Project Description

Communities and Energy Development

Preparing for the Boom: Below is a link to the film “Preparing for the Boom,” an approximately 20 minute compilation of personal interviews, film and graphics in which people tell their stories and share their lessons about how to better prepare for energy development:

Initiative Overview:

After producing this film, Future West staff shared it with local officials in counties experiencing energy booms, to help them take advantage of energy related development and to prepare for the inevitable bust that will occur.

  1. Capacity and Training – Energy Development:

    Preparing for the Boom is just the beginning of an innovative new program that is designed to address the community impacts of energy development. Applying our land-use, socio-economic, and community development expertise, this program will deliver information and tools that communities need to effectively plan for energy development and to mitigate the impacts upon their quality of life.

    The training and assistance we envision will provide information and resources that communities can use to address specific concerns and as much as possible, we will highlight the lessons learned from what has worked in other “energy” communities. The program will also be designed to be as accessible as possible for communities that have limited capacity to undertake their own research and are often looking for immediate assistance through the use of web-based applications such as webinars, film, etc.

  2. Community Values Mapping – San-Juan Rio-Grande:

    In July 2013, a partnership of Archuleta County, Colorado, Rio Arriba County, New Mexico, Chama Peak Land Alliance, Future West, and Groundtruth Geographics conducted a community-based mapping workshop. The goal of the workshop was to create a transparent and interactive community-driven map that identifies and ranks community values on the landscape.

    This GIS-based map of community values can be integrated with other data layers such as wildlife habitat and local government land use plans to create a basis for landscape-scale planning. Communities can then use this map to minimize potential energy development impacts to critical community resources such as municipal water supplies, acequias, moradas, high-value recreation, hunting areas, and agricultural production areas.

Project Update:

Future West is currently assisting with community meetings in Pagosa Springs, CO and Tierra Amarilla, NM. At those meetings, we will review the draft community maps and discuss next steps.

Partners:

Chama Peak Land Alliance, Archuleta County, Colorado, Rio Arriba County, NM, Groundtruth Geographics