House Bill 26-1337 moved through fiscal revision this morning, advancing a legislative effort to expand Colorado’s nuclear energy footprint. The bill establishes an ambitious state policy to begin construction on at least one nuclear project by 2040. To streamline development, the measure designates the Colorado Energy Office as the central permitting coordinator, providing a single point of contact to help developers navigate complex regulatory hurdles. The bill also incentivizes utility participation by allowing companies to recoup up to $20 million in expenditures for necessary siting and design studies.

The recent fiscal revision transforms these policy goals into an operational framework by creating the “Advanced Nuclear Energy and Technical Assistance Office.” This office will be staffed by a dedicated state nuclear engineer and a project manager. Rather than drawing from general tax dollars, the office will be self-funded through an annual fee of up to $1.15 million charged to developing utilities.

HB26-1337 passed the House Energy & Environment Committee last week with a narrow 7–6 vote. While all Republican committee members supported the measure, Democrats were split. High-profile party members like Representative Junie Joseph voted against it, while Democrats Alex Valdez (a co-sponsor), Amy Paschal, and Manny Rutinel joined Republicans to advance the bill. Ty Winter, a co-sponsor, described the legislation as a “meaningful step for nuclear energy and Colorado’s energy future.” He also praised nuclear power for providing “reliable base load power, good-paying blue-collar jobs and stability for energy-producing communities.”

Valdez and Winter did not respond to requests for further comment by the time of publication.

Despite this support, the bill faces intense opposition from grassroots organizations. The Colorado Renewable Energy Society (CRES) issued a formal letter of opposition, arguing that “nuclear is the exact opposite of clean” because it produces waste that remains “dangerously radioactive for tens of thousands of years.” CRES also highlighted the economic risks, citing Georgia’s Vogtle Units 3 and 4 as a warning. Those reactors were completed seven years behind schedule at a cost of $36.8 billion, leading to a 23.7% increase in ratepayer bills. Opponents further argued that the 15-year timeline for nuclear construction is too slow compared to the one-to-two-year window for wind and solar projects.

Ean Tafoya of Colorado GreenLatinos told the Colorado Sun that the bill is a “tone-deaf […] betrayal” of environmental justice. Critics also raised concerns regarding the high water-usage rates required for nuclear facilities, a sensitive issue as many Colorado cities face chronic droughts.

The bill’s future remains uncertain as it faces a deadline of May 13, 2026, when the General Assembly adjourns. To become law, it must pass second and third readings in the House before moving through the Senate. CRES has already begun mobilizing opposition by releasing a voter toolkit to help citizens vocalize their concerns to lawmakers.

Like journalism like this? Consider becoming a sustaining supporter — and get our print edition delivered to your home each month.

Democracy needs journalism more than ever. For 25 years, we’ve told the truth — your support helps us keep doing it for the next four and beyond. Administrations come and go. Our team stays ready to lead, no matter who’s in charge.

The post Nuclear Split: GOP and Key Democrats Push Through Nuclear Bill appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

The Town of Erie Colorado is weighing whether to sell or lease a portion of its mineral rights tied to the state-approved Draco oil and gas project, a decision that has exposed divisions on council, raised questions about the town’s negotiating process, and highlighted uncertainty about how much authority Erie actually has.

At a special meeting on April 21, town staff emphasized that no final agreement has been reached and no vote has been scheduled. Council questioning made clear that key aspects of the proposal, including how it originated, how consultants were selected, and what the town actually owns,remain unresolved.

Erie Environmental Services Director David Frank

The Draco project, approved in March 2025 by the Energy and Carbon Management Commission (ECMC), allows for up to 26 wells to be drilled from a site in unincorporated Weld County, extending horizontally beneath portions of Erie. Town officials reiterated that the project is expected to move forward regardless of local action. “I would fully expect, no matter what action the town takes, that 26 wells will be drilled,” Erie Environmental Services Director David Frank said.

Town of Erie Councilmember, Dan Hoback

Early in the meeting, Early in the meeting, Councilmember Dan Hoback began pressing staff on the fundamentals of the deal: when the town was first approached, how negotiations began, and why Alameda Minerals was selected without a competitive process. When asked about this piece of the process, Frank said, “I’m not aware of any other companies that do this exact work.”

 By the end of the meeting, those questions had evolved into a broader challenge to both the process and the assumptions underlying it.

“I have serious concerns about conflict of interest,” Hoback said. The consultant, Alameda Minerals, is led by a former oil and gas executive with ties to the industry involved in the project, a connection that drew scrutiny during the meeting. He also warned that the absence of a formal request-for-proposals process could expose the town to legal and audit risks.

More significantly, Hoback disagreed with the idea that Erie lacks leverage. While town staff and some council members emphasized the town’s relatively small percentage of mineral ownership, Hoback emphasized that without permission to drill through town-owned minerals, operators may not be able to reach large portions of the approved drilling area. “The inability to drill through Erie land without owning its mineral rights can be a major, major impediment to the ability of Draco to drill much of its planned area, currently approved or not,” Hoback said.

Town officials declined to provide additional documentation or answer detailed questions about the procurement process, citing the ongoing nature of negotiations.

Those competing interpretations of the town’s authority sit at the center of the debate. Erie’s leverage stems from Colorado SB24-185, which prevents operators from forcing municipalities into pooling agreements. But how that law will function in practice, and particularly whether operators can drill through or around municipal minerals, remains untested.

Public comment reflected both that uncertainty and a sharp divide over how the town should respond. Sixteen residents and stakeholders spoke at the meeting, with the majority opposing a sale or urging alternatives such as delaying action or retaining the town’s mineral rights. Five supported moving forward with a sale or lease, including three who identified themselves as representing business or industry interests, such as mineral rights owners and energy companies.

Former state senator and attorney, Mike Foote

Former state senator Mike Foote, who worked on oil and gas legislation for years, described the current moment as the result of a long effort to give local governments control over their mineral rights. He recalled earlier policies that allowed a single mineral owner to force others into leasing, calling it something he “couldn’t believe” when he first encountered it. 

The 2024 law, he said, was designed to change that dynamic. “This was a hard-fought provision,” Foote told council, urging them to “take advantage of it” and follow the will of the community. “There’s nothing in the law anymore that says that you have to say yes.” He warned that approving a deal would entangle the town with the oil and gas industry for decades. “This puts Erie in business with oil and gas for a long, long time,” he said. “I would urge you [… ] to say no.”

Other residents raised concerns about long-term environmental and infrastructure risks. Steve Hochgesang pointed to the lifespan of plugged wells and containment systems, warning that decisions made now could create long-term liabilities, particularly for groundwater and waste disposal.

In contrast, speakers aligned with mineral interests emphasized financial realities and potential legal consequences. Kole Kelley, an oil and gas attorney at Fennemore Law, argued that development is already approved and that refusing to participate would not stop drilling but would result in forgoing compensation. He warned that the town could face litigation if it interferes with mineral owners’ ability to realize value from their assets.

Those competing perspectives were reflected in the council’s closing statements.

Hoback remained the most openly critical, raising concerns about procurement, transparency, and conflicts of interest, while also emphasizing the town’s decision-making power in this moment. “Other companies cannot drill through our land to reach other people’s mineral rights. So I’ll be a bit of the voice of the wilderness and say, yeah, we can impact Draco, despite the narrative that’s been making its way through social media and tonight’s presentation. um The initial approval of the Draco pad was not a rollover and play dead moment.  In fact, we should be fighting harder than ever,” Hoback said.

Councilmember Anil Pesaramelli aligned more directly with residents opposing the deal. “I am for health and safety,” he said. “I urge everyone to stop this sale.”

Councilmember Brian O’Connor took a more cautious position, expressing frustration with the process and emphasizing the need for more information before any decision is made.

Town of Erie Councilmember, Emily Baer

Councilmember Emily Baer delivered one of the most detailed and forceful closing statements, drawing on years of work in oil and gas regulation. 

She pushed back on the idea that selling mineral rights would improve safety, noting that many of the cited protections are already required by the state regardless of any deal. “To imply there are safety regulations that will go unenforced unless Erie sells its minerals is misleading,” she said.

Baer also argued that the town retains meaningful authority under current law, including the ability to deny subsurface access. She framed the decision as a question of values and long-term governance. “My principles are not up for purchase,” she said, reiterating her opposition to selling the town’s mineral rights.

Councilmember John Mortellaro took a more logistical tone, emphasizing that the project has already been approved and suggesting the town should consider whether it can secure benefits from an outcome it cannot prevent.

Mayor Pro Tem Brandon Bell and Mayor Andrew J. Moore both framed the decision in similar terms, emphasizing inevitability and the potential to capture value. Moore rejected claims that the town could significantly alter the project, calling that idea “100% false,” and stressed the importance of protecting negotiations.

Bell drew a direct comparison to a past landfill decision, where the town chose to accept development in exchange for compensation rather than oppose it without leverage. “If you’re going to dump trash in my backyard, you’re going to pay me for it,” he said, describing the philosophy guiding his position. His remarks made clear that he views the mineral rights as a negotiating tool rather than a mechanism to stop drilling.

To some council members, the project is unavoidable and selling the mineral rights are a means of extracting value and oversight. Others view those same rights as one of the town’s only remaining tools to challenge or constrain development.

No vote has been scheduled, and officials said any agreement would be subject to a future public hearing. Until then, core questions remain unresolved, including the exact location and value of Erie’s mineral rights, whether the town followed standard procurement practices, and how much influence Erie ultimately has over a project already approved by the state.

For now, the debate in Erie is not just about oil and gas. It is about whether a town that fought for the authority to say no will use it.

Like journalism like this? Consider becoming a sustaining supporter — and get our print edition delivered to your home each month.

Democracy needs journalism more than ever. For 25 years, we’ve told the truth — your support helps us keep doing it for the next four and beyond. Administrations come and go. Our team stays ready to lead, no matter who’s in charge.

The post Erie mineral rights hearing divides council over control, transparency and who decides appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

In late 2025, a proposal from Civitas Resources brought an often-overlooked asset to the center of one of Erie’s most consequential policy debates: the town’s mineral rights.

Since then, key elements of the discussion have unfolded largely out of public view. Town officials approved a contract with Alameda Mineral Advisors to help evaluate and negotiate the potential sale, while substantive deliberations about the deal have taken place in executive session. The limited transparency has drawn criticism from residents who say the decision could shape the town’s future for decades.

The proposal remains under consideration. But experiences from other Colorado communities suggest that once mineral rights are transferred, the ability to influence what happens next can narrow significantly.

Mineral rights determine ownership of the oil and gas beneath the ground. This is a legal framework that is separate from surface land ownership. 

State law allows companies to access underground resources through mechanisms such as forced pooling, meaning drilling can proceed even when surface owners or nearby residents object. For municipalities, retaining mineral rights can provide leverage in negotiating the location, scale and conditions of development. Selling those rights generally transfers that leverage to private operators, reducing a local government’s ability to shape future activity.

That distinction has become central to the debate in Erie, where the question is not only how much the rights might be worth, but what control the town would be giving up in exchange.

Matt Owens receiving an Oil and Gas award, courtesy of LinkedIn

The town’s decision to hire Alameda Mineral Advisors has intensified scrutiny of the process, particularly because of the background of the firm’s founder, Matthew Owens.

Owens previously held leadership roles at Extraction Oil & Gas, which grew into a major Front Range operator before filing for bankruptcy in 2020. Following that restructuring, the company’s assets became part of Civitas Resources. Owens later served as a Chief Operations Officer at Civitas until his departure in 2023, and founded Alameda Mineral Advisors the following year.

In 2025, Erie retained Alameda to help evaluate and negotiate a potential mineral rights transaction, including with Civitas. Extraction Oil & Gas, as a subsidiary of Civitas, operates the Draco Pad, a large-scale drilling project near Erie that has already generated public concern.

Oil and Gas wellsites, Erie, Colorado, courtesy of Erie Protectors

The overlap does not, on its own, establish a conflict of interest. However, it places a former Civitas executive in the role of advising the town on a potential transaction involving that company. Residents have  highlighted that relationship in calling for additional disclosure and independent review of the process.

Examples of municipalities explicitly selling mineral rights in Colorado are less common than leasing or inheriting split estates, but where they do occur, the outcomes illustrate the same underlying tradeoff: immediate financial return in exchange for long-term control.

One recent example comes from Berthoud, where town officials approved the sale of a portion of municipally owned mineral rights tied to land near a wastewater treatment facility. According to town documents, the transaction severed the mineral estate from the surface property, meaning the town would receive an upfront payment but would no longer collect royalties or retain authority over how those minerals are developed.

Berthoud’s case is notable because it demonstrates the effect of these deals. Instead of acting as an owner with negotiating leverage, the town becomes one stakeholder among many, with limited influence over how extraction occurs.

More broadly, statewide data shows that dozens of Colorado municipalities receive revenue tied to mineral development, often through leases, legacy agreements or federal mineral distributions. Cities including Greeley, Rifle, Commerce City and even Erie itself receive funds connected to mineral activity.

In many of those cases, however, the rights were not recently sold but separated decades earlier, leaving current officials to manage the consequences.

That long tale of past decisions is visible across the Front Range and Western Slope. Municipalities that no longer control their mineral estates often retain limited tools to influence development, even when public opposition emerges. Because mineral rights can be sold, leased or severed entirely from surface ownership, control over subsurface resources frequently rests with private entities rather than local governments.

The result is a consistent pattern. Communities that have transferred or lost control of their mineral rights tend to move from deciding whether development happens to negotiating how it happens. Financial benefits, including lease payments or distributions, are often realized early, while land use conflicts, citing disputes and mitigation efforts play out over a much longer timeline.

Erie is part of a shrinking category of communities that still has ownership of its mineral rights, and the implication of losing them poses a fork in the road for what Erie’s future will look like. At the same time, the limits of local control are well established in Colorado. Even if a municipality retains mineral rights, it cannot fully override state authority over oil and gas development. What it can do is influence where and how development occurs, and under what conditions.

Communities across Colorado have faced similar tensions between local control and oil and gas development, often with comparable outcomes.

In Lafayette and Boulder County, longstanding mineral leases and development rights have limited what local governments can prevent, even amid sustained public opposition. Legal challenges and public pressure can influence setbacks, mitigation measures and site design, but rarely eliminate development entirely.

Because Erie has not yet finalized a sale, the outcome is still subject to local decision-making. Residents seeking to influence that outcome are not without options, though those options are shaped by both procedural realities and state law.

Public engagement remains one of the most immediate avenues. Attendance and comment at council meetings can shape how elected officials assess both the political and practical implications of moving forward. Requests for public records under the Colorado Open Records Act can also bring greater visibility to contracts, communications and financial analyses that have so far been discussed largely behind closed doors.

Residents can also press for independent evaluation of the proposed deal, including third-party analysis of valuation, environmental impact and long-term fiscal trade-offs. In situations where a consultant has prior ties to industry, such requests can carry additional weight.

Erie officials have a choice between short-term financial gain or long-term leverage over fracking in their community. Other Colorado communities offer a preview of what can happen once that authority is diminished.

Erie has not reached that point. But the window to decide which path to take may not remain open indefinitely.

The Erie Council is hosting a public forum on April 21st. A large turnout is expected.

Council to Host Public Meeting on Draco Well Pad and Mineral Rights: April 21st, 2026

Like journalism like this? Consider becoming a sustaining supporter — and get our print edition delivered to your home each month.

Democracy needs journalism more than ever. For 25 years, we’ve told the truth — your support helps us keep doing it for the next four and beyond. Administrations come and go. Our team stays ready to lead, no matter who’s in charge.

The post Erie’s mineral rights: what’s at stake appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Erie officials are considering selling or leasing the town’s mineral rights to energy company Civitas Resources, a decision that could determine oil and gas development beneath large parts of the community, as talks continue largely behind closed doors. Municipal mineral rights refer to the town’s ownership of minerals beneath the surface that can be leased or sold to energy companies for drilling.

Over the past several months, the council has met in executive session at least 10 times to discuss matters related to negotiations and the potential sale of property, with little public disclosure about the scope, timeline or terms of a possible agreement with oil and gas operator Civitas Resources. Public agendas describe these sessions using broad statutory language — such as “negotiations” or the “purchase, acquisition, lease, transfer or sale” of property — without identifying specific projects or mineral rights. The lack of detailed public information has raised concerns among residents, who say they were unaware that discussions were taking place until recently.

The issue at hand is whether Erie should sell or lease its mineral rights,  which are tied to the approved Draco Pad and could involve drilling beneath large portions of the town, and how that decision might affect public health, development, and  property values.

That distinction could be significant. If Erie retains its mineral rights and declines to lease them, it may be able to influence the configuration of drilling operations. If it sells those rights, that leverage could be reduced or eliminated.

The response received from Mayor Moore was the same as his March 17 Facebook post.

The issue first surfaced publicly in December 2025, when the Town Council voted 4-3 to move forward with hiring Alameda Mineral Advisors to negotiate a potential agreement involving the town’s mineral assets. The firm is led by Matthew Owens, a former chief operating officer of Civitas Resources. Under the agreement, Alameda is tasked with representing the town in negotiations and helping structure a potential sale or lease of its mineral rights.

According to town documents, the agreement allows for up to $4.5 million in compensation tied to the negotiation process and any resulting transaction, including a commission based on a percentage of the deal’s value. 

While the council has not publicly confirmed the full structure of a potential deal, in a December 16th council meeting Mayor Moore mentioned that Civitas Resources expressed interest in acquiring the town’s mineral rights. Civitas is the parent company of Extraction Oil & Gas, which owns the approved Draco Pad project, a fracking development that has drawn sustained opposition from some community members.

