It’s highly possible productivity is plummeting across Colorado as we lose sleep, keep up with four different text strings and enjoy what we should appreciate as a storied era of local sports fandom. Don’t care about sports? Understood — but somebody in your family does! At the very least, give them a shoutout and see if a bit of their enthusiasm rubs off on you, wherever you choose to apply it.
Because the Colorado Avalanche are moving on toward the Stanley Cup, blowing away Winnipeg — the Paris of Manitoba — after a shaky start in Game 1. The Nuggets are moving on, to play Minnesota, also known as the suburbs of Winnipeg, in the next round. The Broncos may or may not have drafted the future franchise quarterback. Let’s pretend they did! If trophies were basketball players, DU’s hockey team has enough national college championships now to field two starting squads.
We know what you’re thinking, Grumpy Gus and Debbie Downer. The Rockies? Look at it this way: They are wowing the sports world by topping statistical categories we didn’t even know existed:
That’s right, the Rockies have a good shot at being the absolute worst! And in some ways, they already are! Misery is the mother of invention, said no one, ever, but we’re saying it now.
Meanwhile, we’ve got a ton of news happening in climate and health, and we appreciate you joining us. Catch us on the Thursday Sun-Up podcast for more.
Reporter
TEMP CHECK
CLIMATE
University of Denver and partner building solar for 100% electricity offset
50%
Cut to DU’s carbon footprint once the new solar projects are finished
Not content with becoming the most decorated college hockey program in the nation in 2024, our hometown University of Denver is doubling down on becoming a green energy leader for its peers.
DU, with partner Pivot Energy, will build enough new solar panels on campus and at dedicated solar farms in surrounding counties to completely offset university electricity use within about three years.
The push to install 23 megawatts of panels dedicated to DU’s energy use is a key part of the institution’s commitment to become net zero in carbon emissions by 2030, said Lynn Bailey, director of energy and sustainability for the southeastern Denver campus.
Next up: cutting way back on natural gas used to heat DU’s buildings and hot water.
DU started its solar era in 2019, working with Pivot to install 2.2 MW of panels on 18 campus buildings. In the next phase, Pivot will add 1.2 MW more on campus, with a new array on the expansive rooftops of the Ritchie Center sports complex. (Home of those hockey Pioneers, who last month won their 10th national championship and second in three years, accumulating more trophies than storied schools from Minnesota, Michigan and Massachusetts.)
Pivot will build the other 22.2 MW for DU at dedicated sites in Larimer, Adams, Mesa and Weld counties, over the next two to three years, Bailey said. In most cases, DU will be taking 100% of the power from those far-flung solar arrays, providing Pivot certainty and simplicity among its energy customers.
The solar expansion alone wipes out half of DU’s carbon footprint. Join us at ColoradoSun.com later this week for more from DU and a conversation with Pivot as well.
Section by Michael Booth | Reporter
CLIMATE
Massively complex ozone compromise is a huge lift for a one-week timeline
Guess we shouldn’t have expected this to be easy.
When we wrote that environmental groups and oil and gas interests appeared on the verge of another ballot-issue war and would reopen negotiations for some kind of grand compromise, we knew there were a lot of moving parts. But then Gov. Jared Polis and his transportation and air pollution staff threw in another truckload of parts that didn’t come with an owner’s manual.
The drafts of the two-bill compromise package meant for peace in the ballot wars showed up late Tuesday. Remember that overarching the proposed package is an unenforceable agreement that neither oil and gas nor environmental groups will seek restrictive ballot measures on the other side within the next few years.
So, a few details, with more to come next week at ColoradoSun.com:
Between the transit fee bill and a separate bill creating a new rental car fee for transportation projects, the 2024 legislature would be handing a lot of new money and power to state transportation officials.
The bills are, of course, subject to massive rewrites, but other things stick out: The transit fee bill orders RTD to make the Boulder-Longmont train line its top priority. It’s not clear legislators have the power to do that. RTD General Manager Debra Johnson reminded us in our future-of-trains panel that RTD’s stalled FasTracks train expansion also included extensions of the Southwest Line to Highlands Ranch, which many residents there also consider a priority.
RTD is subject to many federal restrictions on equity in transit, a 15-board member political structure, and a host of competing interests, so the agency can’t easily say, “Sure, governor, we’ll get right on that.” So, let the negotiations begin.
