US forests hold new evidence of global warming – from CS Monitor

Scientists see a trend in longer dry spells and winter snowpacks melting earlier than in the past. By Peter N. Spotts |  Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor/ January 22, 2009 edition Reporter Pete Spotts discusses new scientific research on tree life spans in the western US. Reporter Pete Spotts Old-growth forests in the Western United States appear to be losing ground to the regional effects of global warming. That’s the conclusion a team of federal and university-based forest ecologists have reached after looking at long-term trends in patches of relatively pristine old-growth forests. The study sites range from northern Arizona and north central Colorado to the Olympic Peninsula and southern British Columbia. Over the past 50 years, trees large and small in these tracts – largely untouched by wildfires or beetle infestations – have been dying at an increasing rate. And the rate at which they are being replaced has not changed. If the trend continues, researchers say, forest age, average tree size, and carbon-storing capacity of these areas will gradually fall. After examining a range of possible causes for the region-wide pattern, the last ones standing are the West’s warming trend and warming’s effect on the amount of water these areas receive. Summer dry spells are longer. Snows melt earlier. More winter precipitation falls as rain, rather than snow, and the snow that falls has a lower water content than it once did. More trees are dying “Tree death rates have more than doubled in old-growth forests across the western United States” during the study period, says Phillip van Mantgem, an ecologist with the US Geological Survey’s Western Ecological Research Center in Three Rivers, Calif. The rising mortality rates spanned a range of elevations, species, and tree sizes, he continues. “If these trends continue, forests will grow sparser over time,” says Dr. van Mantgem. And while he acknowledges that the results come from a relatively limited number of one- to two-acre plots, “our results imply that these trends could be occurring on a much broader scale.” The team looked at data from 76 undisturbed patches of forest averaging some 450 years old. Some tracts were more than 1,000 years old. The study represents the most exhaustive yet for this geographic range of temperate forests, notes Andrew Sugden, a botanist and international managing editor for the journal Science, which published the results in Friday’s issue. Until now, many forest studies have looked at the role wildfires and beetle infestations have had on western forests. Others have looked at the way species are beginning to move to higher elevations. Each of these is related to warming. But as devastating as they are, beetle infestations and wildfires are episodic catastrophic events. Despite the high profile they get, most forests appear for now to be relatively healthy, the team notes. And species migration would appear to allow for the species’ continued survival, as long as they don’t run out of higher elevations to reach. The long-term trends in this study, however, suggest that warming is affecting the underlying demographics of the tracts the research team studied. The results run counter to trends seen in the tropics. In undisturbed tracts there, tree mortality and replacement both are increasing. The study adds to a growing body of research that suggests any country with extensive forests – whether tropical, temperate, or boreal – may deserve a place at the table when global climate talks discuss “avoided deforestation” as a tool for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions. So far, the approach has been seen largely as a way to encourage developing countries with extensive tropical forests to take part in a new global climate treaty. But last September, an international team of scientists led by Sebastiaan Luyssaert at the University of Antwerp in Belgium, published a study showing that globally, old-growth forests outside the tropics actively soak up and store carbon dioxide from the atmosphere far longer than previous estimates had indicated. [Editor’s note:The original version misstated the location of the University of Antwerp.] Indeed, for many of the tree species in the latest study, the likelihood that a tree will survive for another year increases, rather than decreases, with time, notes Jerry Franklin, a forest ecologist at the University of Washington in Seattle. “One of the things that absolutely should be on the table in any global carbon agreement is the notion of avoided carbon releases,” Dr. Franklin says. “Old forests have very large accumulations of carbon in them.” If these forests are felled, it will lead to significant carbon emissions over the short and medium terms – emissions that can’t be recouped by turning the wood into lumber or by planting replacement trees, he says. Housing development could be affected If the trends continue, they have implications for the region’s efforts to adapt to climate change, adds Thomas Veblen, a biogeographer at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Particularly when the underlying die-off is accelerated by insect infestations, wildfire managers will have to rethink their strategies for reducing wildfire risks, including current policies that encourage people to build large housing developments in wildfire-prone areas. In addition, the changes are making wildlife conservation efforts more difficult to plan. Often, conservationists set a target by learning what an area was like in the distant past, then they try to re-create that, says Nathan Stephenson, also with the USGS research center in Three Rivers, Calif. “As climate changes and other environmental changes happen, the past may no longer be the best model for the future. We may switch from trying to keep a snapshot of the past to efforts to help guide things into the future while sustaining old forests.” For Franklin, even that may be too gentle.  “So much of conservation is focused on going back or keeping it as it is,” he says. Faced with a warming climate, “you can’t go home.” Full story, art, comments and links here.

