The Forest Service and their partners have been working on recovery since the fires stopped burning. Their latest project: restoring fish habitats with Trout Unlimited.
watershed protection
Posted inWater
Three national forests in Colorado receive nearly $47 million for wildfire barriers
When a 2022 fire threatened Archuleta County, one fire mitigation project helped protect a neighborhood and a city’s water supply.
Posted inOpinion Columns
Opinion: Hickenlooper’s Colorado River Caucus will bring needed clout to Washington
Rescuing the West’s water lifeline will require 7-state cooperation, compromise, resources — and political horsepower
Posted inOpinion, Opinion Columns
Opinion: We’ve destroyed Western watersheds. It’s time for “ecological reparations.”
American culture is reckoning with some of the negative impacts of our history. We are having significant and necessary conversations — and political outcomes — around the history of race in America. Some of those conversations have started to focus on the important concept of reparations. In the past few weeks alone, St. Paul, Nashville, […]
Posted inBusiness, Environment, Growth, News, Politics and Government
Chaffee County calls for more time, study of contentious Nestlé water-bottling plan
Chaffee County’s commissioners want more analysis of a plan by Nestlé Waters North America to pump as much as 65 million gallons of water a year from the Upper Arkansas River Valley for bottling in Denver. After several meetings in the last two months featuring hours of public input — virtually all of it opposing […]
Posted inBusiness, Climate, Coloradans, Environment, Growth, Health, Wildfire
The high cost of climate change is already straining the budgets of Colorado towns
The Grizzly Creek fire still is smoldering, but Glenwood Springs is already contemplating the challenges it will leave behind: severe damage to the forest drainages the Western Slope city depends upon for its drinking water. “We are concerned about a lot of mud and ash coming down the creek,” said Shelly Kaup, the city’s mayor […]
Posted inEducation, Environment, Growth, Outdoors, Politics and Government, Water
After decades of negotiations, restoration efforts on Colorado’s heavily diverted Fraser River are showing signs of success
For decades, the Fraser River has struggled with low flows, rising stream temperatures, sediment build-up, plummeting fish populations and degrading aquatic habitats due in large part to Front Range water diversions that drain 65% of the river. But after years of heated negotiations — and the formation of a partnership between environmentalists, Grand County officials […]
Posted inUncategorized, Water
Here’s what you need to know about Colorado’s water plan before voting on Proposition DD
When then-Gov. John Hickenlooper set out to create Colorado’s first comprehensive water plan in 2013, he called the chasm between the state’s water supply and its demand “real and looming.” Colorado’s water supply is already struggling to meet the demands of a growing state today. By 2050, Colorado is expected to add another 3 million […]
Posted inBusiness, Energy, Environment, News, Outdoors, Politics and Government
Trump’s “energy dominance” push changing plans for 3 million acres of Colorado land, local stewards say
Federal land managers are about to close the door on public input to decade-long resource management plans for sweeping swaths of public land in Colorado that now reflect the Trump Administration’s focus on boosting domestic energy production. That focus conflicts with new state laws aimed at protecting wildlife and improving air quality, which has united […]