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departments 7 LETTERS: Don’t forget federal sting; Replace county commissioner Domenico; Experience, not excuses; Don’t privatize highway 7 THE HIGHROAD: The super-rich literally live in their own world 8 DANISH PLAN: How to increase Colorado’s water supply 16 NEWS: City says Valmont Butte cleanup is finally complete 33 OVERTONES: Mountain Standard Time teams up with Railroad Earth’s Tim Carbone for Boulder show 37 BOULDER COUNTY EVENTS: What to do and where to go 43 REEL TO REEL: Films showing locally 44 SCREEN: Live-action shorts are a big deal 49 TIDBITES: Food happenings around Boulder County 50 CUISINE REVIEW: North Boulder Cafe 54 BOULDER WEEKLY BEER TOUR: Hours, destinations and fresh kegs 55 BOULDER MARKETPLACE: Your community resource 57 SAVAGE LOVE: Why is cuckolding a turn-on? 59 ASTROLOGY: By Rob Brezsny 61 WEED BETWEEN THE LINES: Headed for a showdown on cannabis and banking? Boulder Weekly

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February 20, 2014 5

staff Publisher, Stewart Sallo Editor, Joel Dyer Advertising Director, Jeff Cole Director of Operations/Controller, Benecia Beyer Circulation Manager, Cal Winn

letters

EDITORIAL Managing Editor, Jefferson Dodge Arts & Entertainment Editor, David Accomazzo Associate Editor/Special Editions, Elizabeth Miller Online Editor, Josh Gross Interns, Mallane Dressel, Nadia Mishkin, Danielle Meltz, Caitlin Rockett Contributing Writers, Peter Alexander, Dave Anderson, Cayte Bosler, Rob Brezsny, Chris Callaway, Paul Danish, James Dziezynski, Jim Hightower, Dave Kirby, Michael Krumholtz, Blair Madole, Dylan Owens, Brian Palmer, Adam Perry, Stephanie Riesco, Leland Rucker, Dan Savage, Alan Sculley, Camilla Sterne, Ruth Tobias, Christine Vazquez, Tom Winter, Tate Zandstra, Gary Zeidner SALES Retail Sales Manager, Allen Carmichael Digital Portfolio Sales Manager, Kirk Koskey Senior Account Executive, David Hasson Account Executives, Julian Bourke, Andrea Craven PRODUCTION Production Manager, Dave Kirby Art Director, Susan France Graphic Designer, Mark Goodman Assistant to the Publisher Julia Sallo Office Manager/Advertising Assistant Andrea Neville CIRCULATION TEAM Dave Hastie, Dan Hill, George LaRoe, Jeffrey Lohrius, Elizabeth Ouslie, Rick Slama 14-Year-Old, Mia Rose Sallo February 20, 2014 Volume XXI, Number 29 As Boulder County's only independently owned newspaper, Boulder Weekly is dedicated to illuminating truth, advancing justice and protecting the First Amendment through ethical, no-holdsbarred journalism and thought-provoking opinion writing. Free every Thursday since 1993, the Weekly also offers the county's most comprehensive arts and entertainment coverage. Read the print version, or visit www.boulderweekly.com. Boulder Weekly does not accept unsolicited editorial submissions. If you're interested in writing for the paper, please send queries to: editorial@boulderweekly.com. Any materials sent to Boulder Weekly become the property of the newspaper. 690 South Lashley Lane, Boulder, CO, 80305 p 303.494.5511 f 303.494.2585 editorial@boulderweekly.com www.boulderweekly.com Printed on 100% recycled paper with soy-based ink. Boulder Weekly is published every Thursday. No portion may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher. © 2013 Boulder Weekly, Inc., all rights reserved.

Boulder Weekly welcomes your correspondence via email (letters@ boulderweekly.com) or the comments section of our website at www.boulderweekly.com. Preference will be given to short letters (under 300 words) that deal with recent stories or local issues, and letters may be edited for style, length and libel. Letters should include your name, address and telephone number for verification. We do not publish anonymous letters or those signed with pseudonyms. Letters become the property of Boulder Weekly and will be published on our website.

Boulder Weekly

Don’t forget federal sting

[Re: “Eracism: Exploring the roots,” cover story, Feb. 6.] Loved the article. Would enjoy corresponding with the authors. I wrote a book that involves some of this history going up to and including the federal sting operation in the San Luis Valley in the late 1980s: The Secret of a Long Journey, published by Floricanto Press in 2012. I first discovered this history when I

represented one of the several dozen defendants entrapped and arrested then. So if these authors have time/inclination please have them be in touch. Sandra Sanchez/Nederland

Replace county commissioner Domenico

I support Alan Rosenfeld to replace Cindy Domenico as our county commissioner. It is time for a change.

the

Highroad The super-rich literally live in their own world by Jim Hightower

ttention class: Today’s word is “fractal inequality.” OK, that’s a phrase, not a word, and a very wonky one. It means “uneven inequality,” but the unevenness refers not to the relatively poor, but to the relatively super-rich — the 1 percenters versus the one-tenth and one one-hundredths of 1 percenters. The 1 percent average an income of about a million bucks a year, while the one one-hundredths clique tops $30

million. Wow, how do you even spend 30 Big Ones a year? Your penthouse, Lamborghini, dinner every night at Le Petite Fortune, etc. still leaves some $20 million for you to play with. Luckily, The New York Times has answered this question for us commoners in a recent article headlined: “Wealthiest Americans Go House-Hunting Abroad.” It seems that there are bargains to be had on old castles in the Irish countryside, so many super-rich Americans are buying a piece of the old sod for themselves. Parisian townhouses and wine country chateaus are always in vogue, so why not have one? Or two? But the big action for American swells is in the Caribbean, where a fivebedroom villa on St. Barts, for example, can sop up $14 million of your spare cash. The article tells us, however, that the latest trend is not simply to buy a fabulous house overlooking the pink

Let me discuss a few of Cindy’s questionable policy positions here. Of the three current commissioners, Cindy has been the most tolerant of the fracking industry because she is fearful that the county will be sued by the industry. In a separate issue, Cindy has continued the wrong-headed choice to neglect county roads. Her solution, along with see LETTERS Page 10

For more information on Jim Hightower’s work — and to subscribe to his award-winning monthly newsletter, The Hightower Lowdown — visit www.jimhightower.com.

