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Developers propose fly-in, fly-out homes STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, Colo. — Forget about ski-in, ski-out access. For some people, what matters is fly-in, fly-out access.

Developers propose fly-in, fly-out homes

STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, Colo. — Forget about ski-in, ski-out access. For some people, what matters is fly-in, fly-out access.

That’s the premise of two developers, Randall Reed and Richard Friedman, who are proposing to buy the airport at Steamboat Springs. This airport, located on a mesa near the town, was once used heavily by planes for shuttles to and from Denver. Now, however, most airline passengers arrive at the Yampa Valley Airport, located 25 miles to the west. City officials have been questioning what to do with the airport, as the expense of maintenance is considerable.

These developers, The Steamboat Pilot reports, envision a 10-storey condominium complex and also 80 new homes. Homeowners would have plane hangars in their backyards, similar to the car garages of old. "You drive up to your house, and you wouldn’t even know there is a hangar in the backyard," said Friedman. He estimates the total cost of the project at $200 million.

The Pilot reports that Friedman spent four years developing a similar fly-in community in Daytona Beach, Fla. With 550 taxiway accessible homes, it is the largest such fly-in community in the United States.

The developers are proposing to buy the property for $3.5 million, retrofit the terminal, and absorb the city’s loans to the Federal Aviation Administration.

Rope tows available for installation in backyards

TAHOE CITY, Calif. — Last year Ken Wittels, a ski instructor at Squaw Valley, purchased a $950 rope tow and installed it on the 300-foot slope behind his house in Tahoe City.

"It’s not for the mainstream public, but I’d recommend it if you have mechanical background and don’t mind tinkering with it," Wittels tells the Vail Daily. "It’s more of a novelty, but it’s always been my dream to have my own ski slope."

The Vail Daily says the ski tow is manufactured by Motorsport Engineering, a firm based in Toronto, Ontario. A five-horsepower gas engine, which is a little bigger than the engine used by a lawn mower, powers the tow. The engine is screwed into frozen ground at the top of the slope. At the bottom of the slope, another brace is anchored into the ground. The tow can be assembled within 15 minutes. Skiers or snowboarders can be towed uphill at a speed of 11 to 18 mph.

Mag chloride used, but options would be nice

OURAY, Colo. — Magnesium chloride, in addition to being spread to melt snow, is also used to suppress dust on unpaved roads and streets. Ouray, on the edge of Colorado’s San Juan Mountains, remains the rare mountain town without curb-to-curb pavement and hence a dust problem.

To control the dust, town crews have spread mag chloride with such care that the town’s most prominent environmental activist saw fit to commend them. Still, the Ouray Plaindealer suggests it’s time to look for alternatives to this "miracle" compound. It kills trees lining roads, insists the newspaper, and damages car bodies and brakes. And finally, what happens when mag chloride dries out?

One alternative, tested in nearby Ridgway, is mag chloride diluted with a 20 percent concentration of lignosulfonate, which is derived from trees and plants. A side effect, the Plaindealer noted, was that Ridgway’s roads smelled like rotting trash for a few days. San Miguel County, where Telluride is located, favors an undiluted and hence more expensive version of lignosulfonate. In Lake City, another town in the San Juans, town trustees opted for a no-mag chloride plan that favors paving, use of a vegetable-oil suppressant and watering.

In Grand County, which includes Winter Park, Grand Lake, and Kremmling, county officials are sticking with magnesium chloride. The county road department has tested animal fat, pine tar, and soil cement, but found all lacking. It has also looked at other, more expensive chemicals, but has concluded that mag chloride, at a cost of $1,050 per mile of road, remains the best and most economical, reports the Sky-Hi News.

Begging to differ, the Plaindealer sees the ideal solution being an afternoon shower several times a week. It does not, however, offer to expedite this.

Sierra Nevada smog coming from China

LAKE TAHOE, Calif. — Air quality near Lake Tahoe is bad and getting worse, reports The New York Times. Air quality filters near Tahoe "are the darkest that we’ve seen" outside smoggy urban areas, said Steven S. Cliff, an atmospheric scientist at the University of California at Davis.

Pollution knows no political boundaries, of course. Previous news reports have identified both local sources and migration of air from San Francisco and other Bay Area cities for Tahoe’s problems. But this story identifies the growing pollution from coal-fired plants in China as a major problem for North America, particularly mountainous areas.

China, with a quarter of the world’s population, already uses more coal than the United States, the European Union and Japan combined, reports the Times. Further, it has increased coal consumption 14 percent in each of the past two years.

All this is producing a higher quality of life in China. The number of air-conditioners has tripled in the past five years, for example. But that means every week to 10 days, another coal-fired plant opens somewhere in China.

