Steamboat Trails debate highlights debate over public funds for residents vs. tourists

Sneak Peek of the Week

Steamboat Springs council OKs funding for remote singletrack trails, ending years of RouttCo contention over tourist-versus-local amenities

The steady stream of residents testifying before the Steamboat Springs City Council late Tuesday night all spoke of their appreciation for trails. But there was friction over where those trails should be built and whether publicly funded recreation should be designed for locals or visitors.

It’s a scene playing out across the Western Slope as residents of busy mountain towns push elected leaders to focus more on the local quality of life and less on the visitor experience. That’s a bold move in communities built by tourist dollars. And it’s a sign of the changing tides in tourist-based economies.

“A lot has changed in the last 10 years. We have had COVID and huge crowds in the summer and we are saying we want tax dollars spent locally,” said Larry Desjardin, whose Keep Routt Wild group is fighting a plan for new trails on Forest Service-managed land atop Rabbit Ears Pass near Steamboat Springs. “People are asking why we are funding these trails to attract tourists when we are already overcrowded and a growing number of short-term rentals has us facing a housing crisis.”

In 2013, Steamboat Springs voters overwhelmingly approved a plan to direct lodging taxes toward trails. As that funding plan expires next year, the city has developed a vast network of trails ranging from paved sidewalks to rocky singletrack, bolstering the city’s appeal for both locals and visitors.

The 2A ballot measure approved by more than 70% of Steamboat Springs voters was meant to expand the intent of the city’s 1986 accommodations tax ballot measure that promoted tourism, the economic health of the city and bolstered Steamboat Springs “as a premier destination resort.”

A trails committee started meeting in 2014 and began ranking 46 possible trails projects inside and outside the city proposed by the trails alliance that backed the 2A proposal.

The committee last year reevaluated the way it ranked trail projects. That overhaul added new goals, like “bang for the buck” and improved connectivity and diversity of trails, to the ranking of possible trail projects that could be funded with local lodging tax collections.

At the Dec. 3 city council meeting, the committee gave its final recommendation of 23 potential projects before the 2A lodging tax expires. The committee asked the council to direct a vast chunk of the final allocation — $1.6 million from more than $2 million in the trails fund — to the Forest Service to support building 13 new trails atop Rabbit Ears Pass in a region known as Mad Rabbit.

After nearly three hours of comment and debate, the council agreed with the committee, voting 5-2 on Tuesday to approve funding for trails in the Mad Rabbit region.

The vote ended almost six years of angst surrounding the Forest Service’s plan for trails connecting Rabbit Ears Pass with Mad Creek. The agency is finalizing a decision on a multiyear environmental review of the controversial Mad Rabbit Trails Project, which would expand trails around the Continental Divide Trail on Rabbit Ears Pass.

Many of the council members said that no other issue has harvested so many comments from Steamboat Springs residents.

Councilman Steve Muntean said he has received 300 emails from constituents on the funding plan and 60% supported trails atop Rabbit Ears.

“I don’t see how I can go against a majority of the people as well as the science and experts,” Muntean said, noting the trail advocacy groups and Forest Service supporting the Mad Rabbit trails network.

Councilwoman Joella West said the volunteers on the trails committee spent a decade coming up with recommendations anchored in the 2013 2A ballot language that voters approved.

“I’m sorry that we are still dealing with tourism but we are,” West said. “That is the ballot language we have. That doesn’t mean we have to go out and advertise all of these trails to tourists but we have to observe the ballot language.”

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In Their Words

Hunting groups sue CPW commissioners

A pair of hunting groups are suing the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission and two commissioners, saying a column written by the commissioners and published before last month’s vote on Proposition 127, violated state open meetings laws.

Safari Club International and The Sportsmen’s Alliance Foundation last month filed a lawsuit in Denver District Court arguing that the opinion piece opposing mountain lion hunting penned by commissioners Jessica Beaulieu and Jack Murphy and published in the Durango Herald violated state transparency laws. The lawsuit contends Beaulieu and Murphy must have discussed lion hunting as the commission was studying a new management plan for lions on the Eastern Slope. Colorado’s open meetings laws require public notice for a meeting when two or more members of a state public body discuss public business.

The Durango Herald piece in opposition of Prop. 127 criticized lion hunting as a “highly unpopular, unscientific and unwarranted abuse and exploitation” of wildlife that “in no way contributes” to the “bright future of ethical outdoor recreation” in Colorado.

