April 2015

Federal officials have approved an operating plan for the White Banks Quarry operation at Avalanche Creek, between Carbondale and Redstone, that calls for mining operations to begin as early as May.
Robert Congdon, a former coal miner who first started work at the White Banks location nearly a quarter century ago, confirmed on Tuesday that it is likely there will be only a minimal amount work done at the mine in May, thanks to the sudden nature of the recent approval from the U.S. Forest Service.
“We’ve worked five years to get the permit,” Congdon said. “It’s dropped into our lap pretty unexpectedly.”
It will not be until later in the summer, perhaps July or August, before any significant work begins, Congdon said.
The mine is intended to produce marble, alabaster and gypsum.

Saturday, April 11, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., is Carbondale’s annual Spring Clean-Up and Waste Diversion Day, when the town accepts a variety of trash, recyclables and electronic waste for free or very low charges.
The day-long event is sponsored by the town’s public works department and the Environmental Board, known as the E-Board, (made up of volunteers Richard Scott Mills, Matt Gwost, Jeff Lauckhart, Jason White, Christopher Paul Ellis, Patrick Hunter, Julia Farwell and Sasha Williams).
According to the town website (www.carbondalegov.org) the funding that makes the cleanup day possible comes from revenues generated by the town’s disposable bag fee.

After learning about endangered animals in 1st grade, a group of nine students at Crystal River Elementary School returned to 2nd grade determined to do something to help these creatures. “They are beautiful and I don’t want them to be gone,” reads a quote by Campbell Maybon posted on the classroom wall.
The kids approached their teacher, Marie Voss-Patterson, asking if she would help them organize some kind of project which would contribute to saving endangered animals. While her schedule was completely full, Voss-Patterson volunteered to spend her lunch hour once a week on such a project if any of the kids wanted to come in during their lunch and recess time. All nine kids jumped at the opportunity—and the 2nd Grade Lunch Bunch was born.

The Carbondale man accused of slashing his wife to death with a machete on Feb. 16 had threatened to kill her at some point late last year, and to then kill himself by crashing his car, according to an interview with the victim’s sister.
The sister told authorities that the two had separated for a couple of months last year and that, during that separation, Arturo Navarrete-Portillo, 46, had sent an email to his wife, the late Maria Carminda Portillo-Amaya, 30, containing those threats.
Court documents also seemed to offer conflicting information about whether Navarrete-Portillo and his wife were alone in the apartment where the victim died.

Carbondale officials expressed anxiety on Tuesday over plans concerning the proposed River Edge development project, halfway between Carbondale and Glenwood Springs, where developers want to rezone part of the project site from residential to commercial in apparent hope of creating a commercial and retail hub at that location.

The effort to identify and care for heritage fruit trees in the Roaring Fork Valley recently got a major boost, in the form of a $10,000 grant from the Kay Brunnier Tree Fund, which will be used to survey fruit trees in the Carbondale and Missouri Heights area this summer and start a program aimed at caring for and harvesting the fruits from those trees into the future.

The man accused of slashing his wife to death in Carbondale earlier this year told police he “kind of went crazy” on the morning of Feb. 16