While it might not be obvious on a pristine summer day, Aspen still has a serious pollution problem.
The town’s aging infrastructure can’t handle stormwater runoff adequately. The Roaring Fork River through Aspen is severely degraded. Between 22,000 and 24,000 cars and trucks each day cross the Castle Creek Bridge and have done so since 1999. Poisonous carbon dioxide emissions are being pumped into the air by jets at the airport and by cars and trucks on the road. And debris from construction projects accounts for about 25 percent of the waste and pollutants being poured into the landfill each year.
The reality that Aspen’s tourism and second-home economy does in fact have negative environmental impacts is revealed in a new draft “existing conditions” report on Aspen’s environment prepared as part of an update to the Aspen Area Community Plan.
The planning document is frequently cited by local officials when making land-use decisions.
“Every new resident, new job and new visitor has an impact,” the environmental report concludes. “For example, extending the Aspen airport runway may bring more tourists and visitors who generate additional sales tax dollars, but the increasing number of jets will also bring more carbon emissions.”
The report was prepared by RRC Associates and Elk Mountains Planning Group. RRC is a Boulder-based organization with extensive resort-planning experience. Julie Ann Woods, the principal in Elk Mountains Planning Group, is the former planning director for the city of Aspen.
In addition to its direct statements about Aspen’s pollution challenges, the report describes the many environmental initiatives the city and other local organizations have implemented to reduce the community’s environmental impact.
For instance, traffic levels might be far higher if not for the dramatic increase in bus ridership on the Roaring Fork Transportation Authority, which carried 1.5 million passengers in 1979 and now carries more than 4 million passengers per year.
The city’s parks and engineering departments have completed, or are planning, a series of significant improvements to the city’s stormwater runoff infrastructure. And voters recently approved a $12 million property tax increase to fund such projects during the next 15 years.
Extensive construction and run-off management plans are now required by the city for each new project, and the landfill has developed innovative ways to divert a range of materials.
And when a new hydroelectric plant is completed on Castle Creek next year, more than 80 percent of the city’s electricity will come from hydro and wind power.
But there can be no denying that making the Aspen experience happen every day is not without its environmental impacts.
Aspen’s year-round residential population is reported to be 6,400; however, each day approximately 15,000 people are in town. And during the Christmas holidays and July, the peak population reaches 30,000, not including Snowmass Village, the remainder of Pitkin County or the Roaring Fork River valley.
Many of the people in Aspen on any given day have driven cars or trucks into town, and, according to the city, traffic accounts for 25 percent of Aspen’s greenhouse gas emissions.
The traffic also adds to Aspen’s PM-10 problem (particulate matter less than 10 microns in size). Dirt and mud on the roads are ground up by tires into particles smaller than 10 microns, small enough to be inhaled and lodge in the lungs with serious health repercussions. The sand and dirt on the streets are often applied deliberately during winter to reduce accidents on icy roads; mud is tracked in by cars and trucks.
“According to one estimate, 83 percent of Aspen’s PM-10 on a high pollution day comes from traffic driving over and grinding up dirt that then gets kicked up into the air,” the AACP draft report states. “The worst PM-10 levels in Aspen usually occur in February and March, when the first warm spells come, exposing built-up winter sand and dirt.”
The number of PM-10 days has declined in Aspen since 1999, in part due to more aggressive street-sweeping, but there are still many winter days when it does not seem wise to take deep breaths downtown.
Another challenge facing Aspen’s environment, and specifically the health of the Roaring Fork, is stormwater runoff.
“The parts per million of suspended solids in the average stormwater discharge from the city is 20 times higher than the national average for urban runoff,” the report states. “Until recently, Aspen’s stormwater runoff went untreated, directly into the Roaring Fork River, polluting the river with motor oil, detergents, pesticides, fertilizers and sediment loading.”
And the stormwater runoff system in Aspen still “falls significantly short of the generally accepted 100-year flood criteria for the safe passage of floods in a municipal setting,” the report states.
One significant improvement to controlling stormwater runoff was the recent completion of the Jenny Adair wetlands project below the Aspen post office, which includes a sedimentation vault used to trap dirt and pollutants generated during heavy rainstorms before they reach the river. In six months, the vault removed 80 tons of sediment and the constructed wetlands another 64 tons — a total of 144 tons of sediment not discharged into the Roaring Fork River, the report notes.
Last November, Aspenites approved a $12 million taxing question to fund additional stormwater management projects during the next 15 years. In addition, “new development fees are charged to offset sediment transport caused by construction sites.”
According to the report, the Roaring Fork River could really use the help. “As the river runs through the urbanized area of Aspen, it is severely degraded,” the report states. “The main factors contributing to this degradation include loss of riparian vegetation, loss of flow due to diversion, extensive channelization, and sedimentation in excess of the river’s absorption capacity.”
The Roaring Fork River is also used by Aspen as its community sewer, albeit the sewage is treated by the Aspen Consolidated Sanitation District before being released into the river.
In 2007, the average daily flow of sewage to the treatment plant, which is next to the river below the Aspen Airport Business Center, was about 1.5 million gallons, which means there were an average of 14,362 people in town each day. The plant can handle 3 million gallons a day, which is enough capacity for about 31,000 people.
Through its Canary Initiative, Aspen has also set ambitious goals to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. “The city hopes to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions from its levels in 2004 by 30 percent in 2020, and by 80 percent by 2050,” the report states.
It also notes that “as a destination resort, it is not surprising that commercial and private air travel — the town’s economic engine — accounts for 41 percent of Aspen’s emissions.”
Airport director Jim Elwood, however, thinks the airport has gotten a bum rap when it comes to greenhouse gases, and has hired a consultant to take a closer look at the airport’s contribution to Aspen’s pollution.
“The new Greenhouse Gas Inventory responds to the Canary Initiative by improving upon the quantification of airport-related emissions,” Elwood wrote in a memo dated June 17. “In addition, the Inventory identified deficiencies in data recording and collecting that are needed to develop a more complete inventory.”
The city has also determined that 25 percent of emissions are generated by cars and trucks (mostly commuters), and another 40 percent by electricity and gas use in buildings and industry. Nearly all are comprised of carbon dioxide emitted from fossil fuel combustion. The city is preparing an updated carbon emissions inventory.
At the Pitkin County landfill, recycling efforts are keeping approximately 30 percent of the waste stream out of the landfill, although in 2005, approximately 93,000 tons of trash were trucked up to the site above Aspen Village. Another 93,000 tons of “aggregate” were delivered, including rock, dirt and construction debris, which accounted for 52,000 tons of material. The landfill is expected to reach capacity by 2038.
On a brighter note, the city’s water department is moving ahead with a new 11,774-square-foot hydro-electric plant on Castle Creek that in 2009 will produce 5.5 million kilowatt hours per year, enough to eliminate 5,167 tons of CO2 for a .6 percent reduction in carbon emissions, and to power 655 “typical homes in Aspen.”
But whether these green steps will do much to preclude Aspen’s demise as a ski resort is a larger question.
“The average number of frost-free days per year in Aspen has increased by about 20 days over the last 25 years,” says the report. “Continued greenhouse gas emissions growth could end skiing in Aspen by 2100, as more precipitation falls as rain rather than snow.”
In conclusion, the draft environmental report states that “the health of Aspen’s economy is directly related to the health of its environment. It is important to establish and maintain a balance between economic growth and environmental preservation.”
bgs@aspendailynews.com