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Mountain News: Banff sewer helping save planet

BANFF, Alberta – Banff is trying to position itself in the emerging market for reduction of greenhouse gases.

BANFF, Alberta – Banff is trying to position itself in the emerging market for reduction of greenhouse gases. If all goes as projected, the town will be able to earn $550,000 from sale of carbon offsets as the result of methane reduction in its local sewage treatment plant.

In 2002 the community upgraded the treatment plant. The improved plan has composting tunnels that, with the aid of wood chips and a longer processing time, yields 2,500 tons of biosolids. The sewage has been augmented recently by food waste from local restaurants.

This new process significantly reduces the emissions of methane, which is 21 times more potent than carbon dioxide in retaining heat in the atmosphere. In the old process, the sludge would have been deposited in the landfill, and there decomposed, emitting the methane into the atmosphere.

Banff, reports the Rocky Mountain Outlook, plans to use the money, if it can get it, for additional projects that reduce greenhouse gases.

The money for carbon offsets so far comes from voluntary programs, such as when organizations decide to offset their festivals, for example. Such was the case in Telluride recently when organizers of Mountainfilm paid a hydroelectric power producer in nearby Ouray.

The City of Aspen similarly is paying for work at a coal mine in east-central Utah. There, methane is being trapped and, after purification, put in natural gas pipelines for uses such as heating homes.

In Alberta, Calgary-based Blue Source Canada has been set up to help conduct carbon offset transactions. So far, there have been seven such transactions. Edmonton has a landfill gas capture project, plus there have been two wind projects, one biomass energy project, and three transactions resulting from reduced tilling of farms. Reduced or no-till farming means more carbon remains sequestered in the soil.

 

Dumber and Dumbest

MAMMOTH LAKES, Calif. – A couple years ago an Aussie and a Kiwi, both quite young, robbed a bank in Vail, where they had been working. Not only were they customers of the bank, but they did not try to disguise their accents. To top it off, they wore the name badges from the sporting goods store where they worked.

No, there was another telltale clue: When they booked flights to Mexico, they tried to pay with the ill-gotten $132,000. They were quickly dubbed Dumb and Dumber.

Mammoth may have a pair of thieves that deserve to be called Dumber and Dumbest. The Sheet says a pickup truck was stolen, but then abandoned after a snowmobile being carried in the back launched into the truck cabin.

The two thieves were soon seen doing pushups in Main Street. A woman driving by, concerned about their safety, offered them a ride. As they rode along, the two men bragged about stealing a pickup — which just happened to belong to the husband of the woman’s best friend. The woman gathered names and so forth, and after dropping off the two men, called police.

The Sheet advises the two men to next time just play the video game, Grand Theft Auto.

As for the duo in Vail from down under, the postscript of their story wasn’t at all funny. One was sentenced to five years in prison, and the other to four years. Neither was yet of legal drinking age. They had used BB guns that looked like pistols.

 

Frontier struggling with fuel costs

DENVER, Colo. – Frontier Airlines, which recently debuted low-cost shuttle flights to several mountain towns in the Rocky Mountains, continues to flounder with the protection of bankruptcy. Rising oil prices are a key cause of Frontier’s problems. A newspaper in Denver, the Rocky Mountain News, reports that the airline’s bill for fuel has risen by $100 million in recent months.

 

Banff gets hybrid buses

BANFF, Alberta – Banff has four new electric-hybrid buses. The buses altogether cost $2.6 million, or $1 million more than standard diesel buses. The higher front-end costs are balanced by fuel savings of 30 per cent and lower lifecycle maintenance costs. The Rocky Mountain Outlook says there are also environmental benefits: 90 per cent fewer tailpipe emissions.

The buses are wrapped with larger-than-life magafauna of the area, including grizzlies, wolves and mountain goats. As well, GPS units will be installed at some bus stops, so customers can track the progress of buses.

 

‘Don’t let Bush die here’

PARK CITY, Utah – President George W. Bush visited Park City to help shake the pockets of donors at a Deer Valley function to bolster Republican campaigns. The Park Record has no report of how well the money-rustling went, but it does report that Bush was greeted, after a fashion, with crude signs and hand gestures.

These hand gestures apparently weren’t friendly hand waves. Summit County Sheriff Dave Edmunds described them as “classless and embarrassing.”

To ensure the president’s safety, 47 law officers were called out to help monitor the motorcade route. The cost to local taxpayers for overtime pay was $30,000.

The county commissioners supported the expenditure, if not necessarily Bush. “Frankly I don’t care whether he lives or dies,” said one commissioner, Sally Elliott. “But don’t let him die in Summit County.”

 

High schooler a delegate

JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. – Wyoming Democrats are sending a high-school student from Jackson Hole to their national convention in Denver this summer.

The student, Willie Neal, 18, fervently supports Barack Obama. He will be among three teenagers from Wyoming at the national convention. Neal is an eight-time state cross-country skiing champion in Wyoming and the son of two doctors.

