Typically, Olander would let the soil rest through the winter months, but in recent years he’s begun experimenting with new varieties of barley that have been specifically adapted to withstand cold temperatures. Growing in the winter means the crops will absorb precipitation through the spring, a vital advantage as weather in the Western U.S. continues to get hotter and drier.

As the proprietor of both Olander Farms and Root Shoot Malting, which supplies Colorado breweries and spirit makers with locally grown and malted grains, Olander has to innovate to sustain his family’s 97-year-old farm. About five years ago, he began taking proactive steps to prepare for what he expects to be the next big challenge: the water crisis.

That looming threat was enough to begin cultivating the winter-friendly Lightning, Thunder and Buck barley without yet having customers for them.

“I can see the writing on the wall just with everything going on with water in Colorado. There’s a possibility of a reduction in our allotment and also the possibility of not having runoff we typically see from snowpack,” Olander said. “That’s why I’m trying to be ahead of the game.”

As the Colorado River continues to dry, local barley growers and maltsters are seeking out creative solutions to sustain their businesses in the face of climate change. Some are embracing nontraditional and drought-resistant grains while others are investing in technology to become more efficient. Their innovations aim to reduce water usage and bring the supply chain for craft beer and spirits closer to home, in hopes of ultimately building a resilient ecosystem that supports farmers, brewers and distillers in Colorado.

In 2022, local farmers grew 4,440,000 bushels of barley, the sixth most in the nation, according to the United States Department of Agriculture. A large portion of that is purchased by Coors Brewing, which contracts with around 800 growers in the Western states and Canada, according to the company’s website.

But Colorado is also home to several craft malthouses that kiln and roast barley for smaller brewers and distillers to use in making beer and liquor. Still, buying local has yet to become the norm since craft malt usually fetches a premium price.

Brewer Eric Larkin has been working with Troubadour Maltings in Fort Collins to procure custom malts since he opened Cohesion Brewing Co. in Denver two years ago. It’s not the cheapest option, but it works because the brewery specializes in specialty Czech-style lagers.

Larkin’s other options would be to import malt from Europe or use European-style malts grown in the U.S. While sourcing local might present unique challenges, the benefits of keeping his dollars in the local economy outweigh any potential downfalls, Larkin said.

“Every crop I get from Troubadour, the malt changes and I have to make adjustments in the brewhouse,” he said, acknowledging it’s easier for a small operation that focuses on a limited portfolio of styles to do that. “Keeping your dollars with local and small producers, the impact it can have really multiplies. It stays a little closer to home. That idea has always been really valuable to me from an economic standpoint and environmental standpoint.”

Spreading the gospel of local grain

The nonprofit Colorado Grain Chain aims to spread that ethos more widely with a variety of projects that connect local producers and makers, and incentivize collaboration. For example, the organization is currently building a digital marketplace where farmers can connect with companies or entrepreneurs seeking to purchase locally-grown grains.

Project manager Lisa Boldt, who also co-owns Primitive Beer in Longmont, sees a unique opportunity to amplify the Grain Chain’s message in the beverage space. That’s why the organization recently offered $4,000 “microgrants” to brewers and distillers who used novel grains in a new product.

Cohesion and WeldWerks Brewing Co. in Greeley received one grant to team up on a special release, Foamies Czech-style pale lager, using custom malts from Troubadour. The beer debuted in August and a second batch is due for release in November.

WildEdge Brewing Collective in Cortez earned a grant to experiment with a Munich wheat from Root Shoot Malting, with which it created a Dunkelweizen-inspired beer called From the Fields. Steamboat Springs’ Routt Distillery, another grant recipient, leveraged a trial batch of barley grown in Montrose by Proximity Malts for its new West Slope Sarvis Gin, which also features locally foraged sarvisberries.

Perhaps the most intriguing microgrant project came from Dune Valley Distillery in Mosca, which will release a vodka made from quinoa in January. The distillery, which opened this summer in the historic Mosca Community Hall and Gymnasium, shares a campus with a local food hub and a potato and quinoa processing plant. It specializes in making potato vodka specifically because of the resources at its disposal, said managing partner Nicholas Chambers.

“The local food approach is that you learn to consume what’s grown right near you,” Chambers said. “We are at literally the center of North American quinoa right here. It’s such a good crop for us because of low water use and it fits with our valley.”

Reducing water usage

One underutilized opportunity Audrey Paugh, marketing and networking specialist at the Grain Chain, sees for beverages is in millet. Colorado is the country’s top producer of proso millet, a gluten-free and drought-tolerant ancient grain. The state is also home to Grouse Malt House, one of the few U.S. maltsters dedicated to gluten-free grains.

Twila Soles founded the company with her late partner in 2013 after years of having celiac disease and being dissatisfied with gluten-free beer options. Malting even gluten-free grains requires a lot of water. Recently, Soles upgraded her system to include a steep tank that uses up to 40% less water than her original equipment.

Soles sources most of her grains within 200 miles of the malting facility in Wellington and has seen her producers weather unpredictable and sometimes devastating growing seasons.

“Using a crop (such as millet) that takes less water to thrive is important now and will be even more important as climate change continues to impact weather patterns,” said Soles, whose biggest Colorado client is the gluten-free Holidaily Brewing Co. “I’m hopeful that the use of more drought-tolerant crops for craft beer grows.”

In Alamosa, Jason Cody knows the value of diversifying crops and revenue streams. Cody saw firsthand the desire for local, craft malts when he opened Colorado Malting Co. in 2008. At one point, Cody had more than 100 breweries waiting for the opportunity to buy his products. The venture saved his family farm, which first began growing barley for Coors in the 1990s.

But business has slowed amid economic pressures and larger companies cashing in on demand for cost-effective malts. So these days he focuses on serving a niche base of distillers and brewers.

