Swollen Colorado rivers run wild

RED CLIFF, Colo. – It was called the May miracle in Colorado. After a ho-hum winter, it looked certain that the creeks and rivers would deliver a runoff that walked, not ran, that murmured instead of shouted.

Then, in mid-May, it started snowing — again and again. And when it didn’t snow it rained, continuing into June.

Taking note of 11 snow-monitoring sites that he tracks, Chris Landry, from the Center for Snow & Avalanche Studies, reported that the rivers were more boisterous than the snowpack statistics would suggest. The water in the snow was short of the median for 1981-2010.

“Snowmelt runoff behavior has been (arguably much) more intense than these data would suggest,” he wrote in a posting on his website.

South of Vail, that unruly runoff was evident last Wednesday in Homestake Creek. In the quarter mile before it flows into the Eagle River, the creek has an incline comparable to that of a green or beginner ski slope. The water was pounding, droplets flying high into the air.

In recent years, the trend has been to earlier runoff. But the date of peak runoff varies wildly.

Several people have drowned in rivers and creeks, mostly the result of kayaking, rafting, or inner-tube accidents.

One drowning occurred near Silverton, in the San Juan Mountains. The victim, who was 19, had moved to Durango to be with his dad. They were walking up a snowfield and the victim fell into a creek that was running below them, disappearing under the snow. The family dog jumped in behind him, San Juan County Sheriff Bruce Conrad told the Silverton Standard & the Miner.

The creek re-emerged from the snow 240 feet farther downstream, but the man’s body did not for three hours. The dog did later, but it was alive.

Beyond the individual tragedies, the big runoff in Colorado has implications up and down the Colorado River. Instead of 3 million acre-feet, Lake Powell will likely get 6.2 to 6.4 million acre-feet, said Eric Kuhn, general manager for the Colorado River Water Conservation District.

That allows the upper-basin states — Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and New Mexico — to release more water from Powell to flow downstream to Lake Mead, near Las Vegas. This additional water in Lake Mead should help water-strapped California.

Whistler on trial after fatal stabbing

WHISTLER, B.C. – The simple evidence suggests that Whistler has a big problem to confront. In mid-May, during Canada’s long holiday weekend called Victoria Day, there were two stabbings, one of them fatal.

Police have arrested five boys and men, four of them 17 and one of them 18. But that does not bring back Luka Gordic, who was from the Vancouver area. He was 19 when he was killed.

Since Gordic’s death, his family has criticized a Canadian justice system that they feel is too soft on violent crime. They also called out the lawlessness of adolescents that flock to the resort town during the holidays.

“We want to send a message that at all parts of the year, but particularly on the May long weekend … people go up to Whistler without understanding what really takes place,” Gianni Buono, uncle to the 19-year-old victim, told Pique Newsmagazine. The family wants to see the juveniles treated as adults.

Natives react to old assimilation policies

JASPER, Alberta – A common sorrow of aboriginals in North America is of forced assimilation through schools, where natives were punished for speaking their native languages and otherwise shoved into assimilating with the dominant Euro-based cultures of both the United States and Canada.

At the Southern Ute Museum in Ignacio, for example, exhibits tell of Ute children forced to attend school and being punished if they spoke the native language of their people or otherwise tried to keep up the ways of their ancestors.

A Ute guide at the museum last October, explained to visitors of new efforts to preserve the tribal heritage. His children, for example, are in a Montessori school where they are learning the Ute language in addition to English. They are also learning tribal history as well as American history.

Matricia Brown, who identifies herself as Cree, told the Jasper Fitzhugh that she believes the abuse and neglect suffered by her mother at the Joussard Indian Residential School played a direct role in her mother’s suicide when Brown was five years old.

As a mother of two, now living in Jasper, Brown still has a good relationship with her adoptive family in Calgary but she has also made it a point to educate her children about her Cree culture.

“When I was 24 and pregnant I made a conscious choice to teach my children everything that was wonderful about my culture,” she told the Fitzhugh.

Experts duel on wisdom of Squaw town

TRUCKEE, Calif. – The argument about whether to create a municipality at the base of the Squaw ski area is now at the stage of dueling experts. Some are testifying that incorporation will cost a lot of money, and those paid experts on the other side disagree.

The debate was triggered by the announcement by KSL Capital Partners, owners of the ski area, of plans to sink $50 million in upgrades and greatly expand the bed base. Currently, because there is no town government in place, officials from Placer County would review the development plans. If a town is created, elected and appointed officials would ultimately decide on development.

Citing public records, The Sacramento Bee reports that in a 12-month period ending in April, a political action committee backed by the ski area owners spent about $570,000 in an effort to derail the incorporation bid. Those supporting incorporation have spent $70,000 in the last two years.

A consultant hired by KSL Partners finds that municipal expenses in just the first year of operations would exceed revenues by $1.7 million. But incorporation supporters reject that report as “flawed by incorrect assumptions, mathematical errors and internal inconsistencies.”

The Bee says that if Olympic Valley, as the base area of Squaw is called, is incorporated, it would have fewer than 1,000 residents, making it California’s 14th-smallest town.

Determining terms for vacation rentals

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. – The virtues of vacation home rentals continue to be discussed in South Lake Tahoe, the municipality where the Heavenly Ski Area is located.

Some 1,800 licenses have been granted for vacation rentals, some 1,400 of them in residential districts, says John Hitchcock, the city’s planning manager. Complaints there, as in most ski towns, revolve around noise, trash, and parking, he says.

What makes some neighbors cranky is that if there’s a problem, they don’t know who to call. In traditional arrangements, professional property managers can be called when 12 guys host a party that lasts until 3 a.m. and then leave garbage scattered out on a lawn. In the case of a vacation home rental, the owner of the unit may be far more inaccessible.

The Lake Tahoe News reports that just a minority of the people who showed up at recent meetings support the city staff’s position of treating vacation home rentals as a land-use issue. Repeatedly, those testifying about vacation home rentals said enforce the rules on the books and then decide if there’s a problem.

Meanwhile, a report commissioned by the Colorado Association of Ski Towns was issued last week. The 57-page study reports how jurisdictions from New York City to San Francisco have been addressing this burgeoning component of the sharing economy. The report included specific examination of the experiences of 10 members of the organization, including eight in Colorado and also Park City, Utah, and Jackson, Wyo.

While there are concerns about long-term housing being shifted into short-term housing, thus squeezing affordable housing stock for local workers, most jurisdictions have moved to embrace the vacation home rentals, as popularized by companies such as Airbnb.

 

– Allen Best

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