A few days before Thanksgiving, about five dozen
employees of Vail Resorts were hard at work. The Colorado ski
resort had staffed up for a mid-November opening, but these workers
weren’t running ski lifts or grooming the slopes. Instead,
they were picking up trash; the snow had not arrived, the
opening was delayed and they needed to keep busy during the sunny,
50-degree days.
As winter solstice approaches,
scenes like this are playing out all over the West. The predominant
color is not white but brown, accented here and there by deep
orange flames leaping across the landscape. People were as likely
to golf at mountain resorts over Thanksgiving as they were to ski
or snowboard, and ranchers, water managers and ski area operators
are watching anxiously as their livelihoods evaporate into the
severe drought that covers most of the region.
New Mexico dodged wildfires all summer – less than 80,000
acres burned in the state this year, compared to, say, Idaho, where
2 million acres went up in flames. But in late November, the party
ended: The Ojo Peak fire scorched 7,500 acres in
what should, at this time of the year, be the snow-covered Manzano
Mountains. On the West Coast, news media reprised the stories of a
few weeks before as fires fueled by Santa Ana winds charred yet
more homes – 50-plus Malibu mansions this time. The fact that fire
season and the holiday season are now synonymous no longer seems
surprising, so news outlets played up the fact that Flea,
the bassist for the Red Hot Chili Peppers, lost his home.
Scientists announced that fires in California released
7.9 million metric tons of carbon dioxide during one week in
October, and that fires in California release 7,579 pounds of
mercury each year, about three times what one cement plant in
Tehachapi, Calif., emits.
Los Angeles is
experiencing its driest year on record. The Sierra Nevada
snowpack is at 3 percent of average, and the snow cover in the
Colorado River Basin above Lake Powell is 70 percent below average.
Powell’s surface level is 101 feet below full and Lake Mead is half
empty. To cope with the drought, L.A.’s water utility has
hired six guys to drive around in hybrid vehicles, asking people to
turn off their sprinklers during the middle of the day.
Bears, forced by drought and a late freeze to look for
food in towns, have sacrificed, too. Colorado wildlife
officers killed 59 bruins – a record – over run-ins of
one sort or another with people. In mid-November, wildlife agency
officials speculated that even more bears might die: Thanks to the
balmy days, the animals are still rummaging through trashcans
rather than hibernating. Arizona ranchers,
squeezed between sparse water supplies and rising corn prices
(thanks to the ethanol boom) are thinning their
herds, so they don’t have as many cattle to feed and
water next summer.
Aspen Skiing Co. opened a
soup kitchen to feed its idle, paycheck-less employees,
but emphasized it wasn’t meant to provide meals to real estate
agents moonlighting as ski instructors. Plans to build a rock ‘n’
roll-themed amusement park in Eloy, Ariz., near Phoenix, dried up
because of worries that it’s too hot there for such a park.
Archaeologists in Montana found historic artifacts, including 18
unfired cartridges and an ax, in an area denuded by a wildfire this
summer. “In 1870, you don’t lose 18 unfired cartridges,” an
archaeologist told the Associated Press. “We speculate
that maybe a grizzly bear ran the guy off, killed him and ate
him.”
A storm finally hit much of the West in
the days before Thanksgiving. Snowflakes doused the fire in New
Mexico, and some ski areas were able to meet their delayed opening
dates. But don’t get used to it. The National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration’s Drought Outlook predicts that the
Northern Rockies may get some relief this winter, but
drought will persist in the rest of the West.
Carbon costs
$89,000 Amount of taxpayer dollars spent to
“offset” the 30,000 tons of carbon dioxide emitted annually by the
U.S. Capitol’s coal-burning power plant.
116
million Tons of carbon dioxide emitted by Western
wildfires each year.
2.8 billion Tons
of carbon emitted by U.S. power plants each year.
100 million Tons of carbon dioxide released by
trees killed by hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005.
$504 million Amount budgeted by the feds to
replant trees lost in hurricanes Katrina and Rita; $70 million has
been promised or dispensed so far.
551
million Tons of carbon dioxide removed from the
atmosphere and stored in plants or soil in North America.
172 million Tons of carbon dioxide emitted each
year by Southern Company’s power plants, making it the worst
polluter in the U.S.
$217,057 Amount
employees of Southern Company have contributed to George W. Bush’s
campaigns.
SOURCES: NATIONAL CENTER FOR ATMOSPHERIC
RESEARCH, SCIENCE, CENTER FOR GLOBAL
DEVELOPMENT, CENTER FOR RESPONSIVE POLITICS, U.S. CLIMATE CHANGE
SCIENCE PROGRAM, WASHINGTON POST.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Two weeks in the West.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