Water usage is always top of mind for Cody, who manages the 300-acre farm his ancestors purchased nearly a century ago. In 2018, Cody began making original beers at his Colorado Farm Brewery, which highlights sustainable practices from grain to glass. He grows and malts his own grains, uses an original strain of yeast and recycles all the water from the brewing process to irrigate his farm.

“Every single gallon of water we use in the brewery that goes down the drain, goes out to the center pivot irrigation sprinklers and is injected into the line that the sprinkler is running on,” Cody said.

An added bonus: The brewery’s wastewater repeatedly tests high in nitrogen, sulfur, potassium and other compounds that reinvigorate soil, so he needs fewer fertilizers to keep the ground healthy.

Back in Berthoud, Olander has yet to malt last year’s winter crop, so he doesn’t know what it tastes like or if brewers will be interested in using it. Olander is hopeful Lightning in particular will be an apt pilsner-style product and catch on, but he’s not waiting for feedback to continue his experiment.

Last year, he planted 15 acres of Thunder, 15 acres of Lightning and seven acres of Kernza. This year, he planted 20 acres of Lightning and 10 acres of Buck.

“We decided, let’s roll the dice and go with Lightning,” he said. “Hopefully winter treats everything well and they’ll survive.”

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In ski towns in western Colorado in 2005, risk was everywhere, but in a way that felt exciting. I liked the brag of drinking too much, and I was too naïve to notice harder drugs. Climate change seemed theoretical, and no one I knew had died in the mountains yet.

Corporate entities were just starting to binge-buy resorts while I somehow thought that living in my car was cool and I could exist like that forever.

But myths are complicated things to keep alive, and I eventually left ski towns to work as a writer, already seeing the ski-bum dream changing. I saw friends struggling to build careers, families and community while still chasing the fragile dream that a powder day topped almost everything.

So recently, I went back to see what was going on, to try to track the evolution of what had been my own obsession. I looped through mountain towns across the West, from Aspen to Victor, Idaho and Big Sky, Montana, to assess the current state of ski bums.

What I found was that everyone trying to build a life in those towns was struggling, from my old colleagues who had stuck around and wished they’d bought real estate to “lifties” fresh out of school.

“A lot of people here are living a fantasy I can’t obtain,” said Malachi Artice, a 20-something skier working multiple jobs in Jackson, Wyoming.

At the most basic level, the math just didn’t work. In most mountain towns, it’s now nearly impossible to work a single full-time service job, the kind that resort towns depend on, and afford rent. The pressure shows up in nearly everything, including abysmal mental health outcomes like anxiety and depression.

Ski towns have some of the highest suicide rates in the country, and social services haven’t expanded to meet demand. Racial gaps are also widening in an industry that often depends on undocumented immigrants to fill the poorly paid, but necessary, jobs it takes to keep a tourist town running.

On top of all that, abundant snowfall, the basis of a ski resort’s economy, is getting cooked by climate change.

And sure, you can argue skiing is superficial and unimportant, but ski towns — some of the most elite and economically unequal places in the country — are microcosms for the way our social fabric is splitting.

Ski towns face crucial, complicated questions: Can they build affordable housing and also preserve open space? What happens when health care workers or teachers won’t take jobs because they can’t find a way to live in the community they serve? Will a town willingly curb growth when that’s what supports the tax base?

There are no easy answers because the problems are entrenched in both that slow-moving nostalgia that stymies change, and in the downhill rush of capitalism, which gives power to whoever pays the most: The housing market always tilts toward high-end real estate instead of modestly priced homes for essential workers.

What we value shapes our lives, and so I think we must hold the ski industry to higher standards. If these rarefied places can find ways to support working as well as leisure-based communities, they could serve as lessons for change elsewhere.

During my tour, I saw necessary workers in the ski industry facing hard economic choices, but I also saw positive, community-scale change. In Alta, Utah, for instance, the arts nonprofit Alta Community Enrichment added mental health support when its employees reported an urgent need.

If ski-resort towns are going to survive, the lives of their workers need to matter, and that means caring about them — from affordable housing to accessible mental health support.

Heather Hansman is a contributor to Writers on the Range, writersontherange.org, an independent nonprofit dedicated to spurring lively conversation about the West. She is the author of Powder Days: Ski Bums, Ski Towns and the Future of Chasing Snow, and lives in Durango.

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The PUC weighed in during a meeting Wednesday on the second phase of Xcel’s energy resource plan, which will help chart the utility’s spending and mix of resources to generate electricity through the rest of the decade. The company’s preference out of the different scenarios proposed would add roughly 6,500 megawatts of wind and solar power and storage on Xcel’s system while cutting greenhouse gas emissions by an estimated 87% from 2005 levels by 2030.

“This is likely to be the most impactful decision I’ll make during my term,” Eric Blank, commission chairman, said in what he called the beginning of regulators’ conversation on the proposal.

PUC members will discuss the proposal in a meeting next week. The commission originally planned to make a decision before the end of the year, but it’s unclear if it will extend the time.

Blank and other PUC members called Xcel Energy’s plan to significantly increase renewable sources on the grid and reduce carbon emissions by closing coal plants “transformational,” and leading to “a profound transition” from fossil fuels.

However, commission members seemed almost as struck by the utility’s plan to spend $15 billion, nearly double from the first phase of the proposal. About $2.8 billion of that increase would pay for transmission upgrades in the Denver area.

“We’re seeing a nearly nine times multiplication of what was anticipated in phase 1 to be the cost of Denver-metro upgrades, a jarring almost $3 billion new transmission upgrades in total,” PUC member Megan Gilman said.

Transmission costs in the plan would be on top of the $1.7 billion for the Colorado Power Pathway, which will consist of loops of up to 650 miles of high-voltage transmission lines stretching from the northern Front Range to the southeastern plains. The PUC approved most of the project in 2022.

