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Mountain News: Labour pool gets tighter

By Allen Best JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. – Judging by the advertisements in the Jackson Hole News & Guide, the labour shortage has increased 20 per cent from last year.

By Allen Best

JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. – Judging by the advertisements in the Jackson Hole News & Guide, the labour shortage has increased 20 per cent from last year. The newspaper explains the listings occupy eight pages, compared to six pages last year.

Many employers continue to look abroad, using the popular — but increasingly slow — H-2B visa program. Labour officials blame a 30 per cent increase nationwide in applications for slower responses to applications.

In Jackson Hole, the Wyoming Department of Workforce Service has received applications for 1,682 workers this summer.

Ned Brown, a restaurateur who applies for the workers each summer and winter, says getting the foreign workers is expensive. He pays hundreds of dollars per worker, plus a $1,000 fee to the federal government to expedite his application. “For three months it’s a pretty steep price, but I don’t have another option,” he said.

But the Grand Teton Lodge Co. received approval for about 200 guest workers without complication. Bob O’Neil, director of human resources, said his company is experienced and it also rehires employees season after season, allowing it to avoid the federal caps on H-2B workers.

 

Gasoline prices surge

ASPEN, Colo. – Gasoline prices reached $4.09 per gallon in Aspen by mid-May, while they were at $3.55 in Vail. Philip Verleger, a consulting economist based in Aspen, estimated that gas prices could reach $6 a gallon in Aspen this summer. Aspen is regularly 50 cents above the national average, he told The Aspen Times.

Verleger said he doubts that free buses and higher prices will limit automobile traffic into Aspen, where congestion at the town’s entrance results in something that is the opposite of rush hour both morning and evening.

 

Are snow-melt systems green?

CRESTED BUTTE, Colo. – Crested Butte has joined the Mayors’ Agreement on Climate Change. It has vowed to pursue compliance with the Kyoto Protocol, to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.

But what does that mean in very practical terms of, for example, snow-melt systems? Despite gains in wind and other forms of alternative energy, most electricity today is produced by burning of coal, a major source of carbon dioxide. Because of increasing demand for electricity, many observers expect burning of coal to actually increase.

Confronted with this situation, the town council continues to struggle toward consensus. A moratorium on new snowmelt systems has been extended through summer. Exempted are public sidewalks.

As reported by the Crested Butte News, the council seems to be of two schools of thought. One group favours no exemption to a total ban on private snowmelt systems. “To me, if we embrace the Kyoto Protocol, our mission is to reduce (our carbon emissions) to a certain level,” said Skip Berkshire, a council member. Another council member, Bill Coburn, favors exemptions, “There are sometimes good reasons to melt snow,” he said.

The middle ground seems to be a 100-per cent offset program modeled on the approach adopted by Aspen and Pitkin County. There, homeowners can install snowmelt systems in driveways, outdoor swimming pools, and other users of outdoor electricity. However, if they do so, they must offset this supposedly extravagant use by installing alternative energy systems, such as photovoltaic solar collectors. Or, in absence of that, they can pay money that is then used to reduce use of coal-fired electricity elsewhere.

For example, to offset the electricity needed for a 536-square-foot snowmelt system on a patio and a 64-square-foot spa would require a 2.8 kilowatt photovoltaic system. The cost of that system, $25,000, could instead be paid as a mitigation fee, with the money devoted to an alternative energy system elsewhere, such as on a public building.

 

Green building criteria blooming

EAGLE VALLEY, Colo. – Building departments in the Eagle Valley are slowly beginning to adopt regulations intended to make homes, offices, and hotels use less energy and in other ways become more “green.”

Vail still has not revised its regulations, but it has hired Dan Richardson, the first director of Aspen’s Canary Initiative, a program created in response to global warming.

Downvalley at Avon, town leaders are requiring projects in an area called West Town Center to be certified at the most basic level of the Leaders in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED.

At Eagle, officials are waiting for the National Association of Home Builders to release a national green building standard. But building official Bob Kohrmann is worried that additional costs will elevate the cost of housing, further exacerbating the housing pinch.

