IN THIS ISSUE: WHERE IS GRAND COUNTY GOING?
A PEAK INTO THE CRYSTAL BALL
By Cindy Kleh

It’s an exciting time to be living in Grand County. Always one of the most beautiful and less developed of Colorado’s resort playgrounds, our county has sometimes paid the price for its remoteness. But that’s quickly changing. In addition to the new homes that continue to sprout up, new businesses are also putting down roots while our schools expand to meet growing numbers of students each year.

There’s more to choose from in products ranging from health care to groceries, and many of our public buildings have seen an extreme makeover. And Winter Park Resort continues to develop its base village and add new chairlifts such as the Panoramic Express, the highest sixpack in North America.

But the best is yet to come. The Fraser Valley Metropolitan Recreation District recently passed funding for a community recreation center that will be located on land donated by Grand Park in Fraser. The facility, which will be built by Big Valley Construction, will include amenities such as a 15,000-square-foot natatorium (including a four lane lap pool and a leisure pool), a multi-activity gym, district administration offices, weight/fitness area, aerobics studio, child care facilities and multi-purpose rooms. The recreation center is slated to be finished in late 2009 or early 2010, and will definitely give kids, adults, visitors and locals much more to do on a rainy day.

To help reduce the amount of health care dollars being spent outside the county (more than half of the total), Grand County Rural Health Network and Kremmling Memorial Hospital District are moving full-steam ahead on a $23 million medical campus in Granby that is set to be completed in early 2010. Some of its new features will include 24-hour emergency services, heli-pad and ambulance bay, specialty clinics, and an imaging center with CT, ultrasound and mammography. The new medical facility will be located on a 12-acre parcel of land located north of City Market and west of Highway 40.

The county will also see a new courthouse, an expansion/remodel that will be open and ready for trial by August 18, 2008. The courts will be moving to their own building to alleviate crowded conditions, and there will be rooms for clients and attorneys to meet and talk. The public areas will be safer as far as security, with a separation of staff, the public and individuals in custody or involved in court cases. Although the new $7.7-million Grand County Judicial Center will not make court matters any less painful for county residents, they will at least be able to spend that time in a much nicer and larger facility.

But perhaps the most valuable future amenity for Grand County is sufficient supplies of clean water. To address the effects of water diversions by the Denver Water Board and the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District on the health of the Fraser and Colorado Rivers, the county has drawn up a Stream Management Plan to be used as a base for discussions with the Front Range utilities. The Plan scientifically describes the county’s stream flow issues and the environmental side effects of diversions that now take over 60 percent of the Headwaters of the Colorado, the majority of that water presently being used to water lawns on the Front Range.

The county commissioners must be on to something, as the Denver Water Board has recently seemed more willing to discuss the environmental impacts of diversions past, present and near future. Their new willingness to acknowledge negative impacts to the Western Slope’s riparian ecosystem and negotiate rather than demand the firming of water rights has many local river lovers feeling more optimistic.


READ MORE STORIES FROM THIS ISSUE:
• The Green Parade: Green Building Certification
• Beetle Kill: A Cycle of Forest Renewal
• Special Lifestyle Section
• 2008 Feature Articles
• Afterwords: The Code of the West