Spokesman Tyler Bryant said in an email that the company appreciates the commissioners’ discussion of its “transformative Clean Energy Plan.”

“Like many stakeholders, we support the full amount of renewable energy in our proposed plan which is intended to meet and exceed the state’s greenhouse gas policy goals.” Bryant said.

The Office of the Utility Consumer Advocate said in written comments to the PUC that Xcel Energy gave the impression that the Power Pathway was the solution to its transmission needs. The office said while some Denver-area upgrades would be required, Xcel didn’t indicate that “the additional transmission costs would be in the billions of dollars.”

Gilman and the other commissioners expressed frustration with “late-breaking issues” in the plan and questioned some of the modeling and assumptions related to the economics of proposed projects and financial impacts on customers.

In written comments, the PUC staff and the consumer advocate’s office said the higher transmission costs could potentially result in large rate increases. Xcel, which provides electricity to 1.6 million customers in Colorado, has said its proposal would amount to an average annual rate increase of 2.3% for customers, or below inflation.

But Blank pointed out that PUC staff and others say the forecast doesn’t include all the projected costs, such as wildfire mitigation, the electrification of transportation, distributed solar projects and development of hydrogen technology.

The consumer advocate’s office said Xcel Energy’s preferred plan would cost customers an average of 6.1% per year.

The PUC questioned whether Xcel’s proposed power projects would be in place a few years ahead of the required transmission. Blank suggested some of the projects could be delayed to better understand the cost, need and the best timing of new transmission.

The utility intends to take advantage of $10 billion in renewable energy tax credits through the federal Inflation Reduction Act.

Parties to the proceedings have challenged the fact that under the plan, Xcel would own roughly 66% of the new facilities. Critics note that a 2019 law requiring utilities to write clean energy plans set a target of a utility owning about half the infrastructure and the other half being privately owned. The costs of Xcel-owned facilities are added to the rate base, or the basic rate that customers pay.

“Of the overall $15 billion of proposed investment, the company would own over $10 billion representing an approximate doubling of its current rate base,” the PUC staff said.

PUC member Tom Plant said he is concerned about the impact on ratepayers of Xcel’s plans to build three new natural gas plants. He believes the technology will be phased out over the next 25 years, leaving customers on the hook to pay for plants built to last much longer.

The company’s proposal calls for closing six older gas-fired units and building three new plants totaling 600 megawatts.

The economic impacts on customers of so-called “stranded assets,” plants or equipment no longer needed, and the effects on air quality and health worry community and environmental groups. People rallied Nov. 15 at the state Capitol against building new gas plants.

“The plants would cost ratepayers $1 billion. These gas plants are just a bad deal for Colorado’s ratepayers, for Colorado’s consumers, for Colorado’s working families. We need to get off this sauce,” said Wendy Howell of the working families party.

Other speakers at the rally said the PUC should reject the new gas plants due to the effects on people’s health, air quality and the warming climate.

“We are thrilled to see a significant amount of clean renewable energy as well as energy storage in Xcel’s plan,” Jen Clanahan of Mountain Mamas said. “However, building three new gas plants is not a mom-approved plan. Frankly, we can’t figure out why anyone would build new gas plants when scientists have warned us that we need to stop burning fossil fuels yesterday.”

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The “Roadmap to Colorado’s Future: 2026” lays out six broad objectives, largely targeted at increasing housing supply and affordability while seeking to dovetail those efforts with improved access to transit and the state’s climate goals. Polis unveiled the plan at an affordable apartment complex near a transit stop in Lakewood, highlighting the connection he’s made in developing more transit and more housing.

Though the governor repeatedly stressed the roadmap as a vision for the state to pursue, the 34-page document further cemented Polis’ broader desire to reform land use and zoning across Colorado, along with calls for more strategic growth to maximize resources, prepare for wildfires and protect the state’s outdoor areas.

Zoning reform and coordinated strategic planning are policy solutions that the governor and other Democrats see as a panacea to several of the state’s current and future ills, from climate change to housing and transit development to water limitations. The roadmap comes seven months after Polis’ marquee zoning proposal collapsed in the Capitol and four weeks before legislators return to Denver to debate the issue at length once again.

“We have too many obstructions that get in the way of building more homes, especially starter homes — homes in the 200 (thousand), 300 (thousand) range, multifamily and apartments,” Polis said in an interview. His office previously released similar roadmaps to address climate change. “What we’re really seeking to do is create a vision, a compelling vision, for Colorado’s future that’s more livable, more affordable, protects our water and our open space.”

The plan, which is pegged to the state’s 150th birthday as well as the end of Polis’ second term in 2026, details a list of worrying data points about Colorado’s present and future: The state, Polis’ office wrote, is the 12th most expensive for renters and sixth most expensive for homebuyers. Nearly three-quarters of renters making less than $75,000 spend more than 30% of their income on rent. Crop land is decreasing. Homelessness has increased.

What’s more, the report notes, the state is going to continue growing. Thirty-five thousand new households are expected to move here each year through the end of this decade.

“Unless we direct this growth in thoughtful ways, and build enough housing in existing communities and near job centers, this reality will drive up the cost of housing and put additional pressure on open space, our quality of life, affordability, and our environment,” Polis’ office wrote.

Collaboration with local governments

To hit the broader vision, the roadmap calls for eliminating exclusionary zoning practices and promoting a mix of housing types, a nod to the need for condos and multi-unit buildings, as opposed to single-family homes. Polis specifically called out making it easier for Coloradans to build accessory-dwelling units, also known as carriages houses or granny flats. ADUs are regulated differently across the state. Polis set aside money in his budget proposal to subsidize ADU construction, and a bill to allow for the building of more ADUs is expected to be introduced in the coming legislative session.

