Aspen Journalism (https://www.aspenjournalism.org/)
According to the legislation, money raised from Prop DD could go toward an agricultural water-use reduction program, known as demand management, that doesn’t yet exist.
Under last week’s settlement, the Bureau of Land Management must revamp the plan to adequately consider the climate impacts of increased greenhouse-gas emissions from transport and consumption of oil and gas. It must also consider land-management alternatives that would meaningfully limit drilling.
The historic drought late in the summer of 2018 illustrated some long-acknowledged problems with water rights on the Crystal.
The Lake Christine wildfire last summer not only destroyed three homes and torched thousands of acres of forest, it also came dangerously close to taking down poles holding the full loop of power lines in Basalt.
The object of multiple dives between October 1910 and January 1911 into the debris-clogged mine was to rebuild the pump at the bottom of the Free Silver shaft on the 12th level.
“As the past becomes less of a good guide to the future, we really need to know in greater precision and accuracy what the current state of the snowpack is,” Deems said.
Will Toor, executive director of the Colorado Energy Office, said the three top contributors to greenhouse gas emissions are electricity generation, transportation and buildings. As electricity gets cleaner, he said the focus will shift to transportation and buildings.
Water managers want to ensure that a demand-management program would spread the burden across different user groups and basins in the name of fairness. But that conflicts with the requirement that participation in any program be voluntary.
By replacing the meters, the city estimates it would save about 50 acre-feet of water per year.
The summer of 2018’s historic drought illustrated a vulnerability in Carbondale’s water supply that surprised local officials.