That same question came up last year when Eagle County was looking to adopt green-building standards. Adam Palmer, an Eagle County planner, cites Department of Energy statistics that show an energy-efficient home, while costing marginally more at the outset, is much cheaper, because of lower utility bills.

Consider a $150,000 home upgraded at a cost of about $5,000 in energy-saving features. With 90 per cent of the home financed at 8 per cent interest, the mortgage would be $32 per month higher, but the energy savings would be $92 per month.

Eagle County’s regulations went into effect last September, offering a mixture of carrots and sticks, with waived building fees constituting the carrots. Regulations adopted in Aspen and Pitkin County served as a template for the regulations adopted in Eagle County, and Eagle County’s regulations are now being mimicked at a private project near Steamboat Springs.

 

Cow dung the answer?

SUN VALLEY, Idaho – The town of Sun Valley in January joined the Mayors’ Agreement on Climate Change. But how does it honour its pledge to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions for which the town is responsible?

Town officials are searching. One pitch the town council heard recently came from a firm called Intrepid Technology and Research. The firm, reports the Idaho Mountain Express, proposes to put cow manure into an anaerobic digest, which produces both a fertilizer similar to peat moss but also carbon that could be burned in lieu of natural gas to heat homes and businesses. The dung would be collected at a dairy farm along the Snake River Valley, and the gas would be shipped north to Sun Valley.

 

Composting program expanded

BANFF, Alberta – Banff town officials are moving their composting program into high gear. The town has been using the food waste from one of the major hotels, but hopes to expand the program to include all major businesses as well as homes.

Surveys have shown that food makes up to 45 per cent of municipal food waste, and at some hotels and restaurants, it’s more like 75 per cent, said Chad Townsend, environmental services coordinator for the town.

The Rocky Mountain Outlook reports that collection bins for organic waste will be set up at two drop-off points in Banff, and the town will also offer under-sink containers so that people can store food waste at home for several days before taking it to the collection sites.

 

Denver contributes to haze

STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, Colo. – The haze in the Steamboat Springs area was thick enough last week that people were asking where the fire was. It wasn’t anywhere in Colorado, although there was some speculation that the opacity was the result of wild fires in California.

However, a scientist at the Storm Peak Laboratory, which is maintained by Reno’s Desert Research Institute, theorized that the haze was the result of pollution and biomass aerosols from Denver and other cities along Colorado’s urbanized Front Range corridor. Ian McCubbin said he analyzed winds and weather patterns, and also air particles and aerosol concentration at Steamboat before coming up with his theory.

“It’s definitely some sort of regional aerosol contribution,” he said. Aerosols are particles suspended in a gas, which can include oxygen.

 

Telluride hits record skier-days

TELLURIDE, Colo. – Telluride recorded a record number of skiers last winter, 426,000, but may be hard put to match that feat next winter, no matter how much it snows.

A number of projects promise to make Mountain Village, where most of the hotel beds are located for the ski area, into a construction zone. The ski area operator, Telluride Ski and Golf Co., is pushing group sales as a hedge in the reduction in bed base.

Ken Stone, the company’s vice president of sales and marketing, cautioned that record skier days don’t necessarily mean record profits. “You can also have more skier days and lose money if your yield isn’t good,” he explains. “Our job is to improve yield.”

 

No teeth in bear-proofing laws

ASPEN, Colo. – What’s the difference between bears and the laws adopted by Aspen and Pitkin County to eliminate the garbage that attracts bears?

The answer, says The Aspen Times, is that bears have teeth, but the laws don’t.

Although he didn’t quite come out and say so, the newspaper says state wildlife biologist Kevin Wright suggested the laws are widely being flouted. He reports regularly seeing overflowing dumpsters at Aspen construction sites and garbage that isn’t properly secured at residences.

“Basically, Aspen needs to wake up and get a clue here,” Wright said. The newspaper notes that the commitment of the city and county to enforce their bear ordinances has been an issue in prior years.

At least in Colorado, laws designed to reduce trash were first drawn up in Snowmass, then in Aspen and Pitkin County before being copied in Vail, Beaver Creek, Steamboat and, most recently, Crested Butte.