Other strategies include updating housing regulations and modernizing “regulatory and zoning policy”; supporting expedited local government permitting and housing construction; and focusing on more walkable neighborhoods and development near existing and future transit corridors.

While acknowledging that more renewable and electric energy will be a “major” part of the state’s climate change strategy, the roadmap argues that “the design of both buildings and transit systems over the coming years will have pollution, traffic and cost-of-living implications for decades, further emphasizing the importance of expanded transit and smart building design.”

In a way, the Lakewood development where Polis unveiled the plan Thursday is a perfect synthesis of land-use reformers’ ideals. The building charges $950 a month to rent a one-bedroom unit, and it’s available to people making 30% to 60% of the area’s median income. It’s near public transit and neighborhood schools. It also has baked-in requirements to keep it available for lower-income renters. Affordable housing advocates have repeatedly said they support land-use reforms, so long as they include affordability requirements.

Local governments, meanwhile, were strident critics earlier this year of the governor’s proposed land-use reforms, which would’ve legalized ADUs across the state and eased zoning restrictions in transit areas. They promise to be similarly opposed in 2024, arguing that zoning decisions are best made by local officials.

Polis said his plan doesn’t focus solely on zoning reform and noted that he was seeking to collaborate with local governments, including with millions of dollars in incentives to make reforms more palatable. His roadmap includes several examples of local governments’ own efforts to improve housing, and he and other speakers pitched the roadmap as a collaborative vision.

“Your skepticism is not just valid — it’s essential,” Peter LiFari, who runs Adams County’s housing authority, said of reform skeptics. “…How do we navigate growth without forsaking the essence of our Coloradan identity?”

Polis and other proponents of reform have argued that the housing crisis — and the broader climate and water challenges facing Colorado — don’t care about city or county boundaries and that coordination, including on a statewide level, is required to provide more housing and improve transit.

“Move as fast as possible”

Polis pitched his vision as a roadmap not just for the coming decades but for the rest of his term, though he said Thursday that there weren’t specific benchmarks to judge if his roadmap is coming to fruition.

Proponents acknowledge that land-use reforms take time to bear fruit. But there’s an urgent need in Colorado for renter relief now: Evictions are surging across the state and have already hit record levels in Denver. Polis’ roadmap encourages interventions to prevent and reduce homelessness, but it otherwise focuses on his preferred, supply-side solution to the housing crisis of development and strategic growth.

“We are going to partner with the legislature and with local government to implement this roadmap,” the governor said. “We believe that Colorado needs to move as fast as possible and, in a perfect world, we would have moved a couple of years ago on this route, but it’s not too late.”

Echoing what land-use reformers have long advocated, the roadmap argues that improved transit availability can cut down on car pollution and ease congestion. Polis’ office argues that the state “should be on the forefront of rail infrastructure in the United States,” and Polis touted the $500,000 in seed money that the state will receive from the federal government to bolster a Front Range passenger rail system.

The roadmap calls for increasing transit options; improving new and existing networks while planning for new ones; and promoting a complete and connected system.

“Zoning is a part of any discussion, but it’s a lot broader than zoning,” Polis said. “It’s about tax credits for placemaking, including art spaces. It’s about reforming and investing in transit. It’s about Front Range rail. It’s about the kind of Colorado that we want to live in. That saves people time and money, reduces traffic improves air quality, and it’s fundamentally more affordable.”

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The proposal marks a sharp turnaround from five years ago, when officials in Donald Trump’s presidency said lynx had recovered and no longer needed protection after their numbers had rebounded in some areas. President Joseph Biden’s administration in 2021 reached a legal settlement with environmental groups to retain threatened species protections for lynx that were first imposed in 2000.

Populations of the medium-sized wildcats in New Hampshire, Maine and Washington state are most at risk as warmer temperatures reduce habitat for lynx and their primary food, snowshoe hares, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service documents indicate.

But declines for lynx would be seen in boreal forests across the contiguous U.S. under even the most optimistic warming scenario that officials considered, the newly-released documents show. That includes lynx populations in the northern and southern Rocky Mountains and in the Midwest.

The recovery plan says protecting 95% of current lynx habitat in the lower 48 states in coming decades would help the species remain viable. And it suggests lynx could be moved into the Yellowstone region of Montana, Wyoming and Idaho — an area they don’t currently occupy — as a potential climate change refuge.

There are roughly 1,100 lynx in the contiguous U.S., spread across five populations with the largest concentrations in the northeastern U.S. and northern Rockies. Most areas suitable for lynx are in Alaska and Canada.

Those numbers are expected to plummet in some areas, and the proposal would aim for a minimum contiguous U.S. population of a combined 875 lynx over a 20-year period across the five populations, including 400 in the northeast and 200 in the northern Rockies, according to the proposal.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service faces a November 2024 deadline to draft a related plan to protect land where lynx are found. That came out of a legal settlement with two environmental groups — Wild Earth Guardians and Wilderness Workshop.

U.S. government biologists first predicted in 2016 that some lynx populations could disappear by 2100.

However, under Trump officials shortened their time span for considering climate change threats, from 2100 to 2050, because of what they said were uncertainties in long-term climate models. A government assessment based on that shortened time span concluded lynx populations had increased versus historical levels in parts of Colorado and Maine.

The proposed recovery plan comes two days after the Biden administration announced protections for another snow-dependent species — the North American wolverine. That came in response to scientists’ warnings that climate change will likely melt away the wolverines’ mountain retreats and push them toward extinction.

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However, 6 million pounds of greenhouse gas emissions is just a bite-sized chunk of the air pollution Colorado wants to reduce. The state’s Greenhouse Gas Pollution Reduction Roadmap calls for a reduction of 12.7 million tons in annual transportation emissions by 2030.

People who chose to ride RTD’s buses and trains in July and August likely reduced the number of vehicle miles traveled by 145,393 a day, or 9 million miles over the course of two months, according to the Zero Fare for Better Air 2023 Evaluation report released Thursday.