sand beaches of some resort island — but to buy your very own Caribbean island. What cachet! One popular possibility is the Exuma Cays, a cluster of 360 islands in the Bahamas. For instance, here’s one 47-acre island with a 3,000-foot airstrip and seven white sand beaches that can be had for just over $15 million. As an online dealer in private islands notes, buying one is not about the beauty of the place, but about the majestic image it bestows on the buyer. “They want to be steward of their own little piece of the world,” he marveled. Respond: letters@boulderweekly.com This opinion column does not necessarily reflect the views of Boulder Weekly. February 20, 2014 7

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danish plan How to increase Colorado’s water supply by Paul Danish

resident Barack Obama gave a speech last week in California, which is enduring the worst drought in its recorded history, and he called on the country to rethink how it deals with water. “We’re going to have to stop looking at these disasters as something to wait for. We’re going to have to start looking at these disasters as something to prepare for,” he said. “Water has been seen as a zero-sum game: agriculture against urban, north against south. We’re going to have to figure out how to play a different game,” he said. “We can’t afford years of litigation and no real action,” he added. Good points. So here’s a different way for Colorado to secure its water supply against the horrors of global warming: Build some seawater desalination plants. It wouldn’t take very many of them to make a huge difference. The world’s largest desalination plant is the Sorek plant, located in Israel about 10 miles south of Tel Aviv. It became fully operational last October. Its annual output is 150 million cubic meters of drinking-quality water, or 121,600 acrefeet. The output of two such plants could produce enough water to nearly

fill Dillon Reservoir (capacity 257,000 acre-feet), the Denver Water Board’s largest. Six of them could fill all of Denver’s reservoirs (which hold about 658,000 acre-feet) and Boulder’s (which hold about 26,000 acre-feet) with some to spare. The plant was built in less than three years. Construction costs came to about $400 million. In other words, for an investment of $2.5 billion, Colorado could desalinate enough sea water to double Denver and Boulder’s water supply in a normal year or to completely replace it in a period of extreme drought. Of course, there are two small complications: Colorado is about 1) 1,000 miles and 2) a mile uphill from the Pacific Ocean. This would make getting the desalinated water from the Pacific to Colorado, well, challenging. However, Colorado wouldn’t have to move a drop of desalinated water to Colorado. That is because in a normal year about 8.66 million acre feet of water flow out of Colorado toward the Pacific Ocean, almost all of it via the Colorado River and its tributaries. This represents more than half of the total amount of water in the Colorado River Basin in a normal year (about 16.5 million acrefeet). Under the Colorado River Boulder Weekly

danish plan Compact of 1922, which allocated the water among the seven states in the Colorado River Basin and Mexico, Colorado currently gets to keep 3.86 million acre-feet of the 16.5 million. California’s allocation of Colorado River water is 4.4 million acre-feet. So the way to augment Colorado’s water supply with Pacific Ocean desalinated water is to cut a deal with California. Swap the water produced by Colorado-built desalination plants on the Pacific coast for an equal amount of California’s Colorado River allocation and reduce the amount of water that leaves Colorado accordingly. Better yet, swap the desalination plants themselves for an equal amount of California’s Colorado River allocation. That way California becomes responsible for running the plants. It’s a win-win deal for both states. As of today, desalinated water is too expensive for agricultural use and municipal users still pay a premium for it, but unlike water from conventional sources, desalinated water is a drought-proof resource. That could be a big deal, if drought turns into California’s new normal — as some think it may. Nobel laureate and former Energy Secretary Steven Chu repeatedly cited studies predicting that California’s Sierra-Nevada snowpack could decline by as much as 90 percent by the end of the century; if that happens California’s annual water shortfall could be as much as 35 million or 40 million acre-feet, so any drought-proof source of water would be a godsend. Colorado, for its part, would get a big addition to its water supply, and while the water rights obtained in the swap wouldn’t be as drought-proof as desalinated water, the water they yielded would be cheap enough for agricultural use. And if continued drought in the Colorado River Basin were to cut the annual flow in the river by a couple million acre-feet a year (as it has for several years) and thus reduce the size of everyone’s draw, the extra water would be especially valuable to Colorado. But could desalination plants be built in California for as little as the Sorek plant ($400 million)? Not bloody likely. As they used to say on late-night TV, prices vary, slightly higher in the West. OK, a lot higher. The Israeli company that built the Sorek plant, IDE Technologies, is currently building a plant one-third the size of Sorek in Carlsbad, Calif. (Nonetheless, it will be the largest desalination plant in the Western Hemisphere when completed in 2016.) That plant is expected to cost close to $1 billion. There are a lot of factors that Boulder Weekly

have contributed to the cost difference — not least of which was that California’s problem-perpetuating ecocranks managed to delay the project for 20 years through litigation and gaming the regulatory system. Doing anything in California costs more and takes longer. Even so, the cost of desalinating water is dropping quickly as technology improves. The amount of electricity needed to desalinate a gallon of water has been cut in half in the last few years,

for example. If present trends continue, the cost of increasing a California city’s water supply with desalinated water will be competitive with new water from conventional sources (if there’s any to be had) within a decade. Moreover, water projects that produce sticker shock when they’re built have a way of looking like incredible bargains within a decade or two — especially if they are financed and paid off in inflated dollars. It cost $49 million to build the Hoover Dam in 1936.

Ensuring that it has an adequate water supply is probably the single most important thing Colorado can do to meet the threat of global warminginduced drought of, say, Anasazi-era proportions. Building desalination plants on the Pacific and engineering water swaps with California may be the only realistic way to do that. Respond: letters@boulderweekly.com This opinion column does not necessarily reflect the views of Boulder Weekly.

