New pollution permit to bring more challenges for company; nearby residents still skeptical
By Noelle Phillips
The Denver Post
After years of spewing toxic pollutants, Suncor’s aging Commerce City oil refinery now will be the focus of three separate air quality monitoring programs...
Legislators consider plan that would pay businesses, homeowners to install climate-friendly landscapes
By Conrad Swanson
The Denver Post
Facing a historic megadrought across the West with no end in sight, Colorado lawmakers, looking for easy and effective ways to conserve water, set their...
By Todd Wilkinson
Writers on the Range
Yellowstone National Park turns 150 years old this month — a milestone truly worth celebrating.
When Westerners think of Yellowstone, probably what comes to mind are its grizzlies, exploding geysers, wolf packs and bison traffic jams, not to mention bubbling...
By Drew Costley
The Associated Press
More than 170 million U.S.-born people who were adults in 2015 were exposed to harmful levels of lead as children, a new study estimates.
Researchers used blood-lead level, census and leaded gasoline consumption data to examine how widespread e...
By Jennifer Sinco Kelleher
The Associated Press
HONOLULU » A well-known adage in Hawaiian, “ ola i ka wai,” means “water is life.”
Native Hawaiians revere water in all its forms as the embodiment of one of the Hawaiian pantheon’s four principal gods.
The resource is so valuable that to have it i...
By Hiroko Tabuchi
© The New York Times Co.
With the bang of a gavel made of recycled plastic and a standing ovation, representatives of 175 nations agreed Wednesday to begin writing a global treaty that would restrict the explosive growth of plastic pollution.
The agreement commits nation...
By Victoria Milko and Julie Watson
The Associated Press
JAKARTA, INDONESIA »
The walls of Saifullah’s home in northern Jakarta are lined like tree rings, marking how high the floodwaters have reached each year — some more than 4 feet from the damp dirt floor.
When the water gets too high...
By Conrad Swanson
The Denver Post
Millions of dollars are headed to Colorado State University to study wildfire prevention, mitigation and recovery, after years of drought and record-setting wildfires across the state.
The $20 million grant will be split between CSU’s Colorado For...
The revelation this month from Physicians for Social Responsibility that the oil and gas industry in Colorado has been using a chemical that will eventually break down into a highly-toxic forever chemical in the PFAS family is disturbing, to say the least.
The Environmental Protection Agenc...
Extended dry period in the West likely to continue, straining vital water supplies
By Conrad Swanson The Denver Post
Not only is the American West the driest it’s been in more than a millennia, but the megadrought is likely to continue for years, diminishing Colorado’s short water supply and...
By David Pitt
The Associated Press
DES MOINES, IOWA » Farms that raise turkeys and chickens for meat and eggs are on high alert and taking steps to increase biosecurity, fearing a repeat of a widespread bird flu outbreak in 2015 that killed 50 million birds across 15 states and cost the federal go...
By Seth Borenstein
The Associated Press
America’s coastline will see sea levels rise in the next 30 years by as much as they did in the entire 20th century, with major Eastern cities hit regularly with costly floods even on sunny days, a government report warns.
By 2050, seas lapping against the ...
By Matthew Brown
The Associated Press
BILLINGS, MONT. » Former U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke misused his position to advance a commercial development project that included a microbrewery in his Montana hometown and lied to an agency ethics official about his involvement in the project, accord...
By Conrad Swanson
The Denver Post
BOULDER » The Mack truck’s looks weren’t what drew politicians, sustainability experts and business people to the northeast side of Boulder on Thursday morning. Its noise was. Or, rather, its lack of noise.
The truck, a Mack LR Electric, marks the first e...
Study says 22-year dry spell has surpassed previous worst from 1500s amid rough times in 2020 and 2021
By Seth Borenstein
The Associated Press
The American West’s megadrought deepened so much last year that it is now the driest in at least 1,200 years and is a worst-case climate change scenario p...
SYDNEY » The Australian government on Friday declared the koala an endangered species, as drought, bush fires, disease and habitat loss drastically have reduced the numbers of an animal that is an emblem of the country’s unique wildlife.
The announcement, by the country’s environment minist...
By Conrad Swanson
The Denver Post
The long-standing lawsuit, in which three Colorado governments argue that the energy corporations Suncor and ExxonMobil “knowingly and substantially contributed to the climate crisis,” must remain in state court, a federal judge ruled Tuesday.
The ruling marks th...
By Cathy Bussewitz
The Associated Press
NEW YORK » Many of the world’s largest companies are failing to take significant enough steps to meet their pledges to vastly reduce the impact of their greenhouse gas emissions in the decades ahead.
That’s the conclusion of a new report by the NewC...
By Judith Kohler
The Denver Post
Long-lasting chemicals with links to cancers and other ailments have been used in Colorado to frack oil and gas wells, a national health and environmental organization says in a new report.
Physicians for Social Responsibility said an analysis shows that a class o...
By Bruce Finley
The Denver Post
As more people leave cities seeking outdoor recreation on public land, Rocky Mountain National Park rangers are preparing, months ahead of the peak summer season, for a surge in visitors and associated strains.
Rocky Mountain National Park drew an estimated...