Gosh, if only people felt this way about Ford Park

Not to worry, Mr. and Mrs. Taxpayer — the Ski Train, the railyard and the grand old station are not on the auction block to help fund the proposed huge Regional Transportation Hub and the “Transit Village” at Denver Union Station.

However, the city and county of Denver, together with the Regional Transportation District, the Denver Regional Council of Governments and the Colorado Department of Transportation, are poised to sell part of the Denver Union Station front yard for two 65-foot-high office buildings at the gateway corner sites on 16th and 18th streets.

Would commercial development of this 127-year-old public open space fronting the historic Union Station really benefit the civic values and long-term image of our city? Should we exploit this plaza in spite of ever shrinking usable open space in our downtown environment? The Open Space Initiative Group — prominent senior planners, architects and landscape architects, preservationists and financial consultants — believes otherwise.

Group members were involved in the Union Station process since 2002 but separated as a new group with new members in 2007 to advocate for an open plaza and alternative designs. It focuses on these plaza issues:

Should prime property owned by the public be sold for private development? Should civic and historic values be sacrificed for private profit? Should a Grand Urban Square give way to an office-building complex? Should the public have a choice of alternative plans for choosing the best future?

The group believes these questions have not been properly examined by any of the public agencies purportedly representing the real owner — the private citizen and taxpayer — and it has raised more than $16,000 to create an alternative plan showing public use of the property around the historic Union Station. The group’s report of December 2008 is titled The Grand Urban Square, Denver Union Station.

The Open Space Initiative Group envisions a setting that reflects the station’s history and recalls its traditional open space and human interaction— and, with a carefully landscaped new urban square, a setting that would allow the public to reclaim the use and ownership of this historic site.

The difference between the group’s plan and the current master plan is simply the preservation of open space and history.

The master plan shows two office buildings in front of Union Station, dominating the visual gateway and open space at the 16th Street and 18th Street corners on Wynkoop Street. The buildings are not necessary and leave just two small public courtyards.

The Open Space Initiative Group plan has an unobstructed large open space with an array of public uses and civic activities. The trade-off is to move the commercial office space contained in the two buildings (150,000 square feet) from the corner sites to two taller structures just behind the plaza. This preserves the historical views to and from the station and creates the grand urban square without loss of vital rental income.

The public is unaware that historic values and the “grand urban square” future will be lost forever if the two 65-foot-high buildings are built in the plaza. They will block views of and from the station and will destroy historic settings. What other city in America can have a great urban public space that’s part of an operating, monumental, historic train station and hub of a major transit system in the urban heart of a fast-growing metropolitan region and in the original station setting in the historic district where the city was founded? The answer: surprisingly, none.

Denver’s opportunity for a grand urban square is unique. The plaza along Wynkoop Street is a parking lot now, but it can be an unmatched people place with temporary and permanent exhibits and art, concerts, restaurants, festivals, farmer’s markets, educational features and events, celebrations, a fountain, two amphitheaters, ice skating and underground parking. Many citizens, civic leaders and major environmental, preservation and railroad groups are supportive of the group’s vision. There is still time to redirect the planning.

The Open Space Initiative Group has offered an alternative open-space plan for comparison and is asking the public to express its preference: Should the city sell off our open space for commercial development or retain it for a grand urban square? Please visit our Web site: denverunionstationsquare.com.

Stuart Ohlson is a member of the American Institute of Architects and is the retired principal of Ohlson-Lavoie Architecture. Albert “Bert” Melcher is a civil engineer and former chairman of the RTD board of directors.

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Full article here: Not to worry, Mr. and Mrs. Taxpayer — the Ski Train, the railyard and the grand old station are not on the auction block to help fund the proposed huge Regional Transportation Hub and the “Transit Village” at Denver Union Station.

However, the city and county of Denver, together with the Regional Transportation District, the Denver Regional Council of Governments and the Colorado Department of Transportation, are poised to sell part of the Denver Union Station front yard for two 65-foot-high office buildings at the gateway corner sites on 16th and 18th streets.

