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Canary Initiative draws attention

ASPEN, Colo. — Aspen’s bold bid to carry the torch for global warming concerns is getting noticed. The Canary Initiative, as the town’s program is called, got a mention in Time Magazine last spring.

ASPEN, Colo. — Aspen’s bold bid to carry the torch for global warming concerns is getting noticed. The Canary Initiative, as the town’s program is called, got a mention in Time Magazine last spring. On a recent Friday night, just before a segment about "Brides Bare it All," a piece about risqué wedding photos, Aspen’s program was also featured on the television program Nightline.

The story is becoming a familiar one. Town attorney John Worscester, driving in a car one day, listening to radio talk guy Rush Limbaugh rail about the global warming nuts, had an idea. Why, he wonders to himself, shouldn’t the town of Aspen use its platform as arguably America’s best known resort in an attempt to direct attention to the issue?

As an affluent resort, Aspen is and always has been a major contributor of greenhouse gases. Travel is a huge cause of green house gases, and jet travel especially so. At the same time, the community has been notably ambitious in the last 20 years in attempting to curve dependence away from fossil fuels.

Still, any place so dependent on travel is bound to be an energy hog. A study undertaken by the town found that Aspen residents and visitors account for twice as many greenhouse gases per capita than the average for U.S. residents.

But while Aspen is doing small things to mend its ways, such as encouraging more use of hybrid vehicles, it still sees its primary value as being a platform. To that end, a major conference is scheduled for Oct. 11-13 that is being pitched to other resort towns and gateway communities. It’s not something for the light-of-wallet, though. The base price is $600, not including lodging.

Crested Butte gets unhitched

CRESTED BUTTE, Colo. — Based on a report from Telluride, Crested Butte is abandoning the idea of dog "hitching-posts" at public places such as near the post office.

"I talked with the Telluride mayor, and he said people get bit all the time," said Crested Butte Mayor Alan Bernholtz, citing a similar idea implemented in Telluride.

The issue arose when the U.S. Postal Service, citing federal regulations, ended the habit of people tying up their dogs when in the post office to transact business. As is the case in many smaller towns, there is no street delivery of mail in Crested Butte. The idea of the town-sponsored hitching-posts was proposed to replace the post office tie-up arrangement.

Joan Windsor, the local resident who proposed the hitching-posts, said she believed the town council was going overboard. "There are dogs – and then there are dogs," she said, pointing to her dog.

Steamboat for sale?

STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, Colo. — The sale last December of 77 per cent interest in California’s Mammoth Mountain for $365 million has the owners of the Steamboat Ski Area wondering just how much money their property might be worth.

The current owner, American Skiing Co., which owns eight ski resorts, insists that it’s not a desperate move, unlike some in the past. Blessed with its fourth-best snow year ever last winter, Steamboat has reported a high number of guests planning to return and also an increased number of airline seats.

B.J. Fair, the CEO of American Skiing, tells The Steamboat Pilot that the Mammoth transaction certainly made an impact on other ski area operators. But, he said, it’s more about the unusually strong market for mergers and acquisitions across industries. In the Mammoth case, for example, hotel operator Starwood purchased Intrawest’s stake in the ski area. Fair said the trend is being fueled by creative financing mechanisms that are making it easier to access capital to fund these acquisitions.

Who could be interested in Steamboat? Immediate attention was turned to Intrawest and Vail Resorts, the two biggest operators in Colorado.

But Vail already has four ski areas and, as per a U.S. Justice Department anti-trust ruling, is limited in how many more properties catering to Front Range ski areas it can own. Intrawest is not limited by anti-trust rulings, but has similarly tested the waters of sales the way American Skiing is now doing. In other words, it has generally been getting out of the skiing business, rather than in.

Another potential buyer is the company owned by Tim and Diann Mueller, who own several ski areas in the East and in 2004 purchased Crested Butte. They had tried to buy Steamboat in 2002, when a financially on-the-ropes American Skiing Co. had it for sale. American Skiing broke that contract, instead unloading California’s Heavenly on Vail Resorts. But, as part of a settlement, the Muellers have a 30-day option on Steamboat should it again be put up for sale. Tim Mueller told the Pilot that he wasn’t sure whether he would make a bid.

