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WINTER PARK - A tunnel under the Continental Divide was talked about intensely in Winter Park and other towns of Grand County during the 1980s. The county was then falling into what proved to be a protracted economic lull. Only one building permit was issued by county authorities for a single-family home during one year that many locals might well wish to forget.
The tunnel was proposed as a way to kick-start real estate sales and expedite increased tourism, helping put Grand County on a more level playing field with Summit County and Vail, whose economies slowed but never to the tread-water stage that Grand County experienced.
But the idea instantly drew many opponents, who argued against making access easier, as they worried it would sacrifice Grand County's semi-rural nature.
Owing only partly to an improved highway across 11,314-foot Berthoud Pass but also the now far-higher prices and increased development hard along I-70, the Winter Park-Granby areas are now getting development and growth anyway, observes Patrick Brower, publisher of the Sky-Hi News. With all the congestion on I-70, Brower muses that perhaps talk of a tunnel into Grand County will surface again.
Various tunnels have been talked about through the years to connect the valley with Boulder and other cities along the high plains.
Lightning storm fries surge protectors, TVs
STEAMBOAT SPRINGS - Merchants in Steamboat Springs this week reported a run on surge protectors after an intense lightning storm rolled through the area. The lighting strikes caused surges and then, when lines went down, loss of power.
Customers said the surge protectors had served their purpose, but had been "fried" in the process. But an assistant manager at the local Wal-Mart store told the Steamboat Pilot & Today that people were coming to buy televisions to replace those whose electrical circuitry had been destroyed in the power surge.
Composting program can't sustain itself
WHISTLER, B.C. - A heralded composting program located downvalley from Whistler continues to be a good news, bad news story.
The operation had been described as a way of helping Whistler meet its goal of becoming more sustainable, by diverting food scraps and other organic waste from disposal in landfills. As well, sewage sludge from several communities in the valley is used in the compost, which is prized by gardeners and others. Some 45,000 bags of compost were sold last year using materials from the operation.
On the other hand, odors from the operation provoked an outcry from even neighbors who generally laud the goal of sustainability. For a variety of reasons, reports Pique, the operators now hope that governments in the Sea to Sky Corridor, where Whistler is located, will buy the operation, move it to a new location, and provide the necessary financing for continued operations.
Aspen Skiing defends environmental stance
ASPEN - The Aspen Skiing Co. is building a major real-estate project at the base of Snowmass. It continues to expand ski terrain at Snowmass. And, on top of all this, its top executives have spent most of the last year driving around in hulking SUVs.
It would seem that any other ski company would get raked over the coals for that kind of track record. Certainly, Vail has. And even Crested Butte has been flunked in one ski-area report card for even thinking about real estate and ski area expansion.
Yet Aspen gets straight A's in that same ski area report card. It has been lauded regionally and even nationally for efforts to combat global warming. And the ski company just launched an advertising campaign that seeks to draw attention to global warming - and in the process encourages people to visit Aspen, because Aspen is trying to stop it.
Mutterings of hypocricy have circulated for several years in the Roaring Fork Valley, where Aspen is located, but recently they erupted into print. Leading the charge was Roger Marolt, a typically brash columnist in The Aspen Times.
He capped his column with what is, in Aspen, the ultimate insult: Comparing Aspen Skiing unfavorably with Vail Resorts, which has now purchased a much larger quantity of wind-power electricity. "Is Vail greener than Aspen?" he asked tartly.
This debate points toward the ultimate question for all ski resorts who want to be seen as environmentally benign while catering to the world's wealthiest people: How can you truly be a tree-hugging environmentalist when most of your customers arrive in jets, even private jets. Jets are singularly the largest contributor of greenhouse gas emissions in Aspen's economy.
In a coincidentally timed "sustainability" report that had been in preparation for four months, Aspen chief executive officer Pat O'Donnell acknowledged the inconsistencies as being the "elephant in the room," both within the company and the community more broadly.