Those power plants are so badly polluting the city of Datong, located 160 miles west of Beijing, that people drive with their lights on, even during the day time. The pollution is also causing breathing difficulties in South Korea and Japan.

In the United States, no acid rain is being reported as a result of Chinese pollution. However, pollutants are being noticed at mountain monitoring stations in ranges along the West Coast.

These particles, says the Times, are dense enough that, at maximum levels during the spring, they account at higher altitudes for a fifth or more of the maximum levels of particles allowed by the latest federal air quality standards. Chinese pollution averages 10 to 15 percent of allowable levels of particles. The amounts are smaller for Seattle, San Francisco and other low-lying cities.

Power plants may cause mercury levels in fish

DURANGO, Colo. — Being at the top of the food chain comes at certain risks. At Vallecito Reservoir, located in the San Juan Mountains northeast of Durango, that risk is in mercury. The mercury probably originates in emissions from coal-fired power plants in the Four Corners region.

Kokanee salmon and trout eat plankton and/or bugs. But two other species, northern pike and walleye, eat the salmon and trout. Routine sampling by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment has revealed mercury levels that exceed the threshold of 0.5 parts per million, reports the Durango Herald.

Health officials recommended limiting consumption of the walleye and pike. Most susceptible are pregnant women and children younger than 6.

"The mercury level has been increasing the past five or six years," said Jay Powell, president of the Vallecito Community Council. "Air-quality people say we’re in the plume of discharges from coal-fired power plants in New Mexico and Arizona."

The connection between air-borne mercury and the methylmercury found in fish hasn’t been established, but the newspaper says sources believe the relationship is a common-sense one to make. Rain and snow at nearby Mesa Verde National Park have some of the highest depositions of mercury in the West, according to George San Miguel, a natural resource specialist.

Winter Park insists it has water for growth

WINTER PARK, Colo. — In the extreme drought year of 2002, only a trickle of water remained in the Fraser River, which flows past the Winter Park ski area and through the town of Winter Park.

Still, home building continues. Intrawest, the ski area operator, just broke ground on two buildings that together will yield 194 housing units, the first phase of what is planned to be a typical ski area "village." Meanwhile, town authorities have annexed a project called Arrowhead that contemplates up to 1,867 residential units.

"Whatever are you thinking?" wondered a Colorado Trout Unlimited representative at a recent meeting. The answer, respond town and water district officials, is that they’re not planning for drought years, only dry years.

"People will have to realize a drought is a drought. You don’t plan on those scenarios," said Bruce Hutchins, superintendent for Grand County Water and Sanitation District. "We wouldn’t grow anymore if we planned on drought scenarios."

The town is also counting on more storage from good years to tide them through dry years. A study completed in March 2005 by Leonard Rice Engineers concluded that the storage would help cover 10,000 water taps that should be available and still accommodate streamflow standards of 6 cubic feet per second in the Fraser River.

A second, less optimistic study was conducted by the Colorado River Conservation Water District, the Northwest Colorado Council of Governments, and the Denver Water Department.

Not fully trusting the optimistic study, town officials think they should assume only 8,000 water taps, and perhaps not all of them. "Town council members have agreed that as each subdivisions comes into review, they will revisit flows in the river and see how each new subdivisions would affect its flows," reports the Winter Park Manifest.

It is, ultimately, all about money. Mike Wageck, of the Winter Park Water and Sanitation Distriction, says to not continue real estate development would stymie growth of the local economy, he said. "That’s a place we don’t really want to go," he asserted.

He also alluded to plans by the city of Denver to expand its diversions in the Fraser Valley. The city has senior water rights. "It would be a shame for us, Fraser and Winter Park, to limit growth before the Front Range does," he said.

Lake Tahoe reaching rim for first time since 2000

LAKE TAHOE, Calif./Nev. — The waters of Lake Tahoe are expected to reach the lake’s rim by the end of June, the first time since 2000. The elevation of the lake when it is full is 6,229 feet. The Tahoe Daily News reports that other, man-made reservoirs in the area have already filled, owing to this past winter’s heavy snowpack.

Colorado’s biggest reservoir fills for first time since 1999

GUNNISON, Colo. — For the first time since July 1999, Blue Mesa Reservoir is full. It’s Colorado’s largest reservoir, holding 940,700 acre-feet, which is nearly four times the capacity of Dillon Reservoir, located in Summit County. However, the reservoir is unlikely to remain at capacity, notes the Crested Butte News.

Water from the reservoir ultimately flows into Lake Powell, in Utah. Powell is beginning to fill, after dropping to a third of its capacity, but is not expected to hit more than 50 percent of capacity this year. The larger story is that an early spring and unseasonably hot temperatures have combined to deplete the mountain snowpacks.