By not traveling all those miles, drivers did not contribute to the pollutants that combine on hot summer days to create ground-level ozone.

The Regional Air Quality Council, which is tasked with finding ways to cut air pollution, helped RTD officials figure out how much was reduced during the two-month program. The air council used the modeling formula that federal officials use to measure greenhouse gas and other emissions created by transportation.

The air council’s study concluded that 2,583 pounds of volatile organic compounds and 2,235 pounds of nitrous oxide were reduced during the two months, according to the report.

Eliminating greenhouse gas emissions is crucial in the nine-county region surrounding Denver because the area is not in compliance with federal air quality standards. Metro Denver and the northern Front Range are listed in serious violation of ozone standards by the Environmental Protection Agency and are under pressure to improve conditions.

Poor air quality is dangerous for humans, especially children, the elderly and people who suffer from chronic lung conditions such as asthma. The pollution from cars, trucks and other gas-powered vehicles also creates a brown haze that blankets the area, and transportation-related pollution is one of the largest contributors to climate change and global warming.

Mike Silverstein, the air council’s executive director, said in a news release that increased use of public transportation reduces fuel production by the oil and gas industry, which also contributes to air pollution.

“RTD’s Zero Fare for Better Air initiative helps reduce both our fossil fuel use and the demand for its production, making a positive impact on our local air quality during peak ozone season,” Silverstein said.

The Zero Fare for Better Air evaluation also included statistics on how increased ridership impacted crime, including drug use, vandalism and assaults, on RTD property. Train operators and bus drivers feared security problems would undercut the program and they complained to RTD’s elected board just before the program launched.

There were fewer arrests and narcotics usage decreased during the Zero Fare period when compared to the average number of incidents during the rest of the year, the evaluation said. However, there were increases in criminal mischief/property damage reports, assaults, trespassing and biohazard incidents.

RTD also reported a jump in security incidents —  interactions with people fighting or otherwise disorderly, sick or impaired — during the two-month free fare period. In June, RTD recorded 601 security incidents but that number rose to 750 in July and 914 in August. In September, 737 security incidents were reported.

The transit district noted that it is difficult to make year-to-year comparisons on crime during the Zero Fare program because it recently changed how it accounts for crime on its buses and trains.

This year, the free ridership program expanded to two months rather than one and that longer period resulted in a 10% increase in ridership, with more than 6 million people taking advantage of the free transportation.

The program cost RTD $15.2 million in lost fares and other expenses such as marketing and surveys that help understand how the program impacts employees and customers. The Colorado Energy Office reimbursed RTD $13.9 million to help offset the lost fares, the report said.

This story was updated to correct the name of the Regional Air Quality Council executive director.

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Colorado broke more than 350 daily maximum temperature records while Denver also witnessed accelerating heat records this year. Grand Junction recorded 107 degrees on July 17. Average temperatures in western Colorado are now at least four degrees warmer than pre-industrial levels. Colorado recorded around 1,400 storm reports in 2023, more than double the number of reports in 2022.

Was this wild weather an anomaly? Was it because of the El Niño pattern developing in the Pacific Ocean? No, not an anomaly. And not only because of El Niño, but primarily because of a long-term warming trend caused by climate change.

Several recent reports have indeed confirmed that this is affecting many weather and climate extremes such as heat waves, drought, wildfires, heavy precipitation, and powerful storms. These include reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2022, the UN Environment Programme’s (UNEP) annual Emissions Gap report released on November 20, and a stark new report from federal agencies — the Fifth National Climate Assessment issued on November 14 — which covers ten US regions and is of special importance to us as it fully examines the Southwest region.

The IPCC warns that “Human-induced climate change, including more frequent and intense extreme events, has caused wide-spread adverse impacts and related losses and damages to nature and people…The rise in weather and climate extremes has led to some irreversible impacts as natural and human systems are pushed beyond their ability to adapt.” It issued a dire warning that “without timely action taken to effectively address the unprecedented changes in the climate system, these changes will have a catastrophic impact on the planet and all life on it.”

According to the UNEP report, “the world is witnessing a disturbing acceleration in the number, speed and scale of broken climate records.” It warned that even if countries complied with their existing carbon-cutting plans the planet will reach a disastrous heating between 2.5 degrees Celsius and 2.9 degrees Celsius by the end of the Century, and perhaps even could reach 3 degrees Celsius. Scientists have warned that if the earth warmed to these levels it would render parts of the planet essentially uninhabitable for humans and perhaps lead to irreversible tipping points. The UN secretary general, Antonio Guterres, said that leaders “can’t kick the can any further,” that dramatic climate action is needed, and added the world “must reverse course,” as “the emissions gap is more like an emissions canyon.”

The National Climate Assessment brings climate change’s impacts down to national and local levels. It said that since 1970, the lower 48 states have warmed by 1.4 degrees Celsius and Alaska has heated up by 2.3 degrees Celsius compared to the global average of 0.9 degrees Celsius. The message is clear: climate change is “harming physical, mental, spiritual, and community health and well-being through the increasing frequency and intensity of extreme events, increasing cases of infectious and vector-borne diseases, and declines in food and water quality and security.”

The report finds that climate change is already affecting people’s security, health, and livelihoods all over the country in different ways with Native American and minority communities suffering often disproportionately.

The report added that the Southwest is experiencing extreme heat and more drought reducing water supplies and increasing the risk of wildfires. It suffered 31 large climate-related disasters causing 700 deaths and over $67 Billion in damages. Colorado’s disasters include the 2021 Marshall fire in Boulder County, intense hailstorms, and severe drought.

