The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Officials making last-minute changes
When the Gunnison Valley Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory is released this summer, officials hope it will serve as a helpful guide to reducing heavy pollution sources.
The emissions inventory is intended to serve as a baseline of the area’s current pollution levels, from which future emissions reductions can be measured. The report is a joint effort between Gunnison County, the city of Gunnison, Crested Butte and Mt. Crested Butte, which each signed an Intergovernmental Energy Efficiency Resolution in September 2007 that mandated the inventory.
The Office for Resource Efficiency has been overseeing the production of the report.
The inventory encompasses much of Gunnison County and part of Saguache County, and closely follows the contours of the Upper Gunnison River Watershed. Within this boundary, approximately 512,000 tons of greenhouse gas pollutants were emitted in 2005, according to the data. On average, a vehicle emits 19.5 pounds of greenhouse gas per gallon of gasoline used, according to the report.
The report considers activities where the pollution occurs locally, such as burning gasoline in an automobile, or where pollution occurs elsewhere and is caused by local use, such as household electricity, often powered by coal power plants that emit greenhouse gases in a different location. Electricity bills, gasoline sales and local government records were used to compile the data.
The inventory is part of a larger scope of work that ORE is calling the Energy Planning Process. That process includes several steps, the first being to conduct an inventory, then setting reduction goals and forming recommendations and strategies for town officials to consider.
This spring the four partnering entities took a hands-on look at a draft of the Upper Gunnison River Watershed Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory to inspect it for errors, omissions, misinformation and any other necessary changes before the information is released to the public.
Crested Butte Town Council member and ORE board member Billy Rankin says, “We’re pretty close to calling it done.”
The town of Mt. Crested Butte was the last entity to review the report. Town officials made several important changes to it during a regular Town Council meeting on May 20.
Community development administrative assistant Theresa Henry briefed the council on the status of the report and updated new council members on its purpose.
Community development director Bill Racek said town staff had made its own review of the document. “There are two broad things we are missing,” Racek said.
First, Racek said, greenhouse gas emissions for the town of Mt. Crested Butte were listed in a table for the per-capita population of Mt. Crested Butte. “Per dwelling unit or residence is probably more appropriate for us,” he said.
According to the emission inventory, the town of Mt. Crested Butte has only 5.2 percent of the population in the entire data set, yet it accounts for 9.4 percent of the emissions.
Racek explained that the town’s many vacation rentals and condominiums that are unoccupied for a large portion of the year were more accurately the factor causing energy usage and greenhouse gas emission, not necessarily the residents of the town.
The second thing missing, Racek said, was a breakdown of separate jurisdictions in the town. Racek said the entire operations of the Mt. Crested Butte Water and Sanitation District was included in the report. The Water District is a special taxing district separate from the town, whose jurisdiction also encompasses Meridian Lake Park. “If you all of a sudden are responsible for providing leadership to the Water and Sanitation District as to reducing greenhouse gas, there’s kind of a disconnect,” said Racek, who is also a board member of the Water District.
He said the individual emissions for the Water and Sanitation District, Crested Butte Fire Protection District, RE1J School District and other separate entities should be more clearly defined.
Racek also noted that there isn’t much mention of Crested Butte Mountain Resort. He said CBMR’s buildings were in town limits and were included in the report, but there was no account of things like snowmaking, grooming, lift operation and the Paradise Warming House.
Rankin says the full report is now being finalized and should be released sometime this month, along with a public presentation.