The use of the gas-hog SUVs, he explained, was the result of "bad judgment." The company has a sponsorship deal with Nissan, which provided 12 vehicles for which it was seeking exposure. Among the freebies was Nissan's largest SUV, the Armada. A website, www.fueleconomy.gov, reports the Armada gets 13 miles per gallon in city driving and ranks the vehicle as among the worst in emitting greenhouse gases.
Five months ago, Aspen Skiing informed Nissan that contract or not, the Armadas could not be used. Nissan agreed, and is instead providing the smaller Pathfinders.
In the sustainability report, O'Donnell admitted to "some merit" in the questioning of the expansion of Snowmass ski terrain, but ultimately rejected the thesis. "The logical extension of the criticism would be to shut down operations altogether," he said. "Aspen Skiing Co. is a business trying to minimize its enormous impacts, operating in a way that enables us to be sustainable. But we are still a business," O'Donnell wrote in the annual report.
O'Donnell also rejected criticism of the base-village redevelopment at Snowmass. He described the previous development as "sprawl posing as a mountain town." He added: "We had to fix it if we wanted to stay in business."
Glacier on Mt. Shasta continuing to expand
MOUNT SHASTA - Not all the glaciers in the world are melting. Whitney Glacier, located on California's Mount Shasta, is growing, and scientists think global warming is the reason.
Temperatures rose one degree Celsius during the last half-century in California, and that greater warmth has resulted in less snow lower in the mountains generally, said glaciologist Slawek Tulaczyk, of the University of California, Santa Cruz.
But warmer air carries more precipitation. Temperatures remain cold enough in the high mountains for snow. So, that increased precipitation is yielding more snow in just one place that the team of researchers have found, Mt. Shasta. Shasta is located in far northern California and, with a height of 14,161 feet, is second in height only to Mt. Rainier in the volcanic Cascade Range. Tulaczyk and his team believe the glacier on Shasta is the only river of ice in the world that is now growing.
"At the higher elevations and on Mount Shasta, more snow is being dumped," Tulaczyk told the Sacramento Bee. By the calculations of Tulaczyk and his team of researchers, the newspaper noted, it takes a 20 percent increase in snow precipitation to counteract a one degree rise in the temperature.
But why is the glacier on Shasta growing, but not those on Rainier, Mt. Baker and other high peaks in the Cascade Range in Washington state?
The climate of California differs from that of the Pacific Northwest. California peaks, including Shasta, get nearly all their precipitation during winter, in the form of snow. But farther north, at Rainier, precipitation is more evenly distributed throughout the year.
That means more rain, and rain actually helps melt snowpack, said Tulaczyk, when asked by Mountain Town News. "This is our guess as to why there is a difference in glacier behavior.
Tulaczyk and his team do not expect the glacier on Shasta to continue expanding. Climate change computer models forecast temperature increases of 3 to 4 degrees Celsius, and Tulaczyk said snow precipitation at the higher levels would have to double to maintain the equilibrium.
Indeed, Tulaczyk and his team see just the opposite ending: increasing temperatures will "result in the loss of most of Mount Shasta's glacier volume over the next 50 years, with near total loss by the end of the century," they say in a paper published by Climate Dynamics. A separate paper issued by the research team says the same thing will happen in the Sierra Nevada.
The Bee notes that Nestlé USA is planning to tap springs fed by Shasta for a 500-million-gallon-a-year bottling plant. The bottles are to be issued under the brand of Arrowhead. However, given the 50-year contract, Shasta could be reduced to a pile of rocks for half the year. "This is quite worrisome, a Nestlé spokesman told the Bee.
Line forms for broadband connections at Mammoth
MAMMOTH LAKES, Calif. - The broadband into Mammoth Lakes isn't nearly wide enough. The Sheet reports that the community's high-speed Internet capacity is all spoken for, the second time in recent years that demand has exceeded supply. The previous time, the capacity limitation precluded new customers for a year or two.
