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Jumbo opponents claim end-run

By Allen Best INVERMERE, B.C.

By Allen Best

INVERMERE, B.C. – Opponents of a major new resort at Jumbo Glacier, about 30 miles from Invermere, were crying foul after learning that the British Columbia government was considering legislation that they believe would remove the final decision-making on the project from local hands.

The provision in question would enable the provincial cabinet to establish a “resort region,” which would suggest a rezoning of the land could be accomplished within that region, instead of by the Regional District of East Kootenay. Opponents charged government officials with an “end run” around local decision-making.

The proposed 5,400-bed resort has been in the works for 16 years, and a website boasts of 5,500 vertical feet of skiing, plus 2,300 feet of glacier skiing in the summer.

Opposition in Invermere and nearby areas runs strong, but especially loud. A group called the Jumbo Creek Conservation Society has 1,400 members, and opposes the resort because of its location in a relatively pristine area that is home to grizzly bears, among other species. The resort would be on the site of a former sawmill, and the area has been heavily logged.

Supporters claim the “quiet majority” and proclaim the tax revenues it will provide are vital.

In an editorial, the Invermere Valley Echo called for a referendum on the topic, to find out once and for all which side has the votes, “and let the chips fall where they may.”

 

CB struggles with heated pavers

CRESTED BUTTE, Colo. – The nitty-gritty of reducing carbon dioxide emissions at the grassroots is getting tedious in Crested Butte. There, the city had considered an outright ban on all new snowmelt systems, including heated driveways and sidewalks. Instead, because of protests, it instituted a moratorium while considering the options.

The thinking is that that heated walkways are an extravagance that the town should not be a party to, given the accumulating evidence about climate change. Electricity is most often used in such melting systems, which means that natural gas or more likely coal is being burned somewhere to produce that electricity. Both produce carbon dioxide, the most common greenhouse gas.

But the council, reports the Crested Butte News, is struggling with fairness. For example, will melting the snow with electricity really cause more hydrocarbons to be burned? “If (snow is not melted, it has to be moved with a snow blower, a plow, something like that,” pointed out Ron Chlipala, a council member. “What I’m worried about is that we are problem-switching as opposed to problem-solving.”

Another council member, Leah Williams, suggested a carbon tax.

The council had originally considered copying a program introduced in nearby Aspen and Pitkin County, called the Renewable Energy Mitigation Program (REMP). That program establishes an energy budget for all homes of more than 5,000 square feet. Any “luxury” items such as outdoor heated swimming pools or heated driveways must compensate for the extra energy use by installing solar panels, for example. Or, if not, they can pay a mitigation fee, which is then put into use elsewhere in the community by people who will install solar panels.

But is there justice in permitting people to create alternative energy in order to “waste” it in such manners, some council members have wondered.

Still, while the council in Crested Butte shied away from adopting such a program, because of the administrative headache, the newspaper reports that a REMP-type program is back on the table and scheduled for a re-examination by council members who are now thinking it’s not so complicated after all.

 

Breck expansion a done-deal

BRECKENRIDGE, Colo. – The U.S. Forest Service says that the permission to expand the Breckenridge ski area is not in question. The only question is what kind of skiing will be allowed. The Summit Daily News reports that hike-to skiing and Snocat skiing are being considered.

Breckenridge has the highest skier density per acre of the 12 ski areas on the White River National Forest, an area that also includes the ski areas owned by Vail Resorts and Aspen Skiing. The company wants 400 acres to help provide more elbow room on busy days. The expansion will nudge the ski area’s “comfortable carrying capacity” to about 18,000, which compares with a soft cap at Vail Mountain of 20,600.

The Summit Daily News reports a bit of heartburn in how the Forest Service has gone about this expansion, with very little opportunity for public input. There are concerns that the expansion, located on Peak 6, in the direction of Frisco, will affect wildlife but also backcountry skiers. There is also some sense that re-assignment of Forest Service lands to concessionaires was effected without proper public transparency.

 

Low-cost lodging upscaled

VAIL, Colo. – Virtually the last of Vail’s low-cost lodging is going to be razed during the spring shoulder season. The Roost Lodge, located about two miles from the ski lifts, typically caters to college students, hunters, and people from Colorado’s Front Range.

The going rate for a room this weekend is $89, compared to $149 at a nearby Holiday Inn Express, while a hotel at the base of the mountain goes for $250. As you might expect, some of the five-star hotels are going for considerably more than that, even in April.

But in a general way, Vail is going steadily more upscale. The average daily rates at hotels in February, for example, hit $330 this year, compared to $263 during the same month last year. A host of high-end properties will open during the next several years, some of them remodels of existing hotels but others essentially new.

The Roost, not to be confused with a luxury accommodation, is to be replaced by a Marriott Residence Inn, still on the low end, but a notch up from its predecessor. As in Aspen, which has agonized over its loss of affordability, Vail is concerned about being exclusively a high-end resort.

