Aspen Skiing Co. had provided most of the capital investment for the system, which was generating 3 megawatts of baseload power. But things didn’t turn out exactly as Caskey and the rest of the project partners had hoped,

Author Archives: Sarah Tory
Sarah Tory is a freelance journalist based in Carbondale, CO, whose work focuses on the environment, migration, and rural communities. Her writing has been published by The Atlantic, Guernica, Hakai, High Country News, Mother Jones, 5280, and others.
Dealing with methane escaping from Coal Basin’s shuttered mines sparks debate
The biggest hurdle proponents of the Coal Basin methane project might face may not be the layers of bureaucracy they will have to navigate, but convincing Redstone residents that doing something is better than doing nothing.
In Coal Basin, a hidden source of climate pollution
A coalition is pushing land managers to deal with the methane leaks by authorizing a project to capture the methane and either use it somehow or destroy it. To do that, they’ll have to surmount a host of bureaucratic challenges.
How a high-elevation irrigation study in Kremmling could help Colorado avoid future water shortages
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.
Efforts to relocate an ancient wetland could help determine the fate of a water project on lower Homestake Creek
The utilities, working together as Homestake Partners, are looking at building the reservoir in the Homestake Creek valley, south of Minturn, in an area that probably contains fens, which could hinder the project.
Water managers seek certainty in Colorado Basin
More demands, and less water, leave water managers searching for solutions.
Money for water: A pilot project wins over skeptical farmers and ranchers
A pilot program that pays ranchers to fallow fields and let their water run downstream toward Lake Powell proves popular, but raises some tricky issues yet to be resolved.