2009  News

Friday, June 12, 2009

You can learn how to harness the power of the sun to heat water and provide clean, safe heating energy for your home or business this June in Alamosa. There will be a 2-day solar thermal workshop from the Colorado Solar Energy Industries Association will taking place on June 29th and 30th at the Inn of the Rio Grande in Alamosa, Colorado.

Register by calling  303-333-7342.
 

April 10, 2009

The Rio Grande National Forest recently released its first Motor Vehicle Use Maps for the Divide, Saguache and Conejos Peaks Divide Districts. The forest service plans to update the maps annually.

The six individual maps show all roads, paved and unpaved, that are open for public motorized access in the 1.86 million-acre forest.

The maps are available at any of the forest’s three San Luis Valley offices or can be viewed at
www.fs.fed.us/r2/riogrande/recreation/travel_management/mvumindex.shtml

The Rio Grande National Forest requests that all comments be made by July 1. They can be sent to:

Rio Grande National Forest
Travel Management Planning
1803 W Highway 160
Monte Vista  CO  81144

The Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) and contractor SEMA Construction, Inc. will begin a new phase of construction on US 160 Wolf Creek Pass April 6 that is expected to continue through November 20.

The roadway will be widened to create a rest area and parking facilities within the Rio Grande National Forest east of the tunnel/Big Meadows CR 410 (between mile markers 175.1 and 176.8).

Starting April 6, motorists can expect intermittent delays of up to 20 minutes (or more, as traffic is cleared in each direction) between the hours of 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Thursday and from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Fridays. No traffic delays will occur on Saturday or Sunday.

The work will continue through Nov. 20 but may be completed sooner, if weather conditions allow. There will be no work over the Memorial Day holiday weekend, Friday, May 22, through Monday, May 25 or the July 4 holiday weekend, Friday, July 3, through Monday, July 6.

For information by telephone, please call (303) 639-1111 from Denver or out-of-state. For inquiries from within Colorado but outside the Denver area, please call toll free 1-877-315-7623.

Colorado property owners expecting lower property values from the assessor’s office may be in for a surprise this year. Assessors across the state are required to set property values using sales data from the 18 month period beginning January 1, 2007, ending June 30, 2008. The downward trend in the market had not really happened at the data collection cut off date. What is happening in the real estate market today will not be reflected in property assessments until the 2011 reappraisal cycle.

March 2009

Wal-Mart recently awarded the Monte Vista Police Department with funds for equipment and office supplies.

Police Chief Jim Gallegos said Sergeant Ivan Garcia was instrumental in obtaining a grant for $1,125. On March 20, Garcia, Gallegos, and officers from other Valley law enforcement agencies met at Wal-Mart and were presented with the grant awards.

“This grant is very important because there are a lot of things (needed) that are not in the budget,” said Garcia. “The money is used only for the law enforcement agency.”

Last year, Wal-Mart awarded Monte Vista Police Department $1,500 in the community grant, which was also used to purchase equipment.
 

March 4, 2009

ALAMOSA

Dairy barn converted into malt house.

“Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy,” said Bob Wall, co-owner of the Colorado Malting Company. “Benjamin Franklin said that; I believe it.”

Wall and his colleagues Ted Heersink, Wayne Cody and Jim Relyea began talking about forming a malting company last fall. “Wayne and Ted are pretty smart farmers and pretty good business men,” Wall said. “I was brewing one day and Wayne asked if I had thought about making a malt house. I said yes.” After opening their malt house a little over a month ago, the Colorado Malting Company has finished their fourth batch and made their first sale to Three Barrel Brewing Company out of Del Norte.

Wall worked for Coors off and on for nearly thirty years in malting and brewing after receiving a degree in brewing technology from the Siebel Institute in Chicago, IL. “I wanted to be a doctor, but I didn’t have the discipline,” he laughed.

Cody had a spare dairy barn in southwest Alamosa where Wall and his colleagues set up a small malt house based on the one Wall had worked in for Coors in Golden. Wall did a little malting at home just to show the others he could do it. “Wayne and Ted are pretty smart farmers and pretty good business men…they took the ball and ran with it,” Wall said. Using Cody’s spare tanks and stainless steel from his years as a dairy farmer, they pieced it together to make a functional malting house.

“Our goal is to essentially make yeast food, sugars,” Wall said. “We start out by soaking or steeping raw barley. You soak it till its 40 percent moisture then drain it. You run cool air and water up through the grain bed to facilitate germination, get the barley to think it’s a plant and start growing. When it starts growing, it takes the starches from the barley cornels and breaks them down into sugars. Then we dry it in a process called kilning, a four step drying process to stop growth and enzyme activity. It also creates color for the brewer.”

