Mountain Town News: Heat, dust, and hydrogen
Heat, dust causes earlier runoff
CRESTED BUTTE, Colo. – Jim Schmidt has been in Crested Butte since 1976, and he says that in the last 15 years or so, there has been a clear difference in the weather.
It’s warmer in winter, with fewer of the 30-below temperatures. But the sharper difference is in the shoulder seasons, spring and fall. There’s more rain and less snow. And if the snow arrives, it melts.
“It was 69 degrees here yesterday,” he said one day last week, as the East River ran full of runoff.
Partly because of warm weather, the river volume during April was third highest in 92 years of records. Frank Kugel, director of the Upper Gunnison River Water Conservancy District, tells the Crested Butte News that the inflow to Blue Mesa Reservoir was 167 percent of average during April.
But there’s something else going on. Dust storms have been blowing in. Bill Trampe, a local rancher between Crested Butte and Gunnison, tells Mountain Town News that spring dust storms always occurred, but he believes that they have become more intense in recent years.
“It was bad, real bad,” said John McClow, an attorney for the water district after a storm in late April.
Schmidt said the snowpack around Crested Butte has turned salmon colored. He also remembers skiing on dusty snow 20 to 25 years ago. “It was like skiing on sandpaper,” he says.
“But I only remember that happening once, and that was made in the first 15 years (I was here). Now it seems to be happening almost every year that we’re getting a fair amount of dust.”
Scientific investigations during the past decade focused in the San Juan Mountains between Telluride and Silverton have concluded that the dust causes the melting of the snow to accelerate. Also, because of the accelerated melting, more of the water is lost to evaporation through a process called sublimation.
The dust comes primarily from deserts of the Southwest, and the evidence suggests this is due to the activities of humans.
Hydrogen story differs here
TRUCKEE, Calif. – California is eagerly putting in the pieces of a hydrogen highway. But in British Columbia, at least in Whistler, the hydrogen experiment has not worked out so well.
The California Energy Commission has announced it will invest $46.6 million to accelerate the development of public hydrogen fueling stations throughout California. The goal is to promote a consumer market for zero-emission fuel-cell vehicles, which could be widely available as early as next year, notes the Sacramento Bee.
Although most of the stations will be in Southern California or in the Bay Area, a few locations will be more inland. One of them is at Truckee,
Hydrogen-fueled buses were a large part of the fanfare about the 2010 Winter Olympics. But the investment of nearly $90 million in Whistler buses has been yanked.
Pique in Whistler reports that the decision comes as no surprise. “The understanding was always that it was just a way of showcasing British Columbia technology,” writes editor Clare Ogilvie.
For a province intent on battling greenhouse gases, she notes, there was a good argument for focusing on transportation. In 2011, passenger vehicles were responsible for 51 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions in Whistler. That compares with 28 percent for transportation in Canada, according to the Suzuki Foundation.
The hydrogen for the buses in Whistler was created by hydropower in Quebec then hauled across Canada by truck. Even so, it was a net gain for greenhouse gas reduction.
But the buses struggled in cold months. Water in the fuel cells froze and prevented the buses from starting or running efficiently.
Ogilvie contends that a better investment would have been in diesel/gas-electric hybrids. Greenhouse gas emissions would have been cut 40 percent, and the buses would still be in use today.
Monsanto $$ for Ideas Festival
ASPEN, Colo. – In organizing conferences, where do you draw the line in lining up sponsors?
That’s the question being asked in Aspen, where the Aspen Institute is selling tickets for the annual 10-day talkathon called the Ideas Festival.
The festival in late June and early July has everybody from Al Gore to Tony Blair to Newt Gingrich, to pick three politicians out of the speakers’ hat, as well as columnists for the New York Times, Katie Couric, chief executives, and scores of others who will talk about health care, global dynamics, and creativity, among other topics.
“We’ll have writers and musicians and architects, but also mathematicians and neuroscientists and cognitive psychologists talking about this whole notion of the creative enterprise,” said Kitty Boone, vice president of public programs.
The Aspen Daily News points out that Monsanto is among the sponsors, The company has been controversial due to its history as a developer of Agent Orange, DDT, and genetically modified crops.
The Aspen Institute takes the position that “corporations are incredibly important to American society, and we owe them the opportunity to explain themselves,” according to Boone.
She also notes that the Environmental Defense Fund is a sponsor this year, as is the Gates Foundation, and Mount Sinai Hospital, among others.
Teton lake yields new species
JACKSON, Wyo. – There is something new under the Teton sun. A nurse from Jackson Hole, backpacking in the Grand Teton National Park last summer, took a water sample from a lake at 9,800 feet that contained a previously unidentified species of diatom.
A diatom is a type of single-celled phytoplankton that photosynthesizes but isn’t quite a plant. The new species is called Muelleria tetonensis, and you need a microscope to identify the “larger valves and lower stria density” that distinguishes it from a Muelleria gibbula.
The Jackson Hole News&Guide says the nurse, Beverly Boynton, doubles as a citizen scientist. Worldwide, an average of nearly three new types of diatoms are discovered each day.
Food festival a hit in Canmore
CANMORE, Alberta – The first food and wine festival in Canmore has come and gone – and there will be a successor More than 1,000 tickets were sold for events such as progressive dinners and a craft beer festival. Organizers tell the Rocky Mountain Outlook that 55 percent of those attending were locals and 34 percent came from Calgary.
This fits in with Alberta’s provincial policy of growing tourism from a $7.8 billion industry to one with $10.3 billion in revenues annually by 2020.
Banff hoteliers oppose changes
BANFF, ALBERTA – Banff’s hoteliers have joined a group of downtown retailers voicing opposition to paid parking.
The town of 8,200 residents swells to 25,000 in busy summer months, forcing RVs, buses and cars to fight for limited parking spaces. The municipality is considering paid parking as a way to increase turnover of vehicles in parking spaces in the downtown core. In doing so, it would reduce traffic congestion caused by vehicles driving around in circles looking for parking spots.
But Darren Reeder, director of the Banff Lake Louise Hotel Motel Association, said the congestion is largely a function of driving habits of the local residents and workers. His organization urges a shift to alternate modes of transportation.
