Mine wins case in Crested Butte

CRESTED BUTTE – The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear a case involving 155 acres of land near Crested Butte that the Bureau of Land Management has transferred to a mining company. The decision, however, was no surprise to anybody.

“It was a long-shot at best,” Crested Butte Mayor Alan Bernholtz said of the effort by various parties, including the town, to overturn the transfer of land to Phelps Dodge Corporation. Phelps Dodge has since transferred the land to another mining company, U.S. Energy.

The case has been under way for decades owing to a deposit of molybdenum within the bowels of Mt. Emmons described as “world class.” Amax pursued the ore deposit in the 1970s but put the project on hold after the price of molybdenum plummeted in 1980 and 1981.

The surging world economy in recent years has resulted in fast-escalating prices for all building materials. Molybdenum strengthens steel, among dozens of other purposes.

Does this mean that U.S. Energy will soon start burrowing into Mt. Emmons? Don’t count on it, say opponents. While Phelps Dodge now owns the land without dispute, getting a permit to mine the land is another matter.The Crested Butte News reports the company is currently creating an operations plan.

“The bottom line is that there is a 155-acre donut hole surrounded by public lands,” says Roger Flynn, an attorney for the Western Mining Action Project. “If a mine ever gets proposed, they will have to have numerous federal and state permits … the community is confident it will win in the end.”

Hinsdale County named most remote

LAKE CITY – Want to get away from it all? If remoteness is defined by the absence of roads, then Hinsdale County, located in Colorado’s San Juan Mountains, is the most remote place in the lower 48 states.

This distinction is based on new computer technology developed by the U.S. Geological Survey. Traditional tools for analyzing roadless space have ranked a plot of land 1 mile from a road the same as one several miles from a road, explainsDiscovery News. But this method ignores the fact that the farther a place is from a road, the less it is affected.

Using this new technology, the Geological Survey created three-dimensional pictures that finds Hinsdale County, between Gunnison and Silverton, is the nation’s most remote. Although heavily mined, it has several wilderness areas, plus five 14,000-foot peaks.

The county is also among the least populated, with a 2002 census of 790 full-time residents, more than half in the county’s only town, Lake City. The county also has one of the highest rates of second-home owners in the nation, a large number of them from Texas.

Other notably remote areas, according to the new road-based technology, include the southeast corner of Yellowstone National Park but also some wet places: swamps in Louisiana and lakes in Minnesota. At the opposite end, the most roaded place in the nation is Brooklyn.

In a lovely polarity,The Denver Post found somebody who grew up in Brooklyn and worked as a New York City firefighter before moving to Lake City two years ago. The two places aren’t so terribly different, said Louie Bevilacqua. He said Lake City is a very small, tight community – just like the one he had left in Brooklyn.

County caps backcountry building

SUMMIT COUNTY – Maps of Summit County show a checkerboard of private and public lands, a legacy of the mining era when prospectors were allowed to stake claims of 10.2 acres. The larger tracts allowed to homesteaders were generally along the valley floors.

But in recent years, with the valley floors getting heavily developed, those wanting a house in the nestling pines have been looking at more remote locations – to the great concern of fire departments as well as county officials concerned about environmental impacts.

To that end, Summit County is trying to limit – not stop, but limit – how much building is done on private land in the backcountry. A new plan proposes to rezone 3,615 acres of private land into a new backcountry zone.

The regulations, if adopted, would affect 275 properties in the Snake River Basin near Keystone and the town of Montezuma. Another 66 properties would be affected in the Tenmile Basin, near Copper Mountain.

The Summit Daily News explains that the regulations would restrict size of buildings. A 2-acre parcel, for example, would be permitted a 750-square-foot cabin, and so on up to 35 acres, where the landowner would be permitted a home of up to 2,400 square feet. Landowners would be allowed to consolidate these scattered lots for purposes of building size on one lot, but would lose the right to build on the other lots.

Grizzlies lose federal protection

JACKSON HOLE, WYO. – Grizzly bears in Wyoming are being delisted from the endangered species list. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service says there are enough grizzlies now after 30 years of protection under federal laws. Hunting seasons conducted under Wyoming state laws could occur as early as 2008.

The bears in Wyoming are limited to the Yellowstone ecosystem, but with some as far south as the Wind River Range.

“An endangered species is one that is likely to become extinct, and a threatened species is one that is likely to become endangered,” said Chris Servheen, U.S. Fish and Wildlife grizzly bear recovery coordinator. “The grizzly bear is neither one of these.”

Conservation groups think the delisting is premature, especially in light of new evidence of climate change. If traditional food sources in Yellowstone become more scarce, due to warmer weather, the bears will go to lower elevations, where conflicts with people will become more common. They want the terrain of the bears expanded to include other mountain ranges in Wyoming.

Servheen disagrees. He says the lawsuit being readied by the group will ultimately be harmful to the cause of endangered species. “The Endangered Species Act really needs success stories to demonstrate that the act works,” he told theJackson Hole News&Guide.

Bark beetles fail to upset Vail

VAIL – Hillsides of lodgepole pine trees in Vail have turned rust colored, victims of fungus introduced by bark beetles. But a research team from the University of Illinois finds no real shock yet in responses to a survey conducted last year of 29 residents.

“It’s not that they weren’t concerned, but the language didn’t have that high-anxiety element to it,” said Courtney Flint, an assistant professor in the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences. “Vail residents would say, ‘At least we have our aspen.’”

But the shock may yet be coming, based on what she has seen elsewhere. She has studied Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula, where 90 percent of the forest was destroyed by beetles. She found a strongly emotional response – as has also been found elsewhere in Colorado. “Many places in Colorado, we’re moving from the shock to the grief,” she told theVail Daily, alluding particularly to Grand County. “Those changes take a lot of energy, a lot of emotion. Colorado communities are strongly tied to their forests.”

She reported that in Walden, a small town located in Colorado’s North Park, residents see the beetle epidemic as an opportunity to revive the beleaguered economy with wood-salvaging and biomass projects. “While they’re worried about fires there, they are seeing it as an opportunity – not a sentiment I heard in Vail,” she told theVail Daily.

So far, Vail residents have given a big kudos to the Forest Service and town officials for mitigation efforts.

Steamboat Springs boasts ‘real jobs’

STEAMBOAT SPRINGS – Are there good-paying “real” jobs in mountain towns other than hawking real estate are slathering masonry around river rocks?

In Steamboat Springs there are. One of the newer companies, SmartWool, a brand name for comfortable wool socks, was founded in 1994. The actual assembly of socks is done off-shore, but the business is operated in Steamboat, where 52 employees are located.

Mark Bryden, company president, partly credits a 25 percent increase in sales last year to the enthusiasm and talent of new employees. Those employees, drawn from Nike and other corporations, wanted career advancement while also pursuing the outdoor lifestyle implied in the company’s core product line.

“Our heritage – who we are and what we’re about as a company – is intertwined with this location,” he told theSteamboat Pilot & Today.

– compiled by Allen Best