Time Machine: 20 years ago, hermaphrodite fish found in Colorado waterways
Vail Trail/Vail Daily archive
10 years ago
Nov. 17, 2014
Vail was lagging behind other vacation destinations in not regulating rental properties that used the internet to solicit vacationers, the Vail Daily reported.
“To learn more about what other communities do, the council recently asked Destimetrics, a Denver-area-based consulting and research company, to examine how 13 other resort communities regulate internet rentals,” the Vail Daily reported. “The results, presented at an October meeting, showed that from the beaches to the mountains … Vail is virtually alone among local governments that don’t regulate rent by owner units.”
20 years ago
Nov. 11, 2004
Veteran fish biologist John Woodling, in a Waterwise Wednesday presentation at the Eagle River Watershed Council meeting, detailed a recent discovery he had made which “shook him and attracted national media attention,” the Vail Daily reported.
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In examining fish inhabiting waters below Front Range sewage plant outlets, “there were very few males and the reproductive organs of both male and female fish had hermaphrodite tendencies: They contained both male and female tissues,” the Daily reported. “It’s a scenario he fears may have long-term implications for humans, including people in Eagle County.”
Woodling said he believed the changes in the inter-sex fish were caused by a cocktail of pharmaceutical substances — antibiotics, hormones, steroids – that humans use and pass along to the environment.
“This is the first thing that ever freaked me out,” Woodling said. “The ratio of males to females is so totally skewed, it’s not funny.”
Dr. Tom Steinberg, Vail’s first physician, said he was also worried about the discovery.
“He likened the emergence of endocrine disrupters in water supply to a de facto human population control,” the Daily reported.
30 years ago
Nov. 11, 1994
Vail Mountain opened for the season, while Beaver Creek hosted an early-season race series known as the Subaru Return of the Champions.
The races mixed former Olympic and World Championship medal winners with members of the U.S. Ski Team, and the event was televised on CBS’s Eye on Sports.
The head-to-head races took place on a modified dual giant slalom course and included legends like Billy Kidd alongside contemporary ski racing stars like Steve Mahre. A first-of-its-kind event, it was met with optimism from the racers who participated, the Vail Trail reported.
“This is a great idea,” Mahre said.
40 years ago
Nov. 16, 1984
A fishery biologist with the Forest Service visited the Camp Hale area to inspect a section of the Eagle River before devising a master plan for the area, the Vail Trail reported.
The Forest Service was set to begin requesting funds for the plan, which sought to make the river look more like its original state after it had been channelized — or straightened out — during the 1940s for the creation of the U.S. Army’s training facility at Camp Hale.
“Most of the cost will go for backhoes and bucket loaders to gouge out a meandering channel, cut down trees, and move native rock to use for dams that will help scour out new pools and back up water,” the Trail reported.
Quoting Bill Andree, a game warden with the Colorado Division of Wildlife, the Trail reported that the Forest Service’s goal was to attract more wildlife to the area.
“Andree noted that the stretch also once contained more than 100 beaver, and that he would like to attract some of them back to the area that was once wetlands,” the Trail reported.
50 years ago
Nov. 15, 1974
The Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers’ Union filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board seeking the right to represent certain groups of Vail Associates’ employees in managing their relationship with Vail Associates, the Vail Trail reported.
Employees working in land planning, mountain services, snowmaking, racing crews, Vail hostesses, ticket sales, lift operations, maintenance and construction, professional ski patrolmen, and slope maintenance were eligible to vote on the issue of whether or not to unionize.
Vail Associates President Dick Peterson said the company was hoping that employees eligible to vote in the election will conclude that they do not need an outside union to manage their relationship with the company.
120 years ago
Nov. 15, 1904
Minturn was officially incorporated as a town.
While the town had long been in operation, servicing the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad since 1887, incorporation did not happen until a large population of mining and railroad workers began homesteading in the area. Several families settled at the confluence of Gore Creek and the Eagle River.
The town was named for Robert Bowne Minturn, Jr., who was vice president of the Denver & Rio Grand railroad.
