OIL & GAS BOOM … The BLM's Resource Advisory Council met in Gunnison a couple weeks ago. Mallory Dimmit of Telluride and I were unsuccessful supporters of a proposal from Telluride émigré and WCC stalwart Andrea Robinsong to ask the BLM to defer the sale of gas leases in our area. One person, the head of Club 20, Ann McCoy (who also sits with us on the RAC), was able to thwart the will of a clear majority of RAC members in defeating the motion, based on the RAC's complicated rule system … But then, deus ex machina, BLM chief Ron Wenker did defer the gas leases in our region of the state – where insufficient notice was given to surface property owners overlying federal mineral rights being, literally, sold out from underneath them … I was able to get RAC support for a letter expressing frustration that the BLM has leased mineral rights underneath surface ground which the County has enrolled as part of its Purchase of Development Rights program, specifically to preserve extended Gunnison sage grouse habitat. With the Feds themselves ruining potential grouse habitat protected with local tax dollars, it seems like Endangered Species listing may be the only thing left to save the bird from extinction.
IRIS WILLOW … Graduated. Cum Laude. CSU Fort Collins. In Art. Graphic Design … My oldest. She done well.
RIO COYOTL … Just turned 18. As fine a gentleman as can be found in the KVNF airshed. In the Vision program … No surprise there.
SARA & GORIO … Sorry. I know this is old-fashioned. Sentimental perhaps. But living in family has taught me that nurturing and educating children is the most important job there is … I just wish our First World culture in this country valued parents and teachers as much as it does movie stars and CEOs.
BOOK OF THE WEAK … John Perkins' Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. Learn how the powerful really operate south of the border. And maybe you'll sense something of the appeal of Chavez in Venezuela.
PEAKS & GUTTERS … Visiting with Elán Price at the Sun Palace in Ridgway. Cutting lilacs for a bouquet at Spes In Deo retreat center outside Montrose. Hiking the gypsum hills of the County's West End on a foray for rare plants and lichen with Botanist Peggy Lyon, also of Ridgway … The imminent arctic oil destruction of the Porcupine Caribou Herd – in spite of everyone's best efforts. The resurrection of the nuclear industry and the high price of uranium. The radioactive haul trucks rolling though Norwood on their way to the Cañon City mill of Cotter Corp. (a subsidiary of General Atomics – owned by brothers Linden and Neal Blue)
IF WE REALLY CARED ABOUT PEAK OIL … These series of policy recommendations from Ecos Consulting are intended to break the regulatory stalemate between the U.S. government and the auto industry over increasing fuel efficiency standards for the U.S. vehicular fleet … TRADE BOUNTIES … The federal government or states would offer a financial bounty to citizens who retire older, less efficient, less safe, or more polluting vehicles for more efficient, less polluting, and safer ones. This would be an economic boon to low-income drivers who typically own the oldest, highest-mileage, and therefore least efficient and most polluting vehicles.
WEEKLY QUOTA … "They hang the man and flog the woman / That steal the goose from off the common, / But let the greater villain loose / That steals the common from the goose." -English folk verse, circa 1764
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