Meanwhile, reports the Crested Butte News, representatives of the Gunnison Basin were in court once again to argue against a proposal at Union Park, between Crested Butte and Buena Vista. That vision sees a reservoir larger even than Blue Mesa, but also diversions to the Colorado Front Range. Although a judge last year denied water rights exist for the reservoir, the case was appealed.

Rising material costs don’t hinder high end

JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. — Construction costs have been rising rapidly during the last two years, but by some estimates have increased 15 percent in the last nine months.

The biggest blame goes to higher energy prices, notes the Jackson Hole News & Guide. Glass, asphalt, plastic, and steel, among other materials, are more expensive to create, but also more expensive to transport.

These higher costs are having various ramifications in Jackson Hole. Rising cement costs are blamed for boosting the cost of indoor riding arena, originally pegged at $2.1 million, by $200,000. Affordable housing advocates are trying to keep building costs to $150 per square foot, but not sure how they can do it.

But higher costs don’t seem to suppress demand at the high end, where wealthy buyers are paying $500 per square foot without blinking.

"Right now, national numbers for construction starts are down," observed Matte Somers, a partner of Teton Heritage Builders. "But Jackson is still really busy. For the most part, our clients have the money that when they make the decision they’re going to build, they’re going to build."

County levying housing fees on new construction

GUNNISON COUNTY, Colo. — Despite some heartburn from ranchers and builders, Gunnison County Commissioners have adopted fees on both home and commercial construction to be used for affordable housing. The linkages concept, as it is called, is similar to those previously adopted by both Crested Butte and Mt. Crested Butte, where the need is most apparent.

Crested Butte representatives urged the linkages law be adopted, as they see much development ahead in their area in unincorporated areas. "I think this is a good idea," said John Hess, the town planner for Crested Butte. "I’m beginning to see the community of Crested Butte fall apart," due to people being unable to afford housing.

In Gunnison, college instructor Butch Clark echoed the call. "We’re talking catch-up," said Clark. "We’ve been dancing around this issue long enough."

The law specifies that somebody in the unincorporated area near Crested Butte who builds a home of 1,000 to 2,000 square feet would be assessed a fee of $2,627. That same-sized home, if located away from Crested Butte, would be assessed a third as much, or $781.

But the big fees come with the biggest houses: a house of 8,000 square feet would generate $58,000 in the Crested Butte area, or $17,252 in more rural areas distant from the resort.

The fee schedule was premised by a study conducted by Rees Consulting in 2005 and updated in 2006. That study quantifies the gap between average incomes and housing costs. The study also established the number of workers needed to service new homes and businesses.

This money is to be administered by the Gunnison County Housing Authority, and must be spent within seven years of collection.

The Crested Butte News reports some backlash. "The concept of what you are doing is wrong," said Lee Spann, a well-known local rancher. "This is taking it from the ‘have’s’ and giving it to the ‘have-not’s." He asked for the measure to be placed before voters in November.

The construction and development community finds it overwhelming, said Cory Watt, a member of the Gunnison County Builders’ Association.

David Baumgarten, the county attorney, acknowledged that top-down regulation is not the only way to provide affordable housing. As the discussion has matured, he said, the county also recognizes gains in public-private partnerships, community land trusts, and other ventures.

Housing scofflaws plead no contest

BRECKENRIDGE, Colo. — Breckenridge town authorities have come to terms with a couple from Indiana who had been charged with illegally purchasing a deed-restricted affordable home then not living in it.

Kirk and Pam Alter had bought the two-story, three-bedroom house in Breckenridge’s Victorian-style Wellington Neighborhood two years ago, paying $305,000. They signed an affidavit saying that at least one of them worked more than 30 hours a week in Summit County.

But town officials alleged the Alters spent only a few weeks at the home during the last two years. In January, facing criminal prosecution, they sold the house for $379,000. Considering they had added a garage, the Alters made a profit of $13,000. They pleaded no contest to the criminal charges and agreed to forfeit the profit and repay attorney fees of $2,500.

The Summit Daily News reports that the attorney for the couple said the Alters planned to live there full time, but "personal and professional issues made that difficult." Kirk Alter is an associate professor of building construction management at Purdue University.

This was the first time criminal charges were brought in Summit County for an alleged violation of affordable housing covenants. "You just can’t have a house that you work so hard to put in place and have it not be utilized," Breckenridge Mayor Ernie Blake said. "It becomes a big deal."

