Amenity-based economy equals big bucks in Gunnison Valley

May exceed 50 percent of local GRP

Most people visit the Gunnison Valley to experience the mountain lifestyle and the recreational opportunities, and to stretch out in vast expanses of public land. On the flip side, Thompson Creek Metals, which wants to mine molybdenum from Crested Butte’s Mt. Emmons, is here for one reason: to make money.

Many people view the two missions as incompatible, and there are concerns about the impacts mining would have on the valley’s amenity-based economy. But concerns don’t convert into hard numbers. So the Red Lady Coalition (RLC), a group of individuals and organizations whose mission is preservation of a safe, intact and protected Mt. Emmons (also known as Red Lady), has developed a three-phase economic study project to evaluate the effects of a mine on the local amenity economy.
Bill Ronai is director of the Red Lady Coalition. “The study began in early spring 2009,” he explained. “The board concluded one of the basic premises is that a mine is incompatible with our amenity-driven, lifestyle-driven economy but we needed to prove it—we needed to be able to show the numbers.”
So they hired the Center for Applied Research in Denver to conduct the economic analysis. The first phase, completed in September 2009, breaks down Gunnison County’s economic drivers, traditional industrial sectors, Gross Regional Product (GRP), employment and income.
The key findings from the first phase (in 2008 dollars) for Gunnison County are:
—Of the county’s $703 million GRP, $239 million, or 34 percent, is amenity-based
—40 percent of full- and part-time jobs are amenity-based
—31 percent of Gunnison County incomes ($135 million) are amenity-based
—Winter and summer tourism combined is worth $108 million
—Second homeowner investments and expenditures account for $131 million
—21 percent of the GRP, or $145 million, is mining-based, exclusively derived from operations in Somerset. According to RLC, less than 1 percent of the GRP created by this driver is retained in Gunnison County.
Presenting at a recent Gunnison Valley Rural Transportation Authority meeting, RLC board member Richard Bond said Phase Two might well reveal that the amenity-based economy in the Gunnison-Mt. Crested Butte corridor may exceed 50 percent.
Bond also directed the room’s attention to a “Comparative Income Per Capita—Amenity Sector” graph, which revealed some startling numbers. Gunnison County amenity-based workers earn an average of roughly $28,000, compared to $55,000-plus for Eagle County and close to $80,000 in Pitkin County.
“The conclusion we draw from that is there’s a hell of a lot of room in terms of growing that economy and increasing the value of employment,” Bond said.
According to Ronai, the RLC is now working on Phase 2 in addition to presenting the results of Phase 1 to local stakeholders and organizations. “We’re starting another segment of Phase 2 in July, and taking a look at the economic drivers and further analyze the data to see if the amenity-based economy may be even bigger.”
In the second phase of the project, the Center for Applied Research will retain senior specialists from Colorado State University’s Department of Agriculture and Resource Economics, to conduct a series of focus groups and an extensive, three-part survey among county residents, non-resident property owners and summer and winter visitors in Gunnison County.
“Another part of Phase 2 is narrowing the scope of the study to the Gunnison, Mt. Crested Butte/Crested Butte, Almont and Ohio Creek areas to narrow the scope of the study so it focuses on the areas that would potentially be impacted,” Ronai added.
According to the RLC, in the third phase of the project, alternative scenarios will be formulated (with and without an assumed presence of molybdenum mining at Mount Emmons), and estimates of the county-wide and local socio-economic effects associated with each scenario will be compiled.
For example, Bond posed, “What would be the cost—would people no longer buy lots on Trappers, not want to fish? What if the mine started… and stopped… what are the implications of that?”
The RLC came to three overall conclusions based on completing Phase 1:
The amenity-driven sector dominates the Gunnison County economy
It is weak compared to other amenity/recreation oriented communities, but offers upside potential.
Phases II and III will determine whether or not our amenity-driven economy can withstand a major mine.
While everyone thinks they know the impact a mine would have on tourism in the valley, the next phases of the Red Lady Coalition study will take a comprehensive look at actual impacts in Phases 2 and 3. Those studies are now getting under way. For more information visit www.redladycoalition.org.