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the other two current commissioners, is to impose a user tax in order to maintain roads in subdivisions of unincorporated Boulder County. Guess what? Over 100 citizens have now sued the county because of this wrong-headed user tax. Why is it that Cindy is afraid of a lawsuit by the fracking industry but she is not afraid of a lawsuit from citizens? The commissioners, including Cindy, have been provided legal opinions from environmental attorneys Try Rolfing® Structural Integration indicating that the county can also be sued by citizens over fracking if they Come to The Clinic at don’t protect our rights to clean air and The Rolf Institute® O F S T R U C T U R A L I N T E G R AT I O N water. email: clinic@rolf.org Boulder, Colorado • www.rolf.org Cindy’s questionable policy choices or call: 303-449-5903 advisor@rolf.org • 303-449-5903 make me want to vote for someone else in this year’s commissioner race. That someone else is Alan Rosenfeld. The first step in supporting Alan is to show up at the Democratic Party Caucuses on the evening of March 4. Please Financial Aid available for those who qualify show up and help Alan to win this race! Cliff Smedley/Lafayette

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We need experience, not excuses

County Coroner Emma Hall finally released the office’s annual reports for 2011 and 2012 this month, both delayed, she said, because of antiquated and sometimes inaccurate computer systems. That sounded more like an excuse than a reason to me. It turns out there was a 100 percent turnover in the staff after she took over the office, and then there was a 35 percent turnover of the new hires. That may have had more to do with the late reports than the computer system did. In the cover letter on the 2011 report, she said there was growing interest in the coroner’s office because of television shows like CSI. That helps explain why she developed badges for the office’s investigators, and new uniforms to go with them, despite the fact that coroner’s office investigators are not law enforcement personnel. In 2012 and 2013, deaths in Boulder County rose by 1.5 percent, but the rate of autopsies conducted by the coroner’s office has increased by 36 percent. There’s no question that an autopsy is the most thorough and accurate standard to determine the cause of death, but competent and thorough death scene investigations coupled with understanding of the relevant medical records could bring down the autopsy rate and its attendant costs. Fortunately this is an election year and we have a chance to get the coroner’s office on the right track by electing Deron Dempsey, a man with a

decade of experience as a front-line coroner’s investigator. He knows how to do the job. He won’t need on-the-job training. Please join me in helping elect Mr. Dempsey as coroner. He is experienced and qualified, and will perform the functions of the office with cost-effective methods, competence, compassion and understanding. Bob Miller/Longmont

Don’t privatize our highway system

There was lots of yelling in Louisville [on Feb. 13] at the poor [Colorado Department of Transportation] employees, all about these contract shenanigans. We learned that they have not yet closed on the deal yet, but have a contract in place, which could be scuttled. We also learned why a private company is allowed to make a profit off us while running our public highway. It’s an interesting study. In order to get to the point of outrage about a 50-year contract being awarded to a foreign corporation to run our highway, you need to know what the 1992 Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR) did to us as a state in the recession of 2001–03, and its aftermath. The near bankrupting and shrinking of the state budget caused well-meaning Democrats to sign into law Senate Bill 108 in 2009, which allows the government to do privatization if it needs to, or the political climate directs it, which is what just happened. The idea, as proposed, is that it would save us having to raise taxes, but it really opened the door for privatization and being taxed by a private company. There is no free road. Since TABOR, the state has been “de-Brucing” the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, a little at a time, but not enough to get new highway money, hence the road deal. Interestingly, studies are showing that using contractors costs more than doing the work with state employees (CDOT). The alternative to hiring a corporation to build us a road, and let them charge us for running it, is raising our own money and building it ourselves. If we used our own money to build the toll road, we would get to keep the toll money to feed it back into more road work. The privatizers are borrowing the money from a commercial bank. That’s not cheaper. Personally, I’m for raising taxes and doing it ourselves. Don’t let privatization be a model for the other metro highways! Steve Ruby/via email Boulder Weekly

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12 February 20, 2014

Boulder Weekly

State Legislature offers tax relief for property destroyed by flooding

HB 14-1001 will keep Boulder County taxpayers from shelling out nearly $600,000 in taxes for unusable property

news

by Caitlin Rockett

Caitlin Rockett

or Terry Mayes, the destroyed homes past five months across 17 counties in have been filled with Colorado, Rep. hours of often circuJonathan Singer itous phone calls (D-Longmont) says with insurance companies, the state Legislature banks, restoration services and has made recovery a countless other federal, state major priority. and local entities. Her home of “I won’t say it’s 19 years on St. Vrain Road just [the] most important outside of Lyons still stands, thing this year, but but it’s abandoned, gutted my number one priand mildewed. Bathtubs, sinks ority is to figure how and toilets, now covered in to recover from the snow, sit in the front yard worst disaster in not where lush grass and mulched only the district’s hisflowerbeds once were. The St. tory, but in Vrain River flows peacefully Colorado’s,” Singer behind the house, never hintsays. ing at the destruction it The property tax wrought over just a few days problem came up in September. during a community Like thousands of meeting with a numColoradans living along the ber of Lyons evacuees Front Range, Mayes and her shortly after the husband, Bart, lost nearly flooding, Singer everything they had — their recalls. Property taxes are still due on homes so damaged they’re unliveable, home, most of their furniture, “One Lyons resiunless Colorado legislators pass a bill to exempt home owners from priceless mementos like photos those tax bills. dent put up his hand and record collections — in and asked if he was September’s historic flooding. Emergency Management Agency’s going to owe taxes on They’ve purchased a new home in (FEMA) Hazard Mitigation Grant property that’s not even there anymore,” Berthoud that Mayes says they’re Program, otherwise known as the “buyhe says. happy with. But the Mayeses, and hunout program.” FEMA provides money to Singer says he and Sen. Rollie dreds of other Boulder County resithe state, which in turn allocates money Heath (D-Boulder) “literally ran out of dents, are still responsible for property to counties to fund “hazard mitigation the room” and called the Boulder taxes on their destroyed home. measures” after a major disaster. Buyout County treasurer and assessor at their “So now we have two $5,000 propfunds can be used in a number of ways, homes to get the ball rolling on new erty tax bills at a time when we’ve lost such as elevating a home to reduce risk legislation. most of our possessions,” says Mayes. of flooding, or to purchase property that The result is House Bill 14-1001, “We needed some relief.” is in danger of repeated damage. which establishes a state income tax credit Mayes was sitting in her mother’s But the buyout program is timefor real or business personal property living room in late January when she consuming, often taking one to three that’s been destroyed by natural causes. heard via the evening news that relief years for completion. And residents like Jerry Roberts, Boulder County might be on the way. the Mayeses can’t know what can be assessor, says the county consulted with “There was a very small blip that done with their property until FEMA other assessors and referred to FEMA said the Colorado Legislature was going and Boulder County finish redrawing standards to create local guidelines for back into session: ‘And bills they will hazard maps that designate areas as appraisers to determine which homes take up this year include …’ and one of either in the flood plain or the floodway. qualify as “destroyed” and which as them was a property tax credit for peo“If we’re in the floodway, we can’t “damaged.” ple affected by the flood, and my ears rebuild at all because we’re uninsurable Property is considered destroyed if a just [perked up],” says Mayes. by FEMA,” says Mayes. “If we’re in the building has moved off its foundation, is The Mayeses owe a combined total flood plain, we can rebuild, but now that missing walls or a roof, or if there was of $9,647 in property taxes for their we’ve been determined to be over 50 water, mud or debris that filled the damaged property in Boulder County — percent destroyed on both properties, building above the doorknob in the which consisted of their main residence we’d have to fulfill flood proofing first-floor living area. Damaged homes, and a “lodge” that wasn’t zoned for resirequirements that could force us to pur- such as those with flooded basements, dential use — and their new home in chase up to $30,000 of increased comdon’t qualify for the tax credit. Larimer County. Their property in pliance coverage.” Singer says the first iteration of the Lyons qualified for the Federal With more than 1,500 floodbill requires qualifying property owners Boulder Weekly