Would commercial development of this 127-year-old public open space fronting the historic Union Station really benefit the civic values and long-term image of our city? Should we exploit this plaza in spite of ever shrinking usable open space in our downtown environment? The Open Space Initiative Group — prominent senior planners, architects and landscape architects, preservationists and financial consultants — believes otherwise.

Group members were involved in the Union Station process since 2002 but separated as a new group with new members in 2007 to advocate for an open plaza and alternative designs. It focuses on these plaza issues:

Should prime property owned by the public be sold for private development? Should civic and historic values be sacrificed for private profit? Should a Grand Urban Square give way to an office-building complex? Should the public have a choice of alternative plans for choosing the best future?

The group believes these questions have not been properly examined by any of the public agencies purportedly representing the real owner — the private citizen and taxpayer — and it has raised more than $16,000 to create an alternative plan showing public use of the property around the historic Union Station. The group’s report of December 2008 is titled The Grand Urban Square, Denver Union Station.

The Open Space Initiative Group envisions a setting that reflects the station’s history and recalls its traditional open space and human interaction— and, with a carefully landscaped new urban square, a setting that would allow the public to reclaim the use and ownership of this historic site.

The difference between the group’s plan and the current master plan is simply the preservation of open space and history.

The master plan shows two office buildings in front of Union Station, dominating the visual gateway and open space at the 16th Street and 18th Street corners on Wynkoop Street. The buildings are not necessary and leave just two small public courtyards.

The Open Space Initiative Group plan has an unobstructed large open space with an array of public uses and civic activities. The trade-off is to move the commercial office space contained in the two buildings (150,000 square feet) from the corner sites to two taller structures just behind the plaza. This preserves the historical views to and from the station and creates the grand urban square without loss of vital rental income.

The public is unaware that historic values and the “grand urban square” future will be lost forever if the two 65-foot-high buildings are built in the plaza. They will block views of and from the station and will destroy historic settings. What other city in America can have a great urban public space that’s part of an operating, monumental, historic train station and hub of a major transit system in the urban heart of a fast-growing metropolitan region and in the original station setting in the historic district where the city was founded? The answer: surprisingly, none.

Denver’s opportunity for a grand urban square is unique. The plaza along Wynkoop Street is a parking lot now, but it can be an unmatched people place with temporary and permanent exhibits and art, concerts, restaurants, festivals, farmer’s markets, educational features and events, celebrations, a fountain, two amphitheaters, ice skating and underground parking. Many citizens, civic leaders and major environmental, preservation and railroad groups are supportive of the group’s vision. There is still time to redirect the planning.

The Open Space Initiative Group has offered an alternative open-space plan for comparison and is asking the public to express its preference: Should the city sell off our open space for commercial development or retain it for a grand urban square? Please visit our Web site: denverunionstationsquare.com.

Stuart Ohlson is a member of the American Institute of Architects and is the retired principal of Ohlson-Lavoie Architecture. Albert “Bert” Melcher is a civil engineer and former chairman of the RTD board of directors.

Subscribe to the Rocky Mountain News

Full article here: Not to worry, Mr. and Mrs. Taxpayer — the Ski Train, the railyard and the grand old station are not on the auction block to help fund the proposed huge Regional Transportation Hub and the “Transit Village” at Denver Union Station.

However, the city and county of Denver, together with the Regional Transportation District, the Denver Regional Council of Governments and the Colorado Department of Transportation, are poised to sell part of the Denver Union Station front yard for two 65-foot-high office buildings at the gateway corner sites on 16th and 18th streets.

Would commercial development of this 127-year-old public open space fronting the historic Union Station really benefit the civic values and long-term image of our city? Should we exploit this plaza in spite of ever shrinking usable open space in our downtown environment? The Open Space Initiative Group — prominent senior planners, architects and landscape architects, preservationists and financial consultants — believes otherwise.

Group members were involved in the Union Station process since 2002 but separated as a new group with new members in 2007 to advocate for an open plaza and alternative designs. It focuses on these plaza issues:

Should prime property owned by the public be sold for private development? Should civic and historic values be sacrificed for private profit? Should a Grand Urban Square give way to an office-building complex? Should the public have a choice of alternative plans for choosing the best future?

The group believes these questions have not been properly examined by any of the public agencies purportedly representing the real owner — the private citizen and taxpayer — and it has raised more than $16,000 to create an alternative plan showing public use of the property around the historic Union Station. The group’s report of December 2008 is titled The Grand Urban Square, Denver Union Station.