It also called out “a small lion-hunting industry” that guarantees 100% trophy lion harvest, the needless killing of female lions, and CPW itself, for offering cougar hunting “to serve mountain lion hunters alone, for a recreational opportunity.”

The column was published a few weeks before voters rejected the proposal to ban mountain lion hunting.

The lawsuit argues the two commissioners must have discussed the opinion article, which “flatly — and falsely — criticized Colorado’s current mountain lion and bobcat management programs.” Any discussion outside of a public meeting violated state open meetings laws, the lawsuit contends.

The Oct. 12 article by Beaulieu, Murphy and former commissioner James Pribyl noted they were expressing their individual opinions, not the position of the board of CPW commissioners. (The board unanimously approved the Eastern Slope lion management plan at its Nov. 15 meeting.)

Jeff Roberts, the director of the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition, said there is robust conversation around the ability of members of a public body — like the CPW commission — to express opinions outside of their professional jobs.

“Here, Murphy and Beaulieu say they are expressing their views as citizens and note that the commission is neutral,” Roberts said in an email, pointing to a paper published last month by the Knight First Amendment Institute that suggests “accepting a government office — including an elected or appointed position — does not divest a speaker of all First Amendment rights.”

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The Outsider now has a podcast! Veteran reporter Jason Blevins covers the industry from the inside out, plus indulges in the fun side of being outdoors in our beautiful state.

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The Playground

Jeremy Bloom tapped as X Games CEO

Loveland’s Jeremy Bloom was 15 when he made the U.S. Ski Team’s mogul squad and skied in two Winter Olympics. Shortly after skiing in the 2006 Turin Olympics, the University of Colorado All-American wide receiver was drafted by the Philadelphia Eagles, becoming the only Olympic skier to join the NFL.

Then he co-founded and worked as CEO of Boulder-based Integrate, a marketing software company that sold to a private equity firm in 2022. His nonprofit, Wish of a Lifetime, has funded trips and gifts for thousands of elders. And now Bloom, who lives in Boulder with his wife and two kids, will bring his Midas touch to the X Games as the new boss of the 29-year-old action sport franchise.

“The opportunity to lead the X Games is more than just a professional milestone — it’s a deeply personal honor. Returning to my roots in sports and action sports, in particular, feels like coming home,” Bloom said in a statement. “The X Games is an iconic brand, and I have immense admiration and respect for our athletes, who are truly the best in the world.”

MSP Sports Capital acquired the X Games from ESPN in 2022 and this year the new owners announced a sweeping transformation of the brand with a new global X Games League featuring sponsor-supported team of athletes competing in four winter and four summer events a year. MSP said it has increased its online streaming audience by 113% and added 2.4 million followers on social media since it bought the X Games.

The new X Games League format debuts at Aspen’s Buttermilk ski area in January, marking the 24th consecutive Winter X Games event in the Roaring Fork Valley.

The Guide

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch steps away from Uinta Basin Railway case set for next week

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch has recused himself from next week’s case involving the controversial Uinta Basin Railway in Utah.

The Denver-born Gorsuch, who was nominated to the high court in 2017 by then President Donald Trump, on Wednesday informed parties in the consequential case that “consistent with the Code of Conduct for Justices of the Supreme Court,” he would not participate.

The Supreme Court adopted its first-ever code of conduct in November 2023, urging justices, among many things, to not “lend the prestige of the judicial office to advance the private interests of the Justice or others nor knowingly convey or permit others to convey the impression that they are in a special position to influence the Justice.”

Before Gorsuch was nominated to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in 2006, he was an attorney whose firm worked for Colorado billionaire Philip Anschutz. The telecommunications, media and oil magnate lobbied the Bush administration to nominate Gorsuch to the federal appellate court.

The Anschutz Exploration Corp. oil company earlier this year wrote a brief supporting the railroad, saying “far more is at stake in this case than the 88-mile rail line in rural Utah.” The Anschutz company joined several other industrial groups urging the U.S. Supreme Court to restrict the scope of the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA. The Anschutz group has several oil operations that would benefit from the new railroad.

Last month, a dozen U.S. Congress representatives sent Gorsuch a letter urging him to step down from the Uinta Basin Railway case. The politicians, tracing Gorsuch’s connections to Anschutz, said the Anschutz company brief “publicly establishes your benefactor’s financial interest in the case before you, and his desired result.”