to pay their county property tax before the state will issue an equivalent income tax refund. The owner would be taxed for the full value of the property up through the date the structure was destroyed, which Roberts says the Assessor’s Office assumes to be Sept. 12. The Legislature is already working on an amendment to the bill that will allow the state to backfill county treasurers’ offices for discounted property taxes, so qualifying residents will never see a property tax bill, and counties can still have the money they typically rely on to rebuild damaged roads, bridges and public service facilities. “If the state gives it back to us, then it doesn’t come back on the county’s shoulders,” Roberts says. In Boulder County, Roberts says, 353 real properties (immovable property, such as land and homes) and eight personal properties (movable property, such as appliances in commercial buildings) were destroyed, adding up to a total of $592,591 in taxes owed to the county. Singer says the state Legislature is still determining the life span of HB 14-1001. “We’re still looking at whether we want this to be something that continues in perpetuity or for these tax years initially,” Singer says. “Things we’re looking at in terms of state budget priorities, but also in terms of natural disaster prorates — is this the best use of [state] money … in the next natural disaster, or are there other things we can do?” No matter where their former home falls on Boulder’s redrawn hazard maps, Mayes says she and her husband won’t be moving back to Lyons. “It seems to me that this could happen again, and somebody else — it wouldn’t be us — would be in the same shape,” she says. If FEMA doesn’t buy their property, the Mayeses will be forced to rebuild on the land to recover their investment. However, if FEMA does buy the land, she’d like to see the Town of Lyons turn the whole 6.7 acres of it into a park. She says, “I can think of nothing more lovely than coming back here in 10 years and seeing the maple tree I planted and saying, ‘I planted this. I can’t live here anymore, but I left a legacy.’” Respond: letters@boulderweekly.com February 20, 2014 13

news A home worth the fight

Longmont Housing Authority change keeps medical marijuana patient in her home by Elizabeth Miller

s lunchtime approaches, time- and energy-saving changes from Collin, age 4, removes his her last house. As it is, she’s still up at mom’s plate from the micro5:45 a.m. to start her routine so she’s wave to set aside until she’s ready by the time Collin wakes up at 7 ready for it, pulls himself up a.m. Keeping her home, in many ways, on the counter by the sink to turn on the means keeping her son, too. faucet, wets a paper towel and wraps a Weber was notified in December burrito in it. His mother, Ashley Weber, 2012 that, after completing her annual coaches him through punching the num- paperwork for her Section 8 housing bers three and zero on the microwave. voucher and including cannabis among He flips the burrito over unprompted, her medical expenses, her housing assisenters another round of numbers, gets tance would be terminated for use of a his own plate and carries lunch to the controlled substance. Weber requested a living room. He’s just a little more selfhearing to appeal the decision, and that sufficient than your average pre-K kid. hearing was put off for more than a year “He’ll figure out a way, Elizabeth Miller no matter what,” Weber says. He’s got that in common with his mom. After more than a year waiting for a hearing that never happened with the Longmont Housing Authority, Weber has finally learned that her use of medical marijuana to manage the residual pain of having become a quadriplegic in a car accident 11 years ago is not going to lead to the loss of the housing voucher that keeps her and Collin in a house together. Weber’s lawyer, Jeff Gard, spent the year meeting with legal staff Collin and Ashley Weber at the Department of Housing and Urban Development and legislators working to craft laws to bring some while the Longmont Housing Board reclarity to the ongoing friction between examined its policies. federal policies on marijuana and states “We had instituted a zero tolerance where the controlled substance has been policy in our admin plan back in 2003 to legalized or permitted for medicinal use. address some budget cuts the housing In January, Longmont Housing choice voucher was wrestling with, so the Authority adopted a revision to its zero tolerance policy allowed us to quickadministrative policy that allows more ly terminate benefits for anyone in the tolerance for medical marijuana patients housing choice voucher program that — meaning Weber’s eviction notice was was not performing their obligations,” withdrawn. says Michael Reis, executive director of Her first response to the news, the Longmont Housing Authority, Weber says, was a sigh of relief. which connects 500 voucher recipients “If I didn’t have the access that I have with federal funding that then goes to in this home, I don’t think I could give private landlords as rent. [Collin] the proper care,” she says. “The Over the last half of 2013, the entire accessibility here gives me the time to be administrative plan was reviewed for its with him, to raise him … and do what I zero tolerance policies, which applied not need to do with my care.” only to controlled substances but to other Her house has been remodeled so she mechanics within the housing program. can get into Collin’s bedroom, into the “Our policy went from a must deny bathroom and even into the shower — participation in the program to a may 14 February 20, 2014

deny participation in the program,” Reis says. “Where it applies to controlled substance, we may deny participation or terminate assistance to participants where we determine there’s a reasonable cause that there’s abuse.” That “reasonable cause” hinges largely on input from third parties — landlords reporting lease violations, inspectors reporting health or safety issues and law enforcement agents reporting criminal activity — and would trigger a conversation, not an automatic termination. A 2011 memo from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) gave local housing authorities the discretion to adjust their policies on controlled substance use in states where medical marijuana was legalized to accommodate those patients. “A zero tolerance policy leaves very little programmatic wiggle room,” Reis says. “It’s very clear, but it leaves collateral damage that is really not in the best interest of the community in most instances. … Some of the things that we were doing were terminating folks for violations that could be worked out between the landlord and the tenant.” Weber’s case was picked up, pro bono, by Gard, of Gard & Bond Law Firm in Boulder, who had a history with fair housing disability cases, after reading a Boulder Weekly story on Weber’s pending eviction. No one else would take the case, he says — there was no law that would support her case, so new law would have to be made. He worked backward from that premise, making multiple trips to Washington, D.C., to meet with legislators and Housing and Urban Development’s top legal counsel. He looked to other local housing authorities that overlap with legalized medical marijuana, and couldn’t find any written policies on handling these cases. The Longmont Housing Authority’s policy, which he calls “extremely reasonable,” may be one of the first in the country that puts in writing how they’ll handle medical marijuana in the face of a shifting legal landscape. “You know, I don’t know what the rest of the country is doing, it’s kind of a