The Open Space Initiative Group envisions a setting that reflects the station’s history and recalls its traditional open space and human interaction— and, with a carefully landscaped new urban square, a setting that would allow the public to reclaim the use and ownership of this historic site.

The difference between the group’s plan and the current master plan is simply the preservation of open space and history.

The master plan shows two office buildings in front of Union Station, dominating the visual gateway and open space at the 16th Street and 18th Street corners on Wynkoop Street. The buildings are not necessary and leave just two small public courtyards.

The Open Space Initiative Group plan has an unobstructed large open space with an array of public uses and civic activities. The trade-off is to move the commercial office space contained in the two buildings (150,000 square feet) from the corner sites to two taller structures just behind the plaza. This preserves the historical views to and from the station and creates the grand urban square without loss of vital rental income.

The public is unaware that historic values and the “grand urban square” future will be lost forever if the two 65-foot-high buildings are built in the plaza. They will block views of and from the station and will destroy historic settings. What other city in America can have a great urban public space that’s part of an operating, monumental, historic train station and hub of a major transit system in the urban heart of a fast-growing metropolitan region and in the original station setting in the historic district where the city was founded? The answer: surprisingly, none.

Denver’s opportunity for a grand urban square is unique. The plaza along Wynkoop Street is a parking lot now, but it can be an unmatched people place with temporary and permanent exhibits and art, concerts, restaurants, festivals, farmer’s markets, educational features and events, celebrations, a fountain, two amphitheaters, ice skating and underground parking. Many citizens, civic leaders and major environmental, preservation and railroad groups are supportive of the group’s vision. There is still time to redirect the planning.

The Open Space Initiative Group has offered an alternative open-space plan for comparison and is asking the public to express its preference: Should the city sell off our open space for commercial development or retain it for a grand urban square? Please visit our Web site: denverunionstationsquare.com.

Stuart Ohlson is a member of the American Institute of Architects and is the retired principal of Ohlson-Lavoie Architecture. Albert “Bert” Melcher is a civil engineer and former chairman of the RTD board of directors.

Subscribe to the Rocky Mountain News

Terrific Article about Reinhold Messner

“Having scaled most of the world’s greatest peaks, Reinhold Messner is building a unique range of museum experiences in his Dolomite homeland. Adrian Bridge heads to South Tyrol to meet him … and his yaks.” Daily Telegraph article here.

Climate Change Bad for skiing

Aspen Times article here.

Heavy Metal Weekend in Vail Jan. 18-20

From Town of Vail Information ServicesMore than 30 artists from across the country will come to Vail next week to cast iron and bronze at a free public outdoor event. The Town of Vail Art in Public Places (AIPP) and the Vail Symposium are sponsoring the “Heavy Metal Weekend” from 5 to 9 p.m. Jan. 18-20 at the International Bridge, bringing the 5,000-year-old industrial process out of the foundry and onto the streets of Vail.

According to AIPP Coordinator Leslie Fordham, the performances will take place after dark to take advantage of the spectacular visual impact of the process. Artists will dress in fire-safe clothing and load bronze and scrap iron into two iron-melting furnaces called cupolas. Temperatures within the cupolas will reach up to 3,000 degrees. Once molten, the fluid is poured into molds created by visiting and local artists. “The fire-resistant suits will make the artists look like invaders from outer space,” said Fordham. “The effect, combined with the flames and liquid metal, will make the event fun to watch for all ages.”

The idea for Vail’s iron casting performance came from artist Mark Guilbeau of SPH ArtFunctions and University of Colorado sculpture professor Rian Kerrane, who describe the event as “more exciting than an erupting volcano.” In addition to entertaining and educating the public on the casting process, the two consider the event a unique opportunity for artists to learn from each other. While iron casting performances have taken place all over Colorado, this will be the largest gathering of artists and art students at one event.

In addition to the metal casting performances, an artists’ reception, free and open to the public, will take place from 6 to 8 p.m. Jan. 18 at the Bistro in the Marketplace on Meadow Drive, located in the new One Willow Bridge Road building. Also, George Beasley, a senior member of the team of artists, will give a free public lecture on process-oriented art from 4 to 5 p.m. Jan. 20 in the Sonnenalp Hotel library.

For more information, contact Fordham at 479-2344 or visit www.artinvail.com

Filmmaker Michael Brown in Vail January 31

Celebrated adventure filmmaker Michael Brown will speak as past of Vail Symposium’s Unlimited Adventure Series at Donovan Pavilion. January 31, 2008 at 6:00 p.m. This event is free and open to the public. For more information, please visit Vail Symposium.