If climate change continues at its current speed, Colorado will suffer from increasing wildfires, shrinking snowpack, water scarcity, and drought with the Colorado River continuing to dry, and the resulting ramifications for the ski industry and agriculture, both vital to the Colorado economy.

The need is evident for all countries to boost their efforts to cut emissions to save the planet.

Ved Nanda is Distinguished University Professor and director of Ved Nanda Center for International Law at the University of Denver, Sturm College of Law. His column appears the last Sunday of each month and he welcomes comments at vnanda@law.du.edu

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The odds were stacked against him — the result of generations of systemic barriers facing Native Americans after the U.S. government stole or forced the sale of their lands, banned their languages and religious practices, and attempted to strip their identities from them. The friends around him in Jemez Pueblo in New Mexico weren’t succeeding. They weren’t graduating from college, and in many cases even enrolling, in large part because they didn’t feel welcomed.

“I just kept going and doing what I needed to do it and made it — despite all the obstacles and things that I could have easily walked away from,” Shendo, 59, recalls.

That determination is what drives him now as he focuses on future generations of students. In October, he began working at the University of Colorado Boulder, returning to his alma mater as its first-ever associate vice chancellor for Native American Affairs. In the role, Shendo, a New Mexico state senator for more than a decade, will work to strengthen CU’s relationships with tribal communities and build programs that draw more Native students to the university.

“To me, it’s even a surprise that we are still here today,” he said in a recent interview, reflecting on the challenges Native Americans have faced. “And to me now, how do we (emphasize) education and create the renaissance in the Indian community? That’s what compels me to do this work. How do we … maintain our language and our way of life, and how do we build on that for success in this world today?”

Shendo, who also has experience in higher education, has been called “one of the most powerful Indigenous lawmakers in the New Mexico Legislature” by New Mexico In Depth, a media outlet. He now is working at CU part time but plans to resign his Senate seat by early next year so he can move to full-time work in Boulder in March.

His position is new for CU Boulder and is not one that every university has, though CU is following in the footsteps of others, including Colorado State University.

Native American enrollment has been recovering at CU Boulder in recent years from a decline that set in after it reached a recent high of 548 in 2019, according to university data. More students enrolled following the passage of a state law in 2021 that granted in-state tuition to Native students with ties to Colorado. The number of students who identify as Native American or Pacific Islander was 517 in 2022, and it reached 541 this year.

Shendo hopes to increase that number even more.

Earlier in his career, he was the assistant dean of students for Native American programs at Stanford University and later as the manager of Native American programs at the University of New Mexico. He also served as the cabinet secretary for New Mexico’s Indian Affairs Department and worked as a tribal administrator and lieutenant governor for the Pueblo of Jemez.

He’s worked on infrastructure projects, water issues and support programs for tribal members and students.

Shendo views Boulder and metro Denver, which sit on ancestral tribal lands, as a crossroads for modern-day Native Americans. He wants to build upon the work that was done when he was an undergraduate student by organizations that helped Native students.

His new role will include forging stronger ties with tribal governments and communities throughout the state and region. He also plans to work with state and federal agencies involved in tribal affairs and higher education. His job will include developing new programs, but early on, he said, he will spend much of his time talking to tribes, Native communities, and CU faculty, staff and students to gauge what’s needed.

Those types of relationships are important for the tribes and the state, Shendo said, especially because “universities are repositories of a lot of things” — including human remains and artifacts found on ancestral sites that need to be returned. Colorado is considered home to 48 contemporary tribes.

Andrew Cowell, the faculty director of CU’s Center for Native American and Indigenous Studies, served on the search committee that hired Shendo. The role is meant to be outward-facing, Cowell said, so Shendo’s position is part of the university’s Office of Government Relations.

It was created following the discussions and passage of CU Boulder’s Land Acknowledgement statement in 2020.

“His job is to interface with (Native communities) and really get a sense of what are the areas the students really want to study, where should CU be trying to develop scholarship money, or where do we need to develop better academic programs,” Cowell said. The hope is that his work will result in more appealing programs as well as better mentoring and support.

Cowell, who represents faculty members conducting research on Native issues, expects to work closely with Shendo.

James Rattling Leaf Sr., who was hired in September as the first part-time tribal adviser for CU Boulder’s Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, said he was excited about Shendo’s appointment by Chancellor Phil DiStefano.

Rattling Leaf, a member of the South Dakota Rosebud Sioux Tribe, works with scientists and researchers to build relationships with tribes through a variety of projects. Much of his focus is on what’s known as Traditional Ecological Knowledge, or TEK, which refers to the knowledge developed by Indigenous people over time through their contact with the environment.

He also underlines the need for reciprocity, with both the tribes and the institutions benefiting from one another. As an example, he cited a grant his tribe received from the federal government to build the first climate center on a reservation. The tribe plans to draw on the university’s research expertise but also wants to ensure the center brings benefits for the tribe and the larger region.

Once Shendo has been in his new position for some time, Rattling Leaf said, the region likely will see more projects launched in that vein.

CU Boulder has taken the first steps toward elevating its commitment to Indigenous people, Rattling Leaf said. Now it’s up to people like him, Shendo and their allies to take it further.

“We live collectively on this planet now. … We share the land, we share the air — and now that we have children, grandchildren, what kind of future are we going to help prepare for them?” Rattling Leaf said. “And I think we have to come together, and I think education has a role in that. Research has a role in that. Science has a role. TKE has a role. And tribes have a role in that.”

Cowell said responsibility for the success of Native students and those programs lies with the entire university. The creation of Shendo’s position doesn’t mean the job is done.

“I don’t think we’ve solved all the problems now, and we can sit back and put our feet up,” he said. The task ahead is to recognize “the potential we have here for (stronger) relationships, whether it’s with individual students on our campus or with tribal governments at large.”