 

Conflict of interest rife

ASPEN, Colo. – Small towns have a perennial problem of finding elected officials without conflicts of interest. Everybody wears many hats.

But even Aspen, with 6,000 residents, sometimes has a hard time getting enough council members to review proposals. Such is the case with an 80-room hotel proposed by Centurion Partners that has been in the review pipeline for four years.

The Aspen Times says that only three council members were available at the meeting to review the project, and it was clear that two would likely reject it because of its size and construction impacts. With that in mind, the developers asked for, and received, a continuance until late June, when several new city council members will be on board. But depending upon who is elected, that council may not sustain a quorum to review the project, because of conflicts of interest.

 

Targhee needs real estate

DRIGGS, Idaho – George Gillett’s family continues to make the case for a major real-estate addition to the Grand Targhee Resort. The family’s representative, Geordie Gillett, has told the planning commissioner in Teton County that the Gillett family cannot continue running the ski area with financial losses.

“If Alta, Idaho, or Teton County, Wyo., doesn’t want us to succeed, if it wants to legislate us into mediocrity and ensure a second-tier resort, that’s fine,” he said. “There is more than greed at work. There is survival, competitiveness and economic realities.”

The Gilletts want to expand the amount of real estate, currently 96 units, to 725. This is part of a push begun about 20 years ago by the ski area’s prior owners, Morey and Carol Bergmeyer.

While Grand Targhee is in Wyoming, it is located in the valley that is primarily in Idaho’s Teton Valley, one of the West’s fastest-growing places. Towns include Driggs and Alta.

Geordie Gillett says the ski area was not responsible for that growth. “I’m sure we’re going to be hearing a lot more about how we are going to ruin Alta,” he said. “Alta is going to grow with or without Grand Targhee. Alta is growing while skier days have stayed the same.”

 

Hike provides gourmet meal

STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, Colo. – Forget about a trip to the grocery store. For one of its fundraisers, a group called Yampatika holds a gourmet meal called Wild Edible Feast. Most of the meal is gathered up from local forests, meadows and creeks.

Last year’s appetizer, notes the Steamboat Pilot & Today, was a fern-leaf lovage aioli, Yampa root puree and quail eggs enclosed in wild boar sausage, a dish called Scotch eggs. The fish course included baby brook trout-quinoa, cattail shoots and glacier lily pods, among other things.

The mission of Yampatika, according to the group’s website, is to better the community's understanding of local natural and cultural resources.

 

Colorado considers rail

I-70 CORRIDOR, Colo. – A vision for rail-based mass transit on the Interstate 70 corridor from Denver west into the mountains is getting a new lease on life.

A planning document that was eight years and $25 million in the making was expected to call for highway widening through Clear Creek County, between Denver and the mountain resorts. However, the document rejected rail-based mass transit as too expensive given an assumed cap of $4 billion in state and federal funding.

But the administration of new Gov. Bill Ritter is backing up at least one step in an effort to reach consensus with mountain communities located along the corridor.

“When I got here, it was clear that as decisions were being made, we left our friends and constituents out along the way,” said Russell George, who took over as executive director of the Colorado Department of Transportation in January. “We shut them out too soon, and they didn’t like it, and it probably wasn’t right. It gave the appearance that the decision was pre-ordained.”

George told the Rocky Mountain News that he is tossing out the arbitrary $4 billion cap in funding and will listen to all solutions. “If my friends in the corridor are happy with me, maybe they will help me find the money to do something up there,” he said.

Rail proponents have also been encouraged by a $1.5 million appropriation to study the potential for a network of passenger trains, both on I-70 and the I-25 corridor. The latter extends lies at the foot of the Rocky Mountains. Some envision a passenger trains linking Albuquerque and Santa Fe on the south to Denver and into Cheyenne and even Casper, Wyo.

Bill Briggs, director of the Rocky Mountain Rail Authority, told Mountain town News that he believes at least the tunnels will be needed along the I-70 corridor, including one under Loveland Pass. One tunnel already exists. It was bored in the early 1940s as a test of the geology, although the highway tunnel that became Eisenhower Memorial was later dug in a different location.