Wilderness Workshop sues Forest Service over Roadless Area Violation

From the Aspen Daily News

Sarah Gilman – Aspen Daily News Staff Writer

Tue 01/08/2008 11:00PM
Project would cut through roadless areas outside C’dale

The Carbondale-based Wilderness Workshop plans to sue the U.S. Forest Service for giving the green light to a massive natural gas pipeline that will cut through roadless lands northwest of Carbondale.

The environmental nonprofit contends that the Bull Mountain pipeline project is a stark violation of the recently reinstated 2001 Roadless Rule, which bars road construction on more than 50 million acres of roadless National Forest lands, because it will necessitate a 100-foot-wide cleared “construction corridor” for heavy truck and equipment traffic, as well as wider staging areas and pullouts, across eight miles in three designated roadless areas.

“They’re trying to say what looks like a road, smells like a road, and acts like a road is not a road,” said Wilderness Workshop Director Sloan Shoemaker. “We’re going to call bull on that and go to court.”

The Wilderness Workshop, joined by a cadre of Western Slope environmental groups including Western Colorado Congress, Western Slope Environmental Resource Council, and the High Country Citizens’ Alliance, announced its intention to sue Tuesday after the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service issued their final record of decision approving the proposed Bull Mountain pipeline route and authorizing energy companies to begin construction across 25.5 miles of BLM and National Forest land as soon as this summer.

The Forest Service argues the construction corridor is not a road because even temporary roads require design, grading and drainage structures.

“The BLM and the Forest Service agree that the selected alternative is the most appropriate course of action because it … disturbs the fewest acres; it installs the fewest miles of pipeline; and it involves the fewest miles of road construction,” the agencies stated in a joint press release. The route “also minimizes the negative effects to soils, wetlands, road corridors, and it meets the visual quality and air quality objectives for the area.”

The proposed pipeline, which would serve the energy companies S.G. Interests and Gunnison Energy, would be 20 inches in diameter and follow an existing buried gas line through the roadless lands. The final, revegetated corridor would be about 50 feet wide, with obstructing trees and boulders to keep motorized vehicles out.

“I’m very glad (the federal agencies) have finally issued the decision,” said Gunnison Energy President Brad Robinson. “There are literally tens of thousands of acres of leases that we could not develop without this pipeline.”

Robinson said that the companies have no intention of running roughshod over the landscape.

“We have a tremendous responsibility to have as little impact as we can,” he said, noting that the companies will work closely with both federal and local officials.

Robinson disagreed with environmental groups’ interpretation of the Clinton-era Roadless Rule. The law clearly “intended all along to allow the construction of pipelines (through some roadless areas),” he argued.

The companies hope to begin construction on the pipeline – which could eventually feed about 400 million cubic feet of natural gas per day into the national grid – by this summer, pending approval of county permits.

That means the environmental groups will file their case in the Federal District Court of Colorado “as soon as possible” in hopes of keeping the project from moving forward, said the groups’ attorney, Robin Cooley of Earthjustice.

But the roadless issue is not the only concern groups will tackle in the lawsuit, Wilderness Workshop’s Shoemaker said.

“The White River and the Grand Mesa-Uncompahgre (national forests) are continuing to approve oil and gas activity citing the authority of Environmental Impact Statements done in 1993,” he said. “They never anticipated the scope of gas development (happening now). The agencies are essentially flying blind and approving activity without fully analyzing its environmental impacts.”

The pipeline would open the landscape above it to hundreds of new wells, he said. “What’s going to happen upstream? They’ve really ignored that question.”

VRI Goes Organic

From Colorado Biz Magazine
By Allen BestWhen Vail Resorts does something, it usually does it big, and so it goes for its latest move to serve organic and natural foods at its restaurants.

A recap: The expansion of Vail Mountain in 1999 and 2000 was the largest in North American ski history, in one fell swoop larger than Aspen.

In 2006, harkening to the new concerns about global warming, it bought renewable energy credits for wind that will be sufficient to meet the electrical needs at its five ski areas and also its RockResorts-branded lodging properties. It was, at the time, the second largest corporate purchase ever of wind energy credits.

This spring, it announced plans for a $1 billion real-estate development, called Ever Vail, which is to be the first proposed project under the new LEED neighborhood program. LEED is a program sponsored by the U.S. Green Building Council for certifying “green” building practices.