Summit Housing Authority has 350 or so deed-restricted units to monitor. The Aspen/Pitkin County Housing Authority has 2,500 units. The agency’s executive director, Tom McCabe, told the Summit Daily News that his office has yet to file any criminal charges, although it has at least one or two civil actions against violators at all times. He credited advanced computer technology in enabling his department to be more thorough when reviewing potential buyers.

In Eagle County, affordable housing director K/T. Gazunis acknowledged enforcement is a problem, but says "strongly worded letters form attorneys have been enough" so far. Like Aspen, her office has a full-time employee responsible for compliance enforcement. The agency also randomly audits 25 percent of its units, using methods such as calling employers.

Canmore bear-proofing system studied by others

CANMORE, Alberta — In the 1990s, Canmore was having all sorts of problems with bears arriving to pick through garbage cans. In response, the municipality created 60 animal-proof bins and instituted a curb-side pickup system. Still, that wasn’t enough, so it ended the curb-side collection and added more animal-proof containers, now 176 altogether. A majority have been paid for by developers and found in new subdivisions.

At $2 million, the containers, concrete bases and enclosures were expensive. But the number of habituated bears has dropped, town officials tell the Rocky Mountain Outlook. If some problems remain, Canmore’s animal-proofing system seems among the best around, which is why both Whistler and Revelstoke have studied it.

Meanwhile, Canmore is studying Banff’s year-old experiment. There, garbage is being collected and composted along with solid waste from the wastewater treatment facility.

O.J. Simpson doesn’t quite get Breck theme

SUMMIT COUNTY, Colo. — Although he usually skis at Aspen, former football star and actor O.J. Simpson was in Summit County recently to golf and hang out. He told the Summit Daily News that he likes speed, which is what draws him to skiing. For that reason, he dislikes the new short skis.

As for Breckenridge, he found the people there exceptionally nice. "I don’t want to say Mayberry, but I’d say Stepford," he said. "People are happy to just say, ‘Hi, welcome.’ Normally everyone wants something: an autograph, a picture.

But he confided that he didn’t quite get Breck’s architecture. "If someone asked me to explain what Breckenridge looked like, I couldn’t tell them. They try to do the Victorian thing, but it didn’t come together," he told the Summit Daily News.

For the record, he does like Aspen’s cowboy thing, but maybe he meant Steamboat or Jackson Hole. He likes Vail’s European thing, too.

Good ol’ days were not the most sanitary

ASPEN, Colo. — It’s not the sounds of nature that Jim Markalunas, a 71-year resident of Aspen, hears these days. And contrary to the memories of some, younger people, Aspen’s good, ol’ days weren’t in the 1960s or even the 1970s, he says.

"The murmur of aspen and the roar of the creeks at high-water cannot be heard above the roar of Main Street traffic," he grumps. "Diesel exhaust has replaced the aroma of pine and sage. Windows must be kept closed to shut out the dirt and noise from the constant construction activities in town," he writes in the Aspen Times.

"Even the dead at the cemeteries cannot rest in peace," he concludes.

As he recalls it, the quiet years of Aspen — after the mining, but before the resort — were good ones. "Sure, the streets were dirty, mud or dusty, and visitors were warned, ‘Don’t’ drink the water! It may be your own,’" he recalls. Still, those years — the years of his youth — he remembers as the best.

Caterpillars smother town above Telluride

MOUNTAIN VILLAGE, Colo. — Western tent caterpillars in early June descended on Mountain Village, the slope-side town above the old town of Telluride, creating something of a fright.

The leaf-eating caterpillars denuded aspen trees, spun Halloween-type webs on bushes and, in general, gave people the creeps. The plaza at the gondola was so covered with the caterpillars it was impossible to take a step without mashing several, reported The Telluride Watch. The newspaper’s correspondent said caterpillars had begun to colonize his satchel, notepad and trousers while on just a short walk.

While such caterpillar invasions are not unknown on the edges of the San Juan Mountains, they normally come every eight years, town officials said. What’s a concern is that this is the fourth straight year of the caterpillars. Phil Miller, a retired forester who lives in Telluride, said it was the most serious infestation he had seen anywhere in 57 years.

Town officials quelled the infestation with a so-called "organic" bacterial pesticide, Foray 48B, which was sprayed by airplane. There was some anxiety about effects on human health.

Brian Fisher, an etymologist with the California Academy of Sciences, speculated that more extreme climates are more susceptible to climate change. Mountain Village is located at an elevation of 9,600 feet. Because of their rapid life cycles, insects are adapting to climate change more quickly than other species, he told The Telluride Watch.

An extension agent with Colorado State University who was interviewed by The Denver Post didn’t comment directly on that theory, but he didn’t sound like he buys it. "We can just sit here forever and guess why, but we just don’t know," said the agent, Bob Hammond.