Deciding if you have too much grass
DURANGO – Just as some people start watering their lawns this spring, Steve Harris will rip his out.
Harris, a water engineer in Durango active in formulation of a statewide water plan for Colorado, spoke during a recent water roundtable in Denver. The core issue is how the state will accommodate a population that is expected to grow from today’s 5.3 million to 9 or 10 million at mid-century.
Nearly all of Colorado’s water is owned by somebody, mostly farmers and ranchers. More than 80 percent of water goes to agriculture. Cities are responsible for just 8 percent of the water.
Can cities grow without drying up farms? Many farmers are happy to sell, but that leaves agriculture-based communities eviscerated. Further exploiting rivers comes at the expensive of fish and kayakers.
Then there’s the issue of where these rivers are located. Some 80 percent of Colorado’s water comes from west of the Continental Divide, primarily in the form of snow. About 90 percent of the state’s residents live east of the Continental Divide, mostly in metropolitan Denver and other cities along the Front Range.
Similar to California and other water-strapped states of the West, Colorado has been talking about how to step up conservation. Whether in Denver or Durango, a typical home in Colorado will use 50 percent of its water indoors over the course of a year and 50 percent outside during the summer.
Can the use of water for outdoor landscaping be reduced? Harris thinks so. It calls for taking steps to pivot indoor-outdoor water use to 60 percent indoor and 40 percent outdoor. The thinking is that indoor water use will not go up. In fact, with wider adoption of WaterSense toilets and other fixtures, water use will decline. But even more drastic reductions should be accomplished in lawns and other outdoor landscapes.
Harris figures if he’s going to talk this sort of talk, he needs to do the walk. At the statewide water meeting in Denver last week, he announced that on May 15 he will have the 300 square feet of lawn at his house in Durango removed. He said he plans to replace it with flagstone.
One useful rule of thumb, he said, is “if the only time you walk on the grass is when you mow it, you probably have too much.”
Breck’s last word on Main Street weed
BRECKENRIDGE – Oh, those crafty cannapreneurs in Breckenridge. The Summit Daily News reports that the Breckenridge Cannabis Club has moved from its Main Street location, as mandated by town voters in an election held last fall.
It is still in Breckenridge, at a new suburban location and with a new name (Backcountry Cannabis Club). It has also hung onto its Main Street location what the Daily News describes as a giant billboard for the goods available elsewhere.
The store opened in 2010 to sell medical marijuana. At the time, it was among three marijuana retailers along Main Street in Breckenridge. Over time, others drifted to a service-oriented district called Airport Road (now dubbed “Airpot” road), 2 miles from the Victorian-themed Main Street that is central to Breckenridge’s tourism brand.
As a medical dispensary, the company had revenues of $515,000 a year, reports the Daily News. In its first year of selling “recreational” marijuana in 2014, the business had $3 million in revenues.
Colorado is the first state to legalize use by those 21 and over without medical need. A film production company spent over a year following Brian Rogers and Caitlin McGuire, the founders of the Breckenridge Cannabis Club. The forced exile from Main Street added drama to the story that has been broadcast by CNN, the cable news network, under the heading of “High Profits.”
The first installment of High Profits was broadcast April 19, and it comes across as something like a reality-TV show, says the Daily News.
Since being ousted from Main Street, the renamed business has joined the other weed retailers on the outskirts of town in what locals dubbed the “green-light” district. As such, THC products are accessible to tourists who make a point of getting them but not quite so much to those casually strolling Main Street in search of T-shirts, shots of schnapps, or whatever else.
But the company – which now has a dispensary in Crested Butte and a grow operation planned at Steamboat Springs – still has a presence on Main Street.
The former location has now been reinvented into a cannabis “education center.” It amounts to a high-profile billboard for the business. At this education center, visitors can get directions to the new shop and a discount simply for dropping by the former dispensary.
“The first three words of any business class are ‘location, location, location,’” Rogers tells the Daily News. “We’ve been there for five years, and now, the sign still remains.”
Post-legal pot: Not much has changed
BRECKENRIDGE – With well more than a year of recreational marijuana sales, Colorado continues to be in the national spotlight regarding what Gov. John Hickenlooper called this great social experiment.
Karn Stiegelmeier, a Summit County commissioner, tells the Summit Daily News that relatively little has changed for most people.
“People want to know what’s happening (and) what’s going on. Once you talk to them for a while or they actually come visit, they say, ‘It’s really not that different. It’s not that big of a deal. People were doing this 30 years ago and it’s not overwhelming.’”
That’s also the impression of Shannon Haynes, the police chief in Breckenridge. “I think there’s a big misconception on the part of guests,” she said. “They have this perception that everybody in Colorado is smoking weed, and if you come to Breck, you’ll stand out on Blue River Plaza and every person will have a joint in their hand.”