Colorado still thirsty

GUNNISON, Colo. — One of the interior dramas of Colorado for several decades has been where the burgeoning Front Range population will get additional stores of water for the continuing – and projected – population growth. Many conservation gains have been realized, and Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper has called for a dramatic effort to sustain and increase efficiencies.

The easiest water supplies have been the farms of eastern Colorado. Denver and other Front Range cities also hope to get more water from existing transmountain diversion systems in the Winter Park, Granby, and Dillon areas, as well as the Vail and possibly the Aspen areas.

But looking further into the future, water planners are looking even farther afield, possibly including the Steamboat Springs area and from the Crested Butte-Gunnison area.

The best shot may be at Blue Mesa Reservoir. The legality, however, remains a sticky political and legal issue. Just downstream is a national park, Black Canyon of the Gunnison. Usually, the federal government asserts something called federal reserve water rights. The logic is that, for a national park (or national forest) to operate, it needs water. So, the federal government claims a water right based on the date of the land withdrawal. In the case of Black Canyon, that would be 1933, which would make it a fairly senior water right.

Instead, the Department of Interior settled negotiations with Colorado’s state government by filing for a water right dating to 2003, a fairly junior water right. Former Gunnison County Commissioner Marlene Zanetell told the Crested Butte News that the water right was merely sufficient to keep fish alive.

Several environmental organizations are trying to block the Interior Department settlement. "The government is abandoning its duty to protect the park," said Wendy McDermott, executive director of the Crested Butte-based High Country Citizens Alliance. "Water is an important part of the hydrograph (or historic flows), which is important to the river and the park."

A decision on this case is expected in about two months, but it is only among the first of many court cases expected in this matter. The court record is already 14,000 pages long.

Meanwhile, George Sibley, a professor at Western State College in Gunnison and a well-known regional writer, was recently elected to the Upper Gunnison River Water Conservancy District. Sibley doesn’t discount the potential for diversions.

"We have a constitution (in Colorado) that says any unappropriated water belongs to the other people of the state," he pointed out. "Therefore, if the water is there, and its unappropriated, we are going to have to face the fact that somebody’s going to want it."

A transmountain diversion is a "terrible thing to do to the river," but the challenge is "making sure the basin of origin is protected," he told the Crested Butte News.

He added: "I’ve never believed in ‘not one drop’ as a slogan or a strategy,"

Housing gap hits Ketchum

KETCHUM, Idaho — Ketchum and other towns in Idaho’s Wood River Valley continue to sort through the economics of change. There, as in most resort towns of the West, government officials have decided it’s time to intervene in the market, to ensure a supply of housing affordable to lower-income residents.

Why would this be necessary in Ketchum, which was the first destination ski resort in the West, with roots going back to 1936? Why now?

An affordable housing advocate from Santa Fe named Mike Loftin recently told a group in Ketchum that the problem essentially is nation-wide. The income disparities have been increasing. Massive increases in debt, decreased growth in after-tax family incomes, and decreased home equity exacerbates the problem. "We have not seen this kind of wealth disparity since the 1920s," said Loftin, executive director of Homewise Inc.

In Ketchum and Sun Valley, the story is a typical one. Tourism has held steady or receded, but an increasing number of homes are occupied by retirees, people not associated with the tourism economy, or by part-time residents. One effect has been a down-valley push that has effectively made the town of Halley, located about 15 miles down-valley, the crossroads for the Sun Valley community. Many workers, of course, commute much farther.

Carol Waller, who directs the Sun Valley/Ketchum Chamber & Visitors Bureau, sees problems in this trend. If people look at the big picture, what are the consequences of everyone having to drive from Carey?" she asks, referring to a town 33 miles from Ketchum/Sun Valley.

"More restaurants will close," she believes. "Fewer events will happen. We’ll have fewer volunteers. There are people not working in the tourist economy but enjoying the benefits."

But Loftin says affordable housing does not always mean government intervention. Sometimes, she said, homeowners significantly overpay on their loans. Helping them to buy a home in the right way can be important.

If you have to ask…

CARBONDALE, Colo. — Land sales in the Aspen-dominated Roaring Fork Valley continue to provide jaw-dropping numbers. The most recent big sale was a 949-acre ranch south of Carbondale that has sold for $47 million. That works out to almost $50,000 an acre.