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Restaurants and customers who participate in CSAs, community supported agriculture, buy directly from area farmers and ranchers. Denver-area producers are also reaching more people through the online grocer Pinemelon, which promotes “local first,” and Spade & Spoon, a meal-in-a-box service that uses locally produced food.

Joy Rubey founded Acme Farms & Kitchen, a meal-kit service, in Washington state in 2011 after her husband quit working in architecture to take up farming. She started Spade & Spoon, a Colorado version of the business, in 2022.

“It just seemed like an uphill battle for farmers, and so I was trying to think of a way to help my husband to move more local food and help the farmers around him,” Rubey said.

Her idea was to offer meal kits using locally produced food. Acme started with about 20 producers and now works with approximately 80. Acme had reaped a total of $26 million in sales by August of this year.

In Colorado, Rubey’s goal is to move $5 million in locally sourced food during Spade & Spoon’s first two years of operation. The business is working with roughly 35 producers, a number Rubey expects to keep growing.

“I expect that we’ll see double the revenue and double the team size in the next five months” in Colorado, Rubey said.

Pinemelon, based in Denver, has seen a lot of growth since starting operations in 2022. The online grocer, which emphasizes local products, fills an average of 120 orders a day, offers more than 6,000 different items and in a typical month serves about 3,000 unique customers, said Connor Herrick, the company’s chief business development officer.

Herrick declined to disclose Pinemelon’s sales figures, but said they grew 50% year over year in October. The company plans to open a second location in Portland, Ore. Pinemelon delivers groceries daily and has three customer service representatives on duty every day to take calls.

About 35% of Pinemelon’s offerings are local, including food from farmers and ranchers, produce from the Western Slope, locally made pasta, bread, sauces, jams and frozen meal trays. The goal is to have more than 70% of the items come from local sources.

Emma Alanis, who heads the grocer’s local partnerships, said selling through Pinemelon saves producers from having to make their own deliveries.  Alanis said the delivery logistics and marketing were her biggest problems when she was farming.

Let’s make a farm

Nick Millisor said he and the other founders of Ullr’s Garden initially took on marketing and delivering the lettuce, basil and arugula they grow hydroponically in freight crates in southwest Denver. “It was like us hitting our heads against a brick wall,” he said.

Nick, his brother, Luke Millisor, and cousin, Ian Randall, now sell about 60% of their goods through Pinemelon. Their produce is delivered in refrigerated trucks. Ullr’s Garden also sells its produce through CSAs and restaurants.

Randall said trying to sell through grocery stores “is a real hurdle for local producers.”

“The grocery stores say they’ll let you in, but there’s so much red tape,” Randall said. “Pinemelon is actually doing it.”

Teaming up with the online grocery platform has helped Ullr’s Garden reach more people. The Millisors and Randall started the company about a year and a half ago. They named it after the Norse god of skiing, winter and hunting. The name is a nod to the Millisors’ hometown of Breckenridge, which has an annual Ullr Fest.

Nick and Randall were both working in real estate and Luke was a manager of a neuroscience lab at the University of Colorado in Boulder when they shifted to agriculture. Nick began pondering the effects of climate change and how to respond in the summer of 2021. That summer, Germany was hit with intense flooding, droughts caused food shortages and 1 billion sea animals were cooked to death in the ocean during record-breaking heat in the Pacific Northwest.

The idea of growing lettuce and other greens to feed the community while using processes that consume 95% less water than traditional agriculture clicked with Nick. He didn’t have to work hard to convince Luke and Randall to join him.

“I was in academia a long time, working in research. And then Nick came to me and went, ‘I want to make a farm. I want to do a hydroponic farm.’ And I was like, “That sounds like fun,'” Luke said.

The three found a lot that was zoned industrial, commercial and agricultural. Randall said the 7,500-square-foot site had been used for cars and the trio spent thousands of dollars on cleanup and soil testing. The first winter they didn’t have running water, heat or a bathroom.

The three have learned on the go, Nick said. They are growing different kinds of lettuce as well as basil and arugula year-round in two freight crates equipped with the systems designed to grow plants. Luke’s science background has been a big help, Nick said.

Each crate can grow the equivalent of 3 to 5 acres of food, Randall said. The team plans to add more crates, likely stacking some on top of each other, to reach the goal of producing the equivalent of 40 acres.

Another goal is to also help feed communities that don’t have access to fresh produce, Nick said. The hope is to add a food stand on the site where other local producers could sell their items.

Filling the gaps

Jesse Albertini launched her new career soon after her daughter was born and about the time the coronavirus pandemic started.

“I had been working on a business plan for a really long time,” said Albertini.

She worked for several years as a chef in such restaurants as Oak and Jovanina’s Broken Italian and worked for Catering by Design. She wanted to try something else in the culinary field. In 2020, she started making pasta from local heirloom and heritage grains that are stone milled.

Albertini also makes stuffed pasta and sauces. She tries to get as many of her ingredients as she can from local farmers, ranchers and food makers. She uses freshly milled grains from Moxie Feed and Seed in Boulder.

“I’ve always enjoyed making anything where it’s taking something humble like grains and water and turning it into something delicious and hearty,” Albertini said.

She moved her pasta-making from a shop in her home to a commissary kitchen she shares with three other businesses. She named her business Sfoglina, which refers to a woman who hand-rolls pasta.

Albertini sells her different kinds of pasta online, to area restaurants, farmers markets — and now through Spade & Spoon. Rubey, the CEO and founder of Spade & Spoon, contacted her after buying her pasta at a farmers market about a year ago.

“The timing was perfect,” Albertini said. “It really helped me last winter because I have quite a few regular restaurant accounts now, but then I only had one that was every once in a while.”

Selling her goods through Spade & Spoon helped fill the gaps after farmers market season closed, Albertini said. She figures the meal-kit service generates about 20% of her business.

