Aspen Journalism (https://www.aspenjournalism.org/)
Recent changes to Pitkin County’s land-use and energy codes hold new and renovated residential buildings to strict efficiency standards that officials say will significantly reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.
Aspen locals in 1930 welcomed the work on a big dam-and-tunnel project on Independence Pass, but the community grew to miss the water in the river.
The current forecast from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Colorado River Basin Forecast Center estimates as of May 11 that there is 146,000 acre-feet of water — in the form of snowmelt — that will flow into Dillon Reservoir through July 31.
Wildland firefighters across the country are working together to share information and best practices, mostly through a website called Wildland Fire Lessons Learned.
Every summer, the White River National Forest brings on more than 100 seasonal employees. Many of them live in tight quarters and bunkhouses, but not this year.
But due to concerns about the economic crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, River District officials are still mulling whether to push ahead with a plan to ask voters to restore part of its original mill levy.
Sue Anschutz-Rodgers, the owner of Crystal River Ranch above Carbondale, has told the state she is making progress toward building two 55-foot-tall dams that would form two 500-acre-foot reservoirs on land she owns in the Four Mile Creek basin and along Dry Park Road.
If built, the project would enable Front Range water managers to repeatedly reuse water diverted from the Colorado River, something Western Slope water managers have long encouraged and see as a welcome shift.
Colorado State University researchers led by Dr. Perry Cabot, a water-resources specialist, will use remote sensing to determine how much water plants consume on the ranchers’ pastures and how much they save by not irrigating on select fields.
