As the national conversation about climate change heats up, the City of Aspen is turning its eye toward planning for a warmer, drier future. Aspen and other resort towns face a unique challenge in predicting just how many people might be living here in decades to come.
When city staffers presented their recommendation that the council try to keep conditional water rights on Castle and Maroon Creeks, much of the conversation focused on fears about future demands for municipal water. Ashley Perl, climate action manager for the city, addressed council in late September.
“There is this kind of unique population growth that we may see here in Aspen. It’s not going to be people moving here from out of state and buying homes and building buildings. What it’s going to be is people who already have a place here,” Perl said. “We’re going to see a non-traditional population growth in seeing more of those people here year-round, or at least more seasons out of the year.”
The theory comes from wildlife biology: As temperatures increase, cold-weather creatures move up the mountain — and so maybe that applies to humans as well. But so far, this phenomenon is purely anecdotal.
Margaret Medellin manages water for the city. She said the utility department is hearing from property managers that second-homeowners, like those escaping really hot temperatures in Texas, are staying longer in Aspen. That could impact water consumption.
“When you sell a tap, you don’t sell it with the fine print that you can only use it two weeks out of the year,” Medellin said. “We really do need to be prepared that if someone comes and decides they want to stay full time, that they can.”
This means reevaluating the data, Medellin said.
Right now, the city’s utility and sanitation systems can handle around 35,000 people a day. The state’s demographer doesn’t think we’ll hit that number any time soon.
That data shows that Pitkin County’s growth has slowed significantly since 2000, and is expected to remain far below the statewide average. Projections based on births, deaths, job growth and historical trends show that Pitkin County will grow at about 1 percent a year for the next 25 years, adding just under 5,000 residents by 2040.
But Medellin said these projections aren’t totally reassuring.
“Really, the story is just as important as the numbers, and if we’re starting to enter a period now where trends are changing, we really just want to understand that,” Medellin said.
The combination of warmer days and people staying longer, which has been a critical part of Aspen’s economic marketing, means a re-evaluation is necessary. And the people responsible for providing electricity and water say that needs to happen now.
“This is the time to prepare for the Aspen of 2065,” Medellin said. “Today’s the day we prepare for that. We can’t wait for the future to put in place the resiliency that’s needed.”
For the city, at least part of that equation is water storage — just like 50 years ago when population concerns led to Aspen securing the rights to build dams on Castle and Maroon creeks.
