more than 10% drop in March compared with last year<\/a>. That drop has leveled out a bit since with only a 6.5% decrease over April, HCE officials reported. <\/p>\nLike the city of Aspen\u2019s utilities department, HCE has seen some increase in residential energy use but not enough to make up for the commercial decreases. <\/p>\n
HCE also will not disconnect service for non-payment during the coronavirus pandemic and is offering payment plans, along with giving a $250 credit to members having trouble paying their bills, meaning as much as $50 to help cover HCE bills each month over the next five months, Weatherred said. <\/p>\n
\u201cSome of our members I think are worried about calling us but we are a member-owned co-op, we\u2019re here to serve our members,\u201d Weatherred said. \u201cSo if members would just give us a call we really want to be there for them and to find ways to help them.\u201d<\/p>\n
She also mentioned that HCE did receive a federal Payment Protection Plan loan but has decided not to accept it, as it is not necessary to support the company\u2019s operations at this time and because there are too many other organizations that need the funds more than HCE does. <\/p>\n
SOLID WASTE <\/p>\n
Energy companies aren\u2019t the only essential community service providers who have seen the commercial-residential demand shift during the COVID-19 crisis. <\/p>\n
According to Mike Hinkley, district manager for Mountain Waste and Recycling, his trash and recycling operations have been \u201ccompletely flipped upside down\u201d by COVID-19. <\/p>\n
Over the past six weeks on average in the Mountain Waste and Recycling service area from Aspen to Parachute, Hinkley said his staff has gone from picking up loads from hotels, restaurants and other commercial customers seven days a week, to just picking up when businesses call to say their bins and dumpsters are full. <\/p>\n
This service trend resulted in an 18% to 19% drop in commercial services in the first two weeks of the stay-at-home order, and an additional 16% decrease over the next two weeks to follow, Hinkley said. Over April, there was a 32% to 33% drop in revenue and volume. <\/p>\n
On the flipside, Hinkley said he\u2019s seen a much larger amount of residential trash, up roughly 12% to 15%, and a huge increase in recycling, leading to extra bins and dumpsters being rolled out to certain areas. <\/p>\n
\u201cEverything is up residentially,\u201d Hinkley said. <\/p>\n
With recycling specifically, Hinkley said Mountain Waste and Recycling got to a point where its capacity to collect and transport recyclable materials to Denver was maxed out, and it had to ask for some help from the Pitkin County Solid Waste Center. <\/p>\n
Hinkley also said that his staff has noticed more contaminated recycling, and reminded people to ensure no food or liquid residue is on the items they intend to recycle. <\/p>\n
Overall, Hinkley said his staff is determined to continue to offer top-notch service to the Aspen to Parachute community during the pandemic and will continue to adapt to whatever shifts in demand arise. <\/p>\n
\u201cI look at services as essential and critical, and I see us as a critical service. The last thing we need is trash laying around with these larger health issues going on,\u201d Hinkley said. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe most important thing when there are extra materials, trash and recycling is to let us know and to respect the health and well-being of our critical service employees.\u201d <\/p>\n
While Mountain Waste and Recycling\u2019s trends give a good valley-wide look at commercial and residential waste levels during the COVID-19 crisis, the Pitkin County Solid Waste Center trends are indicative of overall county waste. <\/p>\n
Cathy Hall, solid waste manager at the county landfill, said construction and demolition debris \u2014 which is the largest category of waste that comes in \u2014 was down 65% from the start of the COVID-19 closures to end of April compared with last year. <\/p>\n
Hall also said municipal solid waste, or general household trash from commercial and residential customers, was down 22%. And over the month of April, landfill revenue was down 52%. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not a tax-based operation; we run solely on our revenues,\u201d Hall said. \u201cWe had to take a look at some programs like aggregate crushing, which we do in the spring, and push it off to the fall and are backing off of some of our education and outreach.\u201d <\/p>\n
Despite the revenue hit, Hall believes May will be pretty much back to normal and that the landfill will bounce back now that construction is starting to pick up again. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a pretty good balance in our fund budget so we will be OK with some lost revenue,\u201d Hall said. <\/p>\n
\u201cTrash and waste disposal really follows the economy. … The county is looking at our trash flows very closely because if the economy starts to slow down, people aren\u2019t making as much money and aren\u2019t buying as much, therefore not throwing away as much. So trash and waste disposal is a really good indicator to watch to see how the economy is doing, county wide and nationwide.\u201d<\/p>\n
EFFICIENCY <\/p>\n
While many Roaring Fork residents may be struggling financially and emotionally during this time, especially with recurring payments for things like utilities and rent, organizations like the Community Office for Resource Efficiency (CORE) are helping locals find a silver lining. <\/p>\n
Through promotion of do-it-yourself energy efficiency projects, like replacing old bulbs with LED lighting, replacing air filters and cleaning coils on HVAC and refrigerator units, and taking advantage of the nonprofit\u2019s free energy advising, CORE is working to help people save money on their energy bills by promoting sustainability and efficiency practices. <\/p>\n
\u201cSo many people are unemployed and at home now so utility bills are going to go up,\u201d said Mona Newton, CORE\u2019s executive director. \u201cWe wanted to promote these projects to help with energy and money saving but also with quality of life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Newton said CORE, a valley nonprofit that promotes energy efficiency and sustainable energy solutions, is not doing in-home assessments but is still offering online and over the phone advising and rebates. <\/p>\n
Newton feels promoting these services can really keep locals from seeing a huge bump in their energy bill amounts during the COVID-19 crisis, and that renewable energy and efficiency projects can assist the Roaring Fork community come out of the crisis in a mindful, more resilient way.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs we slowly return to the new normal, how can we work to be less busy and more thoughtful about improving efficiency and keeping energy consumption low?\u201d Newton asked, hinting at the potential of more businesses to utilize telecommuting if possible and more renewable energy to create more community resiliency during crisis. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe (CORE) see our role as continuing our educational outreach, assessments and rebate programs so that we can help make buildings more comfortable, safe, efficient and cost effective for people as they go forward and restart.\u201d<\/p>\n
mvincent@aspentimes.com<\/p>\n
via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For nearly six weeks, Pitkin County residents have been forced to spend more time in their homes to help stop the spread of COVID-19. The ski lifts stopped running early. Most businesses and restaurants reduced operations partially or completely long before the normal offseason start date. And while more people are living the majority of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2457983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-17 20:22:48","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2457983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2457983"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2457983\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2457988,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2457983\/revisions\/2457988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2457983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2457983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2457983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}