We support 420, but not in our town
OURAY – Even in parts of Colorado where people last November enthusiastically voted to legalize recreational use marijuana, local governments are skittish about what this means in practice.
A case in point is Ouray. In late June, four of the five members of the municipal council said they were ready to set the ground rules for retail sales of marijuana. After all, 59 percent of voters in Ouray last November had endorsed Amendment 64.
But at the next meeting, the Council put that idea into neutral when the bleachers filled with people unhappy with this embrace.
“You could tell it was going to be a doozy of a meeting from the number of chairs that were set up – at least twice as many as usual,” reports Samantha Wright, correspondent for The Telluride Watch.
Obviously, there had been talking between meetings. Two Council members called for a moratorium on local sales until the question could be put directly to voters in 2014.
How come the switcheroo? While many people may have favored the rights of people to smoke marijuana, that didn’t mean they wanted to see sales of marijuana in Ouray, explained Councilor Richard Kersen.
He got support from the audience. Pollyanna Marigold said that while she advocates federally legalizing marijuana “just like spinach,” selling it in Ouray is another matter.
“The little city of Ouray has a character, a reputation,” she said. “I live here because I feel safe here. If you bring retail marijuana to a town this small, you will draw riff raff; they use it to party and get down and be cool, and manipulate young people with the effects of the drug. It will bring more unwanted pregnancies.”
But other Council members argued another vote would be redundant, while Mayor Bob Risch tried the economic argument: excise and sales taxes on marijuana sales would fatten local treasuries. “Something we need to recognize is that 60 percent of Mexican drug cartel money comes from marijuana,” he said. “I would prefer that be brought above ground.”
A local businessman, Bruce Gulde, offered the same argument. The Watch notes that he wryly remarked that he was willing to talk about it further at “one of the many revenue-producing bars on Main Street.”
While Ouray hashes out marijuana, Pitkin County began talk about the ground rules. “No commissioners expressed any anti-marijuana sentiments, but nobody expressed a wish to simply open the barn doors, either,” reported The Aspen Times.
Some of the conversation centered on how the sales, growth and consumption could pose a nuisance to neighboring businesses or homeowners, mainly because of the smell. Another concern is about growing – Pitkin County, despite global warming, remains too cold for outdoor cultivation. That would mean greenhouses.
The strongest verbal support came from the only rancher on the board, Bob Child. “My personal feeling is that cannabis should be legalized in the whole U.S. and taxed and regulated just like alcohol production is,” he said.
Child also mentioned that at times he had wished he was bucking bales of marijuana, instead of hay.
Using prominence to make climate case
WHISTLER, B.C. – Temperatures and precipitation at Whistler from 1976 - 2011 track closely the models delivered by climate scientists worried about the effect of accumulating greenhouse gases.
Winter temperatures have increased just a little bit, 0.9 degree Fahrenheit, and summer temperatures a lot: 3.6 degrees.
More snow has fallen most winters, unlike other places, leading to the belief that skiing will continue at Whistler far into the future.
But the climate is projected to change far more substantially during coming decades, and that has Whistler Blackcomb concerned. It’s not that Whistler won’t have snow. But other ski areas won’t.
“We do want (smaller resorts) to succeed, because they ultimately feed the destination areas like ours,” says Arthur DeJong, environmental resource manager for Whistler Blackcomb. “Some of the smaller, lower areas need to look at more snowmaking, and they need to look at summer grooming, so they can sustain the experience with less natural snow.”
By summer grooming, he meant removing rocks and small trees and planting grass, to allow the runs to be sustained with less snow. But there’s an even bigger reason for worrying about climate change. It threatens to disrupt the global economy. If people can’t afford to ski because of the cost of rising oceans or extreme weather, then that is harmful, too.
DeJong says Whistler Blackcomb started by cleaning up its own locker room. A primary goal has been to reduce the carbon intensity of its operations. A run-of-river hydroelectric project in Fitzsimmons Creek, which flows between the two ski mountains, and an overhaul of the resort’s electrical systems, have both helped. This has also been good for business. The company now saves $1 million annually in energy costs.
The resort operator aims to further reduce the resort’s operating footprint another 20 percent.
Risk diversification, such as increasing summer visits via mountain biking and the Peak 2 Peak gondola, is another strategy.
DeJong sees the need for Whistler to step up its advocacy for change. To that end, he has detailed the sustainability work he has done at Whistler since 1993, not all of it specifically climate related, in a 125-page document. It’s quite a lot, he tells Pique – but not enough.
“When you take a step back, it’s also clear that we haven’t done enough …this generation has to fix this problem. It’s not for future generations because the impacts of (climate change) are already upon us.”
Mountain resorts must take a leadership role in climate change, says DeJong. It’s not just because they’re directly affected in terms of snowfall, but because they have the potential to reach millions of visitors.
“We can truly be a model for global tourism,” he says, “and that’s great for business. We can likely save money doing it, it makes us a more attractive resort and a more inspirational place to visit.”