rapidly moving and changing policy environment,” Reis says. “We tried to come up with something that would work for our program and our community that would be fair and reasonable so we can manage forward in this changing environment.” The hope, Gard says, is that other people in Weber’s situation will be able to look to Longmont’s policy not as a legally binding precedent, but at least as an example that a local housing authority can approve this policy without incurring wrath from Housing and Urban Development. But, Gard cautions, “people in Ashley’s situation, just like Ashley, are going to have to make their own luck. … With the federal Controlled Substances Act still making marijuana use illegal, the housing authority wouldn’t be outside of its boundaries to say, ‘We’re not going to put up with that.’ On the other hand, if that’s not how they want to treat their residents and not how they want to address that issue, they certainly have precedent that we have changed the mind of one housing authority in one case. From one little pebble many ripples are formed, and that’s exactly what probably will happen with Ashley.” “I felt rewarded to kind of be the voice for all of the other people out there on housing facing this issue,” says Weber, who has plans to continue education and advocacy efforts on the medicinal, health and industrial benefits of marijuana and hemp. “I hope that I change people’s minds. It doesn’t make you lazy, because if anything else, I felt lazier, I felt more out of it, more foggy-headed, or I didn’t want to deal with things, I wanted to shut the door and stay cooped up in my little house and not do anything when I was on stronger medications. Cannabis just lets me kind of be free, and I feel like I want to get out there, I want to be a chatterbox. I want to talk it up and tell people, it’s a good thing.” While the new policy is great news, she says, and she’s glad to feel secure in her own home, she still worries that the case-by-case strategy for the new policy could leave someone else fighting the same fight she’s just finished. “If discretion is used or used properly, it should work fine,” Gard says. “And if it’s abused, it won’t work at all.” It was, however, the only approach See MARIJUANA Page 16

Boulder Weekly

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news

MARIJUANA from Page 14

the housing authority could take, given the current legal climate. “It’s a Band-Aid in lieu of legislation,” Gard says. “It’s one that I think allows for compassion and allows for understanding and allows for dialogue between the housing authority and the residents, and I think that’s appropriate. Although I think and I continue to believe that what’s really required here is a true legislative fix.” Gard has plans to continue to work with Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) and with legislative working groups to ease the friction between federal policies on medical marijuana and local governments charged with administering federal programs, including housing vouchers,

Social Security, Medicare, veterans benefits, food stamps, school lunch programs — from taxes to banking and everywhere in between. “Ashley’s case provides a great and very sympathetic reason to make some of these changes, but the impact of this friction between federal and state law is going to continue to rear its head in so many different areas,” Gard says, citing cases of veterans, or Medicare or Medicaid users, losing benefits, disability or Social Security. “The advice that I continue to give people is, don’t do something that jeopardizes something you can’t live without. Don’t risk it. In Ashley’s case, she didn’t know she was. She was inadvertently

kind of caught up in what she thought was the right thing in her state.” Collin’s big news at this point isn’t about the house — his mother has kept him mostly sheltered from that worry. It’s about the shots he had to get to make sure he’s ready for kindergarten, which he’ll start in the fall. When the time comes, Weber will go with him to the bus stop, just half a block down the street from their home, to see him off. “What do you want to be when you grow up?” she prompts him. To which he replies, “Happy.” “I guess if he’s happy,” Weber says, “I’m happy.” Respond: letters@boulderweekly.com

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by Jefferson Dodge

he City of Boulder has officially declared that the cleanup of its contaminated Valmont Butte property is finished — and city officials are hoping the state health department agrees. The remediation of the 103-acre parcel, which the city purchased in 2001, began in early 2012 and was expected to be completed in December of that year at a cost of $5 million, an amount the city was splitting with Honeywell, which had acquired a company partially responsible for years of contamination at the site. But in November 2012, the city announced that the project was more than $1.4 million over budget and would not be completed until early 2013. That would have been a year ago. The Valmont cleanup, which was the subject of a 10-part series in Boulder Weekly that won a second-place award for investigative reporting from the national Association for Alternative Newsmedia in 2013, has not suffered further cost overruns, according to city spokesperson Mike Bañuelos, despite the additional delay. The project has been plagued with controversy over the years, including when city officials came under fire in May 2012 for removing what representatives of the adjacent Valmont Cemetery said could have been an historic grave marker. Despite the travails, an “environmental completion report” prepared by city consultant Casey Resources Inc. was issued on Jan. 15 and submitted to the Colorado Department of Public

Health and Environment (CDPHE) for approval. But it was not posted on the city’s website until Feb. 18, after BW inquired about it. The report details the findings of the two-year remediation project and documents the various ways that the city has contained, removed or otherwise addressed the contaminants found at the property. It asks the CDPHE for a “no action determination” at the parcel — essentially a blessing that the city and Honeywell have fulfilled their obligations to remediate the property under the terms of their “voluntary cleanup plan,” an avenue that the Environmental Protection Agency has allowed states to pursue, reducing bureaucratic oversight and costs. In its environmental completion report, the city acknowledges that it found unanticipated contamination. Numerous buried drums were found — city officials say most were empty and were buried in the primary tailings pond, which was covered with two feet of clean soil and 18 inches of rock (primarily to keep prairie dogs from burrowing and unearthing contaminated dirt). Eight of the drums containing solids or liquids were shipped off for incineration at out-of-state facilities; three drums filled with concrete, which is often used to solidify radioactive waste, showed radiation levels at or below background and were buried in the primary tailings pond, according to the report. Other unexpected discoveries that the city had to deal with included a vehicle grease and oil change pit, an underground storage tank near one of the buildings near the historic mill, a

section of soil tainted by lead and a tarlike substance, and a pipe wrapped in asbestos-laden insulation. The report states that while groundwater, which was a primary focus of the BW investigation, was not encountered during the remediation, monitoring wells at the site showed that levels of contaminants like selenium and uranium exceeded state and federal standards. But the report dismisses the discovery of these levels, saying they were consistent with or less than the results of similar testing done in 2004. On at least one occasion, an area that was scheduled to be remediated was left alone because a Native American cultural monitor identified it as “culturally sensitive.” Three structures not initially expected to be demolished were removed, according to the report. It says possible commercial/industrial uses of the land in the future include “equipment and maintenance storage, energy generation, a historical mining museum or commercial use in the former mill area, and open space for preservation of certain natural features and vistas.” Kate Lemon, a spokesperson for the CDPHE, says her department has reviewed the report and “will approve the VCUP application within the next week or two.” She adds that the next step in the process is to work with the city to finalize an environmental covenant for the property. Inspections of the environmental status of the property will be conducted annually, the report says. The full text can be found at http://bit. ly/1jQ1PeN. Respond: letters@boulderweekly.com Boulder Weekly

