News broke yesterday that Abound Solar, a Colorado-based solar panel maker that has struggled for months — notably with a major round of layoffs in February — has officially filed for bankruptcy…
Leading climate-change scientists say the chances of humans stopping the wildfires raging across Colorado aren’t good. “These wildfires, when they become wind-driven, are like a nuclear bomb going off, and humans are not going to stop them any more than they stopped the hurricanes in Gulf Coast,” Dr. Steven Running…
This week’s cover story, “The Beetle and the Damage Done,” reports on the mounting toll of the worst bark-beetle epidemic in recorded history in Colorado and the various causes blamed for the infestation, from past fire suppression policies to climate change. Are the millions of dead trees claimed by the…
The unbearably hot weather is not all bad. This was the recurring joke of a press conference under the blazing sun just off toll road E-470, where officials announced the launch of a twenty-year solar energy project that, by some measures, is the largest of its kind in the country…
Picture your favorite part of Chatfield State Park. Now keep reading — because plans to reallocate 20,600 acre-feet of the Chatfield Reservoir to prepare for Colorado’s growing population could create noticeable changes in that summer staple. Outlined in an environmental impact statement by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the…
They clog up waterways. They end up in landfills, where they take thousands of years to break down. And they kill turtles and dolphins. Plastic bags of the sort used in grocery stores are a top enemy for environmentalists, and Westword has learned that some Denver officials are considering policies…
Sometimes, it takes a village. On Saturday, it took a neighborhood. From 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. that day, residents, community organizers and nonprofit volunteers gathered for Denver’s first Better Block project, which re-created West 25th Avenue from Federal Boulevard to Eliot Street. The makeover attracted more than 1,500 visitors…
Last Friday, U.S. District Judge Marcia Krieger threw yet another hurdle in the way of energy companies’ efforts to begin widespread drilling on Colorado’s Roan Plateau. The plan to tap into vast natural gas reserves in one of the state’s wildest places has been subject to considerable monkey-wrenching since the…
In the future, your home and its appliances might talk to you, make decisions for you, and, if the National Renewable Energy Lab is successful, help you save money. And, you know, make Planet Earth a greener place. Get more details and see photos of our domestic future below…
Tucked inside a small room in an industrial building just south of I-70 and west of Holly Street, three leaders from a clean tech company called Coolerado explained to Congresswoman Diana DeGette how they are turning the traditional air conditioning process upside down…
You don’t have to be steering a helitanker into the High Park fire to know that things are a bit toasty across Colorado these days. Drawing any conclusions about climate change, though, from a bout of unseasonable weather is a tricky business. Which is why a new report from Climate…
On Saturday, city planner, urban explorer and overseer of the DenverInfill blog Ken Schroeppel took a handful of Denverites on a tour of Union Station to discuss the just-opened Light Rail Plaza and the station’s future. Here’s an inside look at the project…
For four years now, the two-by-three-block space of vacant lots at Globeville Valley has undergone a slow-moving renaissance. Guided by community nonprofit Groundwork Denver, the area is scheduled for a series of resident-led projects to transform the former superfund site into Platte Farm Open Space, a bicycle, pedestrian and family…
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management can no longer “remain studiously ignorant of material scientific evidence” indicating that castrating wild stallions is a problematic and possibly illegal way of managing the herds, a federal judge has ruled in the long-running battle over the fate of America’s wild horses…
The Arapahoe Snowfly is so small that you wouldn’t notice if you inhaled it. At just .2 inches long, it’s certainly not the kind of cuddly creature that appears on birthday cards and computer backgrounds. (Like mine, which just so happens to feature an effing adorable photo of two Denver…
A lengthy administrative battle over a 42-unit apartment complex, to be built on the corner of a historic block of grand single-family homes on the south end of Capitol Hill, appears to be just about over. But opponents of the 777 Emerson Lofts say the review of the ever-evolving project…
Denver’s regional recycling plant is not a good place to lose your car keys. It is, however, a good place to get rid of old cartons. After five years spent educating the city not to do just that, Denver Public Works announced today that it now has the capability to…
Long ago, before hippies like Al Gore co-opted it with their environmentalist liberal agenda, Earth Day was a time for honest, hard-working Americans like you and me to celebrate our dominance over the planet we call home, which, as everyone knows, was awarded to us by God pretty early on…
Since its 2010 launch, Mile High Connects has taken a long, hard, scientific look at Denver’s transit system. Formed as a collaboration between nonprofit leaders and philanthropies, the group analyzed the equity and access of area transportation. The findings, which focus heavily on the distance between public transit and low-income…
Some things about Colorado just don’t change. But while the state has been the country’s leanest, meanest anti-obesity machinefor years, it’s struggled with, lived under and remain concerned about the brown cloud even longer. But this morning, Governor John Hickenlooper shared news that the State Implementation Plan for Regional Haze…
Call it a high honor. In recent months, a painstakingly crafted kids’ treehouse along the Roaring Fork River has become a local landmark of sorts for commuters making the Glenwood Springs-to-Aspen schlep. Now the 230-square-foot structure has found fame beyond the Western Slope, featured among other big little housing ideas…
When Gosia Kung moved from Krakow, Poland, to Denver at 25, she immediately gained twenty pounds. This has a lot to do with the fact that she stopped walking everywhere. While she never applied for a driver’s license in her dense urban home city, it was first on her list…