“Your failure/refusal to recuse yourself from participating in the decision would further undermine public confidence and trust in the Court,” reads the letter from the group led by U.S. Rep. Hank Johnson, a Democrat from Georgia. “Faith in the Supreme Court is already at record lows.”

During his 11-year tenure with the 10th Circuit, Gorsuch recused himself from several hundred cases because a former client or colleague was involved in the case, including several involving companies owned by Anschutz. In 2017 in Denver, Gorsuch gave a speech at a Federalist Society event entitled “Getting Legal Ethics Right.” As Gorsuch navigated Senate approval of his nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court in 2017, the New York Times wrote a story connecting the Colorado judge’s “web of ties to secretive billionaire.”

The showdown set for next week in the U.S. Supreme Court revolves around the proposed 88-mile Uinta Basin Railway that was approved by the Surface Transportation Board in 2021 after two years of environmental review. After environmental groups and Eagle County sued, the railroad project was rejected by the U.S. Court of Appeals in 2022. Utah’s Seven County Infrastructure Coalition that wants to develop the $3 billion railroad as a way to connect Uinta Basin oilfields to the national rail network appealed to the Supreme Court, which accepted the case in June.

A blizzard of “friends of the court” briefs filed by supporters and opponents of the railroad reveal a battle over whether NEPA reviews should be able to address distant environmental effects of projects beyond the scope of the project or reviewing agency. For example, should the Surface Transportation Board in its review of the railroad have considered the threat of oil spills and wildfires along tracks next to the Colorado River or weighed the climate impact of increased drilling and processing of billions of additional gallons of oil a year?

Supporters of the railroad argue that NEPA should be limited to more direct impacts while opponents say any environmental review should include effects far from the project.

The struggle of biomass energy in the shadow of solar and wind

When the taxpayer-supported biomass power plant in Gypsum first started converting beetle-kill trees into electricity more than a decade ago, Colorado’s then-Sen. Mark Udall called it a “win-win-win.”

The first power plant of its kind burned woody slash collected from nearby forests during essential wildlife mitigation projects and the electricity it generated powered thousands of homes in a 20-year deal with Holy Cross Energy that earned the plant’s owners a profit. The final win in Udall’s “win-win-win” — the plant making money — did not happen.

Now the $56 million plant is closed and bankrupt, with more than $40 million in debt. Holy Cross wants to kill the deal. And the leading bidder for the property is a real estate company that does not appear keen to operate a money-losing power plant.

The closure of the state’s first biomass energy facility has sweeping implications for forest health, wildfire mitigation and watershed protection. Selling slash collected in the White River National Forest to the power plant helped offset the costs of mitigation projects.

Looking at biomass as an energy source is the wrong perspective, said Scott Fitzwilliams, the head of the White River National Forest.

“This is not about making energy. It’s about treating forests,” Fitzwilliams said.

The lose-lose-lose Eagle Valley Clean Energy plant struggled from the start. Its owners faced lawsuits from the Town of Gypsum and the construction company that built it. Those owners paid the federal government millions to settle allegations they defrauded a federal renewable energy program. The plant sold in 2019 to a large clean-energy investment firm but even that company struggled to make biomass profitable.

Now an Illinois real estate company has offered $550,000 for the plant, all its equipment and its 20 acres. (It offered another $1.9 million for the empty 74-acre parcel next door along the Eagle River.)

Biomass is hard as an energy source. The furnaces and filters required to cleanly burn woody forest trash are pricey and cost a lot to maintain. And it costs even more to collect and transport that slash from forest to furnace. When compared to the cost of a wind turbine or solar panel, biomass doesn’t really pencil.

Fitzwilliams, who is scrambling to find a company that can process woody waste from wildfire mitigation projects so it doesn’t rot on forest floors or burn in smoky slash piles, thinks it time to switch mindsets. Biomass energy is a side benefit of forest health projects that clear dead timber and limit the threat of a catastrophic wildfire that can cost upwards of $50 million.

“Our public policy folks should focus on forest health and whatever beneficial consequence is great,” Fitzwilliams said. “Spending $600,000 on a treatment that prevents a $50 million wildfire is a good investment and it protects watersheds for so many rural communities. I think we need to look at biomass in a different way.”

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— j

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