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Another Month in the Valley

November 13th, 2010 by Thomas Wills

Filed under Opinion

The Roaring Two-Thousand Tens?
One year ends and another begins. It’s that time of year when many of us get reflective about our lives and resolve to improve things over the next year.

At the Herald our big step forward for the new year is our new website: www.merchantherald.com. All the news, blogs and more including those Anthracite stories.

The year will also kick off right when, on January 22, the Paonia Chamber in cooperation with the other two Chambers in Hotchkiss and Crawford, will host a Valley Business Symposium at the Paonia Town Hall focusing on looking at the next ten years in the Valley. The free event begins at 9 a.m.

December 1 – Cloudy, overcast and very cold, that bone chilling kind. Another storm on the horizon. The Hotchkiss Chamber met, elected officers and talked about inspiring the downtown business community as the new year begins. The new Herald is distributed.

December 2 – Another cold day.

December 3 – I made an early morning visit to the North Fork Vision Center in Hotchkiss. Diane Reddin tested my middle-aged eyes and I ordered new glasses with graduated lenses. We are very lucky to have Diane and her staff here in the Valley. Handy and local.
Overcast, gray day.

December 5 – Suddenly fall returns with temperatures in the 50’s.

December 8 – Hotchkiss Municipal Court in the afternoon.

December 9 – The Hotchkiss Town Council met to take their turn on the medical marijuana merry-go-round with a public hearing on the subject. The in-town citizens who spoke were generally against the commercial businesses.

December 11 – Mr. and Mrs Santa Claus made an appearance at the Creamery Arts Center in Hotchkiss.

December 12 – It’s still nice weather for mid-December.

December 14 – The Paonia Town Council met with a light agenda of year end things. Warm and partly cloudy.

December 15 – Dark, gloomy and overcast, but not very cold. A storm is moving in.

December 16 – Temperatures dropped back down well below freezing overnight. No snow from this round yet.

December 17 – A little sunshine. There was a car accident on the west Hotchkiss grade in the early morning.

December 18 – Santa Claus, who had a resemblance to Hotchkiss Deputy Marshal Chad Lloyd, made an appearance , along with the first real winter snowstorm, at the Hotchkiss Fire Station. The big trucks were a pretty good draw for little kids too.

December 19 – The snow turned to heavy rain overnight and Valley residents awoke to puddles and mud.

December 20-21 – Rain in the valley and heavy snow in the mountains.
Business News and Other Rumours
Of course the big news among all of the real estate professionals in the valley was the sale in early December by Tom and Susan Alvey of 2,414 acres of foothills land north of Hotchkiss to William I. “Bill” Koch for a nice round $7 million. Koch owns Oxbow Mining and Gunnison Energy as well as his extensive Bear Ranch holdings in the upper valley. (See page 22 for more details.)

There is good news this season for valley coal miners working at the Bowie #2 Mine, the only coal mine located inside the borders of Delta County. The owners of the mine were able to secure a bridge loan and new investment to bring the mine back up to speed. According to reports the mine is even hiring additional employees.

According to a legal notice published in the Delta County Independent on December 15, the current owner of Bowie Resources LLC, Cedars Energy LLC, will be transferring “a proportionate interest” to a new majority owner as of April or May of 2011. The ownership change was a revision of Bowie’s current mining permit. It was unclear who the new majority owner will be but L & L Energy, a Seattle based company that operates mostly in the Chinese coal industry provided a nine percent interest, $3 million, bridge loan, which includes the right to purchase some of the company at a “nominal cost.” This according to their on-line SEC filing. On the L & L website they spell Paonia “Penoia.” Bowie has also borrowed money from GE Financial Services.

A shout-out to the amazingly cool North Fork Ultramat (more than just a laundromat – check out the showers) in Hotchkiss. Owner Susan Keenan tells us that the Ultramat now carries high quality dog food from Lisa West (formerly of the Animal House) and also stainless steel canteens by Kleen Kanteen.

And Susan asks us, “Did you know that the entire town of Crystal, Colorado (outside Marble) travels to this valley every year, and not the Roaring Fork Valley, because they love and prefer my beautiful laundromat?” No we didn’t know that although I have several very good bookstore customers that travel from Marble.

Congratulations to the Town of Paonia and Trustee Lucien Pevac on the installation of the new 30 panel photo voltaic system that is now on top of Town Hall. Pevac was the sparkplug and leader who envisioned the project and made it happen. The installation should have a lifespan of 20 to 25 years or more and should save the Town about $900 a year on their electrical bills.

The system was funded with $26,000 in grants, including help from DMEA and the STePP Foundation, and with additional donated in-kind labor and expertise provided by Solar Energy International, which maintains a Paonia teaching campus. Also a lot of grant writing and other time by Trustee Pevac. The retail value of the system, including installation, would be about $40,000, according to an instructor from SEI.

Natural gas pipeline supplier to the Valley, Source Gas announced in a press release dated on December 3 that customers in its Western Slope service area will see a net decrease of approximately 16 percent for a typical residential or commercial peak winter month bill. The net decrease is the result of two filings recently approved by the Colorado Public Utilities Commission (“CPUC”).

And, if you’re still wondering about the future of local coal and gas; according to a pre-release summary of the annual report from the U.S. Energy Information Administration projecting energy use 25 years in the future: “coal remains the dominant energy source for electricity generation because of continued reliance on existing coal-fired plants. The U.S. (EIA) is not projecting any new central station coal-fired plants, however, beyond those already under construction or supported by clean coal incentives.

The generation share from renewable resources increases from 11 percent in 2009 to 14 percent in 2035 in response to Federal tax credits in the near term and State requirements in the long term. Natural gas also plays a growing role due to lower natural gas prices and relatively low capital construction costs that make it more attractive than coal. The share of generation from natural gas increases from 23 percent in 2009 to 25 percent in 2035.”

The report also predicts that the price of natural gas will remain relatively low over the next quarter century.

And if you’re worried about local impacts from the gas industry the relatively new North Fork based, Citizen’s For a Healthy Community, announces that it now has an IRS 501(c)3 status, which means that your donations are tax deductible to the extent allowed by the law. CHC is exclusively focused on ‘watchdogging’ the local gas drilling. Their address is: PO Box 291 Hotchkiss, CO 81419 or call Brad Burritt at 835-8805.

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