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Aspen to allow a double-deep basement

ASPEN – Above ground, the old house in Aspen will look like the miner’s cottage that it once was but with a new addition. Below ground, there will be two levels, one with a 22-foot ceiling, high enough to accommodate a basketball gym.

This will be the last house in Aspen with a two-level basement. The Aspen City Council last year outlawed super-deep basements based on the argument that it’s too disruptive to neighbors and unnecessarily consumptive of resources. The house remodel had been approved prior to that action.

But in remarks to the Aspen Daily News, Mayor Steve Skadron suggested that it’s not just a matter of getting along with the neighbors. Rather, he said, it’s not “the kind of project that speaks to community values.”

Town laws will continue to allow 40- and 50-foot-deep excavations for commercial projects.

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Odor-eater chews up cannabis smell

ASPEN – A cannabis proprietor in Aspen has bet his farm, literally, that an odor-mitigation system will keep neighbors from howling about the skunky smell coming from his marijuana plants.

“This summer has been horrendous for us,” said one neighbor of the marijuana greenhouses at a meeting of more than 100 people. The Aspen Daily News explains that the neighbors complained of the unpleasant odor coming from the operation, which is not uncommon.

Jordan Lewis, founder of Aspen’s Silverpeak Apothecary, the cannabis store, and High Valley Farms, the grow operation, said he has spent more than $1 million to buy a carbon-filtered odor-mitigation system. “We literally bet the farm on this solution,” he said.

From all available evidence presented at the Pitkin County commissioners’ meeting, the new system seems to work. All but one commissioner voted to allow him to continue operations as long as odors don’t bother the neighbors.

Commissioner Steve Child pointed out that all precincts in Pitkin County in 2012 voted for Colorado’s constitutional amendment that authorizes growing and sale of cannabis. The county as a whole was 75 percent in support, second only to the 79 percent of San Miguel County (Telluride) among Colorado’s 64 counties.

“And then it’s a case of everybody took a not-in-my-backyard attitude,” said Child.

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Ketchum bans plastic water bottle sales

KETCHUM, Idaho – Take a plastic bottle of water to a festival in Ketchum? You bet. But buy a bottle of water there? Not a chance.

The City Council in Ketchum, located at the base of the Sun Valley ski area, has banned sale and distribution of single-use plastic water battles at city events and on city property.

In doing so, Ketchum follows actions in New York City, Seattle, San Francisco and Chicago. All prohibit the use of tax dollars to purchase bottled water. Fourteen national parks also ban sale of bottled water.

In talking with the Idaho Mountain Express, Ketchum Mayor Nina Jonas stressed the high quality of Ketchum’s water. It comes from streams, with the only chemical added being the federally managed chloride.

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Mountain bikes and wilderness areas

LEADVILLE – It’s legal to mountain bike down the highest peak in Colorado, 14,439-foot Mount Elbert, and people have started doing it. But not everybody is applauding their success.

It’s legal to wheel down from the top of 18 peaks in Colorado that are higher than 14,000 feet. Most of the rest – depending upon how you count them, there are between 54 and 58 of the points above 14,000 feet – are in designated wilderness or otherwise off-limits to wheels, both mechanized and motorized.

The Wall Street Journal talked with Olympic snowboarder Justin Reiter, 34, who has cycled on the mountains as part of his training regimen. He said it’s not for everyone.

“If you want a fun climb and a nice, flowing descent, it’s not the environment for that, “ he said. “I think that will weed out 99 percent of all mountain bikers.”

But bikers would also like to see access to more mountain peaks – including those in designated wilderness areas. The 1964 Wilderness Act specifically prohibits mechanized travel in addition to motorized travel.

Reiter told the Denver Post he believes there should be a more inclusive system instead of a blanket ban on bikes. He wants to see bikers apply for permits to ride certain areas, not unlike hunters who apply for access.

The Post also notes a gray area on where, even outside wilderness areas, bikes are acceptable. But Mark Eller, communications director for the International Mountain Bike Association, said he doubts that federal land agencies will “go to any great lengths to clarify things” because “the number of people schlepping their bikes up 14ers is so, so incredibly tiny.”

But will the numbers stay small? Reiter mentioned the advances in technology that allow even novice skiers to descend challenging trails. Of course, fat skis have made expert skiers out of intermediates, and newer snowmobiles have done the same for sledders.

In a letter published in the Denver Post, C. Greenman responded with concern. “I guess we can say goodbye to more alpine habitat and hello to more underfunded, understaffed restoration projects.”

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Park City targets housing and climate

PARK CITY, Utah – Transportation is already a top-tier issue for Park City’s elected officials. Affordable housing is joining transportation, and climate change may also.

The Park Record reports that the City Council has established a blue-ribbon commission to explore policies needed to support affordable housing.

The city is also considering elevating energy and climate change to the same top-tier among issues. Comments from a variety of city council members indicate strong support for doing so.

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Objections mount over fired scientist

JASPER, Alberta – More than 100 former employees of Parks Canada and scientists have signed a letter voicing displeasure at the firing of the senior scientist in Jasper National Park. They accuse the Canadian government of instilling “fear” among those still working for the agency.

John Wilmshurst was fired in June after 15 years for reasons that remain shrouded, explains the Jasper Fitzhugh. He would not comment when contacted by the Jasper Fitzhugh, and the parks agency refused to talk about a personnel matter.

Nik Lopoukhine, a retired director general of national parks in Canada, said the issue is more than just one individual. “It’s more about the reality that science has been cut back and projects that are going forward are contravening the National Parks Act.”

The letter was issued a week after Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society launched a campaign objecting to what they see as the commercialization of Canada’s national parks.

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Studying tree rings to study history

TAOS, N.M. – Dendrochronology can be used for wide-ranging purposes. That’s the formal name for dating ages of trees by counting tree rings. In wetter, warmer years the trees have wider rings, and in drought years narrow ones.

By studying rings from a great many areas, for example, dendrochronologists have been able to create something of a climatic record going back 2,000 years in the Colorado River Basin. This gives us a better idea of what “normal” looked like, before the influence of humans. There were wide swings, including much longer droughts than anything we have known.

Near Taos, tree-rings have been used for another purpose. A few years ago, the Taos Historical Society approached an archaeologist from the University of New Mexico. The question was how old a one-time grist mill – called a “molino” in Latino cultures – was.

The molino was abandoned in the 1930s and has been decaying. But logs of ponderosa pine remained intact and the evidence was shipped to the University of Arizona in Tucson. There, a large number of trees have been catalogued. They overlap, providing a chronological calendar, of sorts. And the evidence was clear: the trees from the mill had quit growing in 1879.

– Allen Best

For more, go to www.mountaintownnews.net