The Colorado Malting Company uses a 2-row barley locally grown by one of the partners. Wall said the malt house will provide malt for microbrewers and home brewers, and eventually would like to provide for distilleries making whiskey. “Microbrewers from southern Colorado and northern New Mexico are all fired up about it,” Wall said. He recently introduced the malt at the Rocky Mountain Microbrewer’s Symposium in Colorado Springs. “The microbrewers love it…it met with rave reviews.” Currently, most people are getting malt from a distributor, according to Wall. “We wanted to cut out the middle man. They can buy direct from us, we have the supply right here.”

Wall and his partners plan on expanding in the future. “We’ll use our current milk tank scheme for specialty brews,” he said. They plan on producing 10,000 lbs. batches as their base malt. The malt is available to home brewers, bakers, microbrewers and as boutique feed. “I have a friend who feeds it to her fancy bird,” Wall said. “It’s malt with you in mind.” Wall said the company’s catch phrase came to him in a dream. “You could call it divine intervention. All the partners are good solid Christian men; there’s a reason we’re going to succeed,” he said.

The Colorado Malting Company has malt available for microbrewers and home brewers alike. They can be reached at (719) 580-0051 or at
coloradomaltingcompany.com.
 

February 2009

ALAMOSA — As part of its efforts to ‘go green,’ San Luis Valley Regional Medical Center (SLVRMC) is installing a 1.5 megawatt solar plant to supplement its current energy usage.

SunEdison and SLVRMC worked out a deal similar to the deals they have already made with Alamosa Public Schools and Adams State College. SunEdison will take on the costs of equipment, installation, and construction, as well as the cost of repair and upkeep for 20 years as long as the hospital agrees to purchase 100 percent of the energy produced from the solar facility.

The solar facility will provide 85 percent of the hospital’s energy usage by means of a mile and a half private transmission line that will connect the hospital and the solar farm. They will be using solar as long as the sun is providing energy, and traditional means when solar is not available.

The Mosca solar plant will be the model for the hospital’s solar farm. “Once again we’re doing some cutting edge solar work here in the San Luis Valley. The project in Mosca brought a lot of recognition to the Valley. This project pushes the envelope. Very creative. We’re getting a lot of attention on the things were doing here in the Valley,” said Bryan Hammond, regional operations manager for SunEdison.
 

January 2009

The number of foreclosures in Alamosa County in the San Luis Valley have not increased over the years regardless of the economic recession gripping the rest of the country. While 2008’s numbers are not finalized, it is clear that there is not much variation from 2007 or 2006.

In 2006, 41 new foreclosures were filed, 15 of which were withdrawn; 2007 saw 62 foreclosures and 28 withdrawals; 2008 had 57 foreclosures and 17 withdrawals. According to Lois Widhalm, Alamosa County Treasurer and Public Trustee, “The numbers say we’re down 5 [foreclosures], but we didn’t have as many withdrawn. The numbers did not change drastically.”
 

January 17, 2009

A pair of San Luis Valley environmental groups will host a forum January 17 on the future of solar energy in the region. The keynote speaker will be William Brown of Sage West Consultants in Taos, N.M. Brown is a former scientist with the U.S. Geological Society and adviser to the Department of the Interior, Council on Environmental Quality and Al Gore's Climate Project.

There also will be a discussion panel, including viewpoints on the topic from landowners, water users, economic development, government, utilities and the conservation community. Ceal Smith, director of the San Luis Valley Water Protection Coalition, said the panelists have not been finalized. The coalition is hosting the event along with the San Luis Valley Ecosystem Council. The San Luis Valley already is home to an 8.2-megawatt solar plant built by SunEdison in 2007, but more could be on the way. The state has identified the valley and a portion of southeastern Pueblo County as the most likely spots for a utility-scale solar plant.

In October, Xcel Energy and Tri State Generation and Transmission Association announced plans to build a new transmission line from the Walsenburg area into the valley. In addition to improving existing service, the utilities said the line would also allow for the import of solar-generated power out of the valley. State law has required Xcel Energy to supply 20 percent of its power from renewable resources. Four percent of that amount must come from solar-generated power.

The forum will run from 1 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. at the Hospice del Valle community room, 514 Main St., in Alamosa.
 

2007  News

2008  News