Former Erie Mayor Justin Brooks wrote in a Facebook post that selling the town’s mineral rights would be “clearing the way for this massive and experimental drilling project to move forward.”

The involvement of Owens has become a focal point for criticism, particularly given his prior role with Civitas and the perceived lack of transparency.

Many residents,  like Jennifer Bertman, have raised concerns that a consultant who stands to benefit financially from a successful deal may not be positioned to provide impartial guidance.  “To hire a former Civitas employee as a consultant who stands to make millions if the sale goes through is a conflict of interest,” Bertman wrote in an email to the Town Council.

Civitas Resources declined to comment.

Town code requires public officials to disclose and recuse themselves from decisions where conflicts of interest exist, though it is unclear how that standard applies to contracted consultants.

Owens has declined to comment.

As Erie mineral discussions struggle to find footing in a public forum, some argue that the lack of transparency is due to the format of conversations.

Councilmember Dan Hoback said the structure of executive sessions can limit meaningful public input. “Contract negotiations always take place in executive session, so public engagement often comes only once a contract or other agreement is largely in place,” Hoback said.

Under Colorado law, public bodies may enter an executive session to discuss negotiations, legal matters, and personnel issues. While no formal votes can be taken in those sessions, discussions can shape decisions that are later approved in public.

Some residents feel this “closed-door” dynamic has effectively frozen them out of the conversation regarding mineral rights. With no public hearings scheduled and only a brief window for comment at the upcoming March 24 meeting and a town hall scheduled for April 2nd, many feel the town’s feedback loop is broken.

Councilmember Emily Baer has publicly urged community members to become involved. “Council serves to represent the people,” Baer said. “Democracy is not a spectator sport.”

Still, many residents say participation is difficult due to the lack of public information on what is being considered. Without dedicated public meetings or detailed disclosures, some residents argue that by the time a vote reaches the floor, the real decisions have already been made in private.

The questions facing Erie are unfolding within a broader shift in Colorado oil and gas law.

A 2019 law, Senate Bill 19-181, shifted the state’s regulatory framework to prioritize public health, safety, and welfare while giving local governments more authority over siting and land use.

More recently, Senate Bill 24-185 introduced new limits on the forced pooling of municipal mineral interests. The law requires state regulators to deny certain pooling applications involving local government-owned minerals unless operators revise their plans.

However, the law remains largely untested in practice, and it does not offer a guaranteed path to stopping drilling entirely.

“It requires the operator to amend the application to avoid municipal unleased interests — not deny the whole thing outright,” said Heather Sabo, an Erie resident who has closely followed oil and gas permitting.

County Line Rd & Arapahoe Rd, Erie Colorado

That shift gives Erie greater authority over where and how drilling occurs within town limits, but it does not eliminate development altogether, making decisions about whether to retain or sell municipal mineral rights a key factor in how much leverage the town ultimately has.

Beyond legal and financial questions, many residents point to potential health impacts associated with oil and gas development near residential areas.

Baer cited research and personal experience in describing those concerns, including her son’s illness following nearby drilling activity. “There are more than 1,700 peer-reviewed health studies that point to the negative health impacts that can and have been recorded, living near oil and gas development,” she said.

Public health findings on oil and gas impacts vary, though multiple studies have identified associations between proximity to drilling and certain health risks. The role those findings play in shaping local policy decisions is often debated.

Erie does not currently have a dedicated public health department, and residents have called for more localized study of potential impacts.

A central question remains unanswered: why would Erie choose to sell its mineral rights at this moment?

Possible motivations could include financial considerations or efforts to influence how future oil and gas development in Erie takes place. However, the town has not publicly outlined its reasoning.

Without that explanation, some residents say the process feels driven more by private negotiation than public deliberation.

Residents have organized online and through community networks, calling for the release of nonconfidential documents, dedicated public meetings and greater transparency about the potential deal.

For now, the outcome of the mineral rights discussions — and their implications for Erie’s future — remain uncertain. What is clear, residents say, is that decisions of this scale carry consequences beyond any single contract.

When decisions of this scale are made largely out of public view, residents say, trust in the process itself becomes part of what is at stake.

Like journalism like this? Consider becoming a sustaining supporter — and get our print edition delivered to your home each month.
Democracy needs journalism more than ever. For 25 years, we’ve told the truth — your support helps us keep doing it for the next four and beyond. Administrations come and go. Our team stays, ready to lead no matter who’s in charge.

The post Erie Mineral Rights Deal Advances Largely Out of Public View, Raising Concerns Over Transparency and Conflicts appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

In the high prairie of southern Wyoming, just west of Cheyenne, a glass-fronted building houses one of the world’s most powerful supercomputers. Named “Derecho” by a Wyoming middle schooler, this house-sized machine can process every document in the Library of Congress faster than a human can blink.

Derecho “thinks” at a rate of twenty quadrillion calculations per second. But Derecho isn’t reading books in the Library of Congress. It has a more specific mission. Derecho is there to help us understand and predict the Earth’s weather and climate, taking in and analyzing massive volumes of input data from the Earth’s many weather-influencing systems and events. 

For instance, it could  calculate how smoke particles from a fire in western Colorado may interact with ice crystals in a Front Range thunderstorm to determine the likelihood of a hailstorm. It can analyze and visualize the patterns of “sub meso-scale” ocean eddies (little swirls in the ocean just a few kilometers wide) across the entire Pacific Ocean to simulate rates of oceanic carbon absorption. 

Derecho is just one part of the scientific infrastructure overseen by the Boulder-based National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). Recently, the Trump administration has signaled the possible dismantling or relocating of NCAR. The center is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), an independent federal agency that reports directly to the Executive Office of the President.

While the political motivations behind such a move warrant their own investigation, this article delves into NCAR’s inherent value in its current form and the impracticality of its relocation.

“Science thrives when politicians, Democrat or Republican, stay out of it,” said Dr. Roger Pielke, Professor Emeritus at the University of Colorado at Boulder. 

Dr. Pielke is a former NCAR scientist, founder of the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research (CSTPR), and a longtime Fellow at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES). He took the time to speak with me while traveling in Australia. 

As Dr. Pielke explained, while NCAR is primarily funded by the NSF, it is managed by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR), a consortium of about 130 North American colleges and Universities. Two of those universities sit at NCAR’s doorstep: the University of Colorado Boulder (CU) and Colorado State University (CSU) in Fort Collins. Both universities are among the best in the nation for weather related research. 

The Trump administration has argued that research institutions like NCAR should be relocated from “elite” coastal or mountain locations to the “industrial heartland.” But NCAR didn’t land in Boulder arbitrarily. It sits at the center of one of the densest concentrations of atmospheric and environmental science in the country — and moving it would sever those connections entirely.

Within a roughly 50-mile radius, NCAR neighbors:

• National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in Boulder
• The Earth System Research Laboratories (ESRL) in Boulder. They monitor global carbon dioxide levels    
• Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) in Boulder. They are the nation’s source for alerts on solar flares and magnetic storms     
• Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) in Boulder in partnership with CU  
• Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere (CIRA) in Fort Collins in partnership with CSU
• National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden
• National Wind Technology Center (NWTC) just south of Boulder

Furthermore, the combination of top universities and infrastructure means that the Front Range  arguably harbors the highest concentration of atmospheric science talent in the world. 

NCAR employs over 800 people in the Boulder area, many of whom would likely choose not to relocate to an “industrial heartland,” due to the likely smaller  talent pool for this kind of specialized knowledge . Consequently, moving NCAR’s headquarters would likely trigger a major “brain drain” in a highly complex, data-heavy discipline.

There is precedent for this. In 2019 two U.S. Department of Agriculture agencies were moved from Washington D.C. to Kansas City. In that instance approximately 75% of the impacted workforce chose to resign or retire rather than move. While the reduction in staff through “forced attrition” may have been part of the goal, the result was a substantial set-back to the progress and effectiveness of these agencies. 

One of the reasons why it’s important that NCAR remains on the leading edge of global atmospheric research is because of international competition in the sciences. “There is a need in the U.S.,” said Dr. Pielke “to ‘up the game’ in weather prediction.” Attempting to decommission or relocate NCAR would substantially reduce America’s global competitiveness in weather and climate science precisely at a time when accelerating scientific advancements are most needed. “The view from thirty-thousand feet is that any scientific institution can be improved upon,” said Dr. Pielke, “but what the Trump Administration is doing is not helping that.” 

National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), Boulder, Colorado. Designed by architect I. M. Pei with landscaping by Dan Kiley. Photo: Daderot, September 2005 (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Furthermore, the combination of top universities and infrastructure means that the Front Range  arguably harbors the highest concentration of atmospheric science talent in the world. 

NCAR employs over 800 people in the Boulder area, many of whom would likely choose not to relocate to an “industrial heartland,” due to the likely smaller  talent pool for this kind of specialized knowledge . Consequently, moving NCAR’s headquarters would likely trigger a major “brain drain” in a highly complex, data-heavy discipline.

There is precedent for this. In 2019 two U.S. Department of Agriculture agencies were moved from Washington D.C. to Kansas City. In that instance approximately 75% of the impacted workforce chose to resign or retire rather than move. While the reduction in staff through “forced attrition” may have been part of the goal, the result was a substantial set-back to the progress and effectiveness of these agencies. 

One of the reasons why it’s important that NCAR remains on the leading edge of global atmospheric research is because of international competition in the sciences. “There is a need in the U.S.,” said Dr. Pielke “to ‘up the game’ in weather prediction.” Attempting to decommission or relocate NCAR would substantially reduce America’s global competitiveness in weather and climate science precisely at a time when accelerating scientific advancements are most needed. “The view from thirty-thousand feet is that any scientific institution can be improved upon,” said Dr. Pielke, “but what the Trump Administration is doing is not helping that.” 

The competition is, in fact, strong. In Europe, NCAR’s equivalent is the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF). It is an intergovernmental organization supported by 35 nations and widely considered the leader in global numeric weather prediction. 

The Europeans utilize a multinational cluster of supercomputers that is more scalable and powerful than Derecho or the operational U.S. forecasting systems, Cactus and Dogwood, which operate out of Arizona and Virginia, respectively. When fully utilized, the European supercomputers can outpace Derecho, Cactus, and Dogwood multiple times over, partly by leveraging Finland’s LUMI system. LUMI by itself is currently the world’s fifth most powerful supercomputer with a peak performance of 380 sustained petaflops (compared to Derecho’s 20 petaflops). 

LUMI is being utilized for the European Commission’s Destination Earth (or DestinE) Initiative, an ambitious plan to create a complete digital twin of the Earth and all of its “systems” by 2030. Europe’s digital twin Earth will bring the scale of their geographic modeling down to 1 kilometer which will allow for the real-time simulation of individual clouds and urban heat islands among other very granular weather features. 

On the other side of the planet lies China and its own very ambitious equivalent to NCAR, the Institute of Atmospheric Physics (IAP), a division of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). China’s equivalent to NCAR and ECMWF is their Earth System Numerical Simulator Facility, or EarthLab, opened in Beijing in 2021. Its goal is similar to Europe’s DestinE platform—to simulate the atmosphere, ocean, land, cryosphere (ice), and biosphere of the Earth as a single unit. 

These global competitors are well-organized, highly funded, and poised to race ahead of American atmospheric science innovation should we let politics blow headwinds into our progress. American innovation has long been rooted in world-leading scientific research. Losing our competitive edge in atmospheric science research may shift the focus of innovation to other world regions. Those competing regions will then gain the economic opportunities that always follow scientific discovery and innovation.

What NCAR Means to Those Who Rely On It

Kody Wilson is a Colorado-based independent meteorologist. His Facebook page, Denver & Front Range Weather, now has over a half-million followers, myself included. By going independent, Wilson is able to provide the depth and nuance to weather forecasting that traditional news station meteorologists just can’t match with a 5-minute weather segment on the evening news. Wilson’s large local following is a testament to his work ethic and the simultaneously entertaining and educational ways he presents our complicated weather. 

It’s also a testament to the fact that people love to talk about the weather. A weather event is often at the center of extraordinary life experiences—both good and bad. Perhaps it was the Christmas Eve Blizzard of ’82, or the Limon tornado, or Hurricane Andrew, or some other weather experience, but just about everyone can point to a weather-related event in their lives that impacted them in a major way. 

For some of us, these weather-related experiences lead to a lifetime career in meteorology. Wilson explained to me how, as a middle school aged kid, “a powerful microburst hit our home and farm in eastern Oregon. The damage was so intense we initially thought a tornado had come through. One hundred-year-old cottonwood trees were ripped out of the ground. The roof of our calving shed was torn off and thrown across the yard. Two by fours were driven into a storage freezer in our shop.” 

“Moments like those didn’t scare me away from the weather,” Wilson said “They deepened my curiosity and strengthened the path I already felt called to follow.” 

NCAR has been instrumental in Wilson’s career. “Many of the models, datasets, and forecasting tools I rely on, including advancements in the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) system, originate from NCAR’s research,” Wilson said. “Their work turns complex atmospheric science into usable guidance, and my role is to translate that guidance into clear, real-time information that helps communities make decisions… In that sense, NCAR provides part of the scientific backbone, and I carry that science across the finish line into the real world where it protects lives and supports local communities.” 

I asked Wilson what he thinks NCAR’s value is to Colorado: “NCAR isn’t just a building in Boulder, it’s one of the engines behind the tools meteorologists rely on every day to help protect lives [and] property… across Colorado and beyond,” Wilson said. “It also supports major research investment into the state, making it a tangible asset for Colorado taxpayers. Dismantling NCAR would be a costly step backward, not just for science, but for public safety, economic resilience, and the future of weather preparedness in the West.” 

Climate researchers from the NCAR preparing for the ARCTAS mission.

As I write this, Dr. Scott Denning, Professor Emeritus of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University, is on a ship somewhere in the Indian Ocean teaching undergrads in a “Semester at Sea” program. He was kind enough to take the time to answer my questions about NCAR and how it relates to his life work. 

Early in his career, Dr. Denning worked closely with the late Dr. William Gray, CSU’s pioneering hurricane scientist. The fact that the world’s foremost hurricane scientist operated from a university about as far as one can get from the ocean is a testament to the value of CSU’s proximity to the atmospheric research facilities in Colorado’s Front Range, like NCAR. 

“He was a warm, funny, brilliant man,” said Dr. Denning of Dr. Gray. “And he was my friend and neighbor.” According to Dr. Denning, Dr. Gray had “worked out the structure and function of these storms based on his own personal field work before anybody had ever seen a satellite image of a hurricane!” Dr. Gray’s pioneering pencil-and-paper theoretical work was complemented by NCAR’s tools in data and airborne instrument measurements to create a legacy of hurricane forecasting and modeling that persists to this day. 

Dr. Denning, of course, has his own long history in working with NCAR. “I’ve worked closely with both land-surface modeling and biogeochemistry groups [at NCAR] for decades,” said Dr. Denning. “It’s been just fantastic to collaborate ‘right down the road’ for all these years! Great people, great facilities, and a concentration of expertise that’s just unmatched anywhere in the world.” 

“The new frontiers [at NCAR],” said Dr. Denning, “include fusion of satellite remote sensing, numerical modeling, and AI. I’m especially interested in how these new tools relate to the study of the fate and transport of atmospheric CO2.” I asked Dr. Denning why Colorado’s Front Range is the ideal location for NCAR, and his response reinforces my research: “The Front Range is a great place for NCAR and its work because of the tremendous concentration of scientific work here: NOAA, the USDA, the USGS, and our great universities and people.” 

Show more 11:46 PM View of Boulder, Colorado from the NCAR mesa, southwest of the city. Photo: Laurascudder, December 1999 (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Clearly there is a passionate community here in Colorado and around the world for atmospheric science. But, some of it can seem a little abstract. The idea of creating an Earth digital twin or the ability to simulate a single cloud may not seem like they have much everyday use. But NCAR’s historical value has often been found in common-sense solutions to big problems. 

“Climate change is important,” said Dr. Pielke, “but it’s really a small part of NCAR’s portfolio. Much of what NCAR does has practical applications.” 

Improvements to Air Travel Safety 

These days we don’t hear much about airplane crashes caused by strong winds, but that wasn’t always the case. Prior to the 1990s, low-level wind events—specifically wind shear and microbursts–were the leading cause of major U.S. airline accidents, including a Delta flight in 1985 that crashed while attempting to land in Dallas due to a sudden microburst, killing 137 people. 

This and other weather-related crashes prompted NCAR scientists to lead field studies that resulted in the creation of new detection systems like the Low Level Wind Sheer Alert System (LLWAS). As a result of this work, airports around the world now have a perimeter of low-level wind detection devices and specialized radar systems that detect surface-level winds and immediately alert cockpits to threats. Since 1995 there have been zero major U.S. airline crashes caused by microbursts, and only one (Little Rock, 1999) where wind shear was a contributing factor. These NCAR-led solutions have saved thousands of lives and made air travel substantially safer in recent years. 

NCAR’s work towards aviation safety continues today as they are currently working with the airline industry and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to outfit aircraft with turbulence-detection devices that automatically report and feed into air traffic control alert and communication systems. Without this solution, pilots are asked to voluntarily report turbulence to air traffic controllers, a slow and ineffective system. The new automated detection system for turbulence will utilize the “big data” of thousands of simultaneous airborne flights to model flight path turbulence risk, giving air crews better real-time information on turbulence and alternative flight paths to find smoother air. This could save the aviation industry tens of millions of dollars annually by avoiding turbulence-related damage, injuries, and delays. 

Climate researchers from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and several universities install and perform functional checkouts of a variety of sensitive atmospheric instruments on NASA’s DC-8 airborne laboratory prior to beginning the ARCTAS mission.

