By Aedan Hannon, The Durango Herald The Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad and its parent company, American Heritage Railways, will pay $20 million to settle a federal lawsuit stemming from the 416 fire. Separately, lawyers for 40 La Plata and San Juan county businesses and landowners that sued the tourist railway to recoup losses […]
flooding
Posted inEnvironment, News
Trout (and anglers) love Colorado’s Dream Stream — and transported trees could keep it thriving
On a brilliant October late afternoon, Jerry Backes casts a long shadow into the steady current of the South Platte River, in roughly the same direction he casts a fly to entice the teeming life below. The water carries his line for a few seconds but soon snags on vegetation coursing downstream. But for Backes, […]
Posted inEnvironment, Growth, News, Outdoors, Outsider
Fish ladders and boat chutes part of a massive dam rebuild on the Arkansas River
GRANITE — The Arkansas river both ambles and rages below Leadville, with gold-medal fishing, Class II to Class V rapids hosting hundreds of thousands of rafting trips and a vast, aging network of reservoirs and pipelines that water two of the biggest — and thirstiest — cities in the state. But just below the former […]
Posted inColoradans, Environment, News, Outdoors, Politics and Government
What will make you believe in global warming? How about a life-altering flood, study asks
After overflowing rivers swept away homes, tossed cars downstream and left entire neighborhoods swamped with mud, researchers had a question for the survivors of the epic Colorado floods of 2013. Do you believe in climate change now? Those researchers — from the University of Colorado Denver and Duke University — expected to find that the […]
Posted inColoradans, Environment, News, Outdoors
“You fall in and you are not getting out”: Rio Grande in southern Colorado closed because of high runoff
DEL NORTE – Water is flowing so high and fast that recreational access to the Rio Grande river has been shut down indefinitely from near the headwaters around Creede through Del Norte, down to Alamosa and beyond. The river hit flood stage in Del Norte Wednesday afternoon, a condition that is forecast to persist at […]
Posted inColoradans, Environment, News, Outdoors
With snow still looming in the nearby San Juan Mountains, Lake City prepares for a deadly spring runoff
LAKE CITY — The San Juan Mountains loom white and ripe with an overloaded snowpack above this small town in south-central Colorado. Some 38 feet of snow fell in the San Juans this winter. Most of that snowpack, still nearly 200% more than normal, clings hard to the steep sides of the Continental Divide that […]
Posted inColoradans, Environment, News
“Flood buddies” and sandbags: Southern Colorado readies for rain after last summer’s massive fire
Southern Colorado residents who watched the Spring Creek Fire sweep across the Sangre de Cristo Mountains last summer now look worriedly at the more than 108,000 acres of charred land. This year, they vigilantly watch for rain clouds. Even a quarter inch of rain pouring onto those devastated slopes could bring a new disaster to […]