That’s not how it is, she went on to say. “We’ve allowed the folks who want to come here and partake to partake in a legal way that doesn’t interfere with the folks who don’t.”
She did note, however, a spike in emergency room visits by people who ingested too much THC in the form of edibles.
But the local officials also told the Summit Daily that they thought Colorado should proceed cautiously.
“In one year’s time, I don’t think we have still found all the trip wires,” said Wendy Wolfe, a councilwoman in Breckenridge. “I think the business model itself will undergo changes … I think that gives us all the reason to continue going slowly, keep thinking about this.”
One of the thorniest issues, several of the officials said, was defining what is public. Cannabis cannot be consumed in public. “What if it’s right next to somebody else’s deck who doesn’t want that smoke?” asked Stiegelmeier.
But, added another official, that’s true for a lot of things.
Towns take position on coal taxes
LEADVILLE – Ten mountain towns in Colorado, Utah and New Mexico have launched a campaign that seeks to force coal mining companies to pay more for coal extracted from federally owned deposits.
The coal companies can pay royalties based on percentages of initial sales to subsidiaries at reduced rates.
“By eliminating subsidies and requiring coal companies to pay royalties on the true market price of coal, rather than on the hidden practice at which it is sold to a middleman or a subsidiary, the government will collect a fair return for U.S. taxpayers and Western states (an estimated $1 billion per year), and increase government transparent and efficacy,” says a letter sent to U.S. officials, lawmakers, and the White House.
The Denver Post reports that the towns included Aspen, Buena Vista, Dillon, Leadville, Ophir, Ridgway and Telluride, all in Colorado, plus Park City, Utah, and Taos, N.M. They have banded together under the name Mountain Pact. More towns are being solicited.
Stuart Sanderson, who heads the Colorado Mining Association, an organization heavily laden with coal-mining companies, rejected the allegation of a revenue loophole.
Telluride Mayor Stu Fraser said the protest was provoked by concerns about global warming impacts.
“If they’re going to continue to burn coal, it has to be cleaner,” Fraser told the Denver Post. “This needs to happen sooner rather than later. It’s very important that we have less pollution going into the environment.”
Leadville Mayor Jaime Stuever said fossil fuels, in general, need to be cut. “If there’s no consistent snow, due to global warming, then we need to look at other forms of tourism.”
Does sharing homes make a place sticky?
WHISTLER, B.C. – Ski towns still aren’t entirely sure what to make of the so-called sharing economy. The idea is that in everything from where you stay to your transportation, you will “share” with a local – and, of course pay money.
“Everything under the sun, or at least everything under our roofs, is now available for procurement or rent,” said Douglas Quinby, vice president of research for Phocuswright, at the recent Mountain Travel Symposium.
“The millennial crowd in general loves to share,” said Quinby. “They really want to meet new people and share their experiences.”
Millenials and customers of the sharing economy in general, added Quinby, are “really craving something very different, very authentic.”
Another panelist compared it to the upending of the music industry. “They used to make money selling records,” said Erik Blachford, executive chairman of Couchsurfing International. “Now they make money going on tour with their show. It’s a completely different world all of a sudden.”
And the same is true for ski towns, he said. “There’s no reason to think that the ski industry is going to make money exactly the same way that they have for the last 40 years for the next 50 years.”
Jamie Wong, founder and chief executive of Vayable, said the ski industry capitalizes on the authenticity and culture of the communities.
That authenticity, said Wong, is “created by the individuals that are there and have been there either for a long time and give the place its character,” she said. “That’s what makes a destination stick and brands it, ultimately.”
Empowering the locals and the independent service providers will go a long way to maintaining authenticity and attracting visitors, Wong said. At the end of your trip, it’s usually the people you meet who leave the longest-lasting impressions.
But are there risks with renting out your house to strangers? The Canadian Press tells of a Calgary family whose home was trashed amid a “drug-induced orgy” with damages assessed at $75,000.
The vast majority of property insurance policies don’t bank on people handing over the keys to their homes to complete strangers, says Steve Kee, of the Insurance Bureau of Canada. He advises checking with insurance representatives in advance to understand coverage and risks.
Deer Valley takes over Solitude ski area
PARK CITY, Utah – Two ski areas on the flanks of the Wasatch Range now have common ownership. Deer Valley, located on the east side of the range, has now formally purchased Solitude Mountain Resort, located on the west side.
Deer Valley general manager Bob Wheaton tells the Park Record that his company plans to invest up to $7 million at Solitude, most of that in a high-speed detachable quad that will replace a fixed-grip two-seater.
Solitude already had a shared ski pass with Brighton, and that arrangement will continue. Now, however, the pass will be expanded to include Deer Valley.
– Allen Best For more, go to mountaintownnews.net.