Innovations in Wildfire Detection and Mitigation 

The practical contributions of NCAR go well beyond low level wind detection. In the early 2000s, NCAR developed the Coupled Atmosphere Wildland Fire Environment (CAWFE). Large wildfires create their own weather. This model allows meteorologists and on-location firefighting agencies to better predict fire behavior, improving firefighting strategies and public safety measures. This technology contributes to the smoke forecasting we’ve seen in recent years where forest fires in Canada, for example, create bad air quality in New York. 

A visitor to the NCAR facility in Wyoming, where Derecho resides, offers the opportunity to see first-hand the wildfire modeling that massive supercomputing can accomplish. Right there in the visitor area you can watch a precise simulation of the behavior of the December 2021 Marshall Fire as it jumped and spread into the northern Denver metro suburbs by hurricane-force chinook winds. 

The future of fire weather science through NCAR involves AI applications that can accelerate mitigation and firefighting responses through real-time simulations of fire behavior that take into account micro-scale inputs like low-level winds, urban street topology, and the impact of “ember storms” that can ignite new spot fires across highways and fields. 

Agriculture

Two of the most compelling recent initiatives from NCAR combine weather and climate science with tangential interests like agriculture and disease prevention. For agriculture, NCAR is working on a program called CropSmart, a digital twin solution presented pragmatically as a decision-making tool for sustainable agriculture. The modest nature of that description hides a very sophisticated technology-centered solution for vastly improving the efficiency and sustainability of agricultural production, one of the planet’s most impactful systems on climate and the human condition. 

CropSmart will provide growers with an end-to-end application and web-based tool for planning and decision making based on the digital simulation of their land combined with the inputs of local precipitation, soil conditions, and irrigation flows. 

Disease Prevention 

The mosquito is the deadliest animal on Earth. It kills almost a million people every year by transmitting disease. The prevalence and spread of disease-bearing mosquitos is heavily influenced by climate and weather patterns. 

NCAR has helped pioneer modeling systems that predict where and to what extent mosquito outbreaks will occur so that public health officials and municipalities can proactively mitigate or reduce the risk to their communities, saving lives and improving overall public health.

Balloon launch at Super Science Saturday, Mesa Lab, NCAR. Photo: C. Calvin / UCAR, November 2018 (CC BY-NC 4.0)

These are just a few examples of the practical value that NCAR has produced over the last several decades. Rapidly advancing power in raw computing combined with near-term opportunities to apply AI-based solutions, has created an opportunity for the atmospheric sciences to have an enormous positive impact on the future of humanity and the Earth in the coming years and decades. 

Relocating or dismantling NCAR would fracture the powerful scientific brain trust built in Colorado over the last several decades. Such fragmentation would stifle American innovation, ceding our competitive advantage to Europe and China while degrading the safety and resilience of our local communities.

Like journalism like this? Consider becoming a sustaining supporter — and get our print edition delivered to your home each month.

Democracy needs journalism more than ever. For 25 years, we’ve told the truth — your support helps us keep doing it for the next four and beyond. Administrations come and go. Our team stays, ready to lead no matter who’s in charge.

The post Why NCAR is in Colorado and Why It Must Stay appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

When he’s not writing, you can find Doug Geiling in the backcountry, casting a fly rod in a mountain stream in the hopes of catching one of the river’s wiliest fish: trout. 

A lifelong outdoorsman, Doug has channeled his passion and fondness for trout into a new book, titled Crack for Trout Bums. Behind a charming cover designed by his 9th-grade daughter, Addi, readers can expect to find a story that combines elements of travel writing, science, and nature, with a careful re-telling of the history of trout fish. Intermixed with personal anecdotes from Doug’s travels across the American West in search of these picky critters of the creek, the book pays homage to both the fish and the beautiful places they live. 

The book isn’t a how-to guide or an excuse for him to boast about his greatest catches.

Doug Geiling on one of his many fishing trips.

Doug admitted, “I’m a hack, who doesn’t know the fly names. I fish to be out there”. He’s a man who has visited nearly two dozen countries, been to nearly every state in America, and has racked up enough experiences to write about anything. So why focus on Trout?

When I asked him, he summed it up simply, “They live in the most beautiful places. You can’t catch a trout without going somewhere beautiful.” 

He’s not wrong. As a fly fisherman myself, my fishing excursions have taken me to many stunning places that I’d likely never have seen if I were not chasing these elusive fish.

 I’ve caught sharks in Florida, hunted bears in Washington, and grew up gigging frogs in Missouri, yet catching brook trout in Clear Creek or cutthroats in the Flat Tops, out of a stream with no name, are experiences that are in a category of their own.

When you dedicate so much time to chasing beautiful fish in beautiful places and decide to write about it, anything other than a beautiful by-product is hard to imagine. If Doug’s passion for trout is any indication, the book is exactly what it sets out to be: a love letter to one of the world’s most commonly sought-after fish, and the beautiful places they inhabit.

Like journalism like this? Consider becoming a sustaining supporter — and get our print edition delivered to your home each month.

Democracy needs journalism more than ever. For 25 years, we’ve told the truth — your support helps us keep doing it for the next four and beyond. Administrations come and go. Our team stays, ready to lead no matter who’s in charge.

The post You Can’t Catch a Trout Without Going Somewhere Beautiful appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Update: Correction to clarify that Civitas is the one driving the deadlines. One of the conditions for the Draco Pad is that all pre-production must be completed by October 15th, 2027.

A brief discussion at Erie’s Dec. 16 Town Council meeting revealed what had previously been kept behind closed doors: Civitas Resources has made an offer to buy Erie’s mineral rights. This revelation immediately raised concerns about transparency and the town’s direction on oil and gas issues.

The comment surfaced as Mayor Andrew Moore introduced a contract with Alameda Mineral Advisors to assess the value of the town’s mineral holdings. Moore described the consulting work as a step to better understand the town’s assets. The explanation, however, included a significant detail.

“This will give us information on what those are worth,” Moore said from the dais. “Civitas has given us an offer, we’re not sure that offer is market-competitive. If nothing else, this will give us that information. This does not approve anything, it doesn’t spend any money, it simply gives us information. Then we can go back and ask the question, ‘Is there enough here? Is this worth it?’”

That statement marked the first time the public learned that Civitas — operator of the widely opposed Draco Pad oil and gas project — had approached the town about purchasing its mineral rights. The matter had previously been discussed only in Executive Session.

Councilmember Dan Hoback said the lack of public discussion is central to the concern.

“All of the details, all of the pros and cons, are happening behind closed doors,” Hoback said. “If this makes it to a council vote, that will be the first the public is hearing of it.”

The announcement also landed in a charged political climate. Residents have long and vocally opposed expanding oil and gas activity, especially around the Draco Pad. Sustainability consistently ranks as one of the community’s top priorities, Hoback noted.

“In our survey, people ranked sustainability as a number one issue they want to focus on, and we’re going against that,” he said.

A potential sale of the town’s mineral rights could carry consequences for nearby property owners. Under Colorado law, a sale could enable pooling, a practice that allows an operator to combine adjacent mineral interests into a single unit for development.

“One consequence could be, what is called forced pooling, where mineral rights owners are forced to sell their minerals when a company obtains their rights to a certain percentage of surrounding rights,” Hoback said.

He added that timing may also be a factor.

For many residents already skeptical of oil and gas activity, the thought of a fast-moving, privately negotiated deal could deepen that skepticism. 

“Given how opposed people were to Draco,” Hoback said, “this will definitely lead to a concerning lack of trust from the residents.”

His assessment of the situation was blunt: “We’re dancing with the devil.”

Like journalism like this? Consider becoming a sustaining supporter — and get our print edition delivered to your home each month.

Democracy needs journalism more than ever. For 25 years, we’ve told the truth — your support helps us keep doing it for the next four and beyond. Administrations come and go. Our team stays, ready to lead no matter who’s in charge.

The post A Civitas Offer Brings Erie’s Mineral Rights Into the Spotlight appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office (JSCO) announced at 9:24 a.m. this morning that a grass fire had broken out on the railroad tracks near the intersection of Colorado State Highways 72 and 93.

JCSO responded to the scene of the fire, dubbed the Plainview Fire, with roads closed in all directions. At 9:30 a.m., Arvada Police issued a pre-evacuation order for Candelas, Canyon Pines, Blue Mountain Estates, Leyden Rock, and the in-between industrial areas.

Stage 1 fire restrictions are currently enacted in the area east of CO-93, from its southern Boulder County boundary intersection through its intersection with CO-119, due to increased risks from high temperature and low moisture.

At 10:00 a.m., wind gusts were logged at 9 mph to the west, with the fastest wind speeds predicted to reach 13.9 mph by 3 p.m. Temperatures were logged at 53 degrees Fahrenheit, with a wind chill of 43 degrees and 32% humidity.

The Boulder County Sheriff’s Office (BSCO) announced at 10:11 a.m. that the Plainview Fire has been 80% contained, with additional support from Arvada Fire, Boulder Fire-Rescue, BSCO, Coal Creek Canyon Fire, and the Colorado Department of Transportation. Crews also began mop-up operations.

JSCO says to avoid the area due to ongoing fire suppression efforts and road closures. They do not believe that the Plainview Fire relates directly to the railroad tracks.

Video credit: Jamie Lammers, February 07, 2026

Like journalism like this? Consider becoming a sustaining supporter — and get our print edition delivered to your home each month.

Democracy needs journalism more than ever. For 25 years, we’ve told the truth — your support helps us keep doing it for the next four and beyond. Administrations come and go. Our team stays, ready to lead no matter who’s in charge.

The post Plainview Fire Breaks Out Near Highways 72 and 93 appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

On Tuesday, Conservation Colorado convened a press conference to take stock of where the state stands on its climate promises and where it may still be falling short.

The event centered on a new study by Sustainability Solutions Group, commissioned by Conservation Colorado alongside GreenLatinos, the Southwest Energy Efficiency Project, Western Resource Advocates, and the NAACP CO-MT-WY State Conference. The analysis evaluates Colorado’s existing climate policies and maps out potential pathways for meeting the state’s emissions reduction targets.

Colorado’s current framework traces back to the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Reduction Roadmap, first released by Governor Jared Polis’s administration in September 2020. The roadmap set benchmark goals for cutting emissions compared to 2005 levels, calling for a 26 percent reduction by 2025, 50 percent by 2030, and 90 percent by 2050. A revision issued in January 2021 further committed the state to achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by midcentury.

From the outset, environmental groups voiced concern that while the roadmap articulated ambitious goals, it lacked the specificity needed to ensure those targets could be met. Organizations including Conservation Colorado and Western Resource Advocates praised the direction of the plan but warned that it stopped short of outlining concrete, enforceable actions.

That critique resurfaced in February 2024, when the administration released Roadmap 2.0. The update revised the state’s emissions inventory and introduced a set of Near Term Actions intended to guide climate policy through 2026. In a letter opening the document, Polis pushed back on early skepticism, writing that nearly all of the strategies identified in the original roadmap had been implemented over the past three years.

Still, not all advocates were convinced. A joint statement released the same month by the Environmental Defense Fund, Western Resource Advocates, and the Sierra Club noted that the roadmap itself acknowledged Colorado remained off track for its near-term goals, while offering few new mechanisms to close that gap.

The new study presented Tuesday echoes that concern, while also pointing to opportunities. According to Conservation Colorado Vice President of Programs Katie Belgard and GreenLatinos Vice President Ean Tafoya, the findings show that additional policies delivering sharper emissions cuts could reduce the impacts of climate change while also lowering household energy costs and easing long-term Medicaid spending for counties.

Joining them at the press conference were SWEEP Executive Director Elise Jones, NAACP chapter president Omar Montgomery, Sustainability Solutions Group principal consultant Yuill Herbert, and Western Resource Advocates Deputy Director of Policy Development Stacy Tellinghuisen.

Herbert walked attendees through the study’s methodology, describing its goal as identifying sector-specific and economy-wide gaps that must be addressed to meet Colorado’s climate targets. The analysis tracked how energy sources such as gasoline, electricity, and hydrogen move through the economy, how they are ultimately used in transportation, heating, and household equipment, and how those uses translate into costs and emissions.

Researchers modeled six scenarios, including a reference case based on existing policies, a scenario built around new enforceable measures, and four low-carbon pathways that applied more aggressive targets to specific energy sources. Across the board, the results suggested that clearer, more targeted strategies would significantly improve the state’s ability to meet its climate goals.

Tellinghuisen closed the event by underscoring both the urgency and the possibility reflected in the findings. The analysis, she said, confirms that Colorado is not currently on track to meet its climate commitments. At the same time, it shows that the state has multiple viable paths forward, provided policymakers are willing to put stronger measures in place.

The ones who dared to fight City Hall.

When Boulder denied public access to police body-cam footage, we took it to court. Our fight for transparency is now before the Colorado Supreme Court — because accountability doesn’t stop at the city line.

Through December 31, every gift to Yellow Scene will be matched — dollar for dollar — through the Colorado Media Project’s Matching Grant.Give & Get Democracy this Holiday Season. Your $8 recurring monthly support not only gets you YS delivered to your house, but it’s matched for the entire year, bringing that $8/month to $192. 

Because Independent journalism isn’t just about telling stories. It’s about protecting your right to know, holding power accountable, and keeping democracy in the light. This is #newsCOneeds Becoming a sustaining supporter today for $8 a month! 

The post New Study Finds Colorado is Off Track on Climate Goals appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

The post Letter to the Editor: A Small Win for a Community Fighting Big Oil appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

After the hearing was delayed a week by the Erie Town Council due to an administrative issue with the publication of supporting documentation, the Redtail Ranch settlement agreement has been rescheduled for consideration at the Council’s December 16th, 2025 meeting.

Drums full of contaminated soil from the north end of the Redtail Ranch property await transport and disposal to a Nebraska incineration facility, December 2017. Photo courtesy of Erie Protectors.

How Did We Get Here?

The original 2020 Redtail Ranch sketch plan adhered to an older 350 foot setback for oil & gas. In an attempt to appease a health/safety focused Town Council in 2024, Stratus proposed a modified plat that adhered to the Town’s current 500 foot setbacks. That application was rightfully denied for a failure to “promote the public health, safety, and general welfare” given the existing oil & gas wells onsite, as well as environmental concerns about contamination from IBM chemical waste dumped on the site in the late 1960s.

The Current Proposal

As a part of the proposed settlement agreement, Stratus Redtail Ranch has proposed a modified preliminary plat that includes the plugging and abandonment of 6 oil & gas wells operated by KP Kauffman at the SRC Pratt 34-29D location. This will allow the developer to add 49 additional homes due to the reduced 150 foot setback distance required by Erie’s Unified Development Code (UDC) for plugged wells, as opposed to a 500 ft setback required for active wells.

Sounds great, right? The developer gets to build more homes, and the residents benefit from a reduced oil & gas footprint on the site. What if I told you they’re only addressing 20 percent of the problem?

The Reality of Building Homes In An Oilfield

The reality is there are 23 other active wells (for a total of 29) on the proposed Redtail Ranch site, not to mention three adjacent landfills and an EPA superfund site. No other land use application has ever come before the Erie Town Council with such an active oil & gas footprint; rather, developments like Westerly have understood the political landscape and proactively plugged and abandoned all active wells on their properties before building homes. So why is Redtail Ranch different? Let’s examine each of the 5 oil & gas locations in detail, in decreasing likelihood of action by the developer or the oil & gas operators.

There are 29 wells (of which 17 are low-producing) on property owned by Stratus Redtail Ranch just north of the Vista Ridge neighborhood in Erie, Colorado; the Redtail Ranch preliminary plat boundary is outlined in red.

Active Wells by Operator and Location at Redtail Ranch

Operator	Location	Active Wells	Low-Producing Wells
KP Kauffman	SRC Pratt 34-29D	6	5
KP Kauffman	SRC Pratt 41-29D	6	6
KP Kauffman	SRC Pratt 24-29D(1)	4	4
Crestone Peak Resources	Pratt 29H-P168	6	1
Crestone Peak Resources	Waste Connections 29H-M168(1)	7	1

(1) While the Waste Connections and SRC Pratt #24-29D locations are 200 feet outside of the proposed preliminary plat boundaries, they are located on land owned by the applicant and within the 500 foot setback, and thus included in this analysis.

Looking south to the Vista Ridge neighborhood, an aerial view of the Pratt 29H-P168 pad as it was fracked in October 2017. The six wells and associated infrastructure of the SRC Pratt 34-29D pad that will be plugged and abandoned if the settlement agreement is approved are shown in the foreground. Photo courtesy of Erie Protectors

Pratt 29H-P168 and SRC Pratt 34-29D

Commonly known as the Pratt pad, where residents filed 347 complaints with the ECMC for the fracking operations in 2017, the Pratt 29H-P168 pad sits in the heart of the proposed Redtail Ranch development. One well is already classified as “low-producing” by the ECMC, meaning it produces on average less than 2 barrels of oil per day (this is an over-simplification, as the criteria are quite complicated). Plugging and abandoning all the wells at this site would have the greatest net benefit for residents in Redtail Ranch, but since 5 of the 6 wells are still producing, the operator has no motivation to do so. Bad for residents, bad for the developer.

Stratus Redtail Ranch has negotiated with KP Kauffman to plug and abandon the 6 producing wells at the SRC Pratt 34-29D location, just north of the Pratt pad. 5 of the 6 active wells are classified as low-producing. The reclamation of this site will allow the developer to add almost 50 homes to the development. Good for residents, good for the developer.

SRC Pratt 41-29D

This location sits just north of the “environmentally sensitive area” at the northeast corner of the Redtail Ranch. All 6 of the active wells owned and operated by KP Kauffman are classified as low-producing. The developer isn’t working with the operator to plug and abandon these wells because neither of them stands to benefit. It’ll only cost money for the operator, and the developer won’t be able to add additional homes due to a reduced setback because of the contaminated soils in the Neuhauser landfill (explained further below). Bad for residents.

