Peak Environment

What can we learn from indigenous people about caring for the land on which we depend for our food? This episode is a recording of the keynote address by indigenous permaculture designer Michael Alcazar at the 2020 Pikes Peak Foodshed Forum. The forum was hosted by Green Cities Coalition and Pikes Peak Community College on February 8, 2020. Indigenous permaculture designer Michael Alcazar is a mas...

You can’t escape toxic PFAS chemicals. They are everywhere. Get an update on what we know and what’s being done about water contamination by PFAS (Perfluoroalklsubstance). Groundwater and surface water in portions of the Pikes Peak Region is known to have PFAS contamination, due to years of firefighting exercises at Peterson Field and the Air Force Academy (PFAS have been an ingredient in firefigh...

Colorado needs Wolves – not merely to restore a natural balance or the wildness that we all seek – though wolves will do that if they are present for long enough, in sufficient numbers and with wide enough distribution  – but also to ensure that we pass on a Colorado intact, with a complete suite of native wildlife, to enrich future generations.  This episode explores the issue of wolf reintroduct...

Big things are happening for tiny homes in Colorado Springs. Colorado Springs Principal Planner Lonna Thelan fills us in on how city planning and zoning issues affect tiny home locations, and Shelley Jensen, founder, CEO and chief community strategist of We Fortify, shares details of her first development, Working Fusion at Mill Street. Working Fusion is a sustainable tiny-home development in the...

Does the City of Colorado Springs have a plan in case of a Zombie Apocalypse? Find out on this episode of Peak Environment. Learn about the myriad projects and initiatives managed or assisted by the City of Colorado Springs Office of Innovation & Sustainability. Ryan Trujillo, the city’s Director of Support Services, fills us in. Ryan’s department includes the Office of Innovation, whose functions...

Learn all about a very unique community asset. Smokebrush Farm is a small, biodynamic farm in Manitou Springs that serves as an educational model as well as a retreat center. Yoga classes, an art club, Indian dance class and artist residency programs are part of the program, which is part of the Smokebrush Foundation for the Arts. Chris Collinge, the farm manager, explains everything happening her...

Did you know less than 15% of donated clothing in the U.S. ends up in our second-hand market? Or that each cycle of a washing machine can release more than 700,000 plastic fibers into the environment? Paper and paperboard account for 29 percent of our municipal waste stream, and yard trimmings and food scraps account for another 27 percent. The November Sustainability in Progress meeting featured...

The future looks bright for renewable energy, according to Joe Jenkins, Principal at Environmental Compliance Systems LLC, but there is a dark side. In this lively and popular presentation, Jenkins explores the hidden environmental and social impacts of the renewable energy supply chain, but emerges with a positive outlook for a renewable future. This program was recorded at the October 2019 lunch...

Your local library may not be the first thing you think of when you consider sustainable practices in your community, but sustainability is a core value of librarianship. You might be surprised at all the ways your library contributes to sound environmental stewardship. The American Library Association Council passed a resolution in 2015 on the importance of sustainable libraries. The resolution n...

A one-of-a-kind approach to community gardening pulls out the stops on community building. Richard Mee and a few fellow community garden advocates wanted to take the “my” out of community gardening and make it “ours.” They charted new territory in their effort to launch the Westside Community Garden in Colorado Springs. Building community was as important to the group as growing food, so they stri...

Colorado Springs was recently teetering on the edge of violating ground level ozone standards, but we had a good summer. Meanwhile, reducing greenhouse gas emissions to avoid the worst of the climate crisis is on all our minds. In this episode, learn about progress, challenges and initiatives pertaining to environmental air quality in the Pikes Peak Region (as defined in the regional sustainabilit...

How do you like your electricity? Hot and fresh from burning polluting and CO2-emitting coal? Or clean and green from the sun and the wind? Colorado Springs Utilities is in the early stages of updating its EIRP – the Electric Integrated Resource Plan, a road map for the city’s electric generation mix over the coming years. Studio 809 assembled a panel of experts to educate us and offer their views...

Less than 1% of our food was grown within 50 miles of Colorado Springs, estimates Larry Stebbins. Larry is one of the panelists gathered by moderator Ellen Johnson-Fay to discuss what is needed to help local food flourish in the Pikes Peak region. This panel discussion took place on October 19, 2019 as part of the Peak Environment Podfest , recorded in front of a live audience and co-hosted by Stu...