Rubey said customers can subscribe to the meal service or buy boxes when they want. They can get curated boxes or build their own. The meal kits are packed with local produce and recipes written by a team that works for Spade & Spoon.

“We create two to three new recipes every single week. We’ve been doing that for 12 years so we have a lot recipes,” Rubey said. “If something doesn’t have a minimum number of orders on the first time, then it’s gone.”

Albertini said she ordered some meal kits to try them out. “The recipes are delicious. The first thing I did when I started working with them was to get a bunch of boxes to make sure. I was really impressed.”

Spade & Spoon posts a menu and closes orders Thursday night.

“So Friday morning, they’ll give me what their orders are and they’ll usually pick it up Monday or Tuesday,” Albertini said.

Most of the meals provide four servings, Rubey said. Many people order three meals per week, spending $100 to $120. Those three meals will typically include food from a total of 12 to 15 local producers.

“That’s a big impact to small producers,” Rubey said.

She sees providing more avenues for local producers as a means to support small businesses, increase customers’ access to fresh food and build a more resilient food network.

“In the end, if we can build stronger regional food systems and people can do what I’m doing in multiple communities across the U.S., then we’d have a lot more food security and a lot better food being consumed and being grown,” Rubey said.

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As Thornton filed its latest application for a water pipe permit with Larimer County on Monday, officials had hope that they would face less resistance this time. But forces that have lined up against the city in recent years have no intention of dropping their fight against a 42-inch-wide pipe that would run across the county — arguing the project holds the potential to negatively impact landowners while doing nothing to improve the health of the Poudre.

They want Thornton to leave its water in the Poudre, allowing it to flow through Fort Collins before it’s taken out.

The issue will once again land in the laps of Larimer County’s three commissioners, who could either approve or reject Thornton’s new pipe alignment in a vote expected by March.

A no vote would jeopardize long-term growth plans in Thornton, Colorado’s sixth-largest city, for years to come by hampering the ability to access water it bought the rights for decades ago.

“Though it has been frustrating all these years, I firmly believe this is a better project with all the community feedback,” said Brett Henry, executive director of utilities and infrastructure for the city of Thornton. “It’s more clear about what to expect. There are less unknowns.”

Larimer County is the linchpin in Thornton’s $500 million, 70-mile water pipe project.

Adams and Weld counties already have given their blessings, and Thornton has built and buried seven miles of pipe near Windsor and Johnstown. It is scheduled to construct another 16 miles just north of the city over the next two years, at a cost of $64 million.

Thornton says the pipe’s new proposed alignment through Larimer County holds several advantages over a route the county rejected in early 2019. It would take 16 fewer miles of pipe in the county than the original route called for, and the project’s western terminus would avoid a number of neighborhoods that had raised concerns around construction disruption.

The city is also willing to move a proposed pump station well apart from homes. The station would be used to divert the water shares Thornton owns in the Poudre to a collection of reservoirs northwest of Fort Collins.

The pipe would then traverse 22 properties in Larimer County before crossing into Weld County and turning south. City spokesman Todd Barnes said Thornton already has begun discussions with most of the landholders about obtaining easements for the pipe.

“It’s all rural farmland and Thornton owns two of the properties,” he said. “We’ve consulted closely with Larimer County and we feel we’ve gotten as much feedback as we could. We’ve let the community’s input guide our process and our design.”

That’s not so, said Save the Poudre executive director Gary Wockner. The community wants the water left alone rather than fed into Thornton’s “zombie” pipeline, he said.

“Save The Poudre’s position will be, again, that the water should stay in the Poudre River all the way to Windsor,” Wockner said. “Using the river as the conveyance is cheaper, faster, smarter and restores water to the depleted Poudre River through Fort Collins and Larimer County.”

K.A. Wagner, who heads opposition group No Pipe Dream, said her organization once again will get people involved in fighting Thornton’s plans.

“When the Board of Commissioners denied the first application, they noted that Thornton had not explored ‘all reasonable alternatives,’ as required by” the local land use regulations, Wagner said. “They also expressed disappointment that the future of the Poudre was not considered.”

But Barnes said courts have ruled that Larimer County can’t force Thornton to keep the water it owns in the Poudre River. And doing so would be counterproductive for those who will rely on it in coming decades, he said.

“Why would we willingly put our high-quality drinking water down the Poudre River past three wastewater treatment plants and all the urban runoff?” Barnes said.

Henry, Thornton’s infrastructure chief, said “no engineer would tell you to pollute or degrade the water before you treat it.”

Thornton expects to bring an average of 14,000 acre-feet of Poudre River water to the city each year. An acre-foot of water, or about 326,000 gallons, is what two average families of four use in a year. The city currently draws the bulk of its water from the South Platte/Lower Clear Creek system, at 26,500 acre-feet per year, and from Standley Lake, at 6,000 acre-feet.

If Thornton can’t secure its future water supply, the failure could stymie long-term growth plans for the city of 150,000. Barnes said the city already had a 10,000-plus residential unit backlog due to “water uncertainty.”

Barnes suggested the water stakes went beyond Thornton, potentially preventing the city from playing its part in helping to alleviate metro Denver’s affordable housing crunch.

Case in point: Maiker Housing Partners has paused the development of two affordable housing projects in Thornton due to the “uncertainty over future water delivery,” the head of Adams County’s housing authority told The Denver Post.

“As soon as the water is available, we will eagerly resume pre-development activities the following day,” said Peter LiFari, Maiker’s CEO.

But Wagner accused Thornton of employing smoke and mirrors with its water portfolio. It can still access all the water it needs without disturbing the residents and the landscape of Larimer County, she said, while also bolstering the health of a critical river segment in a part of the West beset by worsening drought.

“Instead of lamenting its backlog of building permits, Thornton should acknowledge climate change, respect the natural resources of Larimer County and plan for the unrelenting drought affecting the North Front Range,” she said.

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