Confluence Energy and Colorado Blue Logs LLC are partnering to salvage pine lumber from beetle kill. They plan to build a 6,000-square-foot building to house the lumber starting in January, and hope to open in April.
Colorado Blue Logs plans to build smaller, affordable homes for some of its 20 to 25 employees with the wood.
Breckenridge realty
Copper Mountain development is focusing on sustainable living. Copper installed a 4.2 kilowatt solar system to generate power for part of the transportation center. Its new training facility, Camp Woodward, will earn the Green Globes certification. Its efforts will help combat the rating it got in 2007 by the Ski Area Citizen’s Coalition as the worst green ski area in the West.
Summit County Wildfire Council is thinning and removing dead trees in about a third of the areas adjacent to neighborhoods that are most prone to wildfires. Just this is costing more than $13 million.
The council lists 27 high-risk areas, including those in the Acorn Creek subdivision and in the Lower Blue Valley. Ptarmigan in Silverthorne also made the list, partially because of its steepness and dirt road access.
Now that many pine trees have died from the pine beetle, shorter grasses and shrubs, which can act as fuel for fire, are growing.
The biggest obstacle to removing dead pine trees is cost. Experts estimate the cost between $6,000 and $8,000 an acre, and federal funding isn’t coming through, so the burden is left to the state and private citizens.
Colorado made headlines when legislation stating employers must allow working mothers to breastfeed passed.
Sen. Dan Gibbs supported it, saying that it helps babies’ health, with so many working mothers in Summit County.
Summit Prevention Alliance is providing grants up to $500 for local businesses to help accommodate breastfeeding, by creating private rooms or providing refrigerators for milk. It’s not acceptable for bathroom stalls to be mothers’ only option.
Meanwhile, Lake Dillon Preschool made progress for children by completing its $115,000 playground, after fundraising for seven years. It provides fall zones that are bouncy, as well as safer fences.
Courtesy of real estate Summit County
If you’ve never taken the short hike up to the Old Dillon Reservoir, located off of the Dam Road, you may have missed out, because the town of Dillon is draining it. Within a day, the lake went down a foot.
But if you fish, it’s a great time to catch and keep the fish.
Dead pine trees add to an already compromised dam; if the trees fall (thus uprooting), it will weaken the dam’s capacity to hold water. A break would flood Interstate 70 and companies in Silverthorne. The lake spans 10 acres.
Drained water will go back into the Salt Lick Creek, and the process will occur over the next month.
Like the closing of the Dam Road in early July, the news came abruptly and required immediate action after a regularly scheduled inspection.
But the reservoir won’t be gone for long next year, they’ll start building a new dam to hold water again, and they’ll restock it with fish.
Students in Summit County have always done well on the state’s assessment tests, and
last school year was no exception; they scored above average, though they did score lower when compared to their 2007 scores.
But, third-grade students who speak Spanish most of them as a first language didn’t do as well. At Dillon Valley Elementary School, 78% scored less than the average, which was 70%. Silverthorne third graders did poorly as well.
Fifth graders did better; in Dillon Valley, 65% scored average or higher. The scores also showed much improvement in fourth graders, which officials say is evidence that the schools teaching systems are working.
As a result, the state’s Department of Education is conducting a pilot program in the Summit School District for three years to help Hispanic students achieve better results. The district will receive between $200,000 and $300,000 a year to put into new academic programs.
If you’re looking at moving to Alma, you might want to know it’s not such a cowpoke town. In fact, it has a Montessori school, which is now accepting children ages 18 months through third grade this fall.
Its capacity is nearly doubling, from taking in 12 students, to 22. Director Jesse Hoehn hopes to keep expanding, up to accommodating sixth graders.
The school opened in 2006 and plans to be certified by the international Montessori association in two years.
Dillon and Breckenridge also have Montessori schools. The method of instruction engages all of the body’s senses in order for students to learn better.
Published by Breckenridge Colorado real estate
A new report about impacts the apparently changing climate may have on Colorado came out July 23, 2008, from the University of Maryland’s Center for Integrative Environmental Research.
A major concern for resort towns in Colorado, including Summit County, is the warming effect of the climate on skiing, and thus tourism. Colorado is the biggest ski state in the nation. In 2007, skiing created Read more »
If you’re moving to Summit County full time and have kids who need childcare, beware: Childcare is hard to come by up here.
One friend of mine who lives in Frisco had to quit her well-paying job when she couldn’t find space to enroll her infant in daycare last year. About 120 Summit County kids are on a waiting list for daycare.
Meanwhile, some daycare centers that were open a year or more ago are closed. Kinderhut, at the base of Breckenridge Peak 8 in Breckenridge, closed April, 2008, after 17 years of business. It accommodated drop-in daycare. It has been replaced by retail stores.
The good news is that the town of Breckenridge Colorado is stepping up and building a new childcare center, called the Timberline Learning Center, scheduled to open Aug. 1, 2008. It should be able to take care of 68 kids. The bad news is that during the needs assessment the town did, it discovered two facilities, not just one, would be necessary to meet the community’s needs. For more information on Timberline, e-mail: info@timberlinelearningcenter.com.
Another daycare center that used to help local parents that has remained closed for more than a year is the Pumpkin Patch at Copper Mountain. In April 2007, it closed, after allegations that employees put unlit cigarettes in infants mouths and took pictures. Criminal charges were not filed, but the center hasn’t reopened since its licensure suspension. Copper Mountain is looking for other childcare providers to partner with and is holding the space vacant for the day another facility opens. The Belly Button Bakery remains operational for short-term daycare for tourists during the winter.