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SSUE 48 14 ISSUE

WEEK, N OFOVEMBER APRIL 6,24, 2023 TUESDAY 2020

New COVID-19 restrictions will prohibit indoor dining, personal gatherings

Tiny home village a vision for affordable housing group

Colorado snowpack tops 140% in good year

Plans for 10 units for young adults depends on funding, local approvals BY BELEN WARD BWARD@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

A 2022 view of hikers at Colorado’s St. Mary’s Glacier. Statewide snowpack is 140% of average, well above the reading a year ago. FILE PHOTO BY ANDREW FRAIELI

Reservoirs remain low

Like other Western states, mountain snowpacks in Colorado are closely monitored because as they BY JERD SMITH melt in the spring and summer, their WATER NEWS runoff delivers much ofsite theatstate’s A long line ofFRESH cars outside the city of Brighton’s rapid testing water. Riverdale The this site has hadAtodrought close early many days inthe recent ColoradoRegional is awashPark. in white considered to be weeks due high demand. Adams County’s 14-day test positivity rate spring, withto statewide snowpack worst in at least 1,200 years has topping of average this17,week, water supplies across the was 15.9 140% percent, as of Nov. accordingdevastated to Tri-County Health Department. well aboveand theCommerce reading a year ago, West. While no one is suggesting the Brighton City’s test positivity rates were both higher than when it stood at just 97% of normal. dry spell is over, Colorado water of13“Conditions percent. Forty-five people inWest Brighton and said 29 in2023 Commerce City havefor a in the American ficials will likely allow diedway from COVID-19 related To limit spread COVID-19, are better than they werehealth last issues. signifi cant the recovery in of reservoirs and year at this time,” state climatologist soil moisture. at least 15 counties moved to tighter restrictions that prohibits indoor and Russ Schumacher said at a recent The snow is deepest in the southpersonal gatherings. joint meeting of the Water Availabil- western part of the state, where the ity Task Force and the Governor’s San Juan/Dolores river basin is seeFlood Task Force. “In Colorado we ing a snowpack of 179% of average. went from drought covering most of The Yampa Basin,by in Belen the northwest Photo Ward the state to most of the state being corner of Colorado, is also nearing out of drought.” historic highs, with snowpack regis-

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tering 145% of average, according to the Natural Resources Conservation Service Snow Survey. There is considerably less white By Ellis Arnold stuff east of the Continental Divide Colorado Community Mediawhere in the Arkansas River Basin, snowpack remains slightly below As Denver continue to average and metro in thecounties South Platte inch closer to local stay-at-home Basin, where snowpack is justorders above average. under Colorado’s system of coronavirusThe outlook for the seven-state related restrictions, the state announced Colorado River Basin has improved adramatically new level of rules that prohibits indoor as well, with the U.S. dining and personal gatherings — a Bureau of Reclamation, in its March change thatshowing applies tothat the majority of the 15 report, Lake Powell is likely to see some 10.44 million Denver metro area and many counties in acre-feet of new water supply by the other regions. end of September, or inflows at 109% The state’s COVID-19 dial, which has average. been in effect since September, is the set of different levels of restrictions that each SEE SNOWPACK, P4

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•27J Schools moves • Vestas to lay off 200 online-only Dec. 1 to lessen • Cooperating wildfire employees risks • Page 9

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If Ashley Dalzell has her way, the vacant lot next to her Access Housing office in Commerce City will become a tiny home campus, offering transitional housing for young adults. Dalzell, executive director for Access Housing, is negotiating to use a plot of land in Commerce City to build tiny homes and expand transitional housing services for families and people under the age of 25, emancipated high school students and young people that have aged out of the foster care system. Dalzell said she has a grant from Adams County for the development of a traditional eight-unit affordable housing development. She’d prefer to do something different, where the tenants have a bit more privacy. “Weisare looking for support forthe county required to follow based on the development and asking the severity of a county’s local virus spread. Commerce City Council for apThe dial grew out ofsaid. the state’s safer-atproval,” Dalzell home ordersaid — the policy thatiscame after Dalzell her vision to build the statewide this a tiny homestay-at-home village andorder collaborate with various community spring and allowed numerousgroups, types of includingtolocal high schools. businesses reopen. “The tiny home village would be Thethe state recently switched to each color like ones you see on TV, identifiers — levels blue, yellow and with its own kitchen, bathroom and orange rather than numbered levels — to loft with a bedroom,” Dalzell said. “By owning the property, we can avoid confusion. Until Nov. 17, level red investa in the property, and provide meant stay-at-home order. Now, level a bathroom and kitchen in each red — “severe risk” — is the secondindividual unit.” SEE HOUSING, P2

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