Telluride to vote on sugary drink tax
TELLURIDE – By almost any measure, Telluride is über-liberal. But a proposal to levy a one-cent per ounce tax on sugar-sweetened beverages like pop, sports drinks and energy drinks is getting blow-back in the community.
Despite that push-back, the Town Council has decided to send the proposal to the voters in November, reports the Telluride Daily Planet. Proceeds from the tax would be used to fund programs intended to promote healthy, active lifestyles for kids.
Concerns are myriad: Will implementation and auditing burden businesses? Will it actually accomplish its intended effect of reducing obesity?
“The fact is, the sugary beverage tax will not stop consumers in Telluride from drinking soda,” said the manager of a local grocery store. “It will only force them to purchase it outside of town, therefore creating a revenue loss to local businesses.”
Is there proof that a tax will result in less consumption of sugary drinks? Even the measure’s sponsor admitted that hard evidence linking cause and effect is scarce. However, the local programs funded by a federal grant that seeks to reduce childhood obesity have apparently shown success. Their continuation is dependent upon new funding sources.
The executive director of the Colorado Beverage Association drove from Denver to testify in opposition, reports the Telluride Daily Planet. “Food is the No. 1 source of added sugars, not sugar-sweetened beverages,” said Chris Howes. “Taxing soft drinks or any other single food or food ingredient is simplistic and unjustified.”
Interested, friendly faces are needed
WHISTLER, B.C. – A well-known radio broadcaster recently visited Whistler and later posted an unflattering review that was published in the Globe and Mail, Canada’s second-largest newspaper.
The broadcaster reported a “lacklustre experience” that could not be explained by a staff shortage or a sudden rush of customers. “It came down to whether the individual in front of us cared enough to deliver more than the bare minimum,” the visitor said. “Most often they did not.”
Bob Barnett, the now former-owner of Pique, saw the critique as valid – and a problem for Whistler.
“We expend a lot of time, money and thought on marketing Whistler and trying to boost the local economy. We worry about emerging tourism markets in China and India. We can try to tempt day-trippers into staying the night. We can package festivals and events with affordable hotel rates. We can bemoan archaic liquor laws and we can trumpet our physical surroundings. But it’s the human side of the equation that sticks out in people’s minds.”
Barnett further noted a split in the Whistler community from its inception: Those who live there full time tend to be excellent skiers and otherwise athletically robust and are somewhat disdainful of visitors (sound familiar?) than those who are more fully and directly invested in the tourism economy.
Barnett makes it clear that there’s no room for disdain. “Virtually everyone in Whistler has chosen to be here. That implies an acceptance that tourism is what makes or breaks this town. By extension, we should understand that service is the cornerstone of the tourism business.”
The power of falling mountain water
OURAY – President Barack Obama last Friday signed into law two bills that are expected to result in additional installation of hydroelectric power on existing irrigation canals, dams and even municipal water lines in the United States.
The previous laws governing installation of turbines had been adopted in the wake of the massive dam-building enterprises of the early 20th century, which had resulted in significant destruction of streams and associated aquatic life. Those laws, however, are painted with a very broad brush.
Consider the case from Ouray, where the Beaumont was the world’s first hotel to be wired with alternative current electricity, which was generated by a local hydroelectric plant. The plant is still in operation.
But several years ago, Ouray town leaders decided they wanted to reduce their dependence on carbon-based electricity. With that in mind, Mayor Bob Risch, a native son and retired teacher, agreed to shepherd a project.
The plan was to use mostly existing pipelines to deliver water to a new turbine, which can produce up to 20 kilowatts of electricity. It’s not a large project – but the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission process was taxing and then some. He was even required to get a letter from the National Park Service about impacts, even though the agency has no land within 50 miles.
The process took years, and had Risch not offered to do it for Ouray, it would have cost the town $10,000 to $20,000 in consulting fees – killing any economic benefits.
“That kind of process does not work for a little-bitty project like ours,” Risch told The Telluride Watch.
Kurt Johnson, of Telluride Energy, specializes in developing small hydropower projects in the context of existing dams, canals and other infrastructure. He calls the previous FERC procedure “insane.”
He cites the hypothetical example of a house near Durango supplied by water from a spring. Suppose the spring is 100 vertical feet above the house, and perhaps 100 yards away. The water is put into a pipe that goes directly to the house. But to retrofit this pipe with a small hydroelectric system would require federal approval, with drawings, myriad forms and letters.
Johnson has told many potential customers to bide their time, until the federal review process was made easier and less costly.
Tellingly, the legislation had Colorado from different ends of the political spectrum, Rep. Diana DeGette, from the liberal camp, and Rep. Scott Tipton, who was elected with Tea Party support. Other sponsors were from Washington state, Oregon and Alaska.
“Congress finally found an energy source everyone likes,” announced The Washington Post.
Johnson notes that FERC still has to create the regulations that implement the intent of the new laws. In that process lies the potential for “great mischief,” he added.
Hydropower currently delivers 100,000 megawatts of installed capacity in the United States, making it by far the largest source of non-carbon renewable energy. However, the environmental community has been split, fearing big dams, many environmental groups oppose hydropower mandates and incentives.
Climate change mirky in mountains
CRESTED BUTTE – Effects of climate change in mountainous areas are more difficult to predict than those in places like Kansas. The topography creates greater variances, even in close proximity.
Consider the testimony of Imtiaz Rangwala, a climatologist with the National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration. Rangwala studied the climate of the Tibetan Plateau and the San Juan Mountains. Warming in the Tibetan Plateau was very rapid, but less so in the San Juans, although still warming an average of 2 degrees Fahrenheit between 1994 - 2005.
But within Colorado, there were great variations. At Crested Butte, he found almost no change in temperatures during that same time. Across the valley, at Cochetopa Pass, there was.
“So that’s the mountain system for you. Understanding climate change in the Southwest is really a tricky business,” said Rangwala, according to an account in the Crested Butte News. “You can’t look at one place and expect things to be happening in a very wide area. This is not Kansas.”
While models are clear about rising temperatures, they’re unclear about the effect on precipitation. “The best-case scenario is to be wet and warm. The worst-case scenario would be hot and dry,” he said.
Rangwala was one of several panelists at a recent forum in Crested Butte centered around the question about how the natural environment might look in 25 years.
Another panelist was Mary Price, who has been doing research on ecological processes in Crested Butte since 1976. She said the impacts of the changing climate are already evident on hillsides. Invasive plants that never gained a foothold are now taking over.
“Butter and eggs was probably planted by some biologist or miner and sat very well behaved for many years until the mid-‘90s, when it just exploded and took over the entire moraine,” she said. Butter and eggs is a species of toadflax sold as “wild snapdragons.”
Price went on to say that during the next 25 years, unless emissions of greenhouse gases can be cut, the annual yield of large meadows of wildflowers around Crested Butte will ebb.
Bobbi Peckarsky, who has been studying aquatic life near Crested Butte for 38 years, pointed to the outsized effects from an earlier spring thaw. This is evident in an algae called didymo. It has been recorded near Crested Butte since the 1950s but was not common.
“I never saw it for the first 30 years here, and in the last seven or eight, it has grown to be a significant problem,” she said. “It changes the community of organisms to the extent that fish growth, brook trout growth, is reduced by 40 percent.”