We’re asking RTD, among many others, for further comments on the bills. Which, by the way, are competing in the last week of the session with equally complex and emotional bills on property taxes, affordable housing and land use, gun restrictions and more.
Section by Michael Booth | Reporter
MORE CLIMATE NEWS
HEALTH
Bird flu has reached Colorado dairy cattle. Now what?
Colorado is investigating a second possible outbreak of bird flu in a dairy herd, the state veterinarian said Tuesday.
Dr. Maggie Baldwin, who manages the Colorado Department of Agriculture’s Animal Health Division, did not provide additional details on the dairy or where it is located. She said the state is awaiting test results from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to confirm whether bird flu, also known as highly pathogenic avian influenza, is involved.
“USDA’s confirmatory testing is taking a little bit longer with the load that they’re getting currently for testing,” Baldwin said.
Colorado identified its first outbreak of bird flu in dairy cattle last week, part of a widening epidemic in the United States that has reached 34 dairy herds in nine states.
The rapid spread among dairy cattle opens a new front in avian influenza’s march through the animal kingdom over the past two years. At The Sun, we have tracked infections as they moved from wild bird populations to commercial poultry farms. Baldwin said Tuesday the state has seen outbreaks at 34 poultry operations in the last two years, resulting in the loss or slaughter of 6.3 million birds.
Infections then started jumping over into mammals, affecting skunks, foxes, mountain lions, bears and others.
Compared to those outbreaks, all of which killed large numbers of animals, the spread among dairy cattle is less worrisome — at least for the moment. Infected cattle generally recover. Virus that ends up in milk is killed during the pasteurization process prior to being sold in stores. (The same is not true for raw milk.)
But it’s how the virus appears to be spreading that is most intriguing to Baldwin.
Bird flu was first detected in a dairy herd in the United States in March, in a herd in Texas. Baldwin said that genetic sequencing suggests the virus was introduced into that herd from wild birds. But subsequent spread appears to have been cow-to-cow. And Baldwin said neither of Colorado’s two herds — the one with a confirmed outbreak and the one under investigation — had known contact with an infected herd.
So how might the virus be jumping from isolated herd to isolated herd? Well, it turns out that dairy cattle move around — a lot.
“There is a tremendous amount of movement of dairy cattle across the United States and between states,” Baldwin said.
Colorado has 106 dairies with about 200,000 cows. Baldwin said in the first quarter of this year, dairy farmers exported about 34,000 cattle from Colorado and imported about the same number. In other words, about 17% of Colorado’s population of dairy cattle turned over in three months.
Until now, Colorado’s testing for bird flu in cattle has been reactive — farmers were encouraged to isolate sick animals from the herd and get them tested. If they were positive for avian influenza, veterinarians had to report that to the state. Colorado wasn’t doing any kind of broad-based surveillance testing among apparently healthy herds to find asymptomatic cases.
But a new federal rule — also adopted into state regulation Tuesday — could start identifying those silent spreaders. The rule requires dairy operators to conduct testing of lactating dairy cattle when moving them between states. Given how often producers move cows, Baldwin said the new rule should give the state a much better sense of how widespread bird flu is in Colorado’s dairy herds.
“I think we will be catching a really broad sample,” she said.
In the meantime, the Department of Agriculture is working with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment to distribute information to dairies about how workers can protect themselves from exposure and infection — though, it is worth noting, that human infections from this most recent strain are so far super-rare and neither of the two cases of possible avian influenza infections in humans in the United States have been serious.
John Ingold | Reporter
MORE HEALTH NEWS
CHART OF THE WEEK
What’s up, Nebraska? You’ve got plenty of sunshine. And for any of us who have driven through the cornfields and rolling sand hills, plenty of space for some panels. But this map from the solar industry shows some intriguing holes in the national solar growth blueprint. North Dakota? Also flat, last time we checked. Sure, Teddy Roosevelt National Park is a great spot, but there’s plenty of other open space.
California is the boss, according to this map. Colorado is in a tier that’s doing OK, as our news above about University of Denver illustrates.
Section by Michael Booth | Reporter
HEAT MAP
CLIMATE
HEALTH
Whew, lots of fascinating and life-relevant stuff today, thanks for hanging with us. You’ve got a couple of days’ pause on the sports fandom front while we wait for the next Avs and Nuggets series to start. Perhaps turn your attention to baseball? College. College baseball. Or get outdoors into this gorgeous weather and see a high school game. Never disappoints.
Cheers.
— Michael & John
Corrections & Clarifications
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