Special to the Daily
Keeping water flowing to customers is job one for the Eagle River Water & Sanitation District. It’s going to require planning and conservation to meet that goal in coming years.
District general manager Linn Brooks recently presented an overview of the district’s master plan for the coming years. The plan includes a number of steps and will require the help of the district’s customers to conserve water.
The biggest conservation goal requires cutbacks in the amount of water used for outdoor irrigation.
The district has five billing tiers, with tiers 4 and 5 reflecting the most water use. Brooks said the district’s goal is to eliminate use in those top billing tiers.
Abbey Davis, Seth Davis, Zander Davis, Kelsie Davis and William Roberts of Charlotte, North Carolina, enjoy some outside time at the Little Diner in Lionshead. Putting up temporary structures for outside sheltered dining has been a boon for smaller restaurants in town.
Mort Mulliken / Special to the Daily
Vail’s vibrancy last summer and through the winter was in part due to bending some existing rules. The question now is how to maintain that vibrancy.
Perhaps the biggest change to last summer’s rules is “common consumption areas.” Those areas allow people to wander around with an adult beverage in hand. Business owners and guests have given glowing reviews to that change. The change was enabled by an executive order from Gov. Jared Polis.
Special to the Daily
Virtually every Vail Town Council meeting agenda in recent memory has included notice of an executive session a session held out of public view. Some residents say the council is over-using this common tool.
Vail Homeowners Association Executive Director Jim Lamont, a longtime Vail government watcher, said the council is “definitely” over-using executive sessions. Many other residents are making the same argument, particularly when it comes to the Booth Heights property and a pending development agreement with Triumph Development for Lot 3 of the Middle Creek subdivision.
“There’s a lot of public policy being made inappropriately that rightfully belongs in the public arena,” Lamont said.
Daily file photo
It looks like efforts are paying off to improve water quality on Gore Creek.
The creek, along with a number of other mountain streams, in 2012 was placed on a state list of “impaired” waterways. Since then, the Eagle River Water & Sanitation District and the town of Vail have been working on ways to “Restore the Gore.” The effort has included projects from improving the town’s storm sewer system to educating property owners about ways they can help improve the stream.
One of the main ways to measure water quality is by tracking the populations of macroinvertebrates small bugs near the bottom of the food chain. Those bugs make it possible for other fish to flourish.
Kelsey Brunner/The Aspen Times
Like just about everything else about the COVID-19 virus, things can change rapidly. That’s true of the rollout of the vaccines for the virus.
The Vail Town Council Tuesday received an update about Eagle County’s vaccination program and had a number of questions.
Eagle County Public Health Director Heath Harmon provided the update, talking about what’s been a shifting landscape when it comes to vaccines.
Harmon noted that every week seems to bring something different in terms of vaccine supply, reserves or lack thereof and how to get as many doses as possible to as many people as possible as quickly as possible.