EAGLE, Colo. — The dirt is flying in the Eagle-Gypsum area, where the runway for the Eagle County Regional Airport is being extended by 1,000 feet. To extend the runway, the terrace upon which the runway is located must also be extended, which means hauling 2.5 million cubic yards.
This will give airplanes more tarmac time before lifting off, which means they can carry more passengers and cargo. This is particularly crucial during summer months, when planes have greater difficulty getting loft in the warm air.
The bottom line is that more passengers and cargo allows a broader profit margin, which should mean increased passenger service in years ahead. The airport services primarily the Vail area, although a substantial number of Aspen visitors also use the airport. Airport officials believe that Summit County will also use the airport more in years ahead.
The runway is targeted for completion next year. Also expected for installation by next year is a radar system that will allow tighter spacing between arrivals and departures of planes. That will allow an airport that is already considered Colorado’s second busiest during winter months to become even busier.
As is usual, the money for these improvements is mostly coming from the federal government, which levies taxes on plane tickets and fuel sales.
Christmas wishes for 2007
MAMMOTH LAKE, Calif. — For about 15 years Mammoth has been trying to get a major air portal, similar to those of Jackson Hole, Steamboat, and Vail. It’s still trying.
A Federal Aviation Administration official says an environmental impact statement will be completed within a year that presumably will see fit to allow a handful of 80-passenger regional jets daily from San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas, or altogether about 70,000 passengers annually. The expectation is that this will begin by December 2007.
But most destination resorts can handle larger planes, big-payload 757s that could deliver passengers from Dallas and Chicago. That will take a different EIS. Mammoth Lakes, the ski area, and the FAA tried before, but chose a lower hurdle, called an environmental assessment. Earth Justice, the legal arm of the Sierra Club, as well as the state of California argued that the document was insufficient, and courts sided with them.
An outside possibility is for scheduled air service into Bishop, 42 miles away. That’s not much farther than airports for Steamboat and Vail, but for now Mammoth doesn’t want to go that way. The latest thinking, reports The Sheet, is that a major airport remains six or seven years away.
Tax considered to secure flights
HAILEY, Idaho — Airport boosters in the Sun Valley-Ketchum area have begun talking about securing a tax source for revenue guarantees for airlines. While no specific ideas have been proposed, the attorney for the Friedman Memorial Airport, Barry Lubovski, said: "It makes total sense to start the dialogue."
The city of Hailey, where the current airport is located, and Blaine County, the owner, have voted not to expand Friedman, as it would require extensive condemnation of adjoining business and residential property. A new airport located farther south, outside of the mountains, is proposed, and theoretically would open in 2016. The Idaho Mountain Express explains that the new airport is needed to accommodate larger jets.
Flights cheaper than expected
STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, Colo. — This past winter’s airline program at Steamboat was a major success. While the ski area and local lodges had posted $1.95 million in revenue guarantees to the airlines, organizers now expect to pay only $950,000.
The ski company posts 60 per cent of the guarantees, and the remainder comes from a local marketing district, which imposes a 2 per cent bed tax.
Steamboat had excellent snow this winter, but Andy Wirth, vice president of marketing for the Steamboat Ski and Resort Corp., said reduced commuter shuttles from Denver caused more people to instead fly direct from cities to the Yampa Valley. That meant more passengers per plane. Higher airfares also meant the airlines made more money, and the locals had to pay less in revenue guarantees.
The program was a success in other ways, too. Load factors that four years ago averaged 63 per cent hit a record 71 per cent this winter. Altogether, the flights carried 110,000 passengers during the winter out of a total possible 137,000.
Next winter, 150,000 seats will be offered, but Steamboat will post slightly less in revenue guarantees. Among the additions will be a daily flight from Atlanta, which is currently served with a weekend flight. Wirth describes Atlanta as the heart of Steamboat’s market.
Chris Diamond, president of the ski company, said he believes few people realize that winter vacationers are tending to plan their trips earlier. This is in contrast to a 20-year trend of later bookings.
