Buying $50,000 worth of explosive harpoons doesn’t seem like much of a charitable contribution. Certainly not to the whale.
But that’s just another example of the absurdity of where we are, weeks into budget negotiations in Washington, D.C., which occasionally leak out small truths prompting bipartisan bewilderment among Americans. “Wait, THAT’s what we’re paying for?”
Indeed we are. There are somewhere over 100 Native Alaskan whaling boat captains whose allowable charitable expenses for food sustenance hunting are now scheduled to jump from $10,000 to $50,000. Including those harpoons with the lethal charge.
Why do we care here in landlocked Colorado, where there are chubs aplenty but a decided lack of whales since the Cretaceous?
Because the exploding harpoons represent the kind of political horse trading that may leave billions of dollars in Colorado clean energy projects cut off from federal tax credits. Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R, wanted clean energy support restored in closed-door negotiations, but settled for better harpoon deductions and some other hyper-Alaskan sweeteners that moved her from “agonizing” to accepting.
All politics is local, as they say. This budget and policy proposal is moving sharply away from the Obama-Biden focus on global issues like climate change. That leaves some politicians scrambling for what they can secure in their home states. It used to be called pork, but there’s plenty to go around for vegans, too.
It can be overwhelming as an average citizen to try to keep track. So let’s get back to a couple of Colorado issues for which the scale seems a bit more manageable. We appreciate you sticking with us as we continue the hunt for the great white whales of fact and context.
Michael Booth
Reporter
TEMP CHECK
ROGUE RECYCLERS
Who’s been a very bad trash boy
“They were very quick to say, ‘Hey, absolutely not. You cannot do this.’ We are a little bit slower.”
— Sean Brown, on the difference between Chicago’s recycling police and the Denver approach
1.17%
Contamination rate in Denver compost carts recorded since service expanded
Sean Brown has lived in cities where the trash and recycling police had extremely itchy pen fingers when it came to writing violations. Couple of paper bakery bags mixed in with the vegetable peel compost? Useless loose plastic wrap tossed into the recyclables with the valuable aluminum cans?
That’ll be 100 bucks, sir, and don’t bother complaining at City Hall.
“They were very quick to say, ‘Hey, absolutely not. You cannot do this.’ We are a little bit slower,” said Brown, manager of the diversion and education program for Denver’s Department of Transportation and Infrastructure.
“We are not fining anyone right now, and we have basically multiple touch points built into this whole process,” Brown said, describing how Denver is handling public education and correction after a massive expansion of composting and the switch to pay-as-you-go trash cart sizes. Unless what you’re doing is an immediate safety hazard to drivers and sorters, Brown said, “You’ll get upwards of 20 to 25 opportunities and notices before anything happens.”
The most common recycling and composting contamination by consumers is rarely intentional, Brown likes to say. His own Chicago mistake is something he sees in Denver all the time — consumers putting their mixed recyclables inside a plastic bag and tying the top, before they toss it in the purple recycling bin. That’s a no-no — most flimsy plastic film like garbage bags are not recyclable, and if they don’t get blown by air puffs out of the sorting lines, they can tie up the machinery.
Composting mistakes are usually just catching up with new directives from compost handlers in the last couple of years. That means no paper napkins, cardboard, paper plates or greasy pizza boxes thrown in with the potato peels on the assumption it will all “break down.”
If a series of warning notes from the haulers doesn’t change behavior, carts can be confiscated, Brown said. The city will return them once they’ve heard a convincing argument that the consumer is ready to get it right, he added.
Denver’s solid waste and recycling drivers are empowered with comment pads to leave in alleys where cart owners are contaminating loads with the wrong materials. (City and County of Denver)Denver officials are pleased with the compliance so far, with contamination rates of just over 1% for the green compost carts based on spot sampling, Brown said.
For more details of how Denver ties to police the three-cart system short of jailing yard-waste scofflaws, turn to ColoradoSun.com later this week.
Section by Michael Booth | Reporter
PRICKLY DEBATE
The Colorado cactus debate gets a bit more … pointed.
Sclerocactus glaucus (Colorado hookless cactus), near DeBeque in 2017. (Brooke Palmer, via Denver Botanic Gardens)I’m constantly preparing to receive my journalistic comeuppance. Omit or scramble an important fact, come late to a fast-moving story — you can’t avoid those hazards of daily journalism forever.
I just never expected the latest humbling to come from my tireless reporting on the Colorado hookless cactus.