 

Deadliest avalanche recalled

TRUCKEE, Calif. – The worst skiing disaster in U.S. history is now 25 years old. Early on the morning of March 31, 1982, a major avalanche broke loose at Alpine Meadows. The slide was a quarter mile wide at the fracture and dropped 700 vertical feet.

Larry Heywood, who was the resort’s assistant patrol director then, told the Tahoe Daily Tribune of his memories of the cold and windy morning. “The snow was alive — truly alive,” he said. “Every road cut and gully was avalanching. We were certain we were going to get big avalanches.”

He was riding a lift with powder, sometimes called dynamite, to trigger avalanches.

Several people were rescued from the avalanche, which left splintered trees in the parking lot and smashed several buildings. But soon, there were only victims, seven in all.

Then, after five days of searching, the unthinkable happen. A 22-year-old lift operator, Ana Conrad, was found alive under the rubble of a lift terminal, shielded by a miracle of collapsing walls and furniture. “We lifted up this piece of plywood, and there was her hand,” Heywood remembers. She lost her right foot and toes on her left foot to frostbite.

Time has dimmed the memories somewhat. Heywood told the newspaper that for several years there wasn’t a day he didn’t think about the slide.

 

Plot thickens in Telluride

TELLURIDE, Colo. – The plot continues to thicken in Telluride, where the town is attempting to condemn 570 acres of pastoral land at the entrance to the box-canyon valley.

Although a jury in February ruled that landowner Neal Blue is entitled to get $50 million, Blue is now trying to block the condemnation.

The San Diego Union-Tribune explains that Blue bought 880 acres in the valley in 1983 for a reported $6 million, and had plans to build a golf course and assorted real estate. Blunted by Telluride, he later announced plans to annex to Mountain Village, Telluride’s relatively new sibling town. That ignited the plan to condemn the property.

“The owner is very, very angry at the notion that he should have property expropriated by Telluride that is outside the borders of Telluride, that is bigger than the town of Telluride itself, and that is to be used for their own private playground,” Blue’s attorney, Denver-based Tom Ragonetti, told the Union-Tribune.

In 2004, Ragonetti helped persuade Colorado legislators to adopt a law that sharply curtailed the ability of home-rule municipalities to condemn land outside their borders and expressly blocked Telluride from condemning land outside its borders for parks and open space.

Soon after adoption of the law, however, a district court judge in Telluride ruled the law unconstitutional. Blue is now appealing that decision to the Colorado Supreme Court. Town officials told The Telluride Watch they were expecting the appeal. “We are very confident with our position here,” said Mayor John Pryor.

But Pryor was expressly displeased by a lawsuit filed by his predecessor as Telluride mayor, John Steel. That lawsuit alleges a procedural error and, more interestingly, jury misconduct. This latter allegation relies on a report by an alternate juror that jurors from Delta who did not believe in condemnation said they wanted to make sure Telluride paid for its action. The trial was held in Delta, an old farming town located about 80 miles from Telluride.

“Ridiculous,” responded Pryor, the current mayor, to this seemingly friendly lawsuit. In its own legal response, the town called Steel’s suit an “unnecessary distraction.” Steel, the former mayor, said the lawsuit just preserves a legal option in case Telluride can’t come up with the $50 million that the jury awarded Blue.

As of April 1, private fundraisers were short $3 million in its efforts to collect half of the $50 million for the property. The formal deadline for the town’s payment is May 21. The town has authorized the other half. The Telluride Daily Planet told of letters arriving with $10 bills, $20 bills, and an occasional $20,000 cheque. The Denver Post tells of fund-raisers in cow costumes — cows representing the existing undeveloped parcel — to ring bells and collect spare change from passersby.

However, interest on the town’s payment has been accruing at a rate of $11,000 a day since the jury verdict on Feb. 21. In addition, the town is accumulating enormous legal fees.

“What you have in Telluride is a large constituency of people who moved here because they are of the mind that the Earth is imperiled,” Seth Cagin, publisher of The Watch told the San Diego newspaper. “To them it’s important to draw the line and take a stand — and just say no.”

“It’s more like entering a national park than entering a ski resort,” said one of those preservationists, San Miguel County Commissioner Joan May.

Cagin, the newspaper editor, had strongly supported a prior compromise measure that would have put most of the land into open space while allowing 24 large homes and a small commercial area, at no cost to the town. He accuses the majority in Telluride of environmental elitism.

The town council and nearly all other public officials supported that same compromise. But 58 per cent of town voters rejected the compromise, and now Pryor is trying to carry out their wishes.

“As daunting as it appears, they said we couldn’t bring the Grateful Dead here in 1988, and we did,” he told the Union-Tribune. “Anything is possible in Telluride.”

 

Wiik going strong at 87

STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, Colo. – Nordic skiing legend Sven Wiik was in Finland this winter to take part in the World Masters Association Cross-Country Skiing Championships. Wiik, who is 87, competed in 5- and 10-kilometre skate races, but planned to switch to classic-style diagonal skiing for the 15-kilometre race, reports the Steamboat Pilot & Today.