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boulderganic Colorado grappling with greenhouse gas inventory

University Corporation for Atmospheric Research

Draft version shows some gains, but state has a long way to go to meet goal of cutting emissions by 20 percent by Bob Berwyn

allying up greenhouse gas Trenberth, a leading cliemissions may not be quite mate scientist with the as easy as counting your finNational Center for gers and toes, but it’s a neces- Atmospheric Research. sary step toward taming the “The reason this is global warming beast, according to important is because Transportation is among the contributors to air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions the state is experts who have been working hard to these emissions have looking to track for its latest inventory of emissions in Colorado. complete an updated greenhouse invenconsequences, especially tory for Colorado. for climate, and there are When the report is final, it could be natural gas for electricity generation, as According to the draft version that’s downstream costs,” Trenberth said via used to figure out how to meet now available for public comment, email. “Who should pay those costs is a well as growing use of renewable energy. Colorado’s goal of actually reducing Colorado has made key societal and In any case, the preliminary numbers greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent some progress in political question: show a big swing from preceding years. over the next few years, or deciding if reining in emissions Should there be The state’s 2007 greenhouse gas inventhat goal is even realistic, said Colorado — but the state has some kind of cartory showed Colorado’s gross greenhouse a long way to go to bon tax for examAir Pollution Control Division Deputy gas emissions increasing 35 percent EMISSIONS IN COLORADO meet an ambitious ple?” Director Garry Kaufman. between 1990 and 2005, during a state INCREASED BY LESS THAN 1 goal of cutting The public As is, the draft report suggests that growth boom when Colorado’s populaPERCENT BETWEEN 2005 AND greenhouse gases by comment period statewide greenhouse gas emissions tion grew by 42 percent. 2010, THE REPORT SAYS. 20 percent by 2020. for the draft inven- increased by less than 1 percent between Nationally, emissions grew by 16 “It is important tory has been 2005 and 2010. Current projections also percent during that same span, with the extended through to get good estishow an 8 percent increase above the country’s population increasing by 19 March 15. For mates of green2005 level by 2020. That would put the percent. now, the state air quality planners tasked state 35 percent over the target of reduchouse gases being emitted into the Colorado’s per capita emissions were with completing the inventory are still atmosphere. It is also important to recing emissions by 20 percent by 2020. slightly higher than the national average grappling with methodology, and lookoncile all of those emission estimates By contrast, emissions nationwide between 1990 and 2005, with electricity ing for input from the public and key with actual changes in concentrations actually decreased during that same span, stakeholders. that are measured,” says Kevin reflecting a huge shift away from coal to See EMISSIONS Page 20

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eco-briefs

by Boulder Weekly staff EMERALD ASH BORER DESTRUCTION FINDS ITS WAY TO BOULDER

A three-month-long survey by the City of Boulder Forestry Division and the Colorado Department of Agriculture has determined that 13 percent of the 36-square-mile area of Boulder surveyed contains emerald ash borer activity. That’s about five square miles. The discovery of the pest Courtesy of the City of Boulder in September around the intersection of 30th Street and Iris Avenue was the first indication of the emerald ash borer’s presence in Colorado. Now This photo shows crown die- that the survey back in a large ash tree. The has deterdieback is an indication of mined which possible emerald ash borer activity. ash trees are infested, the City of Boulder Forestry Division can organize chemical treatments within a five-mile radius of those trees to try to stop the spread of this infestation. The emerald ash borer is a small, green metallic beetle originating from Asia, first discovered in the United States in Michigan in 2002. This federally quarantined pest has

no natural predators in the States, allowing Guelph graduate Scott Maclvor and scienfor the rapid spread of an infestation that tist Andrew Moore, used x-rays, scanning led to the killing or damage of 50 million electron microscope and infrared microsash trees in 22 states. Emerald ash borer copy to analyze elements of bees’ nests. activity causes S-shaped tunnels under the They found two species of bees using plasbark in ash trees, damaging the trees’ nutritics, including building sealants like caulking ent transportation system and leading to and plastic bags, in their nests. dead branches, crown thinning and vertiMacIvor theorized that this variation cal splits in the bark. Their occurred because the bees will use D-shaped holes on bark surthe closest suitable materials to Courtesy of Peggy Greb face also increase woodpeck- of the USDA Agricultural build their nests to complete the Research Service er interest in the ash trees. nest faster. The quicker they can Ash trees are plentiful in construct their nest, the more larvae Boulder, popular for their brilthey have places for and the greatliant fall colors and shadowing er the chance they can pass on canopies; their total count is their genetic traits. The scientists around 98,000 within the city. speculate that an additional perk to A quarantine established in using the plastic waste might be September prohibiting the that harmful parasites looking to movement of ash trees and invade a nest may not recognize their wood outside of Boulder the synthetic materials. The study’s aims to stop this infestation findings — that these bees have from spreading to Denver’s flexible nesting behaviors — indi1.45 million ash trees. cates that they may be able to con— Mallane Dressel tinually adapt to their changing The leaf cutting bee, environments, which is vital, since Megachile rotundata, agricultural crops and plants rely a species that was CANADIAN BEES MAKE GOOD heavily on bee pollination. found to use bits of USE OF PLASTIC WASTE plastic bag in the “Observations like this might A bee species in Canada construction of its increase in commonness as more is using plastic bags to build its nests. plastic waste is introduced to the nests, making it one of the first landscape,” MacIvor says. “Maybe organisms to have a positive different species of bees, and even birds, interaction with the usually damaging plaswill come in contact with plastic waste and tic waste, according to a new study. start using it.” The study, conducted by University of — Mallane Dressel

