The Roundup | Rare earth elements, an Upper Basin negotiating breakthrough and a school district’s transgender name change debate

This week in The Roundup, Heather Sackett and Eleanor Bennett help us understand emerging environmental and social factors shaping our community, while Laurine Lassalle continues to improve our new-this-winter Roaring Fork basin snowpack monitoring feature, which now includes an interactive map visualizing real-time readings from SNOTEL sites ringing the watershed. Read on below to get caught up on all the in-depth and investigative work recently produced by the Aspen Journalism newsroom.

Some worry that state law’s intention to protect transgender students may backfire in Garfield County

On the social justice desk, Eleanor Bennett dives into House Bill 1039, which requires public schools to implement a written policy for how they will honor a student’s request to use a gender-affirming name at school. The bill does not say what the policy should be, but requires one be in place — refusing to do so is now considered discrimination. In response to HB1039, Garfield Re-2 School District is considering requiring its staff to notify parents if a student requests to use a chosen name at school that differs from their legal name and reflects their gender identity — a move that some community members support, while others worry it could further isolate transgender kids, and even put them at risk. 

Upper Basin’s permanent water savings offer is a sign of “optimism” for some, while others remain concerned about Western Slope protections

Upper Basin officials have submitted refinements to their March 2024 plan for how water should be released from Lake Powell and Lake Mead, and how shortages should be shared, after the current guidelines expire in 2026. In it, they offer up the potential for up to 200,000 acre-feet per year of water conservation in river basins above Lake Powell. The watchwords for these types of conservation programs have always been “temporary, voluntary and compensated.” But in the face of a hotter, drier future with less water to go around, officials are acknowledging the inevitability of a more permanent Upper Basin water-conservation program. While some see this proposal, which breaks through a negotiation deadlock between the lower and upper basin states, as “optimistic,” not all agree. Now that the Upper Basin seems poised for more permanent and robust conservation, the Glenwood Springs-based Colorado River District is reasserting the need for rules that protect the Western Slope. One of the River District’s fears is that Front Range cities — which have junior water rights from the Colorado River and have deep pockets — in a version of “buy and dry” could pay for water conservation in Western Slope agriculture and store the water in Lake Powell to protect themselves from future mandatory cutbacks.

Rare earth elements found in Lincoln Creek showing how much is unknown

As a workgroup of local officials and scientific experts continues to explore what is flowing down Lincoln Creek, new information emerges: Rare earth elements have been confirmed in the waterway. Scientists from the University of Colorado Boulder presented the preliminary results from water-quality sampling on Lincoln Creek last summer at a public meeting hosted by the Roaring Fork Conservancy. The health implications of rare earth minerals are little known for humans but could be promising for mineral extraction. “You get a phone’s worth of neodymium coming down the mineralized tributary about every 5½ minutes,” said Adam Odorisio, a graduate student and researcher at CU’s environmental engineering department. “This translates to 96,000 phones per year.” In addition to the potential for mining valuable rare earth metals, scientists are eager to learn more about their impacts to human health and aquatic environments. There are no state or federal water quality standards for rare earth elements. Lincoln Creek is one of hundreds of acid mine sites in Colorado, and was “in the middle of the pack” when it comes to concentrations of rare earth minerals compared to other sites around the state.

Roaring Fork basin snowpack levels vary but drop below average overall

If it wasn’t for that epic Thanksgiving-week snowstorm, Roaring Fork basin snowpack would be in very rough shape, with December and January delivering just two-thirds of the average amount of snow-water equivalent. As it stands on the afternoon of Feb. 4, temperatures that are around 20 degrees above normal are not helping the cause and basin-wide snowpack is below average. Laurine Lassalle’s new-this-winter real-time snowpack tracker now includes an interactive map showing readings from SNOTEL sites ringing the watershed, which highlights the inconsistency of this winter’s snowpack. Some sites — such as Nast Lake and Ivanhoe up the Fryingpan — have above average accumulations. Meanwhile, what is typically the snowiest monitoring site up Schofield Pass has fallen off the honor roll with snowpack below 77%. Check the map daily for updates while individual site readings continue to display in real time.

Thank you, as always, for reading and supporting the valley’s only nonprofit, investigative news origination.

– Curtis Wackerle
Editor and Executive Director
Aspen Journalism

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