A DIA sewage spill sent a lot of gross out into the world -- where will it land? | flickr user luschei

The Denver Post reports on the DIA sewage spill:

The release from the sewer lift station fed the contaminated water into Third Creek, which flows into a canal that meanders via irrigation canals to Barr Lake, about seven miles northwest of the airport.

The spill appears to have started about 7 p.m. Tuesday when a pump malfunctioned, DIA spokesman Jeff Green said. The cause is unclear. Maintenance crews made the discovery Wednesday morning.

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Apparently it doesn’t look as if the spill has actually gotten to Barr Lake yet, and 9News reports that if things are headed that way, officials will dam or divert Third Creek.

Oh — and nobody noticed the DIA sewage spill for 12 hours.

“We do have backup alarms to notify the airport when this is happening,” said Jeff Green, DIA spokesman. “We have every indication that that alarm worked properly, but it went unnoticed. We are investigating how that happened.”

Green said the alarm sounds in the maintenance facility which is manned 24 hours a day.

Of course, this isn’t the first time DIA’s had trouble with spilling nasty stuff out into the world, as the Post says:

Third Creek has been the focus of environmental concerns for DIA for at least 13 years, however, as de-icing fluids reached the creek numerous times despite a $14 million high-tech system the airport installed in 1997.

In 1998, about 4 million gallons of water tainted with 4,000 gallons of de-icer spilled into the creek.

In 2001, 1 million gallons of runoff contaminated with de-icing fluid was released from a storage pond into Third Creek and killed fish in a 25-mile irrigation canal.

Some neighbors!

On March 27, 2010 cities around the world will turn off their lights for one hour to raise global awareness of climate change. | From flickr user aussiegall

At 8:30 p.m. March 27, you can join people around the globe in celebrating Earth Hour by shutting off your lights for one hour. During Earth Hour 2009, almost one billion people worldwide participated in this  call for action against global climate change. Stepping it up this year should be easy and fun for Boulderites who can celebrate Earth Hour at these cool events:

• The St. Julien Hotel & Spa twill be throwing its own its own Earth Hour celebration with a candlelit happy hour and free, live entertainment. Guests can enjoy locally grown, sustainable food and drinks from 5 p.m. to close and will partake in a celebratory toast and lights out ceremony at 8:30 p.m.
• ReSource, the waste reduction division of the Center for ReSource Conservation, will be be celebrating its grand opening from 5-9 p.m. by hosting an Earth Hour party equipped with fireside music, local artisans, free refreshments, raffles, creative workshops, and a silent auction. For more information visit resourceyard.org.
• Also, be sure to keep an eye on the Boulder/Denver Grey Wolves meetup group, who are planning an Earth Hour gathering with a TBD location.

So whether you are staying at home, or going out for a night on the town, helping to create awareness is as easy as the flip of a light switch. Click here to find out more about Earth Hour.

If you’ve got an Earth Hour event in the area that we haven’t listed, let us know in the comments!

Click here to view the embedded video.

–Lindsay Gulisano

A Boulder climbing gym has been taking a beating by conservatives for its solar array.

From the Daily Camera:

On Friday, right-wing talk show host Sean Hannity listed the 100-kilowatt solar array at Movement Climbing and Fitness as second on his list of the “102 worst ways the president’s stimulus bill has wasted your money.”

“And the No. 2 entry on our list is a climbing gym in Boulder, Colorado, that has received more than $150,000 for a new solar panel array on its roof,” Hannity said on his opinion show that airs on the Fox News channel. “Now, aren’t there a few mountains in Colorado where people can climb actual rocks outside under the real sun?”

The panels were part of an incentive to encourage renewable energy projects by funding 30 percent of the projects with cash up front in lieu of tax credits.

Hannity may have taken his cue to make fun of the project from John McCain, who also highlighted it in December. Also from the Camera:

McCain’s “Stimulus Checkup” sought to illustrate how “billions of dollars of stimulus funding have been wasted, mismanaged, or directed towards silly and shortsighted projects.”

“Boulder, Colorado, is home to more than 91,000 residents and sits on the edge of Rocky Mountain National Park, making it the envy of rock climbers everywhere,” the report says. “If that wasn’t enough, Boulder is also home to several indoor rock climbing gyms.