Trees poisoned to improve view
LAKE TAHOE, Calif. — In 2004, John Fitzhenry, bought a home in the Lake Tahoe Basin for $2.4 million. Still, it wasn’t quite what he wanted. Three pine trees obstructed his view of the lake.
So he drilled holes in the base of the trees and applied Roundup, an herbicide. Later, he applied for a permit to remove the dying trees. That’s when the illegal cause of the dying trees was discovered by government officials.
Fitzhenry apologized to directors of the district that oversees environmental impacts in the basin, calling his actions "selfish, impulsive, and completely without justification," but refuses to pay more than $34,000. But directors of the district think a more severe slap on the hands is needed to discourage the wealthy from being scoff-flaws, and want to fine him $50,000, reports the Tahoe Daily Tribune.
Aspen real estate on the rise
ASPEN, Colo. — The real estate market in the Roaring Fork Valley is roaring even more loudly this year than last.
In Pitkin County, where Aspen is located, sales through March had increased more than 8 per cent compared to the same mark last year. The final tally last year was $2.2 billion. Fractional ownership continues to be a large part of the story, at least as defined by number of transactions, 39 per cent of all sales, according to a Land Title Guarantee Co. report.
Down-valley in worker-bee Garfield County, where the towns of Carbondale, Glenwood Springs and Rifle are located, the dollar volume was smaller, but the proportionate increase from last year greater: 71 per cent.
Large runoff expected
I-70 CORRIDOR, Colo. — Reports vary widely about the level of concern provoked by this year’s big snowpack in the mountains of northern Colorado. The Summit Daily News reports some fretting about newcomers being unprepared for a big water year. Denver papers similarly have reported wariness.
In the Eagle Valley, the Vail Daily found preparations for high waters, including purchases of flood insurance and also stockpiling of sand bags, but no real alarm. Mike Crabtree, a photographer who lives on the bank of the Eagle River in the town of Eagle, said that 1996 set up as a 100-year flood event, and he survived it rather easily.
In Avon, there was similarly no alarm. "Water in the snow this year is about 120 per cent of normal," said Charlie Moore, chief of the Eagle River Fire District. "We're not hugely concerned, unless we get warm weather and rain at the same time."
Ag lands going quickly
DURANGO, Colo. – A new report from an organization called Environment Colorado points out how rapidly agricultural land is being lost to residential and commercial development. While the usual phrase is "cows not condos," the report that single-family homes on large lots, usually 2 to 40 acres, proportionately cause the greatest loss.
In La Plata County, where Durango is located, 50,000 acres of farm and ranch land have been taken out of production since 1987.
Jim Dyer, a sheepman, tells the Durango Telegraph that locals recognize the value of eating locally grown foods and buying locally produced goods. The question, he says, whether the lesson is being learned rapidly enough.
The vast majority of locals still consume food and agricultural goods that have been trucked in from the far corners of the country and world, he told the Durango Telegraph, while local cattle are often trucked hundreds of miles to feedlots and butchering plants.
Plaque to Ukrainians defaced
BANFF, Alberta — Along the Bow Valley Parkway, between Banff and Lake Louise, is a simple plaque, one that says only this: Why?
The plaque was erected to mark the site of an internment camp that from 1914 to 1920 imprisoned Ukrainian Canadians. At the outbreak of World War I, the Canadian government interned foreigners who had come from territories controlled by the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and this included many ethnic Ukrainians. Across Canada, the Ukrainians were forced to labour in mines, steel mills and logging camps. As well, some were forced to build tourist facilities in Banff National Park, and hence the concentration camp.
The Rocky Mountain Outlook says the plaque was recently defaced with various vulgarities. More than one million Canadians claim Ukrainian heritage, and the vast majority of them live in western Canada.
Urban renewal through tax diversion
KETCHUM, Idaho — Ketchum has created an urban renewal authority as a way of providing more affordable housing and parking structures in its downtown area.
The legal and financing method being used by Ketchum is similar to the tax-increment financing that has been adopted by Mt. Crested Butte, Steamboat Springs and Vail, except in Idaho it works a little differently. There, property tax increments from one area, primarily the Warm Springs base area, are being diverted to the receiving area, the downtown. What this means is that county, cemetery, and ambulance districts get shorted of their normal tax proceeds. Schools are exempted.