Democrats who gathered in Jackson Hole for their state convention also heard from a local resident, former Newsweek editor-in-chief Bill Broyles. It was, some delegates told Jackson Hole News & Guide, among the best speeches they had ever heard.

Broyles spoke about war and energy, topics with which he has great familiarity. He worked in a refinery to put himself through college, and his father and grandfather worked in the Texas oil fields. In his speech, Broyles attacked the Republican Party for its failure to show initiative in the energy realm.

He is now a screenwriter. His movies have included Apollo 13 and Castaway. But in his younger life, he was also a Marine in the Vietnam War. In his speech, he also attacked Republicans for their prosecution of the Iraq War.

“When you send men and women to war, you don’t just ask them to risk their lives. You ask them to do what every fiber of their being and every value taught them tells them not to do: You ask them to kill,” he told the crowd. “There better be a good reason. Your country’s survival better be at stake. Because if it’s not, if you abuse their patriotism and their sacrifice, then you create a hole in their souls, and a hole in the soul of America.”

Broyles said his forefathers served in World Wars I and II and his son has now served three tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan.

 

Coal burning an election issue

TELLURIDE, Colo. – It’s election season in Telluride, and not just the one that the New York Times writes about. Also at stake is who will represent Telluride on the local rural electrical co-op, San Miguel Power Association.

The issue is both local and global. The axis for this rope-pull is the danger posed by greenhouse gases accumulating in the atmosphere. A substantial portion of those greenhouse gases now being emitted come from coal-fired power plants. The incumbent, John Arnold, a magazine publisher, has gone along with efforts to build new coal-fired power plants.

San Miguel is among the 44 rural co-ops in Colorado and three adjacent states that compose Tri-State Generation and Transmission. Tri-State had planned to help build a coal-fired power plant in Kansas, but was rebuffed by the governor there. Now it has back-up plans to build a coal-fired power plant in eastern Colorado or, failing that, possibly a nuclear generator.

The challenger, Michael Saftler, a real estate agent, charges that Arnold has not represented Telluride’s wishes for a coal-less future. Both speak about increasing the integration of renewable sources into the power, but opponents of the incumbent say the pace has been too slow.

Contested elections have traditionally been rare in the rural electrical co-ops, but Holy Cross Energy has contests this year similar to that at Telluride. Two director seats are being contested in the context, which services the Vail, Aspen, and Glenwood Springs area.

Coal-fired power plants have taken a beating in the last several years. Dozens of proposals have been denied or withdrawn. The Durango Telegraph, with a keen interest in a proposed coal-fired plant called Desert Rock on the nearby Navajo Nation in New Mexico, notes that another power plant has been withdrawn from consideration in North Dakota.

The reason for withdrawal is a common one: The sponsoring company, Westmoreland Power, is wary of investment, given the uncertainty of federal regulation. The U.S. Congress this week began debating a new bill, which proposes a cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions similar to what has already been adopted (but with marginal success) in Europe as a result of the Kyoto Treaty.

Meanwhile, while Telluride debates coal, it also has a sharp eye peeled on developments to the west near the Utah border. There, in its own version of Jurassic Park, uranium mines are being resurrected, as is a new processing plant, The Telluride Watch reports. The processing plant, if built by 2010, as is envisioned, could be the second processing plant in the United States.

The area, located near the hamlet of Bedrock, is said to have among richest deposits of uranium and vanadium in the world.

 

Revelstoke discourages idling

REVELSTOKE, B.C. – Revelstoke’s municipal council has adopted a law that bans idling of cars and trucks except in specified circumstances.

For example, trucks that must continue to run to preserve perishable cargoes are excused. Also exempted are vehicles idling when occupants are inside during temperature extremes.

Mark McKee, the town’s mayor, readily admits that the law will be difficult to enforce. But the law has value nonetheless, he told the Revelstoke Times Review, in reinforcing an “attitudinal shift” within the community.

 

Small turbines reviewed

KETCHUM, Idaho – Officials in Blaine County are taking the first steps to establish rules about where and how wind turbines can be located. The rules would be applicable in the rural areas outside the towns of Ketchum, Sun Valley and Hailey.

Like most mountain valleys, those areas are largely shielded from steady wind. No large turbines are expected. Instead, 25- to 30-foot tall turbines are likely, primarily adjacent to homes and perhaps businesses, and probably well away from the resort areas.

The Idaho Mountain Express reports support from officials. In an editorial, it likewise blesses the effort. “This can-do spirit of personal enterprise should be encouraged by Blaine County as a pathfinder for even wider homegrown energy efforts (even) as the pain of energy costs and shortfalls continues.”

Perhaps the most plentiful homegrown energy, solar power, has yet to be fully encouraged and exploited, the newspaper adds.

Roadkill continues

KETCHUM, Idaho – It’s not an interstate highway and, in places, not even four lanes. Nonetheless, Highway 75 presents a barrier to elk, deer and other wildlife species in the Wood River Valley, with a constant stream of traffic between the resort towns of Ketchum and Sun Valley and other, outlying towns.