The SRC Pratt 24-29D location sits just south of the Waste Connections 29H-M168 pad. Photo taken in October 2017 as the Waste Connections wells were being fracked. Photo courtesy of Erie Protectors.

Waste Connections 29H-M168 and SRC Pratt 24-29D

Nearby residents filed 554 complaints for the fracking at the Waste Connections pad operated by Crestone Peak Resources at the west end of the proposed development, the most ever for any oil & gas site in Colorado. As with the Pratt site, 1 well is already classified as low-producing; the remaining 6 wells are not. Neither the developer nor the operator stand to benefit from plugging and abandoning these wells.

The 4 KPK wells at the SRC Pratt 24-29D location just south of the Waste Connections pad are all low-producing, and should be plugged and abandoned. In doing so, the developer could restore 3-5 lots at the end of Ravine Place at the far southwest edge of the development.

Meeting the Letter of the Law vs. Doing What’s Right

I’m reminded of a statement made by the Town’s Environmental Services Director David Frank during the Draco OGDP hearings last spring. “We are a county of laws, not a country of justice.” I fear this Council will approve this settlement agreement because the developer has met the minimum legal requirements, but meeting the letter of the law does not make this development safe or responsible.

Objectively, for the 29 active oil & gas wells, the surrounding landfills, and the environmental concerns around toxic chemical contamination, this is the worst land use proposal that has ever come before the Erie Town Council. Put simply, it would be irresponsible of the Town Council to allow, and for the developer to proceed to build homes on this parcel. The risks to future residents are too significant to dismiss. The question then is whether the Town Council is brave enough to defend its residents’ health and safety, or will they cave to a developer that prioritizes profit over people?

Christiaan van Woudenberg has been an Erie resident for almost 20 years. He is the Principal Data Analyst for EcoCarto, a local environmental consulting company that specializes in data analysis and GIS mapping of Colorado oil & gas infrastructure, activities, and environmental impacts. Visit ecocarto.com for more information.

The ones who dared to fight City Hall.

 When Boulder denied public access to police body-cam footage, we took it to court. Our fight for transparency is now before the Colorado Supreme Court — because accountability doesn’t stop at the city line.

Through December 31, every gift to Yellow Scene will be matched — dollar for dollar — through the Colorado Media Project’s Matching Grant.Give & Get Democracy this Holiday Season. Your $8 recurring monthly support not only gets you YS delivered to your house, but it’s matched for the entire year, bringing that $8/month to $192.

Because Independent journalism isn’t just about telling stories. It’s about protecting your right to know, holding power accountable, and keeping democracy in the light. This is #newsCOneeds Becoming a sustaining supporter today for $8 a month!

The post The Redtail Ranch Oil & Gas Debacle: When Developers and Oil & Gas Operators Collide, Residents Lose appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

12/12/2025 This meeting was moved to December 16th, 2025

On December 9, the Erie Town Council is tentatively scheduled to discuss a proposed settlement with Stratus Red Tail that would resolve ongoing litigation over the stalled Redtail Ranch development.

The conflict began in 2022, when Stratus sued the town after Erie denied its plan to build Redtail Ranch, a 290-acre residential community first introduced in 2020. The project attracted resistance from the start, largely because the development would wrap around three oil and gas facilities and sit adjacent to an environmental contamination site.

The council again rejected a preliminary development plan on June 25, 2024, citing ongoing public-health concerns. A closed-door executive session followed on October 7, where council members received legal advice from the town attorney.

At the center of the dispute is a stretch of land known locally as the Pratt property. In the late 1960s, the property became an informal dumping ground for waste trucked out of a newly opened IBM facility. Records show that at least 1,000 55-gallon drums of hazardous material were brought onto the site. That history remained largely unknown until 2015, when Stratus first uncovered evidence of buried waste while preparing the property for potential development.

The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment ordered Stratus to investigate the contamination in 2016. The company has said it spent more than $4 million on cleanup. CDPHE approved the company’s monitoring and maintenance plan in 2020.

Despite the efforts, the land remains hazardous. A subsequent independent study by Pinyon Environmental found traces of torpedo propellant, car-wash chemicals, and grease-trap waste. These findings reignited concerns among residents who already viewed the area’s 32 surrounding oil and gas wells as an “eyesore” and a threat to public safety.

Land-use questions have also complicated the proposal. The Pratt property, roughly 411 acres, was annexed into Erie in 2007 and split into two parcels. One was designated for low-density residential development; the other was set aside as landfill-related public land. Redtail Ranch was originally pitched at 898 units but later reduced to 587 to conform with existing zoning. Of the total acreage, 110 acres were set aside as private open space, including approximately 16 acres covering the contamination zone.

Several residents have also pointed to the town’s evolving oil-and-gas setback rules. When Stratus first proposed Redtail Ranch in 2020, residential development needed only a 350-foot buffer from oil and gas wells. The town expanded the setback to 500 feet in 2021.

Public conversations about the project have been limited. Between its 2020 introduction and Stratus’s lawsuit, only one neighborhood meeting, held in April 2021, took place.

The council is tentatively scheduled to take up the proposed settlement and new preliminary plat on December 9, with time planned for public comment before any action.

Hometown Newspaper posting, Nov. 19th, 2025

The ones who dared to fight City Hall.

 When Boulder denied public access to police body-cam footage, we took it to court. Our fight for transparency is now before the Colorado Supreme Court — because accountability doesn’t stop at the city line.

 Through December 31, every gift to Yellow Scene will be matched — dollar for dollar — through the Colorado Media Project’s Matching Grant.Give & Get Democracy this Holiday Season. Your $8 recurring monthly support not only gets you YS delivered to your house, but it’s matched for the entire year, bringing that $8/month to $192. 

Because Independent journalism isn’t just about telling stories. It’s about protecting your right to know, holding power accountable, and keeping democracy in the light. This is #newsCOneeds Becoming a sustaining supporter today for $8 a month!

The post Erie to Weigh Settlement in Redtail Ranch Lawsuit on Dec. 9 appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Just beyond Nederland, pine forests climb the slopes along Middle Boulder Creek. There, a new wildfire mitigation effort is tackling one of the county’s most contested questions: how to keep both communities and ecosystems safe in an age of escalating wildfire.

Supported by Boulder County Parks & Open Space, the Boulder Watershed Collective, Wildfire Partners, and private landowners, the Middle Boulder Creek Fuels Reduction Project aims to thin dense forests, reduce fuel loads, and protect communities and water supplies from catastrophic wildfire.

“It’s not just a forestry project — it’s also about being a good neighbor,” said Michael Agena, forestry specialist with Boulder County Parks & Open Space. “We want to reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfire, protect water supplies, and encourage homeowners to take action on their own properties.”

The project blends several strategies: county crews handle treatments on both public and private lands, Wildfire Partners helps residents create defensible space and strengthen their homes, and the Watershed Collective leads community discussions. Treatments, officials say, follow the best available science and lay the groundwork for a potential fire.

“The long-term goal is resilience,” Agena said. “We want green trees left standing, communities protected, and water supplies safeguarded when fire inevitably comes through.”

But not everyone is convinced. Some residents and ecologists argue that thinning forests does more harm than good, degrading ecosystems while offering little real protection from the fires that most threaten mountain communities.

David Hallock, a Nederland resident who has studied local ecosystems since the 1980s, believes resources are being allocated to ineffective strategies.

“The general understanding is that home hardening and defensible space had the highest probability of saving a home,” Hallock said. “Millions are going into forest treatments that often simplify ecosystems and degrade wildlife habitat. Helping homeowners prepare their own properties is the most cost-effective approach.”

Hallock points to bird research in lodgepole pine forests, which are often targeted for thinning. Mature, uneven-aged stands, he said, support far more wildlife than thinned areas.

“Mature forests supported 20–30% more breeding birds and almost twice as many wintering birds,” he said. “Thinning also dries out the ground and keeps the forest from reaching richer, more diverse stages.”

Others take the critique further.

“There is little to no credible science proving logging forests protects communities from wildfire,” said Josh Schlossberg, Colorado advocate for the Eco-Integrity Alliance. “The evidence is clear: home hardening and creating defensible space up to 100 feet around homes are the only proven ways to save structures.”

Schlossberg cites Forest Service research showing thinning has limited effect on wind-driven fire, the type most destructive to homes. In some cases, he said, opening the canopy can actually worsen fire behavior by allowing more wind and sunlight to dry out fuels.

County officials counter that ecological impacts are carefully considered. Every treatment is reviewed by wildlife, cultural, and ecological specialists, and the work is  scheduled to avoid disrupting migrating elk and nesting raptors.

“We’re not just cutting trees,” Agena said. “We’re thinking about habitat, water, and resilience.”

As wildfires grow hotter and more destructive, Boulder County faces a question. Should the priority be reshaping forests, or reshaping the way people live within them? The answer will determine not just the fate of neighborhoods and wildlife, but the character of these mountains for generations to come.

Democracy needs journalism more than ever. We’ve been telling the truth for 24 years. Your support helps us keep telling it for at least the next four years.

The post Middle Boulder Creek Fuels Reduction Project: Protection or Risk? appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

When HB25-1040 was signed into law back in March, it expanded the definition of clean energy in Colorado to include nuclear energy. According to the bill, this definition “determines which energy resources may be used by a qualifying retail utility to meet the 2050 clean energy target.” The reaction across the state has been split, with some Coloradans excited for the potential and others worried about possible negative consequences.

Advocacy groups have expressed concern about the health impacts of the uranium mining needed to produce nuclear power and the radioactive waste that is made by these plants. However, other communities are excited about the potential of going nuclear. 

Ben Hemphill, a mechanical engineer with James Fisher Technologies, is a supporter of nuclear energy. He told Yellow Scene Magazine he was surprised but happy to see the bill passed. 

“The mining that’s required to create the fuel isn’t necessarily clean, but that argument could also be made for the mining required for solar panels,” Hemphill said. 

A major advantage of nuclear energy is its zero carbon emissions. Unlike wind and solar, nuclear plants run 24/7, which means nuclear could fill the gaps when renewable sources fall short.

Hemphill shared that one of the biggest challenges is disposing of nuclear waste.

“The disadvantages of nuclear waste is that it all gets contained inside the facility and has to be dealt with,” he said.

This kind of waste is dangerous if exposed to the public, but Hemphill explained there are controls in place to mitigate that risk.

He added that exposure to radioactive waste is always a risk, but argued the advantages of using nuclear energy outweigh it. This is not to say the risks should be ignored by the industry, but Hemphill believes they are being accounted for. 

“Nuclear does have a strong safety culture,” Hemphill said. 

He added that proper regulations are what can give people confidence in using nuclear energy as a clean energy source. 

“I think it’s disingenuous to suggest that nuclear energy is going to help us become a clean energy state by 2040,” Garrett Ryder with Sierra Club Colorado told Yellow Scene Magazine. “In order to build a lot of these nuclear power plants, you’re looking at least a decade of construction and laying the groundwork and ensuring that all of the materials are safe.”

Sierra Club has opposed nuclear energy since the 1970s, instead pushing for other forms of sustainable energy, such as wind and solar power. 

Passing HB25-1040 reflects more of an interest in Colorado’s industries than the people who call it home, according to Ryder. He pointed to the disposal of nuclear waste and the health consequences of uranium mining as some of the biggest concerns Colorado will face with this shift. 

A major concern for Ryder is the lack of guardrails laid out in the legislation. For him, it raises questions about how effectively the state will handle this shift. 

A 2024 study from the National Library of Medicine stated that workers at nuclear power plants and residents living nearby demonstrated a higher risk for cancer and mesothelioma. These results came from researchers analyzing 47 studies, spanning 175 nuclear power plants and 17 countries. Accidents at power plants can cause immediate injury, but the long-term radiation exposure is another factor to consider. 

In June 2024, the U.S. Department of Energy acknowledged the major advantages and challenges of nuclear energy, but did not mention the adverse health impacts. The focus was on the challenges faced by the industry, including high operating costs and the construction of new plants. Public awareness was listed as one challenge, with the Department of Energy noting that the general public sees nuclear power as dangerous.

Colorado Newsline published a commentary piece in July 2025 that highlighted why a shift to nuclear energy is not worth it. Reasons included the high cost, high risk, and long lead times. Solar and wind plants can be constructed in around two years, but it can take about 15 years for a small nuclear plant to be built. The commentary piece also raised concerns that the need for nuclear plants to run 24/7 would work against other clean energy sources. 

Coal-dependent communities across the state, such as Craig, are considering adding nuclear plants to replace the coal mining operations that are shutting down. City officials in Craig expect to lose around 700 jobs due to energy and coal mining plants going offline, CBS News reported. The city is considering the transition due to the possibility of job growth, but officials are not fully sold on the idea yet. 

There are clear advantages and disadvantages of using nuclear energy as a clean energy source in Colorado, but it is still too soon to tell how beneficial the decision might be. Advocacy groups have made strong stances against HB25-1040, while some communities are embracing the shift. It will take time to see what the future of nuclear energy brings to Colorado, but we shouldn’t be celebrating yet. 

Democracy needs journalism more than ever. We’ve been telling the truth for 24 years. Your support helps us keep telling it for at least the next four years.

The post It Might Be Too Soon to Celebrate Colorado’s New Clean Energy appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Junie Joseph represents Colorado’s House District 10 in the State Legislature. As a dedicated public servant and advocate for her community, she brings a thoughtful, informed perspective to the issues shaping Colorado today.

Her contributions to Yellow Scene draw on firsthand legislative experience, offering readers insight into policy discussions and their real-world impacts.

Junie Joseph appears here as a guest contributor for Yellow Scene Magazine.

---

On August 1st, I was honored to receive the National Caucus of Environmental Legislators’ (NCEL) Rising Environmental Leader Award. I accepted the recognition with deep gratitude, but also a quiet irony. While I have fought hard for clean air and water, for wildfire mitigation, and for climate resilience, my most meaningful environmental work has not come through traditional “green” policy.

It has come through renters’ rights.

Each year that I’ve served in the Colorado Legislature, I’ve introduced legislation to keep more of our neighbors housed. Housing justice is environmental justice. Renters protection, too often treated as a separate policy silo, is central to building a sustainable, humane, and climate-resilient future.

I didn’t always see it that way. But lived experience has a way of clarifying our purpose.

When I first moved to Boulder to attend law school, I struggled to find affordable housing. I had a car and told myself, “If worst comes to worst, I can live in it.” For about two nights, I was technically homeless. A classmate offered me a spare bedroom for a short stay, and I considered it. However, I had another plan. I went camping with my law school class while waiting to hear back from a local Church of Christ member, someone connected to me through my congregation in Orlando. On the second day of camping, she called and offered me a room in her house. I stayed with her for nearly three months.

Even as a sitting Boulder City Council member, I remained housing insecure. I lived in substandard housing, an apartment I never fully furnished. Visitors would comment that it looked like I had just moved in. In truth, I feared eviction. The less I had, the easier it would be to leave. I learned from those living on the streets: their backpacks and carts were filled with the essentials of a life constantly on the move. I vowed to never carry more than I could walk away with.

That experience has shaped my policy work. I have passed one renters protection bill every year, including HB23-1120, which introduced eviction safeguards for Coloradans receiving public assistance, and HB25-1240, which protects tenants from discrimination based on housing subsidies. I also sponsored HB24-1286, which expands access to legal services for low-income renters through the Equal Justice Fund. These are deliberate, focused steps toward ensuring our communities remain stable, secure, and resilient. Because housing insecurity is not just a crisis of shelter. It is a crisis of environmental sustainability.

Joseph accepts NCEL Rising Environmental Leader Award Photo from NCEL

When people lose housing, they often lose stability in every other part of their lives. They turn to public spaces to survive: parks, trails, and open lands. Homelessness can be physically and emotionally shattering. It alienates, isolates, and exposes people to judgment and criminalization. It also forces people into the margins of our environmental assets, treating nature not as a refuge but as a last resort.

According to the Common Sense Institute, there were nearly 10,000 unhoused individuals in the Denver metro area in 2024. Colorado ranked ninth in the country for homelessness per capita. If we want to protect our streets, parks, and open spaces, we must keep people housed.

Unfortunately, the federal government is moving in the opposite direction.

On July 24th, 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order focused on “ending crime and disorder” in American cities. The language is coded, but the intent is clear: to criminalize poverty and dismantle harm reduction strategies. His order calls for the removal of encampments, bans on “urban camping,” targets safe consumption sites, rolls back civil rights protections, ends “housing first” policies, and expands pathways to civil commitment for those with mental health and substance use disorders.

These are not policies of compassion or safety. They are policies of abandonment and fear.

The best way to reduce encampments is not through bulldozers and criminal charges. It is through housing. Through strong renters protections. Through stability and dignity.

We all want beautiful, vibrant streets and thriving parks. But those goals will remain out of reach if we continue to push people to the edges of society instead of supporting them where they are. If we want to protect our environment, both natural and civic, we must recognize that keeping people housed is as essential as any recycling program or solar subsidy.

Renters protection is environmental protection.

And I will keep fighting for it, award or not.

The post Renters Protection Is Environmental Protection appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Over 500 people in Dacono reported experiencing an earthquake on Friday, June 13. Registering at a 2.9 magnitude, the seismic event is unusual for Colorado. Residents from Firestone to Thornton told local TV stations that they felt their homes shake and heard a booming noise in the distance. Although it only had a magnitude of 2.9 on the Richter Scale, the quake was surprising for an area like the suburbs north of Denver. According to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the earthquake was just five miles deep. Its proximity to the surface was why so many residents felt the shake. 