Wiik competes in the division for skiers ages 85 to 89, and figured to duel with several other noted skiers from Italy and Russia. “I ski along, sing a song and feel good,” he told the paper.

He competed in gymnastics in the 1948 Olympics, but coached the U.S. Nordic skiers at Squaw Valley in 1960. He operated the Steamboat Ski Touring Center and still assists his daughter, Birgitta Lindgren.

 

One heckuva of a winter

TAOS, N.M. – Ski season was looking grim during the early season in New Mexico. Last year had been among the worst ever for snow, and December was a continuation of the same. Going into Christmas, Angel Fire had only half its terrain open.

Then a big storm hit, leaving five feet. Since then, the four ski areas around Taos — Taos Valley, Angel Fire, Red River, and Sipapu — have coasted. “We had more snow in January than we did all of last season, and February to March just blew the cork off skiing,” said Angel Fire’s David Dekema, a marketing director.

 

Jackson Hole high and dry

JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. – Say what you will about April, powder lovers at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort found March plenty cruel. The resort received only 10 inches during the month at mid-mountain, the lowest amount since record-keeping began in 1967. The entire winter was marginal or worse — mostly worse.

The Jackson Hole News & Guide reports that the weather during March was also warm and sunny, with temperatures high on the ski mountain getting into the 40s, while even hitting the low 60s down in the valley.

 

Beetle biomass coming

GRANBY, Colo. – Several projects are in the works to make use of the thousands and probably millions of beetle-killed dead trees now standing in the forests of north-central Colorado. The Sky-Hi News says they are at the “cutting edge of finding solutions to today’s rapidly changing economic and natural landscape.”

A plant that would burn trees to produce heat and electricity is being studied near Walden, located in North Park. The electrical utility for that area, Mountain Parks Electric, is getting a federal grant of $242,000 to study its options.

Joe Pandy, general manager, said there are three options: 1) burn the biomass to produce steam, which would turn a turbine that makes electricity; 2) it can be made into a liquid fuel; or 3) it can be made into a flammable gas.

Such a plant is believed to have an electrical generating capacity of three to four megawatts. That compares with the 700-megawatt coal-burning fire plants being planned by Tri-State Transmission and Generation in southwestern Kansas. But if the plant is successful, other plants could be built elsewhere in the region.

Another company, Ranch Creek Limited, which is based near Granby, is also getting a federal grant for $144,000 to better use existing dead trees in making posts, railings, and also logs used for homes.

Yet at Parshall, located between Kremmling and Granby, a proposal has been filed to create wood pellets for stoves. The proponent, Forest Energy Colorado, believes there’s now enough wood in the area to keep the pellet factory in business, plus 14 to 18 people, for at least 10 years.

 

Development pipeline plugged

DRIGGS, Idaho – County commissioners in Idaho’s Teton County, an overflow area for Jackson Hole, have declared a six-month moratorium on zoning changes and new applications for development. The moratorium does not affect previous applications to create 3,000 new building lots nor prevent building of previously approved projects.

The valley includes the towns of Victor, Driggs and Tetonia. These towns and rural subdivisions are home to hundreds of people who commute across Teton Pass to jobs in Jackson Hole. As well, the valley is gaining a resort-based economy of its own, with new higher-end vacation, retirement, and lone-eagle housing in the works.

Jackson Hole News & Guide reports the community is sharply divided about growth controls.

“This is runaway socialism tonight,” said former planning commission chairman, Bill Moulton. He said the moratorium will prevent the sale of property by residents, thereby ruining their retirement plants. The newspaper said it will not prevent the sale of property as such.

The county commissioners were also divided. The two commissioners supporting the moratorium were both elected last November and are both Democrats. One of them had written an editorial warning of possible population growth reaching 114,000 in the county.

The lone commissioner opposing the moratorium, a Republican, moved his chair to the end of the table, creating a literal gap to symbolize his philosophic distance from his colleagues. He urged them to “eat crow and eat it fast.” He was alluding to an effort last year by previous commissioners to enact a similar emergency moratorium.

The newspaper says the county planning department is so fully booked that applications cannot be heard for five months.

 

Silverton readies for pandemic

SILVERTON, Colo. – Lest history not repeat itself, residents of Silverton will find yellow-and-black signs taped to their doors one day in April. The signs, explains the Silverton Standard, will be part of a mock test of a plan in case the pandemic flu arrives at Silverton.

Even being located in a remote mountain valley at 9,300 feet elevation probably won’t isolate the town from the virus. It didn’t in 1918.

That flu epidemic literally decimated the town’s population, killing 10 per cent of residents, 170 altogether. In just one week, 42 people died — the result, according to later speculation, of transmission of the virus at a public celebration.

Margie Lyons, the pandemic planning coordinator, warned that people who need medication or bottled oxygen may not get it. “We’re at the end of the transportation line, and transportation may be the first thing that gets disrupted,” she told the Standard. She urges people to keep two months worth of canned and dry goods on hand, rotating the stock to ensure freshness.