The hope, explains the Idaho Mountain Express, is that private investors can be induced into helping provide these key assets of housing and parking that town officials believe are needed. Town officials say this will reduce traffic and make the town more visitor-friendly.
Affordable housing fees going up
PARK CITY, Utah — Since 1990, Park City has had regulations governing how much developers should be paying for affordable housing. Recently, the town revised how much developers could pay in lieu of affordable housing. The new price: $86,616; the old: $60,000. The higher fee reflects the generally escalating prices in Park City, reports The Park Record.
Teachers having hard time
SILVERTON, Colo. — So quickly things change. A few years ago Silverton had the highest unemployment rate in Colorado. The last mine had closed, and the steam train from Durango that provided the bulk of tourists, the source of most of the town’s economy, stopped arriving in October.
Since then, a ski area has opened, more people are building vacation homes, and some retirees have arrived. All of this means that Silverton now officially has an affordable housing problem. To counter this rising problem of affordability for teachers and their families, the school district is looking into buying two lots, at a cost of $130,000, reports the Silverton Standard.
Bruins out early in Crested Butte
CRESTED BUTTE, Colo. — Bears had arrived in the streets, trash cans, and dumpsters in Crested Butte by the first week of April this year. "It seems like bears are continuing to be more active earlier in the year – and later in the year," says Ted Conner, the town marshal.
Like many other mountain towns, Crested Butte bans putting out trash cans before trash pick-up day. The neighboring town of Mt. Crested Butte has no laws concerning bears, although there is some sentiment for requiring bear-proof containers, reports the Crested Butte News.
Message from underground
GRAND LAKE, Colo. — When you see the first underground parking lot in a town, you know that real estate prices are elevating. That’s exactly what is being proposed in Grand Lake, at the west entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park.
Grand Lake still has much the ambiance of a knotty-pine 1950s-style resort, as well as a variety of restaurants named Pancho & Lefty’s and the Chuck Wagon.
But real estate prices have been rising, and so a developer is now proposing a three-storey mix of 16 residential units and some retail slots. But instead of buying land for a surface parking lot, which he considers an eyesore, the developer wants to install the underground parking. Spaces are valued at $10,000 in Grand Lake, a pittance as compared with structures in Aspen, Vail, and other such resorts.
June Mountain goes daily
MAMMOTH, Calif. — June Mountain, the smaller ski area at Mammoth, will stay the course at seven days a week next winter. The ski company had proposed to limit operations to four days a week, thus saving money to be plowed back into capital improvements. But community response was strong and anguished, reports The Sheet. The ski area recorded 90,000 skier days this winter and managed to make $500,000 in profit, far more than normal. Still, the ski company estimates upwards of $20 million is needed in improvements.
Rico tells Telluride to keep its workers
RICO, Colo. — The twin towns of Telluride and Mountain Village are having a problem finding room for all their employees. They don’t want to use their open space or building sites, which means that they’ve been looking elsewhere – down-valley or even beyond.
Located 25 miles away and across Lizard Head Pass, the tiny town of Rico has served notice that it doesn’t want to be the dumping ground for Telluride’s housing needs, reports the Rico Bugle.
"We believe responsible community planning requires housing programs that are in the same community as the place of employment," the town board said in a letter sent to officials in Telluride, Mountain Village, and San Miguel County.
Powder-and-surf ambition scuttled by high winds
ASPEN, Colo. — Oh, isn’t it so much fun to have cheap fossil fuels at our disposal for various superlatives of travel and adventure?
The Aspen Times reports one such dubious attempt. The individual, a local resident, got hauled up a ski hill in Aspen in the morning in the gondola, and after his ski run hopped a jet to Denver. From there, he was to fly to Hawaii, where he planned to watch the sunset over Waikiki Beach.
His surf-and-powder plan fell apart, however, when wind delayed his plane from Aspen. By the time he got to Denver, his plane to Honolulu was flying away.
