but I don’t put anything past them,” she said, presumably speaking of Republican operatives.

Judging from the racist and other mean-spirited screeds now flitting out across the Internet, who can blame her?

 

Recycling goes to neighbourhoods

BANFF, Alberta – When Banff residents were asked what would cause them to recycle more, half said greater convenience. To that end, city officials there will begin placing 20 new bins in dispersed locations, so that people don’t have to take their goods to a central location.

One side of the bin will be for fibrous items such as newspapers and carbon, explains the Rocky Mountain Outlook, and the other is for bottles, metals and tins.

These new recycling containers will be placed next to the bear-proof trash containers. Banff is compact enough that everybody will have both these recycling bins and bear-proof trash containers within a block of their homes.

 

Air pollution a concern

DURANGO, Colo. – A call has been made to install equipment in Durango that will monitor the levels of ozone and other atmospheric pollution.

The monitors could confirm suspicions that Durango’s air quality verges on violating federal standards. However, the tests could go the other way, giving the air quality a clean bill of health.

Right now, the evidence is circumstantial — and it does not look good. The Durango Telegraph explains that there are monitoring stations for ozone to the west in Mesa Verde National Park, and to the southeast at the Navajo Reservoir. The Navajo site, in particular, has indicated problems.

Ozone, although crucial to our atmospheric equilibrium when found in the upper atmosphere, can damage lungs when found close to the ground. It is created by mixing volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxides in the heat of day. The organic compounds include the fumes released by varnishes and oil-based paints. Nitrogen oxides are created by internal combustion engines and power plants.

In the San Juan Basin of Colorado and New Mexico, the population is relatively small for such a large area. However, there are 3,000 producing natural gas wells, many of which require constant use of diesel motors for compression of the gas. In addition, there are two coal-fired power plants — and another major one recently authorized by the Environmental Protection Agency.

Ironically, that same federal agency sets the limits for ozone. That limit of 75 parts per million for ozone has been breached in neighbouring San Juan County, New Mexico. The county, according to a study by a Purdue University professor, has the sixth highest ozone levels in the country, despite having a population of only 100,000. Other counties with high ozone are metropolitan areas with far larger populations.

 

Another company digs in

CRESTED BUTTE, Colo. – Another mining company has stepped up to the plate, this time paying at least $500,000 to take a swing at that gigantic molybdenum deposit within the bowels of Mt. Emmons, the mountain literally in Crested Butte’s backyard.

The last hopeful, Vancouver-based Kobex Resources, bowed out in March after apparently deciding that Crested Butte was a more formidable project than it had expected. It spent $5 million in nine months of planning how it might extract the molybdenum, a metal used to harden steel and for dozens of other industrial application.

As it has been for 30 years, the community is largely united in its opposition to the mine. Water quality is the central legal argument, but the broader issue is whether a tourism and recreation based economy are compatible with mining.

For a mining company, this adds up to the question whether the “world class” body of ore, even at $32 a pound for refined molybdenum, is worth the years of ankle-biting opposition that are likely.

The newest company, Thompson Creek Metals Co., a Denver-based firm, is described as much larger than Kobex, with assets of $1 billion. Thompson Creek’s chairman and chief executive, Kevin Loughrey, said his company has greater financial resources.

The contract with the owner, Wyoming-based U.S. Energy, calls for the payment of $500,000, plus $1 million annually beginning in January during the next 10 years. The contract gives Thompson Creek an escape clause, but also potential to gain a stake in the property.

Local opponents predict that Thompson Creek will beat a hasty retreat.

"Kobex came in, looked at it, and then decided to get out. I think the same thing will happen with Thompson Creek," Crested Butte Mayor Alan Bernholtz told the Gunnison Country Times. "Once Thompson Creek does due diligence they'll realize it's not an ideal location for a mine, because it's in a municipal watershed."

Dan Morse, who oversees public lands issues for the High Country Citizens Alliance, said even much larger companies have walked away from the ore body. Both Amax and Phelps-Dodge were as large or larger than Thompson Creek, and both eventually walked away from the project.

 

Frustrations with Club 20

GUNNISON, Colo. – Several of the ski-anchored counties of Colorado’s Western Slope are threatening to bolt from Club 20, the regional public interest lobbying group. The flashpoint for the dissatisfaction is the increasing domination of the group by the booming oil-and-gas industry.

Telluride’s Art Goodtimes, a commissioner from San Juan County, resigned from the organization in April after losing his spot as an elected official within the group to an oil-and-gas industry consultant.

“The club has been taken over by the oil and gas industry, from its recent leadership to its big-gun funders,” he said in his resignation letter.

Two other ski-dominated counties, Gunnison and Pitkin counties — which include Crested Butte and Aspen respectively — similarly compared grievances at a recent meeting.

Rachael Richards, a former Aspen mayor who is now a Pitkin County commissioner, said she is dismayed with Club 20’s stance on oil and gas regulations, which she says pays little attention to the agriculture, tourism, and recreation industries.

Too, there is dissatisfaction with Club 20 being seen as broadly representative of the Western Slope.

The organization was seen as trending away from its conservative roots and being more welcoming of resort-valley environmental interests in recent years.

Club 20 voting is premised upon a one-member, one-vote arrangement. Private companies, as well as local governments, are eligible to join. Of late, the membership has swelled with oil and gas companies, who have advanced an agenda that, as seen from the perspective of Richards and Goodtimes, puts people and the environment in the back seat.

Is it time for other ski counties to leave Club 20? Richards told a reporter in April that she didn’t plan to push for Pitkin County’s exit, but in a meeting in Gunnison, she sounded more exasperated in comments reported by the Crested Butte News. Club 20 must figure out how to issue formal positions that better reflect minority opinions, she said.

Reeves Brown, executive director of Club 20, disputes the charge of steamrolling. “The majority rules, but the minority always have their day in court,” he told the same newspaper.