Getting far more attention last week was the announcement that the former Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States is selling his 56,000-square-foot home near Aspen. The home, along with some property, is being listed for $125 million.

Early reports indicated that’s the highest price tag ever on a home, trumping even the Floridian beach-front digs of The Donald, as the real-estate Trump is often called. However, there were also reports that the widow of TV mogul Aron spelling is asking $150 million for a 56,500-square-foot mansion in Los Angeles.

Aside from bragging rights or whatever the opposite of that may be, one vital question for Aspen is whether the ambassador, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, will continue his largess. In the past, he has given variously to the local hospital, youth centre, and other causes. He said he plans to continue visiting Aspen, and will retain part of the estate.

Telluride to expand airport

TELLURIDE, Colo. — The airport expansion at Telluride has received environmental approvals, allowing design work to commence. Actual construction is expected to begin next spring.

The airport is located just a few miles from Telluride, and it must rank among the most spectacular of airport locations, even in beautiful locales of the West. It is also extremely unusual in its physical limitations. The runway dips in the middle, as it is 45 feet lower than at one end and 63 feet lower than the other end.

In addition to that aggravation, the runway is also shorter than what airport boosters would like. It is 6,870 feet long. But a flatter, longer runway – up to 7,320 feet long – would more safely accommodate the private jets that now use it, plus a few commercial jets. Currently, some of those planes land at Montrose, 70 miles away.

The Telluride Watch notes that the federal government expects to pay 95 per cent of the estimated $50 million, with local sources responsible for the balance. Part of the cost is because the airport is located on a mesa, with falloffs on both sides. As such, a 150-foot-tall retaining wall must be built to hold the extension.

Town may be boxed in

CARBONDALE, Colo. — At Carbondale, located 30 miles down-valley form Aspen, town residents are recognizing a familiar conundrum. They need to expand their commercial offerings, in part to realize more tax revenues that can be allocated to improving roads, paths, and affordable housing programs. But they have stoutly resisted the big-box path.

The latest news in this multi-year story has town residents looking at a compromise measure that calls for several mid-sized boxes, of 60,000 to 80,000 square feet, such as might be used by an Office Depot or Circuit City. The Valley Journal reports mixed reviews.

"So far, I think it’s nice," said one resident, Elizabeth Murphy. "It looks so suburban. It just doesn’t fit," said another resident, Barb Jaksa. She believes the development is indistinct from one in Tucson or Seattle. "There’s no sense of place," she added.

Some town residents want to create something distinctly local, such as a biodynamic garden or greenhouses. But countering that is the imperative to provide enough sales tax revenues. While Carbondale has been arguing about what to do, some potential stores have instead decided to locate in Glenwood Springs, about 12 miles away. Presumably, Carbondale residents are among those shopping at that out-of-town location.

Bears shot, no penalty for people

VAIL, Colo. — In 2002 Vail town authorities adopted a law that bans trash outside homes except between 6 a.m. and 7 p.m. on the day scheduled for removal. It seemed to be working well – until this summer.

Already, two bears have been killed by state wildlife officers after they repeatedly broke into homes. In one case, a sow and her two cubs entered at least three homes. The sow was killed, but not the cubs, who will be released into the wild in January. Then, just weeks later, wildlife authorities killed a young adult bear that that entered at least three unoccupied homes.

Wildlife authorities even last year had been quietly warning that the town was too lenient. The usual approach was to give offenders a warning. To date, 408 warnings have been issued, but only 13 citations.

"You get a ticket for fishing without a license or speeding down the highway, but not for leaving your trash out," said Bill Andree, the local Division of Wildlife officer. "I had to kill a bear because of it."

The Vail Daily reports that the town this week was looking at an emergency ordinance that would result in fewer warnings and more punishment: fines of up to $1,000 for first-time offenders, but also jail time.

The current law allows police to order "problem" people to install bear-resistant or bear-proof trash cans. The resistant containers cost $150 to $360. The bear-proof containers are more expensive, but also much more effective.

Crested Butte is also struggling with how to make their homes and businesses less inviting to bears, but no clear plans are proposed, reports the Crested Butte News.