The problem is that Mammoth, despite being not that far from a gazillion people along the coast of California, is distinctly remote and rural. Verizon, the provider, seems to have no profit incentive to improve the connection, although it may have a government deadline to meet next year. There are some wireless possibilities, but all seem to have problems.
The tunnel was proposed as a way to kick-start real estate sales and expedite increased tourism, helping put Grand County on a more level playing field with Summit County and Vail, whose economies slowed but never to the tread-water stage that Grand County experienced.
But the idea instantly drew many opponents, who argued against making access easier, as they worried it would sacrifice Grand County's semi-rural nature.
Owing only partly to an improved highway across 11,314-foot Berthoud Pass but also the now far-higher prices and increased development hard along I-70, the Winter Park-Granby areas are now getting development and growth anyway, observes Patrick Brower, publisher of the Sky-Hi News. With all the congestion on I-70, Brower muses that perhaps talk of a tunnel into Grand County will surface again.
Various tunnels have been talked about through the years to connect the valley with Boulder and other cities along the high plains.
Lightning storm fries surge protectors, TVs
STEAMBOAT SPRINGS - Merchants in Steamboat Springs this week reported a run on surge protectors after an intense lightning storm rolled through the area. The lighting strikes caused surges and then, when lines went down, loss of power.
Customers said the surge protectors had served their purpose, but had been "fried" in the process. But an assistant manager at the local Wal-Mart store told the Steamboat Pilot & Today that people were coming to buy televisions to replace those whose electrical circuitry had been destroyed in the power surge.
Composting program can't sustain itself
WHISTLER, B.C. - A heralded composting program located downvalley from Whistler continues to be a good news, bad news story.
The operation had been described as a way of helping Whistler meet its goal of becoming more sustainable, by diverting food scraps and other organic waste from disposal in landfills. As well, sewage sludge from several communities in the valley is used in the compost, which is prized by gardeners and others. Some 45,000 bags of compost were sold last year using materials from the operation.
On the other hand, odors from the operation provoked an outcry from even neighbors who generally laud the goal of sustainability. For a variety of reasons, reports Pique, the operators now hope that governments in the Sea to Sky Corridor, where Whistler is located, will buy the operation, move it to a new location, and provide the necessary financing for continued operations.
Aspen Skiing defends environmental stance
ASPEN - The Aspen Skiing Co. is building a major real-estate project at the base of Snowmass. It continues to expand ski terrain at Snowmass. And, on top of all this, its top executives have spent most of the last year driving around in hulking SUVs.
It would seem that any other ski company would get raked over the coals for that kind of track record. Certainly, Vail has. And even Crested Butte has been flunked in one ski-area report card for even thinking about real estate and ski area expansion.
Yet Aspen gets straight A's in that same ski area report card. It has been lauded regionally and even nationally for efforts to combat global warming. And the ski company just launched an advertising campaign that seeks to draw attention to global warming - and in the process encourages people to visit Aspen, because Aspen is trying to stop it.
Mutterings of hypocricy have circulated for several years in the Roaring Fork Valley, where Aspen is located, but recently they erupted into print. Leading the charge was Roger Marolt, a typically brash columnist in The Aspen Times.
He capped his column with what is, in Aspen, the ultimate insult: Comparing Aspen Skiing unfavorably with Vail Resorts, which has now purchased a much larger quantity of wind-power electricity. "Is Vail greener than Aspen?" he asked tartly.
This debate points toward the ultimate question for all ski resorts who want to be seen as environmentally benign while catering to the world's wealthiest people: How can you truly be a tree-hugging environmentalist when most of your customers arrive in jets, even private jets. Jets are singularly the largest contributor of greenhouse gas emissions in Aspen's economy.
In a coincidentally timed "sustainability" report that had been in preparation for four months, Aspen chief executive officer Pat O'Donnell acknowledged the inconsistencies as being the "elephant in the room," both within the company and the community more broadly.
The use of the gas-hog SUVs, he explained, was the result of "bad judgment." The company has a sponsorship deal with Nissan, which provided 12 vehicles for which it was seeking exposure. Among the freebies was Nissan's largest SUV, the Armada. A website, www.fueleconomy.gov, reports the Armada gets 13 miles per gallon in city driving and ranks the vehicle as among the worst in emitting greenhouse gases.