“But thanks in part to a federal renewable energy grant of $157,800, one indoor climbing facility stands out: Movement Climbing and Fitness. The gym received a Department of Energy grant to subsidize up to 30 percent of the cost of a ’solar-electric and thermal-hot-water system.’”

Read more about Hannity’s and McCain’s problem with Movement at DailyCamera.com.

Boulder-based Berlin Flooring recently replaced flooring at the Chautauqua Ranger Cottage with Colorado beetle-kill pine wood. Other groups have had a hard time finding contractors who use local beetle-kill pine wood. (Nicholas Duckworth )

More than 40,000 acres of forest in Boulder County have been devastated by pine beetles — and more than 1.5 million acres across the state.

That’s a lot of dead trees. And, it seems,  a lot of people are interested in using wood from beetle-kill trees for flooring, furniture and paneling. But as it turns out, it’s easier (and cheaper) to get beetle-kill wood — which has a pleasant blue stain — from other Western states with larger existing lumber industries than from Colorado.

From the Daily Camera:

Compared to Canada and other states with more established lumber industries, Colorado has smaller mills, fewer logging arterial roads and skinnier diameter trees. Canada beats the market in price and quantity for many reasons, including subsidy programs, according to the Washington, D.C.-based Coalition for Fair Lumber Imports.

The end result for Colorado is a smaller variety of finished beetle-kill wood products, higher prices and fewer finishing capabilities — like kiln-dried as opposed to air-dried. Many contractors demand kiln-dried beetle-kill wood for its resiliency.

About 90 percent of the wood used in Colorado is imported from other Western states, according to a study by researchers at Colorado State University. The Colorado State Forest Service organizes the Colorado Wood Utilization and Marketing Program — which helps develop and expand in-state wood products businesses — and Colorado Forest Products, which brands and markets wood that is at least 50 percent Colorado sourced.

Read more about the challenges of getting beetle-kill wood from Colorado at DailyCamera.com.

Google Maps now shows bike paths and bike lanes for Boulder. Click to enlarge!

Google Maps has just launched a new “biking layer” for 150 U.S. cities including Boulder. This potentially awesome feature should be able to give bike-specific directions, routing cyclists onto paved multi-use paths and streets that are friendlier to two-wheeled commuters.

Check it out at Google Maps by clicking on “bicycling” under the “more” drop-down menu, or click on the photo above to check it out here.

Dark green indicates dedicated bike trails (like the Boulder Creek Path), light green are roads with bike lanes and dotted green lines indicate roads with no bike lanes but which have lower volume of traffic or safer intersections.

You can also get bike directions by clicking the “bicycling” option in the “get directions” section. But be careful — Google still has kinks to work out. For example, Google seems to have no problem routing bikers down the Pearl Street Mall (where it’s illegal to ride your bike) or down Broadway through downtown (which is just plain scary).

Read more about the new Google Maps feature at DailyCamera.com, or check out this how-to video below.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Treehugger's Best of Green Awards -- voting is open now.

Waylon Lewis and David Quilty, of Boulder and Denver respectively, are up for Best of Green Awards over at Treehugger in the category of Best Ambassador of Environmental Culture. Via elephantjournal:

The Treehugger Best of Green 2010 Reader’s Choice Awards include 40 prize categories across 8 main topics, and there are some great names and friends of ours! that have been nominated, like Eco Salon, Derek Markham, Bike Portland, Nau Clothing, Bill McKibben, Huffington Post Green, Alexandra Cousteau, and many many more.

It’s vote-driven, so get on out there and make it happen for your local greenies, if you’re so inclined.

(One former winner lives in Colorado, too.)

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I don’t know much about the issue in question, but either way, making a change at all doesn’t sound all too easy… (FYI, the map on the story’s page is rotated; it is oriented so that the top part of the map points west).

They presented their opinion that the trail was too steep, erosion-prone and dangerous, and offered an option that would substitute an easier path from Hawthorne up and over the ridge.

Read on about The Great Goat Trail Debate.

In addition to the recent news development from the “Cove” team busting a restaurant serving illegal whale meat, here are some tidbits of “Cove” coverage from the aftermath of that film’s big Oscar win in the documentary category.

