| OCR Text |
Show M Sat/Sun/Mon/Tues, August 18-21, 2018 The Park Record A-19 OUNTAIN TOWN NEWS A Roundup of News from Other Western Ski Resort Communities ALLEN BEST Mountain Town News Can e-bikes help quell the cost of resort commuting? AVON, Colo. – Some 25 people tried out Bewegen electronic-assisted bikes last week in what is often called the Vail Valley in an effort to get people out of their cars and onto the electric-assisted pedal bicycles. “Electric-assist bikes have a much smaller footprint than a car, and by getting more people on bikes and out of their cars, we can have a big impact on local transportation emissions,” says Kim Schlaepfer, project manager for the Climate Action Collaborative. The collaborative is led by the Walking Mountain Science Center, a local non-profit, but with participation by Vail, Avon, and Eagle County. An e-bike generates 92 percent fewer emissions on average than driving a single-occupancy vehicle and 62 percent fewer emissions than taking the bus. These are national averages. Currently, 72 percent of residents in Eagle County commute solo to their jobs. Transportation from vehicles accounted for 27 percent of carbon dioxide emissions in Eagle County, according to the 2014 Eagle County Energy Inventory. The county also includes Basalt and El Jebel, near Aspen. In trying to promote e-bikes for commuting, members are pointing to the success of e-bikes in Park City. There the average e-bike trip has been 4.2 miles, as needed to commute for work and errands. That’s also roughly the individual distances between the three largest communities in the upper Eagle Valley: Vail, Avon, and Edwards. The Vail Daily reports the Climate Action Collaborative has also been working on a vision to launch a regional e-bike share system similar to the bike share programs that have rapidly become common in cities during the last year. Aspen is also considering such an e-bike share system as it looks for ways to ease traffic congestion. In Park City, one resident sees safety problems caused primarily by those renting e-bikes. “These e-bikes require a learning curve to be safely driven, as their turning radius, stopping distance, powered acceleration and sheer weight dramatically change normal bike-handling characteristics,” writes Joseph Assenheim in a letter published in The Park Record. Speed, too, is a problem, he writes. In Vail, e-bike promoters see speed as posing little problem. “It’s hard to get these e-bikes to 20 mph,” said Schlaepfer on Monday. She visited Park City over the weekend to study the e-bike use there. In Wyoming, the town of Jackson is purchasing six RadWagon e-bikes at a cost of $1,400 each: two for police, two more for public works employees, and two more for town hall employees. Each bike will have two saddle bags, because employees often carry paperwork and equipment. Police, for example, carry about 40 pounds when on bike patrol, says the Jackson Hole News&Guide. Todd Smith, the police chief, said the e-bikes will allow officers to patrol wider areas without worrying about being unable to return to their cars quickly. Plus, they might see and smell things that they could not when in a car. The town expects to save some money on gas, reducing its emissions in the process. A mountain town starts talking about water reuse TAOS, N.M – Drought this year has forced Taos to a new reckoning of what the future might bring. A neighboring town, Questa, located at the foot of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, ran out of water in 2016. What would happen in Taos if that were to happen? “If you have money, you can pick up and leave,” advises the Taos Daily News. For others, says the newspaper, Taos must cultivate water conservation into the community, including more judicious use of landscaping. Reuse of existing supplies should also advance, the Taos News says. “A wastewater treatment and reuse plant would be expensive but might make sense for the town. The technology has advanced from years past.” The technology has indeed advanced. One type of reuse is called indirect potable reuse, such as when wastewater is allowed to flow downstream for a few miles before being pumped back to a treatment plant. The second type, direct potable reuse, takes discharged wastewater directly to a water treatment plant, where it is purified to drinking-quality standards. Cloudcroft, a town of not quite 700 people located in southeastern New Mexico, may be among the first in the country to employ direct potable reuse. It’s located at an elevation of 8,668 feet on what is called a sky island, a lone mountain standing above the desert. There’s a small ski area higher on the mountain, but there’s not much upstream to be had at this town north of El Paso. Faced with water shortages, the town is at work on a treatment system that will employ multiple processes to cleanse the wastewater to drinking water standards. The work is expected to be completed later this year. But even Aspen, which is relatively blessed with water, is planning to store wastewater in an aquifer underneath a golf course, for use later in irrigation In Taos, “the drought isn’t the worst ever seen in New Mexico, but it’s bad enough for everyone to talk about,” says the News. For much of the spring and summer, Taos County has been classified as being in “exceptional drought,” the most severe category according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. Upstream on the river about an hour in Colorado’s San Luis Valley, the drought was the critical factor in a wildfire that burned 108,000 acres in early summer. The Wolf Creek ski area limped through last ski season with just enough snow, but with bare hill- When you work with Team Schlopy... LIFE JUST GOT EASIER. Lana Harris Team Schlopy REALTOR® 435.640.8717 Info@TeamSchlopy.com TeamSchlopy.com Please see Mountain Town, A-20 SO MANY WAYS TO PLAY ZIP, SLIDE, COAST AND DISCOVER. OPEN DAILY, 10AM |