Club Med’s absence will be felt

CRESTED BUTTE, Colo. — Crested Butte is expecting a bumpy ride this coming winter now that Club Med has sold its lodge at the base of the ski area. The lodge was responsible for 10 per cent of skier visits last winter, and Club Med visitors filled up 22 per cent of airline seats.

A Florida-based firm, Sunvest USA, purchased the property, but is making no guarantees that it will be open this winter. The firm specializes in converting properties into condominiums.

Mt. Crested Butte town officials say they have the legal leverage to ensure that the hotel continues to operate as a hotel, even if it is converted to condominiums.

John Norton, a consultant to the ski area operator, predicted a decline in skier days. "Club Med was remarkably successful at filling the property, so at least in the short term, occupancies and skier days will suffer," he told the Crested Butte News.

But he said that the hotel by next summer will be lodging visitors, as it had not during the Club Med era. And in what may be close to a full circle, the ski area operator may be operating the facility. The hotel had been owned by the previous ski area operator, which sold it to Club Med in 2000 to raise cash for operations.

Club Med had blamed the seasonality and high operating costs for its decision to cash out of Crested Butte.

Water worries in Winter Park

WINTER PARK, Colo. — Like one of those screen-saving computer programs, where the lines get ever more tangled, the water system at Winter Park is becoming ever more complex. The simple cause is that the water supply is finite, but demand for its use continues to grow, both for local construction and from Denver, which diverts much of the local water already.

Among the ideas still being considered is a pumping system. Water toward the bottom end of the town would be pumped back to the top end. While water officials are not particularly worried about having enough water in a normal year, they do worry about being able to meet the needs of all the projected development during droughts.

The Winter Park Manifest reports that water and sanitation district officials are also investigating the potential of tapping wells during drought years.

Meanwhile, the ski area also has plans to expand its snowmaking system. Adapting an idea first put into place at Beaver Creek, the ski area would pump water into an on-mountain reservoir. This, reports the Manifest, would allow the ski area to make up to five times as much snow.

One targeted area for expanded snowmaking is the Mary Jane component, which traditionally has had very, very little snowmaking. Under the management of Intrawest, Winter Park is mowing down more of the moguls at the Mary Jane and in other ways making it more accessible to intermediate-level skiers.

Banff pays tribute to Gmoser

BANFF, Alberta — People in the Canadian Rockies were grieving the loss of Hans Gmoser, described as "a father figure for a whole couple of generations of young mountain guides."

Born in Austria in 1931, Gmoser arrived in the Bow River Valley in the early 1950s, when he was in his early 20s, and began working as a mountain guide. In 1957, he founded Canadian Mountain Holidays. Later, his company began offering helicopter-assisted skiing in the Bugaboo and Cariboo mountains.

"In these parts, he’s as great as they get," said Marty Von Neudegg, an official with the company that Gmoser founded. He was 75 when he died of what the Rocky Mountain Outlook reported was a road-bicycling accident near Banff. He had remained a strong, avid roadbiker and Nordic skier to the end.

Idaho sitting on energy

KETCHUM, Idaho — About three-dozen new coal-fired power plants are proposed for the West, and that has people in the Ketchum/Sun Valley area rightly concerned. And nuclear energy, if increasingly embraced by environmentalists, still has some key, unanswered problems, including what to do with the spent radioactive materials.

But Bali Szabo, writing in the Idaho Mountain Express, says the commentators have been missing an easy, non-polluting source of energy. Idaho, he says, sits atop abundant sources of hot water, which range from 160 to 600 degrees.

Already, he points out, Nevada gets 9 per cent of its electricity from geothermal sources, and California 5 per cent. "Every megawatt generated by alternative means is that much less tonnage of emissions into the atmosphere," he says.

Watch for critters, typos

JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. — Every year more roadkill in Grand Teton National Park is recorded. Last year, 145 animals were hit, a figure well more than double from the year 2000, reports the Jackson Hole News&Guide.

Among the dead were 46 elk, 43 deer, 14 coyotes, 8 moose, 7 bison, and 4 bears. Other victims in the past have been grizzly bears and wolves, plus owls, badgers, and even sage grouse.

No theories were reported to explain this rapid increase, but several potential solutions are in the works. One of them is a sequence of signs: We saw wildlife/ From afar/ ‘Til we hit them/ With our car/ Slow down!"

