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Durango group aims for ‘soft’ energy path

Compiled by Allen Best DURANGO, Colo. – A new group has been formed in Durango that is dedicated to the essential proposition of improving conservation and energy efficiency and reducing demand for more coal-fired power plants.

Compiled by Allen Best

DURANGO, Colo. – A new group has been formed in Durango that is dedicated to the essential proposition of improving conservation and energy efficiency and reducing demand for more coal-fired power plants.

Called the Southwest Colorado Smart Energy Alliance, the group is lobbying for more solar, wind, biomass and geothermal energy sources.

"We all discovered by accident that there’s a large group of people in Durango who are about energy and its relationship to the environment," said Chris Caldwell, chair of the group.

For starters, the group wants the local electrical co-operative to give out compact-fluorescent bulbs instead of incandescent bulbs, as the former are more efficient and ultimately use less energy. They also want the co-operative to try harder to get people to buy into the renewable energy program.

Implicit in these actions are a realization of the link between local demand and construction of coal-fired power plants. Already, there are two such plants in the Four Corners region, and several more are planned, including a monster $1.4 billion plant near Shiprock, N.M., that would generate enough energy for 1.5 million homes.

But coal-fired plants have large impacts, as do the fumes of cars that blow in from the West Coast plus venting from local wells of natural gas. Local levels of ozone, a major irritant to lungs, is on par with an urban area boasting 3 million cars. Durango also has high levels of mercury, a result of the power plants.

By helping ratchet down demand for electricity, the activists hope to do their part to help maintain existing air quality or at least reduce the steady degradation.

The group’s goal, explained Tim Wheeler, another founding member, is to "find win-win opportunities in the community and act as a resource for information and implementation."

More power, dirtier air

GRAND CANYON NATIONAL PARK, Ariz.— The crystalline air of the Southwest is getting more oblique, and it could worsen further.

Already, there are 18 coal-fired power plants on or near the Colorado Plateau, as well as giant plumes of exhaust from automobiles blown in from Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Phoenix. Government regulations estimate proposals for another 30 power plants. Environmental activists say that even better – and more expensive – technology is needed to reduce the amount of pollutants released into the air, reports The Denver Post.

Air quality specialist Carl Bowman says that on the clearest days at the Grand Canyon, about 10 per cent of the time, the visibility is still very good. But 10 per cent of the time the canyon is lost in the haze to viewers from the rim.

Record real estate sales

VAIL, Colo. – Real estate sales in both the Aspen and Vail areas are reported on a torrid, record-setting pace.

May’s $181 million in real estate sales in Vail-dominated Eagle County was the second largest month for volume on record, second only to last December’s $185 million. If this continues, Eagle County will set a new record of $1.77 billion in real estate transactions. So far this year, real estate was passing hands at a clip of $5.8 million a day, reports the Vail Daily.

Most of this dollar volume is in a relatively few high, high-end sales. Housing priced at less than $500,000 accounted for 66 per cent of transactions but only 18 per cent of dollar volume.

In Aspen, the story is much the same. So far in the Aspen-dominated Roaring Fork Valley, transactions have hit $652 million. The old record of $1.2 billion in sales established in 2000 is likely to be toppled.

"We’re definitely on a record pace," said Bob Ritchie, a partner in Coates, Reid and Waldron. He said during the last year sales hit $1.31 billion.

Although experiencing market lulls before, none have been as long as that from July 2002 to June 2003. Now, not only is property moving rapidly, but prices are rising again. Ritchie told The Aspen Times that luxury homes were selling for $850 to $900 per square foot until recently, but now are moving toward $1,200 to $1,300 per square foot.

The Denver Post, looking more broadly at resort areas, says the same thing is happening all over, from Telluride to Winter Park.

ELF claims responsibility

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah — The Earth Liberation Front – the same group that claimed responsibility for setting fires that caused $12 million in damage to structures atop Vail Mountain in 1998 – has claimed responsibility for setting fire to a suburban lumberyard. The fire caused $1.5 million damage.

A fax sent to a radio station said the lumberyard was targeted because it had ignored warnings to repair forklifts that emitted more pollution than diesel engines. The initials "ELF" were sprayed on the side of a building at the lumberyard and on a truck, reported The Associated Press.

ELF, a loosely organized group of militant environmental activists, generally communicates with the media through e-mail. The FBI says that ELF has caused more than $10 million in damage since 1996.

Tourism hopes high

INVERMERE, B.C. — Expectations for the summer tourism season in Invermere and the Columbia Valley of British Columbia are high, despite continued concerns about the potential for wildfires.

