Recently at Aspen Journalism, our Water Desk broke down how a state water savings plan focused on individual actions fits into the bigger picture, and our Data Desk shared an update on how local school enrollment numbers are looking, two years into the pandemic.
Our reporting on water and COVID-19 has also been featured on Aspen Public Radio’s airwaves in the last week.
Heads up that later this week, we will be publishing an investigation into a lack of transparency into irrigation ditch inventories paid for with public dollars, with a new newsletter focused specifically on the Water Desk set to debut soon thereafter.
Stay tuned to our newsfeed for all that and more, and check out The Bucket at the bottom of this email for a selection of the news of note we’ve been reading in the last week. In particular, we were drawn to an editorial from the Crested Butte News taking a hard look at how the community’s social fabric is holding up, and a report out of Jackson, Wyo., describing how national forest officials in the Tetons may not be inclined to approve a ski area expansion proposal on account of its wildlife impacts.
Thank you for reading, and supporting, Aspen Journalism.
–Curtis Wackerle
State water education campaign focuses on individual actions
Climate-focused initiative is funded in part by fossil fuel company
By Heather Sackett | January 28, 2022
And although the agriculture industry represents 86% of the state’s water use, according to numbers provided by Water Education Colorado, Water ’22 does not include ways for agriculture to conserve water.
Data dashboard: Local school enrollment up slightly from last year but remains down from 2019
Snowpack at Indy Pass still close to historical average. Lake Powell’s storage and elevation keep shrinking.
By Laurine Lassalle | February 1, 2022
• Lake Powell’s surface elevation is less than 7ft above target elevation.
• RFSD’s school enrollment is down 6% from 2019.
Tracking the Curve
Documenting COVID-19 in Pitkin, Eagle and Garfield counties
By Laurine Lassalle | February 1, 2022
Eagle and Garfield counties’ incidences decreased by nearly half in a week. Garfield added four new deaths over the weekend, bringing the county’s toll to 86.
The Boebert enigma
“The bills and resolutions Boebert has brought to the House floor have covered the gamut, from obvious image-enhancing eye-rollers, such as the resolutions she introduced in September to impeach both President Biden and Vice President Harris for “the high crimes and misdemeanors of betrayals of the public trust”; to small taters, like the bill in which she proposed that Silver Cliff, Colorado, get its own zip code; to bills dealing with water preservation and forest management.”
Source: aspendailynews.org | Read more
Dealing with the start of a quiet revolution
“Whether it is making the food, changing the oil, loading the chairlifts, shoveling the roof or sharing the information, service work is one of the valley’s economic foundations. A distinction of Crested Butte and the valley has always been that service work has been a proud occupation and one where it did not carry a negative social stigma.”
Source: crestedbuttenews.com | Read more
Ranchers in some states can shoot wolves that attack their livestock. But not in Colorado.
“Attacks on cattle and dogs by wolves that migrated into northwest Colorado from Wyoming have stoked a rancher-wolf controversy sooner than expected.”
Source: coloradosun.com | Read more
West Elk mine cannot leak methane, must flare the greenhouse gas, judge rules
“Though burning the methane on-site near Somerset creates CO2, it causes far less damage to the atmosphere than allowing raw methane to rise and produce more than 80 times the greenhouse effect of carbon.”
Source: coloradosun.com | Read more
Lower basin states unveil new water plan to bolster levels in Lake Mead
“Aspen Public Radio reporter Halle Zander sat down with (Aspen Journalism Managing Editor Heather) Sackett to discuss the plan and how it compares to conservation programs in Colorado and other upper basin states.”
Source: aspenpublicradio.org | Read more
Pitkin County’s short-term rental ordinance tabled as rift over class emerges
“A visibly angry Commissioner Kelly McNicholas Kury told fellow board members she was ‘shocked’ to hear them waffle on what she thought was an agreement to allow only homeowners in primary residences to rent out their homes on a short-term basis after several second-home owners complained about it Wednesday.”
Source: aspentimes.com| Read more
National Forest mulls keeping Targhee ski resort out of beleaguered bighorn sheep range
“Ahead of (the EIS’) release, the forest has made public the bare-boned options, or ‘alternatives,’ that its contractor is analyzing. Three of the alternatives consider eliminating or cutting back on the expansion that the resort is pursuing.”
Source: jhnewsandguide.com | Read more
When the well runs dry
“And even as news of the drying Southwest has become common knowledge, the New Mexico state government has done almost nothing to prepare for this future, failing to even collect enough basic data to determine how much water there exists in the system. By the time New Mexicans realize the stakes, it may be too late.”
Source: searchlightnm.org | Read more
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