Earthquakes are rare in Colorado. Only 12 earthquakes with a magnitude of three or higher have been recorded since the 1960s. Most earthquakes are the result of sudden movements of the earth’s crust along continental fault lines; however, in places like Colorado, which are not located near fault lines, seismic events can result from human activity. Fracking for oil is one such activity that has been linked to increased earthquake risk. 

Dr. Anne Sheehan, a professor of Geological Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder and a fellow at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, says it is very possible that the tremors were related to either wastewater removal or fracking activity. 

“It is pretty well demonstrated that both wastewater and fracking can lead to induced earthquakes,” Sheehan says. “It was originally thought that fracking did not play a role, but more recent studies have found that fracking is related to earthquake occurrence. It’s not as common as with wastewater disposal. A lot of earthquakes in Oklahoma, Texas, and Southern New Mexico were likely induced.”

Small tremors like the one in Dacono are consistent with earthquakes that can be linked to oil and gas activity, including fracking. However, Sheehan says that data on seismic activity in areas like Dacono and the North Denver area is somewhat tricky. The closest survey station is in Greeley, so it is difficult to determine the depth of quakes that are closer to Denver. Sheehan goes on to say that these types of quakes used to be more common around the Rocky Mountain Arsenal because the site was used for wastewater removal in the 1970s and 80s.

 Lawmakers in Weld County, where Dacono is located, have sought to limit restrictions on oil and gas, arguing that oil and gas are a key economic driver in their community. 

“Oil and gas development is a prime economic drier in Weld County, and it’s important that our permitting process evolves to encourage development while continuing to ensure the health, safety, and welfare of the public and the environment,” said Kevin Ross (R), the Chair of the Weld County Commission, last year in a statement lauding efforts to make it easier to install fracking outlets. Weld County produces more oil and gas than any other county in Colorado and is one of the leading oil-producing counties in the nation. 

Seismic events are not the only risk of increased fracking in Northern Colorado. Adams, Broomfield, Boulder, and Weld counties collectively had 1,459 spills in 2024. These spills only account for when a well is currently being operated, excluding instances of orphaned wells. Oil and gas leaks can contaminate drinking water and release methane, sulfides, benzene, and arsenic into the air. These leaks can damage nearby soil, harming plant life, local ecosystems, and nearby agriculture. Exposure to methane and other pollutants from oil and gas leaks can cause respiratory issues and exacerbate asthma. Benzene exposure increases the risk of leukemia and liver cancer.

Colorado’s oil and gas industry shows no signs of slowing down, especially in production-heavy regions like Weld County. But as development grows, it brings with it a growing list of side effects, including earthquakes, toxic spills, and long-term health risks. For many local leaders, the promise of jobs and revenue still outweighs the push for tighter regulation. Yet with every tremor and toxic leak, the need for stronger oversight becomes harder to ignore.

The post Did Fracking Cause Colorado’s Latest Earthquake? appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Colorado State Land Board appoints new director

The Colorado State Land Board unanimously confirmed Nicole Rosmarino as its new director during its monthly Board Meeting on June 12. Rosmarino’s appointment finalizes a four month search process that included a national applicant pool and approval from Governor Polis. Rosmarino has spent more than 40 years working in environmental advocacy, natural resource management and policy, including serving as executive director for the Southern Plains Land Trust and senior policy advisor for Wildlife, Agriculture, and Rural Economic Development in the Office of the Governor.

“I am honored and excited to join the Colorado State Land Board and contribute to its vital mission,” Rosmarino said. “The opportunity to care for these lands for the benefit of Colorado’s students, while also upholding our commitment to sound stewardship, is a privilege.” 

During the public comment period preceding Rosmarino’s confirmation, several members of the public expressed concern about preserving the interests of ranchers, farmers and hunters in Colorado, and regarding environmental activism she’d participated in in the 1980s. Several board commissioners, prior to voting, reassured the public that a new director would not lead to wholesale changes in the State Land Board, and that they had pressed Rosmarino on several of the aforementioned topics, earning commitments from her that she would balance the needs and perspectives of the community in her decision making.

Many commenters also voiced their support for Rosmarino, citing her expertise in environmental stewardship, collaborative nature and dedication to her work. One commenter specifically noted when Rosmarino moved from Centennial to live near the Heartland Ranch Nature Preserve in Southeastern Colorado to be embedded in the community she was working with. Those experiences and traits would make her an ideal candidate for a role like director of the Colorado State Land Board, they said, which requires an ability to create economic growth, effectively manage working lands and build positive relationships with Colorado communities. 

“My experience has shown me that sustainable land management requires a comprehensive approach, one that embraces both traditional uses and evolving conservation practices,” Rosmarino added. “I look forward to working collaboratively with the Board, our dedicated staff, and diverse stakeholders to ensure the continued success and responsible management of these valuable state assets.”

Tier 1 land opened to pipeline access road in Arapahoe County 

The Colorado State Land Board approved a request from Crestone Resources to build an access road and pipeline for the Sunlight/Long well pad in southeast Aurora on Tier 1 land, a restrictive designation that typically prohibits any surface occupancy. 

Originally, Crestone planned to widen an existing access road and install pipeline infrastructure adjacent to the road to transport oil, gas and water near the Aurora Reservoir. Some areas of the road and pipeline would have come within 1,000 feet of the Aurora Reservoir, which raised concerns for Aurora Water and the Colorado Department of Health and Environment. Ultimately, the board, Aurora Water and CDPHE determined it would be more environmentally sound to remove and reclaim the portion of the existing road which falls within 1,000 feet of the Aurora Reservoir and create a new road and pipeline further away. 

The new site for the access road and pipeline is designated Tier 1 because it is located slightly within the footprint of the proposed East Aurora Reservoir. However, In 2007, Water Division No. 1 found that Aurora was precluded from building the East Aurora Reservoir, a finding affirmed by the Colorado Supreme Court, and in 2018, Aurora Water notified the State Land Board that it was abandoning plans to develop the reservoir.

In 2020, Colorado State Land Board staff notified Aurora Water that the land reserved for the reservoir site would be made available for other uses, but the Tier Map was never adjusted to reflect this change. If the Tier Map were adjusted, the proposed Western Access Road and pipeline location would no longer fall in a Tier 1 designation, according to the Colorado State Land Board. 

The Board approved the proposed access road and pipeline location with the understanding that the Tier Map will be amended to reflect reservoir changes at a later date.

Extension on Geothermal Exploration Lease in Chaffee County delayed 

The board moved a decision to extend or deny the Geothermal Exploration Lease 113192 in Chaffee County from an action item to an information item during its meeting on June 12, postponing any final decision making. The extension, which would allow Mt. Princeton Geothermal the right to conduct exploration activities to determine whether a geothermal power facility is feasible on the property, could lead to the first geothermal power facility in Colorado. 

The lease is currently set to expire on July 1. Currently, there is no official date for the action item to come before the board. 

The post State Land Board Names New Director and Rules on Key Land Decisions appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Recently, we were invited to the opening of the Butterfly Pavilion’s new exhibit, Legacies: Invertebrates of Mexico—a preview night for members, media, and local supporters with a passion for bugs and biodiversity.

The evening kicked off with talks from expert entomologists (I call them bugologists), museum directors, and other guest speakers. Then came the food—an unforgettable spread of Mexican dishes by Chef José of La Diabla Pozole y Mezcal in Denver. We had chicken and veggie tacos, and yes—flying ant salsa and roasted grasshoppers.

The food wasn’t just delicious—it was a crash course in edible ecology. Those grasshoppers on the tlayuda? Also hanging out in the exhibit. The salsa made with flying ants? Yep, those too. But this wasn’t shock-and-awe bug-eating. After munching on these delectables, it was a treat to walk through the exhibit and see them up close. I was delighted by the joy of watching these critters scamper about in their aquariums and thoroughly enjoyed learning about each of them.

There was the cochineal, a tiny insect living on prickly pear cactus, once prized across continents for its brilliant red dye. It colored royal robes and religious art, and today it’s still used in textiles and even food coloring—proof that something so small can shape entire industries. Leafcutter ants moved steadily through their transparent tunnels, transporting leaf bits to their underground fungus farm—a real-life demonstration of just how organized and purposeful these tiny farmers really are. The red rump tarantula, with its bold black and crimson body, looked motionless under glass, but it plays a key role in balancing insect populations across its desert ecosystem. And then there were the millipedes. These detritivores break down organic matter, returning nutrients to the soil. They’ve even been used medicinally—at one time mashed into pastes to treat toothaches.

This wasn’t just about novelty—it was a reminder: these invertebrates have been part of life in Mexico for thousands of years, not just as food, but as essential players in keeping ecosystems functioning. Leafcutter ants enrich soil by breaking down plant material and farming fungi. Cochineal insects don’t just make dye—they’re part of a cactus-hosted microhabitat that supports birds, reptiles, and other insects. Tarantulas control pest populations, while millipedes help decompose organic matter and return nutrients to the soil. Throughout the exhibit, invertebrates were doing jobs the ecosystem can’t function without—recycling nutrients, aerating soil, managing pests, or supporting plants at the root level. Lose them, and the system starts to break down.

You can catch Legacies: Invertebrates of Mexico at the Butterfly Pavilion through December 31, 2025. The exhibit offers a rare chance to see the insects that shape our world—from the food we eat to the health of the soil beneath our feet. The Butterfly Pavilion is located at 6252 W. 104th Ave in Westminster.

The post I Ate Bugs for Dinner—The Butterfly Pavilion’s Legacies: Invertebrates of Mexico appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Plan seeks to add new natural-gas-fired plants and pave a pathway for nuclear energy. Many Coloradans aren’t sold on the benefits. 

Xcel Energy’s plan to transition away from coal-fired power plants to more renewable energy met resistance from residents and elected officials who say it does not go far enough to help Colorado meet its greenhouse gas reduction goals and could harm communities already reeling from the impacts of pollution. 

The plan, formally known as Xcel’s Just Transition Solicitation, has been under development since 2022. It includes plans to retire three coal-fired power plants in Pueblo, Hayden, and Craig. The plant in Pueblo will retire no later than 2031, while the plants in Hayden and Craig will retire in 2028. Xcel said the retirements will help the company reach its goal of reducing emissions by 80% by 2030. 

During a public hearing about the plan on April 28, approximately 60 Coloradans spoke against the plan. Some argued that it would make it more difficult for municipalities to meet their own greenhouse gas reduction goals by replacing the coal-fired plants with gas-fired power plants. Others worried about Xcel’s plans to include other energy sources like carbon capture, nuclear, or hydrogen mixed with natural gas, and their potential financial impacts.

The state Public Utilities Commission is expected to make a final decision about the plan in August 2025. 

Emily Baer, a member of the town council in Erie, told PUC that Xcel’s plan could hinder the state’s goals of achieving 100% clean electricity generation by 2040. She said it could also hinder Erie’s efforts to meet its aggressive energy plan, which calls for at least 25% of commercial power to come from renewable sources and have electric cars make up at least 30% of vehicles registered in town. 

Baer said Xcel should focus on creating new wind and solar plants, rather than building new gas-fired plants. 

“In addition to the negative health impacts, gas plants are expensive to build. Wind and solar plants are not,” she said. 

Colorado’s aggressive climate action goals and its push to become a leading state in electric vehicle adoption are two factors influencing Xcel’s Just Transition plan. The state wants to be 100% net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and has passed new laws that increase building performance standards and energy efficiency requirements. Overall, the utility provider estimates the state will need about 14 gigawatts of new generation and storage capacity to meet these goals. 

However, meeting these goals has been a source of significant political headaches. For instance, building owners in Denver have pushed back against the city’s stringent building performance goals, also known as Energize Denver, which set energy-saving targets for buildings that are 25,000 sq. ft. and larger. 

In early April, Denver’s Office of Climate Action, Sustainability and Resiliency adopted new rules to add some flexibility to those goals, like extending the deadline for compliance from 2028 to 2032 and adding ways for owners of financially distressed buildings to delay compliance. 

Gov. Jared Polis has also faced political roadblocks in his attempts to accelerate Colorado’s transition away from energy sources like fossil fuels and coal. Polis’ office developed draft legislation that would have required state utility providers like Xcel, Black Hills Energy, and Holy Cross to eliminate climate-warming emissions before the 2040 deadline. 

However, CPR reported the legislation wasn’t introduced during the 2025 legislative session because it faced significant pushback from business groups, utilities, and labor unions. 

“I’m hopeful we can find a pathway forward,” Andy Miller, climate and clean energy policy director for the Natural Resources Defense Council, told CPR News. “Especially facing federal headwinds against renewables and emissions reductions, it’s important for Colorado to continue being a leader in this space.”

Some elected officials who support Colorado’s clean energy transition were also concerned about the plan’s financial impact on their communities. Chris Nichols, the mayor of Craig, said his community and nearby Moffat could face a 15% decline in tax collections once Xcel’s power plant closes. Overall, Nichols estimated that Craig and Moffat could lose roughly $28 million in tax collections from the power plant’s closure. He asked PUC to ensure Xcel’s Just Transition plan includes a community assistance agreement to recoup that income over the next 10 years. 

Routt County is pursuing a similar agreement with Xcel to recoup $89 million over a 10-year period from the closure of the Hayden Plant. Xcel previously offered to pay $16 million, the Yampa Valley Bugle reported.

Nina Waters, a Summit County Commissioner, also expressed concerns about the financial impacts of Xcel’s transition plan. She argued that investing in new gas-fired power plants would undermine her county’s climate goals and threaten its snowpack, which she said is a primary driver of the county’s economy. 

“Snow is arriving later and melting earlier,” Waters said. “Wildfire seasons are lasting longer. These changes threaten not only our natural resources but the economic security of thousands of families in Summit County and beyond.” 

Local residents from across the Front Range also spoke against the nuclear power provisions in Xcel’s plan. Xcel proposed creating small nuclear power reactors in place of the retired power plants to help generate the additional electricity Colorado needs. 

Nuclear power has become a point of contention between utility providers, lawmakers, and local residents in Colorado over the last several years. Some argue that adding nuclear power could diversify the state’s energy portfolio and help reduce costs for homeowners. Others argue that environmental risks from creating nuclear waste storage facilities outweigh the potential financial impacts. 

Jeri Fry, co-founder of Colorado Citizens Against Toxic Waste, told Wyoming Public Radio that nuclear energy is a constant threat to her community in Cañon City, where about 5.8 million tons of radioactive waste are buried behind a berm. The waste came from the Cotter uranium mine, which operated from 1958 to 1979. There are hundreds of homes within a two-mile radius of the site as well. 

“These things have half lives that are centuries, millennia long,” Fry told Wyoming Public Radio. “And so a community that is not given full disclosure and full information about what they’re signing on to, could just get a horrible commitment.”

Julian Guevara, an organizer with Mi Familia Vota, expressed concerns about working-class families in cities like Pueblo bearing the brunt of the environmental impacts resulting from nuclear power. He asked PUC to instead consider supporting more reliable and safer renewable energy alternatives like wind and solar. 

“The future of Pueblo’s energy economy should not be built on unproven, high-risk nuclear technology that could saddle working families with sky-high energy costs and long-term radioactive waste concerns,” Guevara said. 

The post Colorado Asks PUC to Reject Xcel’s Just Transition Plan  appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Four women are transforming the streets of Longmont and Boulder, Colorado, by charting their paths in a male-dominated industry: real estate development. Each one has a unique vision they want to bring to life, but what they have in common is a passion for enhancing the communities they call home. 

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, women make up only 11% of the overall construction industry, and four of Colorado’s real estate developers are part of that statistic. 

Sarah Carillo began her development career over a decade ago with The Speakeasy bar, Jennifer Peterson recently broke ground on the mixed-use Casa Lou Cardenas, Greeley Sachs pivoted into real estate development after years working in construction, and Danica Powell founded the Trestle Strategy Group consulting firm after losing her job in 2008.

Carillo, owner of The Imperial 301, opened The Speakeasy bar on her own, despite having no formal training in development. As someone who handles a lot of the work on her own, Carillo has had to stand strong to make sure her voice is heard. 

Sarah Carillo at the 301 Imperial

“I’m doing this all by myself,” Carillo said about her work on The Speakeasy.

When working with investors, Carillo noticed that a majority of them were men. This is one part of the industry where she has experienced the most challenges. 

“Ninety-nine percent of all the personal investors that I have met with, and toured and gone down the path of potentially having an investor, has been a man,” Carillo told Yellow Scene Magazine. “It always gets to the point where they want to redirect the vision.”

However, she has continued to stand firm in her vision for the project. 

Ground broke on Peterson’s Casa Lou Cardenas development in 2022. When she decided to open the mixed-use building, she wanted to honor a powerful voice in Longmont’s Latino community, Eloyda “Lou” Cardenas.

“She had been very significant to the Latino voice being heard in the community at a time when things were very segregated and, frankly, there was a lot of racism,” Peterson, who owns JSY Properties, told Yellow Scene.

Cardenas was a trailblazing community member in Longmont who died in 2017 at 99 years old. She was pivotal in establishing bus transit services in Longmont, served on Longmont’s Senior Citizens Advisory Board, and established the first small Senior Opportunity Center.

When Peterson chose to open her recent mixed-use building, she wanted to memorialize Cardenas. Naming the building after one of Longmont’s trailblazers was a way to preserve her legacy. 

For Peterson, her career is about fostering communities that appreciate their cultural differences.

She started without any prior development experience and found it rewarding to learn from those she worked alongside. 

“The relationships are the best part of it,” Peterson said. “And to see when you’re finished, something beautiful and useful.”

“I think [male contractors] respect the fact that you’re doing this work,” Sachs said. “Every guy that I’ve worked with has been incredibly kind. I have two different teams that I’ve worked with downtown, and each one has been wonderful to work with. They understand the vision I have. I think they’re proud of the buildings they’ve worked on.”