A ban on campfires was instituted about this time last year, and a similar ban is expected again soon, reports the Invermere Valley Echo. Fires came anyway last year and dampened tourism visits significantly.

Last summer’s wildfires destroyed hundreds of homes in Kelowna and Barriere. That devastation spurred the Village of Radium Hot Springs, located in the Interior of British Columbia to complete its own assessment of the fire hazard.

After 70 years of successful fire suppression, the bill is coming due. A consultant found that of 25 areas in Radium, 18 had extreme hazard of fire, 6 were at high risk, and only one was considered at low risk. Like U.S. residents in mountain towns, the task is now a dual one. How to "treat" government lands in the interface areas while also persuading private landowners to get rid of potential fire fuel. In both cases, there seems to be no magic wand.

Parents protest use of Tasers

CANMORE, Alberta — Canmore police are being criticized after they used a Taser to quell a noisy party where drunks were reportedly running in the streets. One 17-year-old male was twice hit with 50,000 volts of electricity from Tasers. During this time he kicked in the window of a police car.

The Rocky Mountain Outlook reports that some community members, including one town councillor, say police are out of line. But Sgt. Don Cohn said parents are often unaware of the aggression and violence their kids can exhibit when under the influence of drugs and alcohol. "Many people say, ‘That’s my child, and it’s out of character for them,’ but haven’t seen their children on cocaine, or ecstasy, or any of the other drugs that are around now."

Another town councillor, whose son was at the party in question, said most young people believe that police use a heavy-handed approach. In turn, police say they are disrespected by the youths, who call the officers "pigs."

How many airports is enough?

STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, Colo. — The debate is sharpening in Steamboat Springs about whether to continue operations at the close-in and smaller municipal airport or put all of the community’s eggs into the outlying county-operated airport.

Flights from Minneapolis, Seattle and other major cities, utilizing large airplanes, are all into the larger airport, located 25 miles west of Steamboat. The small airport on the edge of the city is used mostly for general aviation.

To close the smaller airport, say those who want it to remain open, will cost a lot, because the city would have to repay the Federal Aviation Administration plus other costs. Moreover, they say the airport brings in revenues to the city that, presumably, would be completely lost if traffic was shunted to the larger airport.

Those who want the airport closed questioned the thoroughness of the study, reports The Steamboat Pilot, which attended the meeting. "From a common-sense standpoint, dispersing the minimal funds we have over so many ways, is it really the best use of our tax dollars?" asked Susan Dellinger, a Steamboat councilwoman.

The issue is more than just money, says Marty Kolonel, chairman of the airport commission. He suggests that consolidating planes at the larger airport invites a greater potential for collisions.

New resort aims for five-stars PHOTO TO GO WITH THIS ONE

TELLURIDE, Colo. — Two things stand out about the new $25 million Elk Mountain Resort, a diamond in the rough country of Southwestern Colorado.

First, all the slick marketing materials frequently mention nearby Telluride. In fact, it’s about an hour away, across a mountain range and in an area called the Uncompaghre Plateau. Although pretty enough, that area is not remotely where you’d expect to find a lodge that aspires to a Mobile Five Star hotel ranking. Only 30 hotels in the United States have been accorded that lofty ranking, two of them in Colorado: the Little Nell in Aspen and the Broadmoor in Colorado Springs.

Standards for a five-star hotel are exacting and precise, explains The Telluride Watch, which is why this new Elk Mountain Resort has substantially more employees than potential guests. Resort operators expect to invite the Mobile’s inspectors within a year.

Michele Rees, director of sales and marketing at Elk Mountain, predicts that the resort’s appeal will be for family vacations, wedding parties, and corporate retreats. It has 21 lodge rooms and 18 three-bedroom cottages – if a 2,500-square-foot structure can be accurately described as a cottage. In addition to riding stables and a wedding chapel is a go-kart track.

The second surprise? Among the resort’s genteel sporting opportunities is the Valhalla Shooting Club. It has clay and trap shooting ranges, which are ordinary enough, and an indoor pistol range featuring static lanes with computerized controls. But then there’s also a 16,000-square-foot house that can be configured to simulate all manner of real-life situations for those who want to shoot themselves out. "For the self-defense enthusiast, it’s akin to a life-sized video game with live ammo," says The Watch.

This shoot-’em-up seems to be a key selling point for the resort. "Today, you rescued the plane, prevented a carjacking, and shot your way out of a crowded subway station… and you never left our resort," reads one ad for Elk Mountain. "Save the world by day. Relax with your favorite cocktail, vintage cigar, and fine cuisine at a true five-star mountain resort by night."

