Environment

After months of heated debates and public meetings, the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission finalized new industry regulations on flowlines in the wake of the Firestone tragedy. Local governments called for a complex mapping database hosted by the state.

Next week will be the last opportunity Coloradans will have to influence new regulations on flowlines, which transport crude fluids and gasses for processing. Even after months of public meetings, the current draft proposal falls short of what cities, counties and affected residents have called for.

Radon is unavoidable in Colorado, which has the seventh-highest levels of radon in the country. The real danger lies indoors, where radon can linger and levels can grow over time. The radioactive gas is the second leading cause of cancer in Colorado and the U.S. So for National Radon Action Month, state and county public health agencies are offering free radon test kits.

Last January, we told you about an unusual ski-injury lawsuit in which the man accused of injuring another skier while racing in a reckless fashion was 72 years old. That defendant, Michael Sura, has now settled the suit, but not before his attorneys attempted to blame the accident that broke Stuart Pendleton’s ankle on Snowmass, the ski resort where the incident took place, as well as the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs and a charity group, the Disabled American Veterans.

After a three-year district court battle went downhill for it, the Audubon Society of Greater Denver is appealing to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit and has filed an injunction to halt construction of a controversial water project at Chatfield State Park that it says would wreak massive environmental damage.

The Colorado Real Estate Alliance, whose members includes many businesses that campaigned against I-300, sent Mayor Michael Hancock and Denver City Council a letter on December 5 asking for a six-month stay of implementation of the ordinance.

It’s like Google Maps, except you can zoom in on individual buildings and check their Energy Star scores, which reflect a structure’s energy efficiency on a 1-100 scale.

The Colorado Attorney General’s Office warned that it would level attorney Jason Flores-Williams and his law office with financial penalties — and even the possibility of Flores-Williams’s disbarment — on the grounds that his “rights of nature” case was unlawful and frivolous.

As we’ve reported, at least 168 bears have been euthanized in Colorado so far in 2017, a year in which the number of conflicts between bears and humans has both alarmed and exasperated Colorado Parks and Wildlife officials. Ground zero for this phenomenon is Pitkin County, home to the moneyed enclave of Aspen, where CPW personnel have put down more than fifty bears and dealt with literally hundreds of incidents during the past ten months-plus. The troubles are so frequent that they seldom make headlines even at times when bears rip apart homes with residents hiding inside them.

Colorado is not amused with the rights of nature case, “Colorado River v. Colorado,” and has moved to dismiss the environmental lawsuit.

Approximately 168 bears have been euthanized by Colorado Parks and Wildlife personnel in the state during 2017 to date and another 107 or so have been relocated, usually because of problematic interactions with or near human beings, including multiple break-ins to homes and cars. According to one CPW administrator, these numbers have been growing steadily of late for reasons that are both wide ranging and intertwined, forcing wildlife officers to take actions they’d much prefer to avoid.

Crater Trail is an unofficial feature of Rocky Mountain National Park, but it’s also a well-established one, having been in place for generations. Now, however, an environmental assessment conducted by the National Park Service argues in favor of permanently eliminating a trail that’s been a local favorite for generations.

Coal mining and coal-fired power plants declined dramatically in Colorado under the Obama administration, leading to a loss of jobs in areas like the North Fork Valley. So how exactly would the loss of the CPP impact Colorado?

Shuei Kato, also known as Shuei Pako, has been found safe three days after he was due to return from an effort to summit Mt. Missouri in Chaffee County, and early reports suggest that a fire was key to his survival.

Dan Hohs, a well-known triathlete from Steamboat Springs who wrote movingly about how endurance sports saved his life, died after a rattlesnake bite in Golden on Saturday, October 7. His death saddened many his friends and loved ones, who poured out their grief on social media, and speaks to the dangers associated with an uncommonly late rattlesnake season.

The recent arrest of Robert Mears for allegedly attacking a ranger while under the influence of LSD isn’t an everyday occurrence at Rocky Mountain National Park. But officals confirm that drug-related incidents in general have been on the rise at RMNP, the fourth most visited national park in the country.

A local civil rights attorney is filing a federal lawsuit on behalf of the Colorado River, hoping to establish “personhood” for the natural resource and its legal rights to exist, flourish and regenerate.

Governor John Hickenlooper was lauded with plenty of praise for his July executive order calling for Colorado to commit to big greenhouse gas cuts by 2025 and to increasing renewable energy resources. But two advocacy groups are saying that Hickenlooper’s order and Colorado in general isn’t going far enough in its plan.

Opponents of the expansion of I-70 through northeast Denver have filed a motion in federal court seeking to halt any further action on the $1.8 billion project by the Colorado Department of Transportation — as well as any further construction work on a series of stormwater diversion measures undertaken by the City of Denver.

Last week, as we’ve reported, Denver’s Joseph Seeds Jr. was rescued from Capitol Peak, a fourteener in the Elk Mountains range near Aspen, where five people have died in 2017 to date. In this post, Seeds, an extremely thoughtful and experienced hiker who’s reached the summit of four-dozen fourteeners to date, shares his survival story, detailing his preparations, the trek to the summit and a brief lapse of concentration during his descent that could easily have led to his death. He also offers tips that, quite simply, are capable of saving lives.