Sachs has worked in construction for years and feels it is a great space for women to find a career.

“I don’t see it as a disadvantage at all to be a woman and doing real estate development,” she said. “I think sometimes people are surprised by it.” 

Sachs and Carillo have found support through their relationships with the community, including groups such as the Longmont Downtown Development Authority. They shared that the LDDA executive director, Kimberlee McKee, has been a big help behind their projects. 

Powell is the founder and owner of Trestle Strategy Group and has spent her career crafting a diverse portfolio. She has been a consultant for schools, nonprofit organizations, government agencies, and more. In the past 15 years, Powell has grown used to working in a male-dominated industry. 

After being laid off in 2008, she began her firm as a “small but mighty team ” and worked to cultivate her voice in the field. 

“I think when people hire me, they know I have strong opinions and have good experience,” Powell told Yellow Scene. “I tend to have really great working relationships with my clients because they do listen.”

For Powell, it is important that her clients understand the challenges that come with real estate development, especially at a time when the field is just becoming more complex. 

One of her most rewarding and challenging projects was her work on the Ponderosa Mobile Home Park. Throughout the development process, she worked from a non-displacement premise to keep people living in their community. 

Despite difficulties, families were able to stay in their mobile homes. Now, Habitat For Humanity has joined as a partner to build homes in the community.

Danica Powell at the 2023 Chamber Leadership Awards

“About four or five families are already moved into new Habitat homes,” Powell said.

She shared that she notices being one of a few women in her field and encourages young women to get involved through programs and education. 

“I always encourage people to just be really scrappy,” Powell shared. “I think a lot of my success has come from having defeats.”

Despite the construction industry being male-dominated, it is clear that Longmont and Boulder have a supportive community of women working in real estate development right now. They have forged unique paths in the field, and there is plenty of room for other women to do the same.

Like journalism like this? Support the local press that’s been telling the truth for 25 years. Become a sustaining member and get our monthly print edition at home. We’ve weathered 9/11, floods, fires, economic crashes—and some deeply chaotic years. With your support, we’ll keep going. Because democracy still depends on journalism.

The post Building More Than Spaces: The Women Shaping Colorado’s Future, One Development at a Time appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

The ECMC voted in favor of the plan after an Alternative Location Analysis showed other sites were infeasible 

The Draco Well Pad proposal from Civitas Resources, Inc. was approved by the Colorado Energy & Carbon Management Commission (ECMC) 4-1 during the March 26 hearing, allowing the pad to be developed at the original site in unincorporated Weld County.

The ECMC met to hear and discuss the results of Civitas Resources’ Alternative Location Analysis, which the ECMC moved to require during a November 2024 hearing, specifically requesting that the applicant further investigate the viability of Alternative Location 4 within the Town of Erie.

However, an entirely coincidental but significant change near Alternative Location 4 created additional complications.

The Neuhauser landfill, located downgradient from Alternative Location 4, was declared a Superfund Site after two 55-gallon toxic drums were found there in 2017. The Colorado Department of Public Health & Environment (CDPHE) recently redesignated the landfill to include an environmental use restriction notice to prevent disruption in the area that could create health and environmental risks, said Tessa Sorensen, energy liaison for CDPHE.

Though the area outside the landfill is exempted, any stormwater or runoff flowing into the restricted area would be a violation. Alternative Location 4 was designed to divert runoff away from the landfill, but the proximity and natural downward gradient toward the landfill mean there is no way to ensure that runoff wouldn’t flow into the restricted area, according to a prehearing Drainage Memo from Civitas Resources.

The hearing then moved to witness David Frank, environmental director for the Town of Erie, which is the proximate local government for the originally proposed Draco Well Pad site. Frank reiterated the Town’s stance on the Draco Well Pad—namely, the 5-mile laterals that would be used to drill horizontally into Boulder County, the proximity to the developing Westerly Creek neighborhood and a proposed school site, and potential air quality impacts from greenhouse gas emissions associated with oil and gas drilling.

“Is this a project which should be rushed, thus increasing the likelihood of mistakes and the potential need to cut corners? Perhaps the first five-mile laterals in the state of Colorado should be attempted far from towns and families and under circumstances where the time needed to carefully test these uncharted waters is available,” Frank said during his remarks.

Frank also laid out three conditions of approval for the commission to consider:

1. That the Oil and Gas Development Plan include the execution of access agreements, transportation impact analysis, other local government permits, and the mitigation agreement reached between Extraction—a subsidiary of Civitas Resources—and Erie Land Company.
2. Incorporation of a previously abandoned well, a soil gas survey, and a monitoring agreement.
3. That drilling completions and other pre-production activities end no later than October 15, 2027, when Erie can no longer restrict issuance of certificates of occupancy for homes in the Westerly Creek neighborhood within 2,000 feet of Draco.

Pre-production poses a greater level of impact than other stages of operation, Frank noted, and the ECMC considers residences within 2,000 feet of an active drilling site to be at greater risk of adverse consequences. Civitas Resources has secured informed consent from the five currently occupied homes in Westerly Creek.

Representatives of Civitas Resources then presented the results of the Alternative Location Analysis and engagements with the Town of Erie after the November 2024 hearing. The analysis concluded that the alternative location is infeasible, citing CDPHE’s restriction notice and relevant Town of Erie Oil and Gas Siting Regulations that could make rezoning the district impossible, such as its proximity to residences, public parks, surface water bodies, and geological hazards.

Civitas Resources had proposed another location 1,000 feet south of Alternative Location 4, referred to as Alternative Location 4.1, which would comply with CDPHE’s restriction notice but had similar drawbacks to Alternative Location 4, including close proximity to the Vista Ridge neighborhood.

Civitas Resources outlined the benefits of the original Draco Well Pad: it aligns with zoning regulations in Weld County, requires fewer transportation miles, construction vehicles will navigate fewer intersections, supports dual-rig occupation, utilizes recycled water, has no downgradient water features nearby, and aligns with CDPHE recommendations and requirements.

They also reiterated the best management practices for the Draco Well Pad, including using recycled water, employing two simultaneous drilling rigs to expedite activity, installing three continuous air quality monitors, using electrified drilling rigs, and partially electrifying the completion fleet to reduce emissions.

The Oil and Gas Development Plan also includes a proposal to plug and abandon 22 legacy wells near occupied homes, which, according to Civitas Resources’ estimates, would create a net decrease in Volatile Organic Compound emissions by 3.82 tons per year.

“When you look at the cumulative impact side of things as well, they’re actually going to be reducing emissions and getting rid of some of these older legacy wells,” Commissioner Cross said during deliberation. “When you get rid of a lot of these older legacy wells, to me, that is perhaps the most crucial part of what’s being proposed here.”

Commissioner Messner was the only vote against the plan. He cited the proximity of the Westerly Creek neighborhood and an area about 1,500 feet north of the well pad that was identified and deeded to the St. Vrain Valley School District as evidence that the plan does not meet ECMC’s standards to adequately protect public health, safety, welfare, the environment, and wildlife resources.

“There’s a point where oil and gas development and subdivisions are colliding with one another, and I think this is a really good example of where that’s happening,” Messner said. “We’re starting to see it more often, and it’s certainly a challenging situation for all sides.”

Civitas Resources laid out a development schedule that would break ground in May 2026, complete drilling in March 2027, bring wells online in October 2027, and begin reclamation in December 2027.

This schedule would align with the Town of Erie’s conditions for approval. However, Civitas Resources has an official end date of May 2028 due to delays in the hearing process and outstanding requirements, including paving a half-mile of county road for construction vehicles accessing the Front Range Regional Landfill. The ECMC has requested that Civitas make reasonable efforts to conclude operations by December 2027.

Civitas Resources will hold two virtual town halls as development moves forward. Residents can sign up for notifications from the Town of Erie here.

“While the Town of Erie is disappointed with the Commission’s decision, the Town is committed to protecting the health, safety, and welfare of its residents and will continue to do so irrespective of this ruling,” read a March 26 message from the Town of Erie. “The Town of Erie is grateful for the commission’s acknowledgement of present and future impacts of the Draco Pad and its inclusion of the following conditions of approval to better protect the current and future residents of Erie.”

Art courtesy of Erie Protectors.

Like journalism like this? Support the local press that’s been telling the truth for 25 years. Become a sustaining member and get our monthly print edition at home. We’ve weathered 9/11, floods, fires, economic crashes—and some deeply chaotic years. With your support, we’ll keep going. Because democracy still depends on journalism.

Democracy needs journalism more than ever. We’ve been telling the truth for 24 years. Your support helps us keep telling it for at least the next four years.

The post Draco Well Pad proposal approved 4-1 appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Now defunct as the old company, rebranded into a new company. This is common among Oil and Gas operators.

The Littleton-based oil and gas operator was found in violation of several orders that will likely lead to its wells being turned over to the ECMC on March 26. 

Aaron Harber has lived on his sprawling farm on East County Road since 1989, tending to small grain crops, horses, cows, pigs, chickens, and recently, bees. 

But on the eastern side of his property is the Futhey #2 oil well that, if it were up to him, would have been plugged and remediated a long time ago. Though Harber owns the mineral rights to the well, the 1980 lease pre-exists his ownership of the farm, and he has no right to terminate it. 

The situation changed in 2022 though, when the operator of the well, Littleton-based oil and gas company Phoenix Resources LLC, stopped paying royalties to Harber. This gave Harber grounds to terminate the lease, and accomplish his goals to have the well plugged, remove all surface equipment from the drilling site, and remediate the area so that no environmental or health concerns remain. 

“My goal is to not have this kind of above ground activity where there are two neighborhoods next to us,” Harber told Yellow Scene Magazine. 

Harber is one of the owners in the Futhey #2 well’s split estate — where one party owns the surface rights to an oil well, but another party holds the below-ground mineral rights — but it is not required by law for Phoenix Resources to notify him of changes to the lease agreement or activity at the drilling site. When the royalty payments stopped coming in, he was left with dozens of questions. 

“When the ECMC (Energy & Carbon Management Commission) is holding a hearing or conducting any kind of action on a property, the property owner is not notified,” Harber said. “That makes no sense to me at all.”

Harber was concerned that no one was maintaining the well anymore, and that possible environmental damages were going unaddressed. 

Even when oil and gas wells are inactive, they can continue to release potentially dangerous pollutants into the air, soil and groundwater, like methane and benzene, a documented carcinogen. In some cases, abandoned wells can have explosion risk. 

He contacted the Colorado Energy & Carbon Management Commission (ECMC) for answers and confirmed that activity at Futhey #2 had ceased in the last several years. Harber sent the ECMC an official notice of termination for the lease in August 2024, hoping to move the well into Colorado’s Orphan Wells Mitigation Fee Enterprise Fund. 

The Enterprise was created in 2022 to use fees from the oil and gas industry to pay for plug and abandon operations and reclamation of orphan well sites, so that the costs don’t fall to people like Harber. 

Recently, the Enterprise Board unanimously approved a new annual marginal well mitigation fee that requires oil and gas operators to pay a flat fee of $115 per well to fund the plugging of marginal wells in Colorado. The fund is forecasted to generate $5 million annually, and will become effective in April 2025, according to a press release. 

To successfully induct Futhey #2 into the Orphan Well Enterprise, Harber had to secure a signed Stipulated Order Finding Violation from Phoenix Resources, which confirms or denies the accuracy of violations alleged by ECMC Staff.

The SOFV was put before a hearings officer on Feb. 26, which found that of Phoenix Resources’ 18 wells in Colorado, four failed final reclamation and the rest do not have any reclamation status. 

Violations included failure to report monthly operations within 45 days of the end of each month, unmarked and unused risers on location, undesirable plant species, missing wildlife exclusion devices and the presence of stained soils surrounding a drilling site — all of which Phoenix Resources failed to remove before a recent ECMC inspection. 

If approved, the SOFV will terminate Phoenix’s rights to operate in Colorado, foreclose on Phoenix’s financial assurance, which includes a $60,000 bond held by the ECMC, and allow the ECMC to declare Phoenix Resources’ wells orphaned and begin to expend funds to plug and abandon the wells and remediate and reclaim the oil and gas locations, wrote Community Relations Liaison Megan Adamczyk in an email to Yellow Scene. 

Phoenix Resources was originally given a penalty of more than $1.1 million, but elected to suspend the penalty in exchange for turning over its wells to the Orphan Well Enterprise, said ECMC Enforcement Advisor Siera Schroeder during the Feb. 26 hearing. 

The SOFV was reportedly signed earlier this year and will be sent to the ECMC Commission for approval during a March 26 hearing. Because it comes before the Commission as a recommended order, it will be de facto adopted unless commissioners remove the matter for discussion and deliberation or moves to stay the matter. 

Harber is cautiously optimistic that the matter will be resolved on March 26, 2025, and he can see the well successfully plugged and abandoned and remediated to prevent any future environmental or health damages. But, he is glad to have documentation in case he needs to pursue further action, he said. 

“My goal is that all of that [equipment] be removed and that the ground itself be remediated from any spills or anything that occurred,” Harber said. “I’m very confident that we’re on a path to get that done.”

Like journalism like this? Support the local press that’s been telling the truth for 25 years. Become a sustaining member and get our monthly print edition at home. We’ve weathered 9/11, floods, fires, economic crashes—and some deeply chaotic years. With your support, we’ll keep going. Because democracy still depends on journalism.

Democracy needs journalism more than ever. We’ve been telling the truth for 24 years. Your support helps us keep telling it for at least the next four years.

The post ECMC to terminate Phoenix Resources right to operate in Colorado appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Civitas Resources is required by ECMC ruling to consider an alternate location within the Town of Erie.

The Draco Well Pad, a 26-well project that would break ground in Weld County just outside of the Town of Erie and drill 5 miles horizontally into Boulder County, has been postponed indefinitely while Civitas Resources, Inc. conducts an alternative location analysis. 

The hearing scheduled for March 13 is now rescheduled for March 26. Those who wish to submit public comment can do so here under docket number 240100004 for the Draco Pad Oil and Gas Development Plan. 

The Energy and Carbon Management Commission ordered an indefinite stay on the Draco Oil & Gas Development Plan in November 2024, requiring the developers to pursue rezoning of Alternative Location 4 within Erie, south of the closed Denver Regional Landfill and west of the active Front Range Regional Landfill. 

The rezoning would give Erie jurisdiction over whether to approve or deny an application for the Draco Oil & Gas Development Plan. Because the current proposal is technically outside Erie town limits, the town has no sitting authority on the Draco pad, though it is the proximate local government, and has some influence on how the project proceeds. 

Prior to submitting an application for the site in January 2024, Extraction Oil and Gas — a subsidiary of Civitas Resources — evaluated 4 alternative locations in Boulder County and Erie but “determined that there were no feasible locations that were allowed by local regulations.” This included Alternative Location 4, which is back under consideration per the November ECMC ruling.  

Turnout from November’s ECMC hearing.

If Civitas comes to the conclusion that Alternative Location 4 is still infeasible, the Town of Erie will be requesting that the Draco OGDP be denied unless specific Conditions of Approval are ordered by the Commission, according to a March 5 statement from the Town of Erie. 

Erie has concerns about the safety and viability of both the current proposed site, which is in close proximity to Erie residents and Alternative Location 4, which is in an area with several pre-existing oil and gas pads and could have a cumulative impact on the nearby community, said Environmental Director David Frank. 

“What we’re really talking about is a pretty experimental site,” Frank told Yellow Scene Magazine. “These are the longest laterals ever attempted, they run under some 5000 homes there in western Erie.” 

According to a Prehearing Document from Civitas Resources, Extraction Oil and Gas met with Town of Erie Staff on Dec. 16, 2024, to discuss Town of Erie regulations, including how quickly the alternative location could be rezoned to approve drilling, which is ongoing as both parties gain more information about the site. 

“I would like to see proximal local governments have more involvement and more say in these locations that are immediately outside of our boundaries because we’ll get all of the effects with none of the control and oversight,” Frank said. 

Erie residents and town officials alike are worried about air quality impacts, disruptions from heavy machinery, and the use of extreme-reach horizontal wellbores at the site. 

The original proposal for the Draco Well Pad is also within 1,500 feet of five homes in the Westerly Neighborhood. In the next three years, 72 additional homes will be built within 2,000 feet of the Draco Well pad, which creates a time constraint that could push Civitas to try to complete drilling on an expedited timeline. 

2000 foot area affected by the proposed site.

Jeff Annable, Manager for Well and Location Permitting at Extraction Oil & Gas, submitted a Consolidated Public Comment Response in August 2024 that addresses water use, the existence of 49 plugged and abandoned wells in the proposed drilling site, air quality, extreme-reach wellbores and other health and quality of life concerns. 

The document largely points to Civitas Resources’ expertise in oil and gas drilling, adherence to state and local regulations, and additional strategies that would be used at the Draco site to offset negative impacts, such as a 32-foot full-wrap sound wall to reduce aesthetic and noise pollution. 

“We’ll see what the commission says. We’ve done the best we can with the hand we were dealt to try to serve our residents and safeguard their health and well-being and quiet enjoyment of their homes,” Frank told YS. 

The hearing can be attended here with Meeting ID: 814 1297 9750 

The post Draco Well Pad Hearing Postponed with Location Analysis Underway appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

There’s something about the words “rules-making process” that almost instinctively causes the vast majority of people’s eyes to glaze over. However, within the glaze of boredom for many, comes real power with significant consequences for our daily lives. 

The Colorado environmental movement knows this and has the paper cuts to prove it. 

Last October, the Colorado Energy & Carbon Management Commission (ECMC) adopted new rules that included “robust protections” for disproportionately impacted (DI) communities living with the cumulative impacts of oil and gas operations. It was clear that after the 18-month public process, the State of Colorado was calling the new rules a win.

