The legislators who wrote a law overhauling the state’s oil and gas rules clashed with Western Slope local officials who will have to deal with the changes at a Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation hearing Monday. The hearing, held on Zoom, was the first day of a six-week review of proposed rules to reorient the […]
Western Slope
Posted inNews, Transportation, Wildfire
So you need to get to Colorado’s Western Slope? Here are your options.
UPDATE: I-70 reopened through Glenwood Canyon on Aug. 24. Interstate 70 through Glenwood Canyon will be closed for at least the next several days because of the Grizzly Creek fire. In addition, Independence Pass through Aspen — which is off-limits to vehicles longer than 35 feet — will have alternating traffic because of high volume. […]
Posted inBusiness, Environment, Growth, News, Transportation
Trains could return to Colorado’s Tennessee Pass, rumble through Leadville under pair of proposals
It’s been 23 years since trains rumbled through the tunnel atop Tennessee Pass. That could change as interest in the dormant Tennessee Pass Line between Cañon City and Dotsero grows. A fledgling railway project in Utah’s Uinta Basin and a billionaire New York City developer with thousands of acres of wheat and an existing rail […]
Posted inBusiness, Coloradans, News
Palisade peach freeze prompts Colorado governor to declare emergency
GRAND JUNCTION — Colorado’s governor announced he is seeking federal aid for farmers impacted by a freeze that wiped out significant portions of the state’s peach crop. Democratic Gov. Jared Polis said he sought the aid as a result of an April 14 freeze in Colorado’s Western Slope region, The Daily Sentinel reported Saturday. Polis and state […]
Posted inColoradans, COVID, Health, News
Colorado COVID diaries: A day in the life of people across the state as they navigate coronavirus
A teacher greets her students. An imam counsels his congregants. A firefighter reports for duty. New parents take their baby home from the hospital. These are routine moments in the lives of Coloradans. But the coronavirus has transformed the routine into the remarkable, upending how we live and interact with each other. As a heavy […]
Posted inBusiness, Coloradans, COVID, Culture, Food and Restaurants, Health, News
Record unemployment is leading to unprecedented food insecurity in Colorado
Mothers in Parachute cannot find formula to feed their babies. Isolated residents near Fairplay lack access to food. Unhoused people quarantined in a Denver motel need all meals brought to them. Migrant workers in Pueblo are without rice and beans. With unemployment about 30 times higher than the Great Recession’s peak— 231,610 initial claims were filed with […]
Posted inBusiness, Energy, Environment, News, Outdoors
A Western Slope community wants to move beyond its coal legacy. The Trump Administration wants “energy dominance.”
For nearly a decade, a group of farmers in the North Fork Valley joined with local tourism businesses and conservation groups to craft a resource management plan that could help the Bureau of Land Management shepherd the multiple uses of the valley’s public lands for the next 20 years. More than 600 mining jobs disappeared […]
Posted inBusiness, Coloradans, COVID, Environment, News
A bitter freeze and coronavirus have sprouted big problems for Palisade’s peach season
Palisade-area fruit growers were out in their orchards the frigid night of April 13 and into the next morning, frantically cranking up wind machines, turning on irrigation water, and lighting burn barrels in last-ditch efforts to save crops from a bud-killing Canadian cold front that crept across Colorado’s premier peach country. But none of those […]
Posted inBusiness, Energy, Environment, News, Politics and Government
Western Slope utility serving Delta, Montrose settles on $136.5 million fee to break up with Tri-State
The electric cooperative serving the cities of Delta and Montrose has agreed to a $136.5 million fee to exit the Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association – showing that breaking up is not only hard to do, but expensive. The Delta-Montrose Electric Association (DMEA) has since 2016 been sparring over renewable energy with Tri-State, a wholesale […]
Posted inColoradans, COVID, News
Churches as empty as the tomb: Coloradans adapt to celebrate Easter together as coronavirus forces them apart
DELTA — It’s a few minutes before dawn when the first cars pull in, the moon still bright overhead, the ground soft and damp from overnight rains. Snow flurries are visible high over the Grand Mesa to the north. “Good morning,” said guitarist Rob Wolcott, the first person to arrive at the Tru Vu Drive […]