The latest big play was into the world of organic foods. The company announced last fall that it was partnering with Coleman Natural Meats and WhiteWave Foods Co., the maker of Silk soy products, and would use Horizon dairy products made by White Wave parent Dean Foods Co. Vail officials said nearly 90 percent of fresh meats and dairy products will be organic for this coming season, with the goal of making it 100 percent thereafter.

With this move, Vail says it believes it will serve more meals made with natural meats and certified organic products each year than any other restaurant operator in North America. The company has 40 on-mountain venues at its five ski areas, and those restaurants serve more than 2.5 million lunches each ski season.

Of the five ski areas, Heavenly is in California, and the others — Vail, Beaver Creek, Keystone and Breckenridge — are in Colorado.

As he did in 2006 when announcing the purchase of renewable energy certificates, Rob Katz, the chief executive officer of Vail Resorts, portrayed this as an environmental initiative. “Our product is really the outdoors; that’s really what we sell,” he said.

Also as he did last year, Katz spoke repeatedly of “doing the right thing.”

He also acknowledged that many of Vail’s customers already purchase organic food products.

No price increases are planned this year, except for the normal 5 percent for food products, he said.

For Coleman Natural Foods, the partnership was a natural one, said John Bogert, chief marketing officer. The company’s core market are consumers aged 25 to 45, and families with more than $75,000 household income. “That makes this a perfect fit with Vail,” he said.

Coleman meats are free from antibiotics, added hormones, artificial ingredients and preservatives, as well as animal byproducts, but the animals are not necessarily fed grass and other vegetable matter that is organic.

The organic market has been booming, with a growth of nearly 21 percent last year, reports the Organic Trade Association. But there’s more growth potential in the meat sector. “Only 3 percent of all protein today is natural and/or organic,” he said.

From Coleman’s perspective, Vail will also be a good fit because it will sell the idea of natural meat. “We won’t just put the product out there. They’ll also help explain the benefits,” Bogert said.

Bogert also noted that while organic products have become pervasive in grocery stores, they remain less available, even obscure, in restaurants. “Take the top 50 restaurants in the country that serve all-natural products, and it’s a pretty short list,” he said, able only to name Chipotle, the Mexican food purveyor.

In addition to the ski areas, Coleman Natural will also supply meats and poultry to the lodging properties operated by Vail resorts in Wyoming’s Jackson Hole.

For the ordinary grocery shopper, the bulk purchases of meat and dairy products this winter look astounding: 18,000 pounds of bacon, for example, 180,000 pounds of hamburger, and 137,000 pounds of cheese.

To help brand the organic foods, Vail Resorts has a new logo, which looks something like the yin-yang symbol of Chinese culture. It’s circular, like a plate, but green, and a swirl through it that Katz joked is meant to resemble “the path.” The brand is called Appetite for Life.

The Vail Resorts story is also very localized. The corporation is now based in the Denver-Boulder area, as are Coleman and WhiteWave.

In addition, Coleman Natural is owned by Booth Creek Management, which is controlled largely by the family of George Gillett, who once owned Vail and Beaver Creek and now operates a variety of other ski areas.

I-70 Relief likely to include train service

From Colorado Biz Magazine
By Kyle RingoYears of study, bickering and efforts to build consensus should finally produce a long-term vision in 2008 of what Coloradans can expect for improvements to the sometimes snarled Interstate 70 corridor. It’s looking like rail service could be part of the equation.

Russell George, executive director of the Colorado Department of Transportation, told 25 members of the I-70 collaborative-effort team formed last fall that he would like them to come to an agreement on a proposal for the corridor by May. During a late-November meeting with members, he pledged CDOT will support their recommendations and gave each member a signed letter stating so.

“He said we’ve got everybody here. We’ve got the points of view represented. So when you come up with a decision, that’s what we’re going to go with,” said Jon Esty, president of the Colorado Rail Passenger Association. “We’d be fools not to. He said the real problem would be if you didn’t come to a decision or if you couldn’t come to a compromise.”

Reaching an agreement has long proved difficult and still could be in the coming months, but some of those involved say they feel more optimistic about the process now. The feeling can be partly explained by a sea change that occurred when Gov. Bill Ritter took office a year ago and removed some of the restrictions hovering over any proposed improvements.