 

No place for Home Depot

CARBONDALE, Colo. – In a non-binding 4-3 vote, Carbondale town trustees have indicated they wouldn’t allow a Home Depot into the town. The Valley Journal reports that the contentious issue may yet be given directly to voters for resolution.

In various permutations, the issue of big box stores has been debated for several years in Carbondale, located 30 miles down-valley from Aspen. In the latest planning, a developer is proposing a major shopping complex that includes a 60,000-square-foot grocery store.

At issue is whether the town will also accept an 80,000-square-foot Home Depot as part of the complex. The grocery store, although nearly as big, and also presumably of a national franchise, seems not to be controversial.

One faction believes that allowing Home Depot into the complex will make Carbondale “anywhere USA,” to use the words of Trustee Alice Laird. At least one other trustee believes that the citizenry would reject a Home Depot, if a referendum were called. A referendum several years ago rejected another big-box proposal for the same site.

Those favoring Home Depot cite the tax revenues. The commercial complex with a Home Depot is projected to yield $1.7 million annually for the town treasury, $700,000 more than a commercial area without the Home Depot.

 

Wood-shake fires difficult to fight TRUCKEE, Calif. – The usual image of a wildland fire is of trees, their crowns flaring like a newly lit candle. But in reality, 90 per cent of homes lost in wildland fires, says John Picket, a fire coordinator in the Truckee-Tahoe area, are either ignited by concentrations of nearby flammable bushes or by embers that land on wood-shake shingles.

Firefighters find it impossible to extinguish top-down fires that begin with wood-shake roofs, Picket told the Sierra Sun. Fire from ground-hugging brush can also spread rapidly into the upper branches of trees or into a home’s eaves.

Homeowners are urged to create defensible space of 100 feet of cleared brush. Fire districts in the Truckee-Tahoe area have created a database that allows firefighters to track the status of an individual home’s defensible space.

 

Limits placed on outdoor fires

GRAND COUNTY, Colo. – Concerned about the vast amounts of dead and dying lodgepole pine trees, county commissioners in Grand County are considering regulations that would more tightly limit the kinds of outdoor fires that would be allowed. Excluded from the ban would be fires in pits or enclosed charcoal grills, or burning of water ditches for agriculture purposes.

 

Hard line on privatizing federal lands

EAGLE, Colo. – Eagle County commissioners have adopted a law that takes a hard-nosed approach to potential sale or exchange of federal lands. The new rules governing lands would limit residential development to one unit per 80 acres, among other restrictions. The Vail Daily reports some heartburn on the part of federal officials, most notably the U.S. Forest Service. The Eagle Valley has been the subject of many proposed land exchanges during the last 20 years. As well, the Bush administration last year identified several Forest Service parcels surrounded by private lands that it proposed to sell.

 

Hidden book revealed

SILVERTON, Colo. – Contractors removing shingles from the eaves of an old parsonage for the Congregational Church in Silverton found a surprise, a book called “The Writings of Armenius.”

The book, published in 1853, was written by the founder of an anti-Calvinist school. “Some early pastor had this book that was rather controversial,” current pastor Cynthia Chertos told the Silverton Standard. “I would just love to know who put it up there, and why?”

 

WWI veteran was born in Rico

RICO, Colo. – The last known World War I veteran from the United States died on Feb. 22, and it turns out he was a native of Rico, a small mining town south of Telluride. Howard Verne Ramsey was born in Rico in 1898, but moved with his family when he was 15 to Portland, Ore. The Rico Bugle says that Ramsey was in the Army’s transportation corps, owing to his ability to drive automobiles, a rare skill at the time, and put that skill to use at the front lines in France.

 

Durango replacing street lights

DURANGO, Colo. – Some 900 city streetlights in Durango are being changed out in an effort to reduce light pollution. The fixtures are being replaced over a seven-year timeframe, says the Durango Telegraph, with the newest fixtures using full cut-off lenses to reduce light broadcast to the sky and into unintended areas.