Is your water safe to drink? Is your soil safe to grow veggies? These questions are front of mind for many residents of the Pikes Peak region. For years, firefighting exercises at air bases in Colorado Springs used chemicals that we now know have contaminated area groundwater and are bad for our health. Find out what we know, and what’s being done about it, from an expert panel convened at the Pea...

Light pollution is the one pollution that costs less to solve than it does to continue polluting. It also represents a lot of wasted energy and has potential negative health effects. Plus, the lights of the city hide the wonders of the night sky from us. Clint Smith reacquaints us with what we’re missing and tells the story of how the Wet Mountain Valley (Westcliffe and Silver Cliff, CO) became th...

Candidates for Colorado’s U.S. Senate seat up for grabs in 2020 share their positions on issues related to the climate crisis. This candidate forum was hosted by Indivisible Denver and fourteen other organizations (links below), held at the Ent Center for the Arts in Colorado Springs on October 6, 2019. Ten candidates (links below) participated. U.S. Senator Cory Gardner and former Governor John H...

Candidates for Colorado’s U.S. Senate seat up for grabs in 2020 share their positions on issues related to the climate crisis. This candidate forum was hosted by Indivisible Denver and fourteen other organizations (links below), held at the Ent Center for the Arts in Colorado Springs on October 6, 2019. Ten candidates (links below) participated. U.S. Senator Cory Gardner and former Governor John H...

Learn what’s going on at the podcasting hub of the Pikes Peak region, the Studio 809 podcast collective. Over a dozen podcasts originating in the area can be found at studio809podcasts.com. Studio 809 founder Dave Gardner fills us in specifically on the environmentally focused podcasts originating in the “basement studio” – Peak Environment , the GrowthBusters podcast about sustainable living and...

Have at least one “arts and culture” experience this month. Art and culture have a lot of value to our community both in quality of life and economic impact. Just the non-profit arts in our region generate 153 million dollars of economic activity annually. The most recent Sustainability in Progress gathering at Ivywild School featured two speakers telling us about arts and culture happenings durin...

What is about 40 times as heavy as a hippopotamus, 180 times as heavy as a grand piano, and 42 times as heavy as a car? Listen to this week’s episode to find out. You can pitch in to have clean, healthy waterways in the Pikes Peak Region, starting September 28, in the 2019 Creek Week. Debbie Vitulli, co-chair of the Pikes Peak Library District’s Green Team, along with Green Team member Bill Thomas...

It’s one of the best-kept secrets in town! There is a service that can evaluate your home’s energy-efficiency and potentially trim your utility bill by 25%. Energy Resource Center is a non-profit that focuses on providing the service at no cost to families that most need the help. But homeowners who don’t qualify can still use the service, paying market rates (which helps ERC do work at no charge...

Coal, gas, solar, wind? How should each of these factor into our utility’s future energy plans? CSU is beginning to develop a new Electric Integrated Resource Plan (EIRP), and the utility wants your help. Michael Avanzi, Energy Planning Manager for the utility, provides an overview of the process, and Jim Riggins, president of Southeastern Colorado Renewable Energy Society, provides an engineer’s...

When the Trump administration messes with Central Colorado’s public lands, the results are not pretty. Hear what’s happening and what you can do to help protect our “Big Back Yard.” Pikes Peak Group of the Sierra Club Wilderness Chair John Stansfield and Conservation Chair Jim Lockhart discuss multiple planning projects underway, some of which are nearing the end of their public comment period.  T...

Manitou Springs has a rich history, and is taking action on climate change. If you missed the July 2019 Green Drinks event at the Manitou Springs Heritage Center, this episode is the next best thing to being there. Michael Miao gives us the lowdown on this museum, and Manitou Mayor Ken Jaray shares about a proposed Manitou resolution for city action to reduce the city’s net carbon footprint. Manit...

If you missed Sustain-a-Fest, this is the next best thing to being there. Over 50 exhibitors and hundreds of Colorado Springs residents and visitors converged on Acacia Park July 27 to crank up the volume on sustainable living. In this episode, Peak Environment Co-Producer Dave Gardner visits with several exhibitors and with Ryan Trujillo, the city’s Innovation & Sustainability Manager, at the eve...