Five months ago, Aspen Skiing informed Nissan that contract or not, the Armadas could not be used. Nissan agreed, and is instead providing the smaller Pathfinders.
In the sustainability report, O'Donnell admitted to "some merit" in the questioning of the expansion of Snowmass ski terrain, but ultimately rejected the thesis. "The logical extension of the criticism would be to shut down operations altogether," he said. "Aspen Skiing Co. is a business trying to minimize its enormous impacts, operating in a way that enables us to be sustainable. But we are still a business," O'Donnell wrote in the annual report.
O'Donnell also rejected criticism of the base-village redevelopment at Snowmass. He described the previous development as "sprawl posing as a mountain town." He added: "We had to fix it if we wanted to stay in business."
Glacier on Mt. Shasta continuing to expand
MOUNT SHASTA - Not all the glaciers in the world are melting. Whitney Glacier, located on California's Mount Shasta, is growing, and scientists think global warming is the reason.
Temperatures rose one degree Celsius during the last half-century in California, and that greater warmth has resulted in less snow lower in the mountains generally, said glaciologist Slawek Tulaczyk, of the University of California, Santa Cruz.
But warmer air carries more precipitation. Temperatures remain cold enough in the high mountains for snow. So, that increased precipitation is yielding more snow in just one place that the team of researchers have found, Mt. Shasta. Shasta is located in far northern California and, with a height of 14,161 feet, is second in height only to Mt. Rainier in the volcanic Cascade Range. Tulaczyk and his team believe the glacier on Shasta is the only river of ice in the world that is now growing.
"At the higher elevations and on Mount Shasta, more snow is being dumped," Tulaczyk told the Sacramento Bee. By the calculations of Tulaczyk and his team of researchers, the newspaper noted, it takes a 20 percent increase in snow precipitation to counteract a one degree rise in the temperature.
But why is the glacier on Shasta growing, but not those on Rainier, Mt. Baker and other high peaks in the Cascade Range in Washington state?
The climate of California differs from that of the Pacific Northwest. California peaks, including Shasta, get nearly all their precipitation during winter, in the form of snow. But farther north, at Rainier, precipitation is more evenly distributed throughout the year.
That means more rain, and rain actually helps melt snowpack, said Tulaczyk, when asked by Mountain Town News. "This is our guess as to why there is a difference in glacier behavior.
Tulaczyk and his team do not expect the glacier on Shasta to continue expanding. Climate change computer models forecast temperature increases of 3 to 4 degrees Celsius, and Tulaczyk said snow precipitation at the higher levels would have to double to maintain the equilibrium.
Indeed, Tulaczyk and his team see just the opposite ending: increasing temperatures will "result in the loss of most of Mount Shasta's glacier volume over the next 50 years, with near total loss by the end of the century," they say in a paper published by Climate Dynamics. A separate paper issued by the research team says the same thing will happen in the Sierra Nevada.
The Bee notes that Nestlé USA is planning to tap springs fed by Shasta for a 500-million-gallon-a-year bottling plant. The bottles are to be issued under the brand of Arrowhead. However, given the 50-year contract, Shasta could be reduced to a pile of rocks for half the year. "This is quite worrisome, a Nestlé spokesman told the Bee.
Line forms for broadband connections at Mammoth
MAMMOTH LAKES, Calif. - The broadband into Mammoth Lakes isn't nearly wide enough. The Sheet reports that the community's high-speed Internet capacity is all spoken for, the second time in recent years that demand has exceeded supply. The previous time, the capacity limitation precluded new customers for a year or two.
The problem is that Mammoth, despite being not that far from a gazillion people along the coast of California, is distinctly remote and rural. Verizon, the provider, seems to have no profit incentive to improve the connection, although it may have a government deadline to meet next year. There are some wireless possibilities, but all seem to have problems.