In the past under former Gov. Bill Owens’ administration, the state’s funding criteria capped construction costs along the corridor at $4 billion and eliminated futuristic rail possibilities such as monorail. The new approach takes a deeper view of the problems that cause congestion on busy ski weekends in the winter and spring months and similar problems experienced by hikers and campers and fishermen in the summer.

Simply widening the highway between Golden and the Eagle Valley Airport would address the problem over the next two decades, or nearly as long as the project would likely take to complete. At the end, some say similar problems would still exist because the state’s population is expected to grow, with much of the growth coming along the Front Range and I-70 corridor.

Previous ideas for rail service along the corridor met resistance because the technology was unproven on terrain such as that found in the mountains west of Denver. The expense also made many cringe. Recent research has found trains in use in similar areas in Europe that could be easily adapted for use in Colorado. The Swiss Stadler train used in the Alps could shuttle hundreds of commuters and skiers back and forth between the mountains and Denver quickly. The Fast Light Innovative Regional Train, or FLIRT, can travel at 100 mph on less than 5 percent grades and 65 mph on the 7 percent grades seen on some stretches of the I-70 corridor.
“It can be powered to take the grades that are present along the I-70 alignment,” Esty said.

While a train is now a much more viable option that it was just a few years ago, Esty said he doesn’t know if trains are the answer to I-70 congestion because of the expense involved. In 2001, the Colorado Rail Passenger Association that Esty heads held a seminar for its members in which it examined all the different possibilities for addressing traffic problems in and out of the central Colorado mountains.

“We had kind of a vote after all these people had given their opinions, and all these people who support rail — that’s why they’re members of this organization — said they thought the bus alternative was the best one,” Esty said.

The cost and environmental impact of construction seemed to be what concerned most of those involved, he said.

The trains would run on electricity just like the light rail in Denver. Where the power would come from remains up in the air. Literally, maybe. Bert Melcher, a Sierra Club representative for the I-70 collaborative effort, envisions wind farms on the eastern plains powering trains that run from Denver International Airport up the corridor, although the study area does not include anything east of Golden. Melcher concedes there may be a need for a power source located in the mountains, which would likely be unpopular with those who live along the corridor west of Denver.

Some wonder whether those who support using trains because of environmental concerns might be shooting themselves in the foot because rail transportation would make it easier for people to travel and increase the sprawl effect environmentalists detest.

Melcher said it would be wrong for the state to spend billions on highway widening alone if doing so won’t fix the bumper-to-bumper problems. He said the wise approach is to look at solutions that can make an impact on traffic problems for 50 or 60 years instead of those that address the issue for a decade or two. He said that is the new approach the coalition seems to be headed toward with new leadership at CDOT.

“I think if you look at the next four or five decades, some combination of rail and highway is the only thing that makes sense,” he said. “It’s immoral to spend that much money on just highway expansion and never really solve the problem.”

The governor’s blue ribbon panel seeking the best funding sources for I-70 improvements was supposed to release its suggestions in late December. The expected approach is a plan for issuing bonds similar to what funded the T-Rex expansion of I-25 through south Denver.

If Russell George receives a decision by May from the I-70 coalition trying to find consensus for a transportation alternative to wider highways, it will be well-timed with the long-awaited draft preliminary environmental impact statement that should be done some time next summer. The statement must undergo a year-long review, but the pieces could fall into place, giving voters a decision to make in 2010.

That might be too optimistic because of the threat of litigation, according to I-70 coalition chairman and Frisco Town Manager Michael Penny. “We still have a long way to go and a lot of work to do,” Penny said. “We could still be decades away.”

One possible plaintiff in such a lawsuit could be the town of Idaho Springs, which opposes expanding the highway because there is no room left in the bottleneck at the bottom of the west side of Floyd Hill for expansion without further cutting into private property and other areas such as the high school football field.

Even if all of the communities, private land owners, departments of government and environmentalists climbed aboard one option now, agreed on the funding and cleared all the political hurdles in their way, the trains wouldn’t start shuttling skiers, hikers and bicyclists into the mountains and workers into the city for at least five years and maybe more.
Colorado already has a ski train, and it’s a popular alternative to fighting the crowds on I-70. The problem is it only serves the Winter Park resort.

The current ski train was started in 1940 when skiers began hopping rides to the slopes on the Yampa Valley mail train that ran between Denver and Steamboat Springs. The Ansco Investment Co. purchased the operation in 1988 and now makes 45 trips during the winter with 14 cars capable of carrying 750 people.