But one very educated reader wanted us to know that the delisting of the rare cactus from U.S. threatened species was neither a slam dunk nor necessarily a cause for celebration. And further explanation from cactus experts is a great education in how on-the-ground science gets done.
“Your recent article in the Sun made it sound like there was no opposition to the delisting,” the correspondent said. “However, there were quite a few knowledgeable commenters who drew attention to the fact that U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service still does not have good population data on the species. In order to avoid this, USFWS used an admittedly ‘novel’ technique and subjectively sited macroplots where they knew the cactus to be. They then extrapolated that density to the whole habitat, coming up with a very large number of plants.”
To recap — the Colorado hookless cactus blooms beautifully and grows slowly and quietly in the high basins above parts of the Gunnison and Colorado rivers, and had been on federal danger lists for decades. Not only is their limited territory constantly threatened by recreation and development, but botanic pirates dig them up and sell them online to succulent collectors.
But after extensive research from federal agencies and the help of experts at Denver Botanic Gardens, botanists concluded there are more of the cactus than they thought, and they appear to be more drought tolerant than expected even as climate change ravages many species.
Our correspondent above, though, was not satisfied, and wanted our readers to know the delisting is controversial to some. This writer, who did not want their name to usurp the opinions of other expert objectors, said opponents of delisting tried to make their points in public comments.
“We commenters noted that this estimation technique could not withstand scrutiny for estimating population sizes, and that USFWS had never ground-truthed the results to assure their validity,” they wrote.
Denver Botanic Gardens researcher Michelle DePrenger-Levin was not surprised that some cactus-lovers continue to object, but she was happy to explain how surveys were done and why they hold up to scrutiny.
“Delisting was justified,” DePrenger-Levin wrote, in a follow-up email. “The commenter is referring to a study done by the Bureau of Land Management, where they used subjectively placed macroplots and estimated the minimum population size. However, there is a misunderstanding in the comment.”
The BLM researchers did not “extrapolate that density to the whole habitat,” she wrote. “Instead, they explained that they could not extrapolate because the locations were subjectively placed and instead, they only considered plants counted within the macroplots in density estimates for the entire habitat.
“The study was very conservative in their estimates of population size. Without random placement of sampling plots, you cannot extrapolate out the density from a macroplot to the full habitat. Instead, they assumed the only plants at the site were the ones counted in the subjectively placed macroplots. Density was measured as the number of individuals estimated in the macroplot divided by the total area of suitable habitat.
“The macroplots were smaller than the habitat area and plants occurred outside of the macroplot that were not included in the estimate of density. This leads to a minimum estimate of at least as many plants that are at a habitat area (minimum population size). Habitat areas that were measured were randomly selected and thus they were able to extrapolate out densities to the unmeasured populations to get a minimum population size for each species,” she explained.
The delisting was matched with ongoing protections for the cactus requiring sensitive land management by BLM and other agencies, she also noted.
“Denver Botanic Gardens has collected demographic data since 2008 which has shown how individuals respond to environmental conditions across the range. We have five monitoring sites for each species for a total of 10 monitoring sites. Our demographic data indicates that the populations are stable,” DePrenger-Levin said.
“Density estimates from our demographic sites are combined with additional demographic sampling sites managed by the BLM to estimate changes in density across populations of each species over the 10-year post-delisting monitoring period.”
Section by Michael Booth | Reporter
WATER APLENTY
Spring rains mean NoCo farmers benefit even as June heated up
The U.S. Drought Monitor released June 26 shows much of Colorado, especially Eastern Plains farming country, in good shape for the early summer. (U.S. Drought Monitor/University of Nebraska-Lincoln)500,000 acres
Amount of farming and ranching land served by Northern Water in northern Colorado
Northern Front Range farmers and cities just got a liquid bonus from the region’s largest water supplier, which agreed in mid-June to boost the amount of water it delivers to them this year.
The news comes as weather forecasters predict strings of 90-degree days and eight weeks of above-average temperatures.
Northern Water, which manages the Colorado-Big Thompson Project, the federal system of tunnels and pipes that brings Colorado River water to the Front Range, voted to increase deliveries to its shareholders to 75% of an acre-foot from 70%. An acre-foot equals nearly 326,000 gallons, enough to serve two to four urban households for one year.
Based in Berthoud, Northern Water serves more than 1 million customers in portions of eight counties while also delivering water to irrigate some 500,000 acres of farmland.