Mountain Village lowers carbon intensity
MOUNTAIN VILLAGE – Mountain Village has managed to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions of its government 5 percent as compared to 2010.
Deanna Drew, the town’s environmental services director, said the town took advantage of the proverbial low-hanging fruit in replacing inefficient lighting systems.
But if the town is to realize 20 percent reduction by 2020, much more and difficult projects must be undertaken, she said. Among the possibilities: using natural gas to heat places now heated by electricity and using natural gas for vehicles instead of gasoline.
The Telluride Watch says that the Town Council even discussed disconnecting sidewalk snow-melt systems; no conclusions were reached.
Government operations represent only 5 percent of energy use, however. Like most destination resorts, Mountain Village is a place of high-end hotels, where natural gas is burned on outdoor plazas to create ambience and many homes run 5,000 to 10,000 square feet in size.
Drew called for a consideration of a “plan with policies and incentives to reduce the entire communities’ energy use.”
Suits in Aspen like right-wing politics
ASPEN – Aspen is no different than other ski towns in that nobody, but nobody, wears a tie unless for a wedding or a funeral, and often not even then.
Eric Cantor, one of the leading conservatives in the U.S. Congress, apparently didn’t know this when he showed up for his initial appearance at the Aspen Ideas Festival. A correspondent for Slate, the on-line magazine, reported that Cantor, the House majority leader, was comfortably out of place.
“His audience, wealthy people in colorful shorts, was largely happy that Barack Obama was president, largely convinced that climate change was the reason the greater Southwest was melting this week, and pretty well convinced that Congress needed to pass the Simpson-Bowles plan to save America. Some of them had been convinced of this by Simpson and Bowles themselves when they showed up in Aspen, sans ties,” reports Slate’s David Weigel.
Apparently, the suit and tie impressed more people than Cantor’s politics, and not favorably.
“It’s tricky to read 2,000 minds at a conference, and there was no pollster stopping people … but the elites weren’t blown away by Cantor,” says Slate. “Honestly, multiple people mentioned that he’d worn a full suit, and a subset of these people had expected to be more impressed.”
Slate notes that Cantor dressed down for his second appearance, doffing the tie. But he told Slate that the Aspen Ideas Festival needed to change, too.
“My whole takeaway here is that they’ve gotta have more balance in Aspen,” he said. “If they’re really going to have an impact on the greater political environment across the country, they need to. This is a bit like an echo chamber.”
Arts boosters sees an economic gain
MT. CRESTED BUTTE – A 500-seat auditorium seems to be the price of admission for a major destination mountain resort. That’s the conclusion in Mt. Crested Butte.
“The gold standard is essentially a 500-seat facility,” explains Woody Sherwood, executive director of the Mountain Crested Butte Performing Arts Center.
It’s small enough for intimacy, he explains to the Crested Butte News, but large enough to draw performers for whom 500 seats is the minimum.
Sherwood and other boosters are trying to raise up to $23.5 million. To help that, they have released a list of naming opportunities. For example, a donation of $1.5 million will get your name on the performing arts hall. Other naming opportunities can be had for $100,000.
So far, they have raised about half of their goal, if you count the value of the land donated by the ski area and the municipality.
The boosters paint the arts center as a key piece of the economic puzzle of the Gunnison Valley. “These buildings are economic engines for communities,” explains Bud Franks, the lawyer for the capital campaign. “It never fails; it doesn’t matter what the size is, they’re economic and cultural engines as gathering places for a community.”
Just what do other ski towns have for performing arts? A quick scan suggests Sherwood is right that all the big resorts have big centers: Vail’s Ford Amphitheater, an outdoor venue, has 1,260 sets covered and 1,300 lawn seats, while Aspen’s Wheeler Opera House has 503 seats, and Beaver Creek’s Vilar Center has 538 seats.
In Wyoming, Jackson’s Performing Arts Pavilion has 500 seats, and out at the base of the big ski mountain there’s the 740-seat Walk Festival Hall.
Telluride’s Sheridan Opera House seems to attract no end of talent with just 238 seats. Up on the mountain at Telluride, however, the much bigger conference hall has 500 seats.
Dams reduce risk of floods at Revelstoke
REVELSTOKE, B.C. – The floods in Alberta in late June have people in Revelstoke wondering whether the same fate could befall them. The answer seems to be yes, but for the elaborate systems of dams and levies put in place along the Columbia River’s headwaters in the latter half of the 20th century.
Revelstoke had several major floods prior to the dams. The Revelstoke Times-Review points to a report of a flood in 1894 that submerged parts of the city and a large areas of farmland. A 1948 flood reached a similar level, and a 1961 flood was just a bit lower, notes the Times-Review.
By 1961, however, several dykes had been built. Pumping stations were installed to prevent the rise of groundwater and flooding of basements.
A provincial study forecast a 200-year flood higher than any of these. But, there are now the dykes, pumps and dams.
– Allen Best www.mountaintownnews.net