Plenty has been said about Ric O’Barry’s unfurling of a banner reading “TEXT DOLPHIN to 44144,” by folks like Mother Jones, Treehugger, the Huffington Post, Ellen DeGeneres, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (which gave the acceptance speech an award for “Fastest cutaway”), Louie Psihoyos:

Still, Mr. Psihoyos said, “it’s hard to get all huffy about that stuff. It’s like spilled milk.”

and O’Barry himself:

“I had butterflies in my stomach. I wanted to throw up on my shoes. But I knew that one billion people were watching, and I had to do it.”

Here’s what Psihoyos says he would have said, if not cut off:

Click here to view the embedded video.

The mayor of Taiji — the city that reluctantly starred in the film — responded to the film’s win by saying that “The Cove” was unreasonable:

In a statement reported by The Associated Press, the office of the mayor of Taiji defended the village’s practices and said “The Cove” contained statements that were not based on science. “There are different food traditions within Japan and around the world,” the statement said. “It is important to respect and understand regional food cultures, which are based on traditions with long histories.”

When asked about the win, the filmmakers have mostly sounded like this:

“The Cove’s” high-profile inclusion in the Academy Awards ceremony is important “because [the show is] the most watched program in Japanese television,” Psihoyos said.

There will also now be a “Cove”-inspired TV show on Animal Planet, tentatively called “Dolphin Warriors”:

The series picks up where the movie leaves off and, like the film, stars animal activist Ric O’Barry. Two episodes of the series — which is being executive produced by O’Barry’s son, Lincoln — have already been completed, although a premiere date has yet to be announced, Ric O’Barry said.

Animal Planet says the series may premiere in the fall, after “The Cove” debuts on the channel this summer.

Ric O’Barry is planning on heading over to Japan again in spite of his unpopularity with fishermen:

“Officials in Japan are threatening repercussions against university and community groups that dare to show The Cove. Dolphin-killing fishermen’s unions are threatening lawsuits against theaters that show the film. There are even some signs that I could face arrest in Japan, even though I’ve broken no laws whatsoever.

“We wont give in to this pressure. Instead, I am making plans to spend months in Japan with our Save Japan Dolphins Team.

Variety says that underwater cameras in fake rocks were vital to the film’s success. They tell us about a LucasFilm (think “Star Wars” and “Indiana Jones”) spinoff company called Kerner Optical, which put HD cameras in fake rocks for the “Cove” crew:

Once in place, the cameras ran continuously. Each night the pic sent a team to collect the cameras and replace the hard drives, but the rock cameras were so convincing that they were hard to locate.

"Sizzle" features... this?

Have you seen “Sizzle?” The film is about global warming, but it’s no “Inconvenient Truth” — it’s more of a this-global-thermometer-goes-up-to-11 type of flick.

A mockumentary about global warming. What do you think? Better or worse approach than the straight-ahead documentary (Oscar-winners notwithstanding)?

Via the Colorado Daily:

“The film is not being used as a scare tactic, as so many others have, but to make the issue something you can approach and confront, which leads to a better change for the environment,” Barreras said.

The motivation for his latest film stemmed from his desire to create awareness and interest in issues like global warming by presenting them in an entertaining way, according to the film’s Web site.

If you’re in the Boulder area, tomorrow night the International Film Series hosts “Sizzle” and its director, Randy Olson. Following a free 7 p.m. screening of his mockumentary, Olson will stick around for a question-and-answer session.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Psihoyos and his band of Ocean activists helped authorities sting a sushi restaurant in Santa Monica that was illegally selling whale-meat sushi.

From a New York Times article:

Louie Psihoyos

With video cameras and tiny microphones, the team behind Sunday’s Oscar-winning documentary film “The Cove” orchestrated a Hollywood-meets-Greenpeace-style covert operation to ferret out what the authorities say is illegal whale meat at one of this town’s most highly regarded sushi destinations.

Their work, undertaken in large part here last week as the filmmakers gathered for the Academy Awards ceremony, was coordinated with law enforcement officials, who said Monday that they were likely to bring charges against the restaurant, the Hump, for violating federal laws against selling marine mammals.

The whale meat, as it turns out, is from the Sei whale, which are endangered but still sometimes hunted in the North Pacific under a controversial Japanese science program.

Read the full story at nytimes.com.