Suits gather in Sun Valley

SUN VALLEY, Idaho — Space was at a premium at the airport servicing Sun Valley for the July 4 th weekend as Wall Street favourite Allen & Co. played host to heavy-hitters of Fortune 500 companies and their families.

Sun Valley is accustomed to celebrity splash. California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenger and Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry have second (or third) homes there. So, a few corporate mega-millionaires (or billionaires) doesn’t turn the locals into stalking, autograph-hunters, notes the Idaho Mountain Express.

Now in its 22 nd year, the Allen & Co. event is known as a place where deals are sometimes hatched. Allen, a small (fewer than 200 employees) but influential money manager and a midwife to huge mergers, for some years tried to keep the gathering hush-hush. That was futile, what with 50 corporate jets descending, the hiring of local escorts and baby-sitters for VIP families, and the presence of Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, and Michael Eisener.

Several years ago, Allen went completely the other direction, inviting the national media, while still keeping the sessions in private. Satellite TV trucks sitting around and reporters lying in wait to get interviews didn’t go over well with the attendees.

Now, it’s neutral ground. Reporters show up, but not many. The locals are aware. And the sessions remain private.

And this year, the well-heeled attendees, who are all involved in "media" businesses of some sort, are staying in new, air-conditioned rooms. Like other swank hotels in the destination resorts of the West, the Sun Valley Lodge no longer relies on gentle mountain breezes.

Snow melting earlier

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — In California, the debate about global warming is not whether it is occurring. Instead, state officials are trying to figure out how to adapt to global warming and also "how to delay global warming," in the words of Arthur Rosenfeld, who is overseeing the state’s $60 million budget for research and development. It’s the first state-sponsored global warming program.

One possible result of global warming is the earlier snowmelt in the Sierra Nevada. The trend began about 1950, and snowmelt now occurs 20 to 30 days earlier than it used to, Mike Detinger, a researcher with the Scripps Institute of Oceanography, told the San Diego Union-Transcipt.

"The mountain ranges are essentially draining and drying earlier," Dan Cayan, a researcher with the U.S. Geological Survey told the Los Angeles Times. "I would say there’s enormous concern about this."

This earlier melting has profound consequences for Southern California, which relies heavily upon the mountain snowpack for its water. The mountains act as a giant natural reservoir. But with earlier runoff, that means a longer time without water. And it also means more of a balancing act for managing those artificial reservoirs, which were also built to contain floods caused by winter rains. Compounded with this is a multi-year drought that is causing the Colorado River, another primary source of water for Southern California, to be far below its normal flows.

How much either the current drought or periods of heat can be traced to global warming, scientists are still unsure. Weather in the West is notoriously unstable.

Also unclear is how much of global warming is caused by natural variability. But clearly, greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide introduced into the atmosphere by power plants, cars, and other sources are at least partly responsible. As such, California is trying to reduce the human impact.

California’s Air Resources Board has released recommendations about how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by cars and light trucks by nearly 30 per cent by the year 2015. This can be done without hurting the state’s economy or consumer choices, the board’s chairman, Alan C. Loyd, told The Associated Press.

California already leads the way in energy efficiency with a 4 per cent annual improvement, compared to 1.6 per cent world-wide.

But those gains won’t be enough to forestall problems. Although models remain difficult and expensive to create, early efforts suggest that production of the state’s wines, fruits, and nuts will be impaired by the changing climate. More wildfires are also expected. Two different studies predict a rise in the number of acres burned by wildfires after about 2050.

While past models predicted very different patterns in California as a result of global warming, the newer models appear to be converging on a picture of a drier state well into this century.

Meanwhile, the San Francisco Chronicle reports that air pollution appears to be altering rainfall patterns in the Sierra Nevada as well as elsewhere around the world. Pollution in Los Angeles, for example is in effect driving away the rainfall from there and the snow in California, instead sending smaller amounts of snow into Nevada.

This is part of the band of pollution that is helping produce a 10 to 20 per cent reduction in the amount of sunlight reaching the earth over the last 50 years. The minuscule flecks of black carbon that make up a small portion of the pollution cloud absorb solar radiation and scatter sunlight. The characteristic haze of Los Angeles and other cities is spreading downwind to once-pristine areas like Yosemite National Park.

Some scientists now predict doubling the number of heat waves in Los Angeles and quadrupling the number in San Francisco. Another model predicts an even greater increase.