EMISSIONS from Page 29

use and transportation the main sources of greenhouse gases, accounting for 61 percent of the state’s gross emissions, according to the 2007 report. Experts who reviewed the draft said a final version should account for emissions from gases that escape or are lost through leaks or sloppy practices in energy development. “This is a big issue in fracking, for

instance,” Trenberth said, adding that it’s also important to look at emissions from big one-time events like wildfires, which can release massive quantities of heattrapping gases in a short period of time. “Knowing where greenhouse gases originate is a first step in reducing them, and this is a major goal of the Boulder City Council, for Boulder, for instance,” Trenberth said. “In the future, we will

have new space-based sensors that enable concentrations to be measured much more accurately and, with winds, even trace back to get rough estimates of where it is coming from.” The state’s efforts to track and reduce greenhouse gas emissions are especially important in the context of global CO2 levels, said Stephen Saunders, president of the Rocky

Mountain Climate Organization. “If we get serious about reducing emissions we can limit temperature increases, perhaps to 1 degree Celsius,” Saunders said. “That’s livable, but with high emissions, temperatures could go up 10 degrees by the end of the century. That would completely change life on earth as we know it.” Respond: letters@boulderweekly.com

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adventure Alex Honnold

limbers are accustomed to suffering, sure. But a certain kind of suffering is more common — a brief sprint through pain like climbing on body parts shoved into splitter cracks in the desert, or a two-day push through agony to get up a big wall climb. But when Cedar Wright and Alex Honnold spandexed up and hopped in the saddle of two bikes to spend three weeks bicycling to 15 peaks over 14,000 Cedar Wright on Mt. Langley feet tall in California and freesoloing technical routes up them, they signed up for 22 days of suffering. “It was a lot less fun. It was a lot more suffering,” Wright says. “Basically, it was just this long, slow protracted kind of grind.” Their trip, chronicled in the film made by Wright, “Sufferfest,” is touring with the In total, they biked more than 700 miles, hiked at Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour, which least 100 miles and climbed more than 100,000 vertimakes its stop in Boulder on Tuesday, Feb. 25, and cal feet. Wednesday, Feb. 26. “You’re just kind of in this perpetual state of being Wright and Honnold, both professional climbers, really fucking tired, basically,” says Wright. have traveled the world together, undertaking climb“The two of us have never done a bike tour and ing projects that put both to their limits. Most recent- we thought it would be pretty cool to do a bike tour, ly, they were together climbing at El Potrero Chico in we’re pretty good friends, we’ve traveled a lot, and, Mexico, where Honnold free-soloed the 5.12, 1,500you know, it’s all culminated in the worst trip of our foot “El Sendero Luminoso,” and Wright went back lives,” Honnold says in the film trailer. to do the route at night before leaving. At the very end of the tour, as they approached In the course of those travels, they’ve built a solid Mt. Langley, they considered biking a road that leads relationship and discovered a shared interest in envimost of the way up to the summit and then hiking ronmental issues and clean energy. They took the the final stretch. Instead, they on-sight soloed the messages from books they were passing back and third ascent of “Rest and Be Thankful” on the peak’s forth in Patagonia, The End of Oil: On the Edge of a 1,000-foot north face. Perilous New World and The Story of Stuff: The Impact “A lot of what we do is more like one- or two-day of Overconsumption on the Planet, Our Communities, pushes, or 24-hour pushes, and this was just a bunch and Our Health — And How We Can Make It Better, to of those, with no rest in between,” Wright says. “It look for a project with a smaller fossil fuel footprint seemed like it was never going to end, and I think and a minimalist ethic. that was one of the things that made it so heinous and Like a bike trip. then maybe later on really gave us a sense of accom“I was like, ‘Oh yeah, that would be super fun. We plishment because we had suffered through it.” That sense of accomplishment, and the way the could bike around and climb a bunch of stuff, do film about their trip has been received, has fueled the something closer to home instead of flying halfway unexpected — “Sufferfest 2.0.” They’ve selected more around the world to have an adventure,’” Wright than 30 desert towers in the Four Corners region to recounts. In the three weeks each of them could find bike to and climb. It’s “bad judgment, part two,” free, they rode 80 to 90 miles a day, hiked 15 or 20 Wright jokes. miles up 4,000-5,000 feet of elevation gain and then on-sight free-soloed technical routes of grades up to “There’s not too many people that I’d want to 5.10 (completed a technical climb they’d never before spend three or four weeks just, like, in the dirt, on the touched without gear to protect a fall), then hiked out bike, suffering every day with, but Alex is one of and biked back to “base camp” at a hotel room nearby. them,” Wright says. “Hopefully we’re still friends after

the next Sufferfest.” Logistically, it’s even more epic than the 14ers mission, Wright says, and will require more gear and more planning — and more biking. “The vote is out, but I think it’s going to be heinous,” he says. They’re capping it off with a mission of a different kind: installing $40,000 in solar panels on a Navajo reservation, an area that Wright says has about 18,000 people living without electricity. “It’s a good project, it’s a good service, it’s a really unique opportunity because of our visibility to do something for someone besides ourselves and still have this awesome adventure,” he says. “We obviously are not perfect with what we do — we both fly a lot and we both travel a lot, but we both are making an effort to minimize our footprint how we can, and we’re just both huge fans of alternative energy.” Wright, who runs his own production company and did most of his own camera work for “Sufferfest,” says the next film, visually speaking, should be even better, pulling in professional cinematography and hiring folks to help shoot, instead of relying on Wright and Honnold to use a light-weight camera to shoot what they could. “I hope that, A, we entertain people, and then even, if we’re lucky, maybe even inspire people to whatever, have their own sufferfest, do something that takes them out of their comfort zone and puts them in a situation where they’re going after a goal or dream that they’re not sure they’ll be able to achieve but that would have value if it did,” Wright says. “We’re going to do this cool little solar project, that’ll hopefully make a really small difference — but we’re not kidding ourselves, it’s a very small difference. But a small difference is better than no difference. … We still want to have fun and go out and goof around and do what we love to do, but if we can do that and still make a little tiny difference, that’s pretty bitchin’.” In many ways, their “sufferfests” are very much in line with what the Banff Mountain Film and Book Festival looks to promote. Almost 40 years ago, a group of Canadian climbers conceived of an idea to get a few buddies together in the off season and share some films. The resulting event, the Banff Mountain Film and Book Festival, is now in its 38th festival, spans nine days and includes climbers, photographers, adventurers, authors, writers and explorers from all

Chronicles of pain and passion Banff film tour brings a little agony, and a lot of visual fun by Elizabeth Miller

Boulder Weekly

see BANFF Page 24

February 20, 2014 23

Upcoming Events THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 20 Nordic in Norway — With Gary Neptune. 8 p.m. Neptune Mountaineering, 633 South Broadway, Boulder, 303-4998866.