Ski Train spokesman Jim Bain said the train never has made money in its previous 67 years of service, in part because of high insurance expenses and the cost of using the rails owned by Union Pacific. Bain said most trips are 85 to 90 percent filled.

The train departs Denver early in the morning on Saturdays and Sundays from late-December through March 30 and travels on flat stretches at 50 mph before the mountain climb brings speeds down to around 30 mph. Service on Fridays is added Feb. 1, and Thursday trips begin March 6. The trip costs between $44 and $74.

Count Bain among the skeptics who question whether rail service is genuinely needed along the I-70 corridor. He is the first to acknowledge congestion exists at peak times in the early mornings headed west and in the evenings, particularly Sundays, heading east. But he’s not convinced those problems can’t be solved in other ways, such as encouraging ski resorts to offer deals and promotions to lure skiers to the slopes during the week and not just on weekends.

Bain also correctly points out that a train along the I-70 corridor will serve only three ski resorts conveniently: Loveland, Vail and Copper Mountain. Skiers and travelers wishing to visit other destinations will still require cars or buses to get to places such as Breckenridge, Keystone and Aspen.

“The reality is that it will be very expensive, and we all pay for it in the end,” he said. “I know there is a problem on some ski weekends at certain hours in the morning and certain hours in the evening, and there is a similar problem at times in the summer months. But you can drive up there at most times and never go below 70.”

Bill Jensen Moving to Intrawest

Would the last person at Vail Resorts who actually knows how to run a ski mountain please raise your hand? We’ll miss you, Bill! – VJ

Tuesday, January 8, 2008 – 3:40 PM MST

Vail Resorts exec moves to Intrawest

Denver Business Journal – by Mark Harden Denver Business Journal

An executive of Vail Resorts, operator of several of Colorado’s largest ski resorts, is leaving to lead its main rival, Intrawest, the two companies announced Tuesday.

Bill Jensen, who has been president of Vail Resorts’ mountain division and chief operating officer of Vail Mountain ski area, will leave Jan. 31 to become chief executive officer of Vancouver, British Columbia-based Intrawest. He assumes his new duties June 30.

Privately held Intrawest owns the Steamboat and Copper Mountain ski resorts and operates the Winter Park ski area. It also operates Canada’s Whistler Blackcomb resort, a principal venue for the 2010 Winter OIympics.

Vail Resorts operates Vail Mountain, Beaver Creek, Breckenridge and Keystone ski resorts.

Intrawest in 2007 completed its $239 million purchase of Steamboat, raising its profile as a Colorado rival to Vail Resorts.

In a statement unusual in its lavish praise for a subordinate jumping to a competitor, Rob Katz, CEO of Vail Resorts, called Jensen “a true leader within both the Vail community and the U.S. ski industry” who has “contributed greatly to the success of Vail Mountain.”

Katz said Jensen “will be missed by everyone at our company for both his contributions and experience. At the same time, we understand Bill’s decision to take on a new role with completely new responsibilities.

“When your company is the clear leader, consistently embodying excellence, it is the ultimate compliment for other companies to be interested in your people.”

Jensen had been with Vail Resorts since 1997, and previously was president of Fibreboard Resort Group, operator of several California ski areas.

He is the current chairman of the National Ski Areas Association.

Jensen remain Vail Resorts’ top official in the Vail area after the company moved its headquarters from the mountains to the Denver area. He has been active in local charities.

“I have the unique opportunity to join a company with a dynamic culture, leading market share and tremendous momentum,” Jensen said in a statement released by Intrawest.

Broomfield-based Vail Resorts (NYSE: MTN) announced Tuesday it will promote two executives to oversee the company’s mountain division in place of Jensen: John Garnsey, senior vice president and chief operating officer of Beaver Creek, and Blaise Carrig, senior vice president and chief operating officer of Heavenly Mountain resort at Lake Tahoe in Nevada and California.

Both Garnsey and Carrig have been promoted to executive vice president of the mountain division. Both will retain their COO roles at their respective resorts.

Garnsey will also directly oversee Vail Mountain and Carrig will have direct oversight for both Breckenridge and Keystone.

Vail Resorts also named Chris Jarnot as the new COO of Vail Mountain. He had been senior vice president of marketing and sales for the entire company.

Katz said he would fill Jarnot’s marketing/sales function until a successor is found.

At Intrawest, Jensen will replace Alex Wasilov, who has been CEO for 15 months. Wasilov will return to the company’s board of directors.

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