Breast feeding an issue in Tetons

JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. — Of all the places to have a controversy about public breast-feeding, Jackson Hole would be the most unlikely. After all, the local mountain range, which itinerant French fur trappers named the Tetons, can roughly be translated into English as "breasts." Or, perhaps more precisely, "big hooters."

Yet simmering in the letters section of the Jackson Hole News & Guide is a disagreement about whether mothers should nurse their babies in public. One indignant woman wrote to announce that she had been informed she could not breast-feed her child on the deck of the swimming pool at the Recreation Centre.

In response, one couple wants an official county policy ensuring protection of nursing mothers against harassment. Asked another woman: "When will our society recognize the difference between a natural act and indecency?"

Breast-feeding is natural, agreed another woman, but she argued that "so is modesty and respect of others. If you must breast-feed in public, cover your shoulder and baby and breast with a blanket like I always did when caught in public. Nobody straight wants to see you."

Neighbours caustic about bird sanctuary

EAGLE COUNTY, Colo. — It may be the best pun this year in a mountain town newspaper. But first the story, as explained by Scott Condon in The Aspen Times.

Julie Murad created the Gabriel Foundation to take care of abandoned parrots, macaws and other birds, presumably including crows and ravens, if this story plays out as it’s supposed to. When possible, the birds are matched with new owners. In extreme southwest Eagle County, between Carbondale and Basalt, she wants to build a new 4,800-square-foot aviary along with outdoor cages where the birds can exercise and soak in the sun on the property.

While Murad’s sanctuary has strong support, it also produces what the president of a nearby homeowners association describes as "unbelievable noise." Another neighbour claims the sanctuary has devaluated her property by 50 per cent. A larger aviary would presumably create even more of a din.

The case, says Condon, has "pitted supporters of the sanctuary’s good cause against neighbors who criticize the sanctuary’s bad caws."

Heat supply story deep and boring

FRISCO, Colo. — Geothermal is being used to heat and cool a new commercial 9,000-square-foot building in Frisco that will house a Wendy’s fast-food restaurant, a convenience store and a gas station.

Fifty-six holes will be drilled 400 feet deep into the ground. The temperature there is 47 degrees Fahrenheit. A solution of water and antifreeze gathers that heat as it circulates in a high-density polyurethane pipe about six inches in diameter. When pumped to the surface, 4 or 6 degrees — and hence energy — are stripped from the solution.

Energy bills can be reduced by 50 per cent or more when geothermal energy is used at a commercial or residential property, said Terry Proffer, owner of Major Geothermal, a firm based in Denver. He told the Summit Daily News that geothermal energy systems, although around since the 1940s, have not been used commonly in mountain communities. However, they are popular in the Midwest.

More jury summons for the trial of Kobe Bryant

EAGLE COUNTY, Colo. — Court officials in Eagle County are sending out 1,000 summons for jury duty, four times the norm, as they prepare for the Aug. 27 trial of basketball star Kobe Bryant.

Lawyers say it will be impossible to find jurors who have never heard of the rape alleged by a local hotel worker a year ago. The task will be to find people who say they can put aside what they have heard elsewhere and rely only upon what they hear in the courtroom.

Early in the case there was much speculating about whether Bryant, who is black, could get a fair trial in Eagle County, which is about 75 per cent non-Hispanic white and 25 per cent Hispanic. There are only a few hundred blacks in the region, which encompasses Vail and its down-valley communities as well as some of Aspen’s suburbs. That talk has died down, and most legal experts have been saying he can probably get as fair a trial in Eagle County as anywhere.

The Los Angeles Lakers, who have first dibs on getting Bryant’s services next year, seem to think he stands a strong chance of being acquitted, as they are evidently planning to offer him big bucks (upwards of $15 million a year) to return. The team based its decision on the advice of a lawyer who was dispatched to the court proceedings last year.

Funnel snakes from cloud near golf course

WOLCOTT, Colo. — If not for his photo, the story told by electrician John Cummins might not have been believed.

He was driving by a golf course located on what is called Bellyache Ridge, about halfway between Eagle and Beaver Creek, when he saw ominous-looking clouds. A four-some teeing up were also getting a little nervous. The golf course is located at about 9,000 feet in elevation.

Sure enough, soon after a funnel snaked out of the cloud, although it did not reach the ground. As such, it is not classified as a tornado, explains the Vail Daily. While tornadoes have been recorded in several mountain areas of Colorado, they largely remain a phenomenon of the flat-lands.