A study conducted last year found that at least 134 collisions with deer and elk occurred in the 26-mile study area. “I’m wondering why we have any elk left there,” retired state wildlife biologist Roger Olson told the Idaho Mountain Express.

Nationally such collisions result in the death of 211 people, with 29,000 human injuries. One such fatality in a mountain valley occurred near Sandpoint, Idaho, where a deer hit by one car flew into the air, landing atop a Honda Accord, in the process killing the driver.

What to do about the consequences to both people and animals? The most notable response has been in Canada, where broad wildlife underpasses and overpasses have been created in Banff National Park. Somewhat smaller underpasses are under construction northwest of Missoula, Mont., and near Bonners Ferry, Idaho.

Congress also appropriated $400,000 for study of major wildlife overpass structures for Interstate 70 in Colorado, particularly near Vail Pass. Actual construction could cost $10 million. Two Canada lynx have been killed near the proposed site, and three others elsewhere along I-70.

Two bears have been killed in recent weeks, one on Vail itself, reports the Vail Daily.

Wildlife biologists in recent years have come up with a variety of techniques to help alert drivers to the presence of deer. One such system is in place in Wyoming, south of Jackson Hole, and in Colorado, east of Durango. Either a microwave or infrared beam is aimed, and if interrupted, sets off a blinking light to warn motorists.

In Idaho, Dr. Marcel Huijser, leader of a research team from the Western Transportation Institute, is likely to recommend use of such animal-detection systems because of the lower cost.

 

Lynx nix huts

SUMMIT COUNTY, Colo. – After a long hiatus, the Summit Huts Association is studying potential for new backcountry huts.

The Summit Daily News notes that the association, which already has three huts, is wary of environmental impacts after a previous proposal was scuttled due to concerns about impacts to lynx. That hut proposed for the area between Vail Pass and Copper Mountain was withdrawn several years ago because of concerns about intrusions into the habitat of the endangered Canada lynx. This time, hut association directors want to be sure there are no major impacts before they move forward, the newspaper reports.

Meanwhile, worries about impact to lynx have caused the shelving of a hut proposed near Camp Hale, between Vail and Leadville. The Vail Daily says that the 10 th Mountain Hut Association has withdrawn plans to build a hut in the area. A U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service study found the hut would have hurt the ability of lynx to thrive there. It is considered a key connecting area for broader wilderness areas.

 

Breck balancing two centuries

BRECKENRIDGE, Colo. – Breckenridge has been fiercely protective of the historical integrity of its 19 th century Victorian architecture. But it has had a hard time reconciling that wish with the growing emphasis on energy efficiency and renewable energy of the 21st century.

For the time being, the town is striking a compromise, reports the Summit Daily News. Photovoltaic collectors can be installed, but only parallel to existing roofs. Also, they must be coordinated with the roof’s color.

Is this Solomon-like justice? No, says Sean McPherson, a mechanical engineer with Innovative Energy, a Breckenridge firm. Solar collectors already have a long-term payback, even when gathering maximum sunshine. To gather maximum sun they must face south, tilted to an angle of 45 degrees. Custom-coloured panels might be available, but the cost would be through the roof.

At the risk of alienating purists, council member Jeffrey Bergeron supports the revised guidelines. “In the old days, we could be very rigid about maintaining a precise historical character,” he told the newspaper. “When you look at it in terms of today’s times, in terms of escalating energy and costs and just what’s the right thing to do for the planet, I think you have to be a lot more flexible.”

The town has been trying for several years to align form with function. A case in point: windows that are replaced must be true to historical antecedent, which strictly speaking would be single pane. Single-pane windows leak heat like sieves. Tim Gagen, the town manager, said the town has worked for several years to make the code conducive to energy efficiency.

 

High court sides with Telluride

TELLURIDE, Colo. – The Colorado Supreme Court has upheld Telluride’s right to condemn 572 acres of land outside its boundaries for preservation of open space.

The property, sprinkled with dandelions in spring and notable for its lack of buildings, was once owned by the operator of the last big mine in Telluride, the Idarado. In the 1980s it was acquired by Neal Blue, the CEO of a military contracting firm, General Atomic, based in San Diego.

The town, by public vote, condemned the land in 2002 and borrowed nearly $10 million to buy the land. In 2003, it made an offer of $19.5 million, which was refused. In 2004, responding to lobbying from Blue’s company, San Miguel Valley Corp., Colorado legislators passed a law that forbade home-rule municipalities from condemning property outside their borders for open space preservation.

The Supreme Court, in a 6-1 vote, sided with the town, ruling that the 2004 law violated the scope of eminent domain granted to home-rule municipalities by the Colorado Constitution. The constitution trumps legislative laws.

The long-simmering case leaped to front pages across the Rockies in 2007 when a jury concluded that the condemned land was worth $50 million and set a deadline three months later for the payment to be made. With nickel-and-dimes events and donations of a few million dollars here and there, some $24 million was raised to supplement town and county funds, beating the deadline in the nick of time.