Older people will recall them as similar to the Burma Shave signs of the 1940s and 1950s. Younger people may think this a relative to hip-hop.

Green-building advocates get help

LAKE TAHOE, Calif. — Advocates of green building technologies and techniques have been given a boost in the Truckee-Tahoe area of California. They are being given expert assistance in developing a strategy for increasing the use of environmental design, irrespective of government boundaries. The Sierra Sun notes that green building includes such things as solar energy, water-conserving appliances, and use of renewable materials.

Promising news about cleanup of gold mines

CRESTED BUTTE, Colo. — The old silver and gold mines of a century ago continue to make news in the Rocky Mountains. The trickle of water laden with heavy and hence toxic metals from the mines does in some cases reach levels that threaten human health. More commonly, however, the polluted water is found in concentrations that harm aquatic, not human, life.

A case in point is several creeks in the Crested Butte area such as Oh-Be-Joyful, Slate River, and Coal Creek. Before the mining era, such streams supported populations of the native fish, cutthroat trout. But, reports the Crested Butte News, cutthroats have been obliterated.

Efforts to restore the streams continue. In the Gunnison Basin, state water officials have agreed to a more stringent standard for two pollutants, cadmium and zinc. "Anywhere there’s historic mining in the state, the fish populations are dampened," explained Steve Glaser, a water activist from Crested Butte.

In the Crested Butte area, a federally funded cleanup of the Standard Mine is likely under the nation’s Superfund legislation. Also, as permits are given for water treatment centres, they will be required to improve their treatment, to release fewer of the heavy metals. As well, grants have been received for cleaning up old mine tailings, such as was the case at the Peanut Mine near Crested Butte.

But the problem of old mines is nothing if not complex. Under current federal law, anybody tackling remediation at abandoned mine sites risks getting assigned perpetual responsibility for cleanups. This has discouraged action in many cases.

Both the mining industry and the environmental groups have vetoed solutions for the last six or seven years, but new bills before Congress may have bridged the gap between the two.

The Summit Daily News reports a promising bi-partisan agreement between two Colorado congressman, Democrat Mark Udall and Republican Bob Beauprez.

Altogether, Colorado has 17,000 abandoned mines, and a good many are in Summit County, where the most attention at the "good Samaritan" legislation has most prominently been focused.

Mines also litter the hillsides above Interstate 70 and Clear Creek, a major water supply for a portion of metropolitan Denver. The Summit Daily tellingly points to a mine that is issuing 20 gallons of water per minute. At that rate, the mine adds 20 pounds of heavy metals to Clear Creek every day.

Yet more roundabouts

DURANGO, Colo. — Like so many other areas of the West, Durango is going roundabout crazy. The town and adjoining areas already have three, and up to three more could be on the way.

Traffic officials like roundabouts because they generally provide for a greater volume of traffic than traffic signals, and the accident rate is usually lower. Among the first in the West, if not the very first, was Vail, which after great community anxiety installed a roundabout in 1995. Now, at least 134 exist in Colorado.

Although sometimes called traffic circles, road engineers say the modern roundabouts are different, because traffic enters the circles at a slant, instead of being perpendicular to the circle. This allows smoother merging, they say.

But the Durango Herald notes that not all drivers are enamored of roundabouts. Some find the low-level anarchy exasperating. Too, truck drivers find them difficult to navigate. Roundabouts reduce collisions by slowing drivers and eliminating some conflicting traffic, such as left-hand turns, experts say.

Forest Service steaming about Rainbow Family

STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, Colo. — The U.S. Forest Service continues to steam about the unauthorized campout by 15,000 Rainbow Family followers 35 miles north of Steamboat Springs in early July.

"The irony is that this is a group that doesn’t believe in government or leadership," Kim Vogel, public affairs officer for the Forest Service, told The Steamboat Pilot. "When the government foots the cost, all of us end up paying for their gathering."

The agency estimates it spent $750,000 to dispatch 40 employees to patrol the area where the gathering was held. Yampa Valley Medical Center officials estimated their costs of treating uninsured gatherers at $100,000, with another $150,000 or more coming from various other local, state and federal agencies.