The ECMC Chair, Jeff Robbins, claimed, “These rules represent the most protective standards for oil and gas development in our state’s history and require new measures to avoid, minimize, and mitigate adverse impacts on disproportionately impacted communities.” 

It was also clear that the Colorado environmental movement didn’t feel the same way, and their reaction to the new rules had a theme. 

Citizens for a Healthy Community: “Polis Administration Gives Oil And Gas Industry Roadmap For Expanding Neighborhood Drilling In Disproportionately Impacted Communities.”

Colorado Sierra Club Director Margaret Annexstein: “Gov. Polis ECMC has once again failed Coloradans and legislative mandates meant to protect us from severe pollution.” 

Conservation Colorado: “New Rules Help Address Oil And Gas Pollution, Fall Short Of Adequately Protecting Colorado Communities.”

The difference in tone wasn’t just noticeable, it was damning, and it raised some serious questions.

Thankfully, Yellow Scene had the opportunity to discuss these new rules with two people who were involved in the process. Ean Thomas Tafoya, who is the National Vice President of State Programs at GreenLatinos, and the Director of GreenLatinos Colorado. As well as Patricia Garica-Nelson, who is the Colorado Fossil Fuel Just Transition Advocate at GreenLatinos Colorado. 

Yellow Scene: In the letter regarding Cumulative Impact & Enhanced Systems & Practices signed by 23 state lawmakers on August 21st to the Department of Natural Resources and the Energy and Carbon Management Commission – these lawmakers claimed that the draft rules at that time significantly deviated from the intent of the laws passed (BH 24-1346, SB24-229, and HB24-1338). 

Do you agree with the statement that the rules in effect today deviated significantly from the intent of the laws?

Patricia Garica-Nelson: “Yeah, initially in the June draft, there would have been a hard 2000-foot setback, no exceptions. The agency did pull that back, and so there are more off-ramps for operators to get around that setback. So I feel like that one of the biggest issues that we left unresolved was that proximity approach that was something that we had really pushed for. We had tried to get, you know, a bigger setback, at least 2500 feet, but we were unsuccessful.

“I do want to mention, when it comes to notification, we were able to include notifications for community members within 4000 feet of a new site within Disproportionately Impacted Communities (DIC). I feel like it is positive that we are requiring more; we’re requiring more engagement with communities further and further away from sites. So that’s really positive. We also included operators also have to include more information about how their site will cumulatively impact or how that would add to the already existing cumulative impacts to communities. 

“But unfortunately, that wouldn’t be any criteria used for a denial of a permit. So at least now, I feel like we’re putting more safeguards for communities, not the ones that we wanted ultimately, but we’re slowly getting more protections into these roles.”

YS: Do you believe that these rules effectively protect communities of color low in communities and the residents who live in counties with significant oil and gas activities, such as Weld and Adams County? 

Ean Thomas Tafoya: “Are these rules more protective than the rules that existed before? Yes, are they the gold standard yet? No. And I will also say we have to wait for them to take effect for us to know how effective they are being. We’re only now doing interviews for the community liaisons. We do not know what the long-term effect will be with the commissioners’ decisions. And then, if you couple in the fact that we’re also headed to a new governor, and how and what the structure and tone of the commission will be, is probably the biggest hurdle.”

YS: ECMC chair Jeff Robbins, in a statement, claimed that these rules represent the most protective standards for oil and gas development in our state’s history and require new measures to avoid, minimize, and mitigate adverse impacts on disproportionately impacted communities. 

Do you believe that to be a true statement, considering the Chevron Corporation said it supported the ECMC “staff’s thoughtful revisions”?

Ean Thomas Tafoya: “100% these are the most protective rules that have ever existed at ECMC. But we, as environmental justice leaders, didn’t get everything we wanted. For example, the hard setback to protect communities.”

Patricia Garcia-Nelson:” Though these aren’t all the protections we were able to get in some protections, like the notification. A lot of the time, people don’t know what’s happening until it’s already been approved or it’s already getting built. So we feel that definitely there are more opportunities. More engagement for community members, and that was also part of the Environmental Justice Act 1266, that people in Colorado have a right to breathe clean air, drink clean water, but also have input in decision making or for the environment around them.”

YS: Citizens for a Healthy Community claimed that the Polis administration, through these rules, has given the oil and gas industry a quote: ‘road map’ for expanding neighborhood drilling in disproportionately impacted communities.

Is that how you see it? Do these rules allow for expanded drilling in neighborhoods?

Ean Thomas Tafoya: “I mean, they were operating under [previous] rules that allowed them to expand. These rules won’t preclude them from expanding, but the rules and the changes we got put more opportunity for the community to use their voice. And we at GreenLatinos feel like that is the strongest and first step because so many times we’ve been called into environmental justice situations, and leadership has said, ‘Well, nobody’s told us.’

“I can tell you time and time again that the process feels too much like the train’s already moving analogy, that it’s much more difficult. So, if communities are being informed about risk. And it’s not just this bill that is making a difference, right? 

“We’ve passed other legislation that actually can make a bad actor get their license taken away. You’re seeing that happen. We’ve passed; I’m trying to think we’ve had legislation that requires the disclosure of what’s in fracking fluid. I think this right-to-know concept is going to allow communities to make the decision for themselves about what is protective and not protective.”

Patricia Garica-Nelson: “Also, last year, we worked on a bill that would expand the powers that the air pollution control division has when it comes to holding people accountable. And so they expanded their powers to be able to take operators to court for their bad acting.”

YS: As you know, we have a new administration in the White House, and they have selected the CEO of fracking company Liberty Energy [Chris Wright] to be their pick for Energy Secretary. 

Do you have any thoughts or concerns about both Colorado Senators supporting Trump’s pick for energy secretary and the impact it could have on Colorado and the nation?

Ean Thomas Tafoya: “Yes, we are incredibly disappointed. We are disappointed to see our senators break not only for the Energy Secretary but also the Department of Interior Secretary. And I think, in particular, seeing the video of that CEO accosting the community youth, particularly with the sunrise movement, who are concerned about the actions that are being taken and the science that’s being ignored.”

The post The Dirty, Messy Work of Cleaning Up After Oil & Gas in Colorado appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

The Trump administration aims to support the oil and gas industry. Trump’s policy mind has a track record of thwarting environmental activism, and his political allies profit from natural resources. The oil and gas industry have the same priorities, for the most part. Yellow Scene Magazine (YS) looks at the key information regarding environmental and energy policy “Trumping” into the 2025 republican enterprise. 

The American Petroleum Institute (API) published a five-point policy roadmap shortly after the 2024 presidential election. The roadmap prioritizes five ideal Trump-administration energy actions. These actions are protecting consumer choice, bolstering geopolitical strength, leveraging natural resources, reforming our permitting system, and advancing sensible tax policy.

“Leveraging natural resources” means revoking the Biden Administration’s offshore program: 

“Unfortunately, the previous administration impeded resource development, including implementing the weakest offshore leasing program in history. A pro-American energy approach is needed to initiate a new era of federal energy leasing. Oil and natural gas production from federal lands and waters offers tremendous benefits to all and is using the highest safety and environmental standards. Given the scale of our resource base, opportunities for development stretch decades into the future.”

Permitting reform fastens faulty energy infrastructure repairs: 

“Americans can’t drive down the road without witnessing firsthand our failing infrastructure. Unfortunately, it is even worse than potholes and crumbling bridges. Burdensome regulations and government red tape have made it impossible to build anything in this country. We need smart, comprehensive permitting reform that ensures transparency, predictability, timeliness, and durability.”

Advanced “sensible tax policy” faithfully withstands American-produced energy:

“Industry investment rests on sound, predictable tax policy. With many key tax provisions expiring at the end of next year, it is critical they be extended to ensure the next chapter of our energy future is once again written here in America.”

Project 2025 And The National Picture

Some members of the oil and gas industry are more progressive than others. Not all of them care about conserving profits more than environmental justice. Some care about a balanced economy that also benefits the environment. Trump’s all-the-above energy solution supports sustainable energy sources. This republican agenda includes creating jobs, maintaining domestic supply, and boosting the economy. 

A Law360 report suggests that citizens should expect oil and gas decisions to look more like merger and acquisition (M&A) business deals. However nuanced the case may be, Trump’s agenda is to ramp up fossil fuels and resist sustainable energy emerging from the hottest year on record. 

“Just days after the election, we are already seeing big polluters emboldened by Donald Trump’s agenda to increase costly fossil fuel use and devastate our public health and our environment,” Sierra Club Executive Director Ben Jealous said in a press release. 

“Ramping up coal use would mean higher monthly costs for ratepayers, more deadly pollution in our communities, and more climate chaos, all for the sake of boosting profits for coal executives.”

The coal industry is weakening because it is an archaic model. Other sources of natural gas are more affordable. Many of the people in control of the energy industry are right-leaning conservatives — the type of people who vote for Trump because their interest is maximizing profits. The fossil fuel industry has a disproportionate financial and lobbying influence, according to AmericanProgress.org. 

This influence undermines popular views and hinders climate action proposals. With Republicans dominating all three branches of The U.S. federal government, the authors of Project 2025 intend to self-regulate the interests of conservatives. Even though Trump has distanced himself from Project 2025, his track record of deregulation will continue to put profit over people.

California And Colorado Lead The Fight to Protect The Environment

During Trump’s first presidency, California won most of its court cases to protect environmental regulations. 

“The good news for California,” said Ann Carlson, an environmental law professor and director of the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, “is that the first Trump administration lost 83% of its court cases involving attempts to roll back environmental regulations.” Neither the Bush nor the Trump administration impeded the state’s defense of air quality and climate change. States’ rights’ survival is the fittest. 

“When the Trump administration attempted to roll back California’s standards, many major automakers chose to negotiate with the state instead to avoid the uncertainty.” Cal Matters reports.

 “The state in 2020 finalized an agreement with BMW, Ford, Honda, Volkswagen Group of America, and Volvo, which agreed to follow the state’s standards through 2026 regardless of what the federal government did.” Some major corporations care about the well-being of the American people, after all. Although, actions speak louder than words.

Colorado boasts some of the cleanest air quality in the world. But this state has more hurdles to overcome than the political powerhouse known as California. 

“Despite Colorado operators producing some of the cleanest molecules of energy in the world under stringent environmental protections,” Dan Haley, the president of the Colorado Oil and Gas Association trade group, told The Denver Gazette, “federal permit processing and leasing significantly slowed during the Biden administration, with only one lease auction held in Colorado.” 

“For far too long, federal lands in Colorado have been leased to big polluters for pennies on the dollar — often with disastrous long-term results for our climate and communities,” Conservation Colorado Executive Director Kelly Nordini stated in The Colorado Sun.

“President Biden’s order pausing this outdated practice is long overdue.” Democratic change comes out like the minimal toothpaste in a shared bathroom. Industry and local officials report that blocking the activity on federal lands responsible for a significant portion of oil and gas in the United States would devastate employment and slash government budgets.

“Colorado’s oil and gas industry understands the importance of responsible energy production and operates under some of the most stringent regulatory standards in the world,” API Colorado Director Kait Schwartz told The Denver Gazette. 

“While we support balanced federal energy policies, we will continue to lead by example by maintaining our commitment to responsible energy production.” 

The Trump Administration does not care much about sustainability. Individuals and states play a crucial role in sustaining environmental justice. Standing solidarity ensures corporations’ monetary interests do not override Mother Earth’s needs. 

The post Preventing An Energy Collapse Under The 2nd Trump Administration appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

In a country where more and more once unpopulated landscapes are taken over by apartment buildings and skyscrapers, how do we continue to coexist with wildlife? Especially when the wildlife in question is the grizzly. Creatures who were born to roam—and fight. After all, brown bears evolved in fields and open spaces, according to Grizzly Confidential, meaning in order to survive, they had to stand their ground and fight for their food, resources, cubs, and lives. And with both males and females weighing up to 600 and 350 pounds, respectively, with the capability of running up to 40 miles per hour, they’re likely going to win.

But when wildlife and civilization seem to continuously bump into each other, how do we make that work? Coexisting with bears is a modern conundrum with no easy answer. Yet Kevin Grange tackles this issue head-on in his new book Grizzly Confidential: An Astounding Journey into the Secret Life of North America’s Most Fearsome Predator.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Kevin Grange l Jackson Hole, WY (@kevin.m.grange)

Readers will likely find Grange’s starting place of his journey into the life of bears relatable. Like many, Grange found bears fascinating as a child, but that interest took a back seat to life. And as an adult he still had an interest but also a deep fear of bruins. 

The first chapter opens with Grange attending a human-bear conflict relationship conference. It sets the scene for the bear’s situation in North America and gives a sobering look at how even humans with the best of intentions play a role in creating so-called “problem” or “nuisance” bears. (Anyone who used that phrase at the conference, Grange explains, was quickly corrected with a blast of an airhorn). It helps 

From there, the author embarks on a journey, exploring everything from classes on how to best deploy bear spray, teaching children bear safety in the remote Alaskan village of Akhiok, the dark side of for-profit wildlife parks, and even talks with researchers trying to understand what happens to a bears body during hibernation so they can potentially help humans suffering with diabetes, heart disease, and other ailments. Grange eventually makes his way to the remote Alaskan peninsula, where humans can visit but it’s very much clear they are in the bear’s territory, not the other way around.

Grange takes a frank look at the state of bears and human-bear relations in North America. He doesn’t shy away from the myriad of issues facing these important giants. But Grange also gives the reader something I think is missing in a lot of environmental stories: hope.

It may sound cheesy, but think about it. There’s no shortage of books, movies, articles, and podcasts talking about the irreversible destruction of the planet. But if you don’t give readers hope then why even try to make it better? Instead, Grange gives readers a deeper understanding of these creatures through his incredible journey into their lives. And with that newfound knowledge readers are armed with both small and large changes they can make in their own lives to help ensure grizzlies will be a part of our landscapes for generations to come.

The post Book Review: Grizzly Confidential; A Deep Dive into How We Can Learn to Coexist with These Fierce Predators. appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Prisoners face extreme temperatures, overflowing sewage, and respiratory illness across Colorado. 

A study that was published in Sage Journals this fall collected information from 35 formerly incarcerated participants across the state and found that many of the region’s prisons amplify environmental harm to those housed within the infrastructure. Extreme temperatures are one of many issues that these prisons face. Threats like wildfire and sewage flooding are also at the top of the list.  

65% of this small sampling of prisoners were at some point at risk of experiencing the negative side effects of these shifts, leaving some unlucky prisoners with respiratory issues from poor air quality, with some study participants describing their prison experience as being “surrounded by steel walls like a tuna can” and “super cold all the time.”  

A bare-bones cell at the Colorado Supermax Prison

“Somebody could probably go into shock because you’re in a room full of steel and concrete. You’re not in there with any kind of blanket or any kind of real… Nothing. Two sheets,” a former prisoner told researchers.

Yellow Scene sat down with Dr. Shideh Dashti, an Associate Professor and Associate Chair for Administration in the Civil, Environmental, and Architectural Engineering department at the University of Colorado Boulder and co-author of the study, to better understand its findings. 

Several years ago, Dashti helped start an initiative in the College of Engineering and Applied Science at CU Boulder called RISE: Resilient Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity, which brought experts together to evaluate hazard resilience, environmental sustainability, and environmental justice across a variety of disciplines. 

The pilot project involved the evaluation of prisons, which had previously been left unstudied particularly by the design professional. Dashti and her companions found that some of the greatest issues that Colorado prisons are facing include disproportionate exposure to multiple climatic extremes, “we showed that approximately 75% of Colorado’s incarceration infrastructure is in an elevated exposure group for at least one of these hazards: wildfire, flood, extreme heat, landslide,” she said. 

The October 2024 study showed a widespread evaluation of some of those impacts and came on the heels of reports from other national prisons in locations like North Carolina after hurricanes Helene and Milton ravaged the east. While some prisons in the region were evacuated, others remained occupied, with no power or running water for excessive stretches of time. 

While hurricane flooding isn’t among Colorado’s biggest threats to prisons, the study’s authors found that at least three-quarters of Colorado’s prisons and jails, or 80% of the state’s incarcerated individuals, are likely to experience at least one natural disaster in 2025. Half of those facilities are at risk of experiencing extreme heat, defined by FEMA as 2 to 3 days of temperatures above 90 degrees Fahrenheit. 

While it’s difficult to point to a single cause or oversight that led to such drastic conditions, recent events have made it increasingly obvious that Colorado’s prisoners are at a heightened risk of experiencing devastation from climate disasters. In many cases, the authors report inadequate policies and dated infrastructure leave incarcerated people uniquely vulnerable to problems like smoke inhalation and heat exposure. 

Another significant concern that the study’s findings highlighted is the prison infrastructure itself, “the ways in which incarceration infrastructure is designed, built, and maintained in particular amplify environmental harm and vulnerability along axes of temperature, air quality, and water supply even before exposure to climate hazards,” added Dashti. 

The study’s final concern revolves around the mitigation of risks and found that those who are incarcerated and their families have huge limitations in terms of making changes to these conditions. “These three factors lead to what we refer to as “extreme risk” that are harmful and inhumane,” explained Dashti. 

Equally as concerning was the transparency, or lack thereof, from Colorado prisons, which was not available upon request. The study stated, “The carceral system in the US—from the federal Bureau of Prisons to state Departments of Correction to individual wardens—actively resists attempts to study it, and regularly restricts access to those under its purview if it seems that the resulting scholarship will cast the system in a negative light.” 