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Frozen Foot 5K — Fundraiser for the CU triathlon team. 7 a.m. packet pick-up and race-day registration. CU campus, Boulder, www.frozenfoot5k.com. Trickster Tales — A moderate twomile hike to learn more about coyotes. SATURDAY, In Native American myths, coyotes are creators and tricksters, 10 a.m. Hall Ranch FEBRUARY 22 alternately clever enough to outOpen Space, Carolyn Fly-tying 101 smart humans and foolish enough Holberg Preserve at Classes. 10 a.m.to be duped by other animals. Rock Creek Farm, 12 p.m. Orvis, 629 S. Join volunteer naturalists for a Stearns Lake Broadway, Boulder, moderate two-mile hike to learn Trailhead, S. 104th 303-554-0122. Call about coyotes at 10 a.m. on Street, 1.5 miles to reserve a spot. Sunday, Feb. 23, at Rock Creek south of Dillon Road, Winter Farm. Louisville, 303-678Navigation with 6214. Map and Winter Ecology Compass — With Hike. 10:30 a.m. South Boulder Creek REI Outdoor School. 9 a.m. Echo Lake, regtrailhead, Highway 93, south of Boulder, ister at www.rei.com. www.naturehikes.org. SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 23 TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 25 Fight for Air Climb — Climb the Experience Guatemala. 7 p.m. stairs of Republic Plaza, the tallest building Changes in Latitude Travel Store, 2525 in the Mountain West, to fundraise for the Arapahoe Ave., Boulder, 303-786-8406. American Lung Association. Republic Plaza Building, 370 17th St., Denver, www.lung. To list your event, send information to: org. editorial@boulderweekly.com.

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over the world, before departing for a film tour with 800 screenings in 40 countries. Of 360-some films submitted, about 35 of them take part on that tour. Climbing is still central to the festival’s foundation, but the event now reflects the diverse array of outdoor sports, the cultures those athletes traverse and the environmental issues facing the landscapes on which they play. “People who come to Banff, they want to see something rad and they want something that’s going to make their palms sweat. ... But I also think people come for the cultural side of things — I think one of the great things that Banff does is highlight the culture of the mountains and people that live in the mountains,” says Brady Robinson, executive director of the Access Fund, which will host the Banff stop in Boulder for the second time this year. The nationwide organization, which advocates for rock climbers’ access to climbing areas, has its headquarters here in Boulder. “Even though the Access Fund is a national organization I think it’s also important for us to participate in some local events, too,” Robinson says. “And it’s a nice opportunity to come out and celebrate our collective love of the outdoors and the mountains with the community that we all live in. … There’s just such a long tradition of great films,

some of them are climbing films, some of them are mountain culture, and we feel lucky to be able to associate with it.” Access Fund staff and friends come together to select films from Banff ’s options that are tailored to the Boulder community based on interests and what’s already come through on other film tours. “It’s a thoughtful film tour and a thoughtful line-up,” Robinson says. Among those thoughtful pieces is “I Am Red,” a four-minute homage to the Colorado River from photojournalist Peter McBride, who has followed the river from its source in the Rocky Mountains to the Sea of Cortez. “I just wanted a succinct visual poem that tells the story in a very simplistic but profound way and emphasizes the river,” McBride says. “Very often the river doesn’t have a voice, and I wanted to do an artistic take on that and give the river a voice of what I thought it might be.” He literally gave the river a voice, a monologue split between male and female readers that begins with the claim of having run the red canyons of the Southwest for six million years to a delta now in Mexico — a destination the river has not reached since 1998. “Water is extremely scarce right now. It’s a limited resource, and when you ask too much of a limited resource, Boulder Weekly

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Climbing 15 peaks in 22 days and bicycling 700 miles between them provided no shortage of suffering to cover in Cedar Wright’s “Sufferfest.”

it disappears, and Colorado River’s a perfect symbol of exactly that,” McBride says. “So this is just a poetic, short taste of a very big issue.” Increased awareness has led to some remarkable work, he says, including an upcoming release of water in March — perhaps even enough to reach the sea. The Banff Mountain “I just Film Festival World Tour has stops at want people the Boulder to walk away Theater, 2032 14th with an St., Boulder, on awareness,” Feb. 25 and 26. McBride says. Doors open at 6 p.m. Tickets are at “To my www.bouldertheamazement, ater.com. most people have no idea The complete of this situaline-up of films: tion. … If Tuesday, Feb. 25 more people Split of a Second were aware of Sensory Overload this, if the Ready to Fly river ended in The Burn Flow: Elements of San Diego, Freeride not in a delta in Mexico, I pretty much would guarantee that this river would not have run dry.” As it is, the river trickles into dust with very few people there to see it and therefore fight for its return. Among films on the tour Robinson is keeping an eye out for is “Sensory Overload,” which features Eric Weihenmayer, the blind paraglider, biker, skier and Mt. Everest climber. This time, Weihenmayer turns his outdoor expeditions to whitewater kayaking. “Everybody says this, but it’s true —

he’s amazing,” Robinson says, “And kayaking blind is the hardest thing he’s done, and this is a guy who has paraglided blind. Apparently kayaking blind is harder than paragliding blind.” The trick is the noise — the constant white noise of the water drowns out much of what someone without sight Keeper of the for a guide Mountains Poor Man’s Heli would use as a I AM RED point of referSpice Girl ence. And the 35 other thing is, Valhalla it can be Wednesday, tough to tell Feb. 26 if you’re driftCascada ing or stationInto the Mind ary in an North of the Sun eddy. Sufferfest Sea of Rock “These Return to the normal planes Tepuis of reference The Questions We — motion, Ask sound — are Push It Valhalla largely drowned out, so I think it’s just a lot harder to keep his proverbial shit together in a boat,” Robinson says. “With skiing, with climbing, with mountain biking — also, incidentally, he road bikes, not on a tandem, like single — but you can put your foot down. On all those you can stop the action at some point. In a kayak, in a river, you can’t. So I think that’s just unbelievable.” It should be the kind of palm sweat-generating action the Banff film tour has come to promise. Respond: letters@boulderweekly.com

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