In a stunning defeat for the beleaguered coal industry, a southeast Colorado utility group has agreed to shut down a troubled coal-fired power plant, as well as to pay $325,000 in legal fees to environmental groups who challenged the plant in court over emission violations. The settlement also calls for…
Denver residents have roamed, biked and ridden horses along the natural area adjoining Paul A. Hentzell Park for decades. Now, Denver District Judge Herbert Stern must decide if that usage — along with some signage, maps and other historical reference points — do indeed make a park out of a…
The North American Prairie is a land mass that covers about 1.4 million square miles. It stretches north to Alberta and Saskatchewan in Canada and south as far as Texas — and it once made up 40 percent of the continental United States. Even so, many people find the plains…
A long-awaited report by the National Academy of Sciences on the federal government’s efforts to manage herds of wild horses across the West is finally out, and it confirms what mustang advocates have been saying for years: The Bureau of Land Management program is poorly managed, relies on an unsustainable…
A lawsuit filed by a citizens’ group, seeking to put the brakes on a plan by Denver city officials to swap an open space area in the Cherry Creek corridor for an office building, contends that Mayor Michael Hancock’s administration has violated a provision of the city charter that prohibits…
The Colorado River is under attack…from millions of invasive tamarisk bushes. Wildlife and native greens have been choked out and recreational activities have dwindled as the banks of the river are barraged by the black-trunked salt cedars. But people aren’t letting these obtrusive bushes take over the river without a…
Monsanto was one of the first companies to genetically modify a plant cell, leading the way to genetically modified foods — and it created “Roundup Ready” seeds that are essentially immune to the popular weed killer. Such achievements, as well as the firm’s past association with chemicals such as DDT…
Filmmakers Josh Fox and Phelim McAleer are having quite an argument, but mostly on film and not in the same room. Both men will be in Boulder tonight at the same time to present documentaries that claim to expose the truth about using hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in natural gas…
This week’s cover story, “The Dogs of War,” examines increased efforts to eradicate prairie dogs around the metro Denver area — particularly in Stapleton, where developers and park managers have found it easier to poison the pesky rodents than relocate them. That’s stirred up outrage from advocacy groups and parents…
Today is the last day for public comment on a proposal by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to bring the wolverine — not the Marvel character with the sharp claws, adamantium skeleton and tortured backstory, but something even more awesome and much, much more badass than Hugh Jackman –…
Plenty of folks in Colorado like their nature as natural as possible. So when park officials began pushing for various amenities and improvements at a popular open-space area in Denver’s western suburbs — including close to $200,000 worth of “nature play” installations that look a lot like playgrounds — the…
This week’s cover story, “Ghosts of Auraria,” delves into the half-buried history of the campus, which is moving rapidly forward with hefty development plans that include three new flagship student-services buildings, a hotel, and a leap across Colfax to build new athletic fields on a contaminated industrial site. The changes…
When you’re a bureaucrat under fire, accused of being a tool of Big Oil, there’s nothing like a big, wet kiss from your critics to let you know you’re being watched — closely. Particularly if that greeting takes the form of a giant billboard on I-70 in Golden, not far…
A proposed bike lane for 15th Street has been a hot topic in the cycling community, with the advocacy organization BikeDenver making its feelings known at a Valentine’s Day love-in at which members presented more than 200 I-love-bike-lanes cards to Mayor Michael Hancock’s office; see photos below. Meanwhile, the Public…
There’s been debate aplenty in the cycling community about a plan for a new proposed bike lane for 15th Street. Now, a Valentine’s Day special: The advocacy organization BikeDenver is staging a “love-in” this morning, all to let Mayor Michael Hancock and other local officials know about the widespread support…
As the Pentagon contemplates different ways to achieve reductions in force in the ramp-down from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, business leaders in Colorado Springs are pushing for a plan that would actually bring more troops to Fort Carson — while ranchers battling expansion of a maneuver site in southeastern…
Earlier this month, news broke that Aspen is considering a yield-stop cycling law — meaning that bicyclists would be legally allowed to yield at a stop sign as opposed to completely halting. At least two other mountain communities — Breckenridge and Dillon — have similar yield-stop laws. But would such…
Because bicycling continues be a popular mode of transportation for traveling around the city, the safety of cyclists is a growing concern among riders and city officials. But some community members and activist organizations think the city needs to take things even further — an opinion they’re expected to express…
Here at the Wild-Urban Interface Desk, we’re puzzling over the new logo just unveiled by Rocky Mountain National Park in celebration of its centennial, chosen two years early from close to a hundred entries. As you can see, it’s a highly retro design, strong on pine cones and columbines and…
According to a press release from the In Defense of Animals organization and a corroborating story in the Boulder Daily Camera, $3,000 has been raised to put toward a memorial for an elk — known as Big Boy to some Boulder residents — shot by a Boulder cop on New…
When you’re battling an institution as powerful as Denver Water, it’s best to have the will of the people, or at least a lot of average joes, on your side. Environmental groups trying to protect the Upper Colorado River basin from massive diversion projects that benefit Front Range development seem…
With the public speaking out overwhelmingly against hydraulic fracturing in Boulder County, the board of commissioners voted unanimously to temporarily extend the existing moratorium on processing drill permits until June 10, 2013. And while the decision didn’t please everyone, many saw it as a step in the right direction. “Extend…