The water provider typically gives users an early estimate in November of how much water they can expect, and then its board makes a final decision in April. But this year, thanks to healthy storage levels in its reservoirs, it opted to raise the amount it will provide. It was also able to boost deliveries last year.
Despite a winter of average snows and a warm early spring, recent rains have relieved drought conditions across the state, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.
“The rains helped,” Northern Water spokesperson Jeff Stahla said.
But it was the reservoir levels that triggered the higher-delivery decision. Systemwide, storage capacity stood at roughly 85% as of June 1, well above last year’s 73% mark. And that’s better than the board expected in April when it set delivery amounts.
“Being able to adjust gives our board the flexibility they need to adjust to conditions,” Stahla said.
At Colorado State University’s Colorado Climate Center, the warm Aprils have been the norm for the past six years, and the months of May have been blessedly wet, according to Peter Goble, assistant state climatologist.
This year is no exception to that, Goble said, and it’s a trend he attributes to climate variability, or natural variation, rather than climate change. “April has had bad luck with climate variability … and we had a run of good luck in May,” when conditions were cool and wet.
But the next eight weeks are expected to be warmer than normal, a trend that is connected to the warming of the climate, Goble said. It will all kick off this weekend with a heat wave that will bring some of the earliest 100-degree days the state has ever seen.
Section by Jerd Smith | Fresh Water News
MORE ENVIRONMENT AND HEALTH NEWS
A new surge of federal sell-off ideas roils Colorado lands. Stay tuned hour by hour to see if the latest ideas for a federal land sell-off make it into this year’s big budget and policy bills from Congress. But the past month’s debate over Utah Sen. Mike Lee’s proposal, and separate-but-related concepts for federal “freedom cities,” has renewed Western residents’ vehement defenses of protected open space. Elbert County says no to Xcel power line loop through its turf. Xcel Energy says it needs land through the heart of Elbert County as the last part of a giant Eastern Plains transmission loop connecting new solar and wind energy to the western grid. But Elbert County’s commissioners and planning commission pulled the plug, rejecting permits for the multibillion dollar project. Mark Jaffe reports on whether Xcel can overcome the opposition through the power of eminent domain meant for community-serving utilities. Cuts to land fund threaten key Colorado protection goals. As conservation groups react to a host of open space threats, one item in the Trump administration’s budget request is the quiet redirection of $387 million from the Land and Water Conservation Fund that Trump “permanently” funded at $900 million with his Great American Outdoors Act in 2020. Jason Blevins reports that slashing the LWCF budget threatens three high-profile and long-planned projects in Colorado, all ranking among the most high priority national conservation efforts listed by the fund for the coming year. State tax credits for clean energy and electrification will be cut in half. Political and nonprofit advocates for the clean energy transformation are reeling from federal and local hits, Taylor Dolven reports. A bad budget forecast by Colorado legislative analysts means state-sponsored tax credits for buying EVs or heat pumps or e-bikes must be cut in half for the next year. Not only slashing clean energy credits, but adding a new solar tax. Things are rough on the federal clean energy front as well. We’ve reported that Colorado’s delegation was hoping Senate negotiators would restore some of the personal and industrial development tax credits that had led to a boom in solar and wind projects replacing fossil fuels. Not to mention big EV growth. Instead, not only did the Senate speed up the demise of those cuts, they slipped in an excise tax on solar farm production when using Chinese components, which are everywhere, Michael Booth reports.CHART OF THE WEEK
While Colorado and local governments are hoping to make big strides in recycling rates, we’re starting from behind. Source: The Recycling PartnershipSean Brown’s efforts to encourage recycling and composting without employing discouraging fines and retribution could be key to a bigger Colorado problem: boosting our overall waste diversion rates.
Colorado is currently diverting about 15% of waste from landfills through recycling, composting and reuse, but that’s far behind the greenest states like New York, Maine and those along the West Coast.
In addition to cities like Denver offering residential composting carts to all neighborhoods, statewide efforts are afoot to help smaller communities. As we’ve written about at ColoradoSun.com, the “producer responsibility organization” made up of consumer packaging producers are making rules to tax themselves by the container and use the pooled money to fund expanded curbside recycling throughout the state.
Section by Michael Booth | Reporter
Thanks for hanging with us before you head out to Fourth of July campgrounds, hiking trails, fishing holes, and of course the micro-environment of Phish at Folsom Field. Remember to wet and stir those campfire ashes, and if you’re feeling a bit … psychedelic … in your celebrations, take a ride share! Cheers.
— Michael & John
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