Home
News
GUNNISON — 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,”
Winter Park plumbing getting more elaborate
WINTER PARK — 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.
Telluride airport gets OK to start expansion
TELLURIDE — 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 percent 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.
Why not tap Idaho’s vast underground hot water?
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 percent of its electricity from geothermal sources, and California gets 5 percent.
“Every megawatt generated by alternative means is that much less tonnage of emissions into the atmosphere,” he says.
Green-building advocates get help in Tahoe/Truckee
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.
Yet more roundabouts in the Durango area
DURANGO — 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 roundabout.
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.
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,”
Winter Park plumbing getting more elaborate
WINTER PARK — 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.
Telluride airport gets OK to start expansion
TELLURIDE — 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 percent 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.
Why not tap Idaho’s vast underground hot water?
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 percent of its electricity from geothermal sources, and California gets 5 percent.
“Every megawatt generated by alternative means is that much less tonnage of emissions into the atmosphere,” he says.
Green-building advocates get help in Tahoe/Truckee
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.
Yet more roundabouts in the Durango area
DURANGO — 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 roundabout.
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.
