{"id":92984,"date":"2019-07-15T00:58:30","date_gmt":"2019-07-15T00:58:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/outdoors-industry-taps-into-southern-ute-methane-capture-project\/"},"modified":"2019-07-15T00:58:30","modified_gmt":"2019-07-15T00:58:30","slug":"outdoors-industry-taps-into-southern-ute-methane-capture-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/outdoors-industry-taps-into-southern-ute-methane-capture-project\/","title":{"rendered":"Outdoors industry taps into Southern Ute methane capture project"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Outdoors
Outdoors organizations are using the Southern Ute Indian Tribe methane capture project, managed by the SUIT Growth Fund, to reduce their carbon footprint during events in August and October.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

When Wyoming-based and California-based organizations decided to reduce their carbon footprints, they turned to the Southern Ute Indian Tribe\u2019s methane capture project to balance their environmental budgets.<\/p>\n

The project, developed by the tribe\u2019s Growth Fund Department of Energy, has captured naturally leaking methane on the reservation for 10 years. The project is part of a growing voluntary carbon market where organizations that fund renewable energy, reforestation and other carbon sequestration projects can receive carbon offsets. In this case, the offset process involved five organizations across four states and tapped into the outdoor industry\u2019s growing sustainability movement.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really important to begin establishing this standard of sustainability,\u201d said Elizabeth Hutchings, marketing and logistics coordinator for The Center for Jackson Hole\u2019s project, Shaping How We Invest For Tomorrow, or SHIFT. SHIFT is an environmental festival that runs Oct. 16-18 in Wyoming that is reducing its carbon footprint through the tribe\u2019s methane project.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can\u2019t just talk the talk and host an environmental conservation conference and not think about the impact of the waste we\u2019re generating at the festival or the fact that people are traveling to come here. That has a huge carbon footprint,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Hutchings said SHIFT staff spent about 200 hours becoming a Sustainable Tourism and Outdoors Kit for Evaluation Certified event. Now, the festival uses 100% renewable energy; is a paperless, zero-waste event; and sources its food from local farms.<\/p>\n

SHIFT organizers wanted to offset their carbon footprint using a project near Wyoming. The festival partnered with The Inertia, a Los Angeles-based mountain, surf and outdoors organization also looking to offset the carbon footprint for its Evolve Summit on Aug. 18.<\/p>\n

Together, they chose the Southern Ute methane capture project out of several options, said Carl Kish, co-founder of STOKE, which provides a sustainability certification for outdoors and adventure organizations.<\/p>\n

From 2009 to 2017, the Southern Ute project captured about 379,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent before it entered the atmosphere, according to the SUIT Growth Fund Department of Energy.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the same as about 41,000 homes\u2019 energy use for one year and 81,000 passenger vehicles driven for one year, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies Calculator.<\/p>\n

In certain areas of the fossil fuel-rich San Juan Basin, where the Southern Ute reservation is located, coal seams emerge from the ground. Before the project, methane would naturally seep from the basin into the atmosphere. Now, the tribe captures it using 28 wells and eventually uses the methane for thermal energy or power generation, according to the NativeEnergy website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Southern Ute Indian Tribe has a multibillion-dollar economy largely based on oil and gas production, and the tribe maintains the methane capture project more for its environmental than financial benefits.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe tribe is well-known for its diversification and will continue to look for new opportunities for growth that may benefit the tribe and tribal membership,\u201d said Lindsay Box, communications specialist for Tribal Council Affairs, in an email to The Durango Herald<\/em>.<\/p>\n

These types of carbon offset endeavors are growing, said John Ringer, client strategy manager at NativeEnergy. Airlines are addressing emissions for international flights, and corporations are starting to offset carbon use in their supply chains.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re optimistic in the fact that the carbon market is growing and participation in the voluntary carbon market is also growing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Still, cost can be an issue for organizations pursuing carbon reduction, or event organizers who need to meet a minimum tonnage amount of carbon that they want to offset, Kish said. Organizations pay $1 to $26 per ton of carbon offset, with an average cost of about $10 per ton, he said. One ton is 2,440 miles driven in an average passenger car, according to the EPA calculator.<\/p>\n

For Elizabeth Hutchings, the cost of sustainability is worth it.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou put in this time, and you put in this money, and you can choose where to spend it,\u201d she said. \u201cWe want to spend it on something that will have a long-term positive impact.\u201d<\/p>\n

smullane@ durangoherald.com<\/em><\/p>\n

Elizabeth Hutching\u2019s last name was corrected on its second usage, and the organization name, STOKE, was corrected from STOKE Certified.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

offsets part of sustainability standard<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":92985,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5778,5737,6012,5736,5735,5741,6222,5897],"tags":[738,28,1235,29,3084,629],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-92984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-environmental-issue","category-headlines","category-ignacio","category-local-news","category-news","category-newsletter","category-southern-ute-growth-fund","category-southern-ute-indian-tribe","tag-environmental-issue","tag-headlines","tag-ignacio","tag-newsletter","tag-southern-ute-growth-fund","tag-southern-ute-indian-tribe"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92984"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92984\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92984"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=92984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}