“We were not granted access to any information within the Colorado prisons at all, though we tried hard. Our only resort in the end was to use publicly available data on location and exposure to hazards, as well as interviewing formerly incarcerated folks.it is currently nearly impossible to acquire information about prison conditions, even by academics like us,” said Dashti. While prison conditions are reason enough to raise an eyebrow, internal procedures involving the improvement of those conditions appear impossible to find. 

Determining whether there’s relief in sight for Colorado prisoners is difficult. Prison transparency could offer a start. An engineering perspective would suggest adjustments to the infrastructure should also be made. 

Dashti suggested, “My first recommendation is for the design professionals (engineers and architects) to consider changing their design approach, codes of ethics, and participation in building and maintaining such facilities.” 

As temperatures and climate disasters become more frequent, prison conditions will likely worsen. “Overall, it is our belief that the current carceral infrastructure in this country creates cruel and unusual punishment for those incarcerated who tend to be disproportionately from minority communities. This is a severe human rights violation and social justice concern,” said Dashti. 

Like journalism like this? Consider becoming a sustaining supporter (and get our printed copy monthly at home.)

Democracy needs journalism more than ever. We’ve been telling the truth for 24 years. Your support helps us keep telling it for at least the next four years.

Democracy needs journalism more than ever. We’ve been telling the truth for 24 years. Your support helps us keep telling it for at least the next four years.

The post Study Finds that Many of Colorado’s Prisons Are Poorly Equipped to Handle Natural Disasters appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Press releases are provided to Yellow Scene Magazine. In an effort to keep our community informed, we publish some press releases in whole.

COLORADO ENERGY & CARBON MANAGEMENT COMMISSION STAYS HIGHLY CONTESTED DRACO PAD INDEFINITELY

Ensuring protection of public health, safety, and the environment is prioritized

DENVER, CO — Today, the Colorado Energy & Carbon Management Commission (ECMC) voted unanimously to stay the Draco Oil and Gas Development Plan (OGDP) proposed by Extraction Oil & Gas Inc./Civitas Resources. The plan, which would have allowed Civitas to horizontally drill and fracture 26 wellbores, some extending five miles underground, under the Town of Erie — including residential areas and schools — has been indefinitely paused. This decision ensures that public health, safety, welfare, environmental protection, and wildlife resources remain at the forefront of Colorado’s energy policies.

The stay comes after the Commission identified the need for additional analysis of alternative development locations, which would ensure that Erie residents are more appropriately represented in local decision-making. While risks remain with any proposed location, including the unprecedented length of the wellbores and the proximity to existing wells, the Commission acknowledged the importance of further investigation into potential safer alternatives before proceeding.

“We are deeply relieved and grateful that the Colorado Energy and Carbon Management Commission listened to the voices of Erie residents and issued a stay on the Draco oil and gas development project,” said Sami Carroll, Founder of Flatiron Meadows Oil & Gas Monitoring Group. “This decision represents a victory for the community. It affirms that the Commission recognizes the unique complications surrounding the governance of the Town of Erie and the impact that such projects have on residents. Today, we celebrate this win and look forward to continued work with the Town of Erie on ensuring a safer, more sustainable future.”

The Commission’s decision was shaped by the newly adopted Cumulative Impacts rules stemming from Senate Bill 19-181, which require operators to demonstrate that adverse impacts from oil and gas operations are first avoided, and if unavoidable, minimized or mitigated. The Commission recognized that further exploration of alternative locations represents the best opportunity to avoid unnecessary harms to the community. Additionally, the stay allows time for further discussions between Civitas Resources and the Town of Erie to consider potential alternative sites.

The Commission also weighed the significant future risks posed by the proposed site, including the proximity to residential communities, schools, and ongoing developments, as well as the impact on air quality in the Denver Metropolitan/North Front Range ozone nonattainment area. The Commission’s deliberations underscored the importance of considering both current and foreseeable impacts when evaluating new energy projects.

The decision to stay the Draco OGDP also carries broader implications for other Colorado communities facing similar development proposals. Save The Aurora Reservoir (STAR), which has been advocating for the protection of its own community, welcomed the decision as a strong indication that the Commission will prioritize public health, safety, and environmental protection in future development considerations.

“Today’s ruling shows that the Commission is committed to assessing the full range of risks associated with large-scale oil and gas projects. This is a step in the right direction and sets an important precedent for projects like the proposed Lowry CAP pad, which we fear could have serious consequences for the region,” said STAR. “We encourage the Commission to continue applying the cumulative impacts mitigation hierarchy, ensuring that harmful projects are prevented and that our communities remain protected.”

Community Reactions
Residents of Erie expressed relief and gratitude for the Commission’s decision. “We are so relieved that the Energy Commission ruled on behalf of the public interest,” said Jennifer Hanan, an Erie resident. “This decision shows the importance of listening to the concerns of surrounding communities before moving forward with potentially harmful projects.”

Barbara & Tom Petruzzi, longtime residents of Erie, added, “After 43 years in the Boulder mountains, we chose to retire in Erie because we believed people here care about the environment and health of the residents. This decision proves we were right. The Commission upheld its responsibility to protect public health and safety, and we are incredibly grateful.”

“We’re thankful that the ECMC has chosen to prioritize our community’s health and safety over corporate interests,” said Paul VanTol, a local healthcare professional. “This is a significant victory for Boulder and Weld Counties.”

Looking Ahead
While the Commission’s stay on the Draco OGDP is seen as a win for public health and environmental safety, organizations like 350 Colorado continue to advocate for the full rejection of such projects, emphasizing the need to prioritize sustainable, community-centered solutions over harmful fossil fuel extraction.

“While today’s decision is a step forward, we are committed to ensuring that projects like Draco — which pose significant risks to our air, water, and residents — are not just moved but fully rejected,” said Melissa Burrell, 350 Colorado Boulder County Team Coordinator. “We will continue to fight for policies that put public health and environmental sustainability ahead of corporate profits.”

About Flatiron Meadows Oil & Gas Monitoring Group (FMOGMG):

Flatiron Meadows O&G Monitoring Group is a coalition of concerned residents and community members directly impacted by oil and gas development, specifically the Draco Oil and Gas Development Project. The group is dedicated to educating and empowering neighbors to take action to protect their homes, health, and environment. FMOGMG serves as an information hub, advocate, and mobilizer for local communities affected by energy development in Colorado.

About Save The Aurora Reservoir (STAR):

Save The Aurora Reservoir (STAR) is a nonprofit organization committed to protecting the Aurora Reservoir and surrounding communities from harmful oil and gas operations. STAR advocates for stronger environmental protections and public health safeguards in the face of industrial expansion.

About 350 Colorado:

350 Colorado is a grassroots nonprofit organization dedicated to addressing the climate crisis and advocating for a just transition to a sustainable, fossil-free future. As the largest grassroots climate organization in Colorado, 350 Colorado works to advance policies that prioritize people and the planet over corporate interests.

For media inquiries or more information, please contact:

Sami Carroll, Founder, Flatiron Meadows Oil & Gas Monitoring Group
samicarroll@gmail.com | 303.587.9171

Melissa Burrell, 350 Colorado Boulder County Team Coordinator
melissa@350colorado.org | 360.528.7408

The post Colorado Energy & Carbon Management Commission Stays Highly Contested Draco Pad Indefinitely appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Staff contribution

Today, the Colorado Energy Carbon & Management Commission (ECMC) deliberated on the Draco Oil & Gas Development Project (OGDP) during their regularly scheduled weekly meeting. The Draco OGDP consists of 26 horizontal wellbores, which will run an unprecedented five miles from unincorporated Weld County, under the Town of Erie, and into Boulder County, intersecting more than 22 existing wells along its path.

The meeting began with a public comment period, during which sixteen speakers addressed the Commission. Speakers included Boulder County Commissioner Ashley Stolzmann, Town of Erie Environmental Services Director David Frank, and Sami Carroll, representing the Flatiron Meadows Oil & Gas Monitoring Group.

Flatiron Meadows Oil & Gas Monitoring Group was the petitioner for the public hearing (referred to as a 511 hearing under ECMC Rule 511) held on October 29th at Erie Middle School. During the October public hearing, over 150 people attended, and 41 individuals spoke during the three-hour meeting.

Since July, over 418 people have submitted comments during the 2A location application’s 30-day public comment period, with an additional 271 written comments added to the public record.

During today’s hearing, Weld County Commissioner Jason Maxey, Director/Local Government Designee of the Weld County Oil & Gas Energy Department; Heidi Majerik, Vice President & General Manager of Southern Land Company; as well as Extraction Oil & Gas employees and their attorneys, Jillian Fulcher and Ryan McKee of Beatty & Wozniak, P.C., addressed the Commission.

A recording of today’s hearing will be available on the ECMC YouTube Channel later this week.

Today’s hearing was initially scheduled for August 28, 2024. However, the 511 hearing and the limited availability of ECMC Commissioners due to the mandated cumulative impacts of rulemaking delayed the hearing until today.

The hearing ran from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. At the conclusion of the session, only two of the five Commissioners had provided their deliberations. During deliberations, Commissioner Cross expressed support for approving the proposal but noted his disappointment in Extraction’s lack of proactive community outreach until the hearing. On the other hand, Commissioner Messner stated he was leaning toward denying the proposal, citing concerns that the Draco project did not adhere to ECMC’s Mitigation Hierarchy, particularly the requirement that an OGDP must avoid adverse impacts.

Commissioner Messner specifically highlighted the Southern Land Company’s Westerly development, which has been in planning since 2017, and Extraction’s awareness of the proposed homes that would be within the 2,000-foot setback required by law.

The hearing will continue on Friday, November 15, at 9 a.m.

More information can be found at ecmc.state.co.us.

Read additional YS stories about the Draco Pad.

Like journalism like this? Consider becoming a sustaining supporter (and get our printed copy monthly at home.)

Democracy needs journalism more than ever. We’ve been telling the truth for 24 years. Your support helps us keep telling it for at least the next four years..

Democracy needs journalism more than ever. We’ve been telling the truth for 24 years. Your support helps us keep telling it for at least the next four years.

The post ECMC Delays Decision on Draco Pad, Hearing Rescheduled for Friday, November 15 at 9 a.m. appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Update: Public Notice from the ECMC

At the request of Extraction and Petitioner Southern Land Company, the Extraction Draco OGDP hearing will be continued, otherwise known as postponed, one week to November 13, 2024. This has been noted on the ECMC website. The public comment portal  for the Draco OGDP remains open on the website as well. To join the meeting: Remote Access ONLY (Zoom), Phone: (253) 215-8782, Computer: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81412979750, Meeting ID: 814 1297 9750

Photo courtesy of Erie Protectors

The plan includes drilling the longest-ever horizontal wellbores beneath Erie homes, spurring vehement community opposition.

The Energy and Carbon Management Commission (ECMC) held a public hearing on Oct. 29 regarding the proposed Draco Well Pad at Erie Middle School. Residents and Erie town representatives voiced concerns about the proposal’s extreme-length wellbores, proximity to residential neighborhoods and existing oil wells, and pollution risks, both in-person and online. 

Civitas Resources, Inc. has been seeking approval to drill 26 wells at the site since January, and the proposal is now awaiting consideration by the ECMC on Nov. 6. 

Historically, permitting decisions have only been denied on the basis of legality and whether the application follows current ECMC rules, not on concerns of nearby communities. The ECMC Director’s recommendation, made available in August, is to approve the Draco plan as it complies with all applicable ECMC rules and requirements. With that positive recommendation, it seems likely to move forward. 

“Erie is no longer undeveloped farmland at the intersection of Weld and Boulder County,” said Erie resident Chris Oliverie. “It’s rapidly expanding. It’s a vibrant community full of citizens that should not have their rights to clean air and environment protection infringed upon by continued heavy industry development.”  

Many Erie residents are against any new drilling in or near the town due to the risks of toxic or carcinogenic air pollution, which can cause health consequences, environmental damage, and heavy machinery disruptions. 

Photo courtesy of Erie Protectors

However, the Draco Well Pad proposal gives many additional pauses because extreme-length 5-mile wellbores will be used to drill horizontally from Weld County into Boulder County. Currently, the longest documented wellbores in the United States measure 21,277 ft, about 4 miles, at the Sacate Sa-2 well in  Santa Ynez, California.

Extreme-reach horizontal drilling creates extreme torque and drag conditions that strain a drilling rig’s operational limits, which can result in “catastrophic events,” according to the International Association of Drilling Contractors. 

“I do not want Erie to become a test site for the unknowns that come with drilling at such extremes,” said Ben Hemphill, a Grandview resident, Erie Planning commissioner, and candidate for District 2. 

Hemphill reached out to Civitas to inquire about the company’s experience drilling to this extent but has yet to receive a response. 

Part of the proposal includes plugging and abandoning 22 wells. However, there are also 49 existing plugged and abandoned wells in the proposed drilling site, five of which are of “grave concern” to Erie Director of Environmental Services David Frank. Frank asked the engineers on the project to investigate the wells, and they reached the same conclusion about the risk of drilling near these wells. 

Frank also raised concerns about the presence of the Westerly Neighborhood. Of the 96 houses currently occupied, five are within 1,500 feet from the Draco Pad, less than the State’s 2,000-foot buffer regulation, put in place for resident safety in 2020. In the next three years, 72 additional homes will be built within 2,000 feet of the Draco Well pad.

“What I would ask of the commission is, if Draco is to be approved, that there is a strict three-year time limit on their preoccupation activities,” Frank said. “That all drilling, fracking, flow back, everything will be done within three years. Because at that point, I can no longer prevent these homes from being sold and people living there.” 

The Town of Erie does not have sitting authority on the Draco pad because it is outside town limits, but it is the approximate local government that has some influence on how the project proceeds. 

While Weld County, where the Draco pad is located, is one of the most fracked counties in the U.S. — it’s the largest oil and gas producer in Colorado, with 17,317 active wells as of Sept. 1, 2023 — drilling activities would extend into Boulder County, which hasn’t approved a new drilling application in two decades. 

Drilling this way allows Civitas Resources a loophole to access oil in Boulder County without needing its approval. 

“As a Boulder County resident, I’m horrified that they can get away with drilling over here and going under my house,” said one commenter at the hearing. “As a medical provider, I’m deeply concerned about contamination of groundwater and soil that studies show does occur with fracking.” 

Senate Bill 181, passed in 2019, redefined the ECMC’s mission from “fostering” to “regulating” oil and gas development to protect public health, safety, welfare, the environment, and wildlife resources. The bill was revised to incorporate environmental justice and cumulative impact considerations in 2020. 

Erie CO Councilperson Emily Baer

But those rules need to be stronger to prevent applications like the Draco proposal that circumvent regulations by applying for permits physically outside town limits, said Erie Council Member Emily Baer. 

“Despite our best efforts, the industry circumnavigates our intentions by going just outside our town borders and plans to crack the entire width of our town underneath neighborhoods and through dozens and dozens of plugged and abandoned wells, some located under homes and driveways and mature trees and rose bushes and backyards,” Baer said. 

Erie residents are already familiar with the consequences of fracking close to their homes, noting odd smells, haze, and dust during active drilling or remediation operations.  The Town of Erie posts public notifications about oil and gas operations and has reported 21 spill and release events since 2022. 

However the process of tracking and reporting these events is complicated for Erie. Civitas, as a private company, is only required to communicate well-related information to the state and can choose to communicate with the town if it wants, meaning the town may find out about a leak or spill months after the fact or not at all. 

Erie CO Mayor Justin Brooks

“I often get the reports from the ECMC when those happen, and often those are long after they’ve actually been spilled,” said Mayor Justin Brooks. “We have very little data on how much, how long they will be down, and while that is taking place, operations continue.” 

These operational snags worry residents that problems from new drilling won’t be uncovered or addressed until the damage has already occurred. Earthquakes induced by fracturing activity and water pollution from contaminated groundwater runoff were top concerns raised in the hearing. 

Deborah Segaloff, a board member of Physicians for Social Responsibility Colorado (PSR), highlighted the health impacts that fracking can have on a community. PSR’s data shows that 30,000 residents would be exposed to hazardous air pollutants, including known carcinogens. 

Checking for leaks, Erie, CO

Long-term exposure to hazardous pollutants can contribute to higher risks of cancer, childhood asthma, premature births, stillbirths, and other high-risk births, birth defects, and hospitalization for cardiac, neurological, urological, cancer-related, and skin-related problems, Segaloff said. 

Now, residents are left waiting to find out what the ECMC will decide about the Draco pad proposal and the fate of their neighborhood. 

“Sidelining an entire community’s wishes when there is not an urgent need proves to me that there is no line that oil and gas development won’t cross,” said Grandview resident Sarah Kornerly.

Local Erie residents speak out. Will the ECMC hear them?

Update as of 11/1/24 2:30 p.m.:

At the request of both the Extraction and Petitioner of the Southern Land Company, the Draco OGOP Commission hearing will be continued (postponed) to November 13th, 2024.

Like journalism like this? Consider becoming a sustaining supporter (and get our printed copy monthly at home.)

Democracy needs journalism more than ever. We’ve been telling the truth for 24 years. Your support helps us keep telling it for at least the next four years.

Democracy needs journalism more than ever. We’ve been telling the truth for 24 years. Your support helps us keep telling it for at least the next four years.

The post ‘I Don’t Want Erie to Become a Test Site’: Residents Concerned About Draco Well Pad to Drill Under Their Homes appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Boulder’s Municipal Airport was established nearly a century ago in 1928, as a destination for business flying, law enforcement, and recreation. Through the years, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) provided grants to the city to support the airport’s operation and maintenance. Although the city of Boulder stopped accepting grants in 2020 and began evaluating the future of the airport, a debate still rages between the city and the FAA about whether or not the city is obligated to keep the airport operable and open in “perpetuity.” Now, the city of Boulder is suing the FAA with the hopes of releasing the city from its long-term obligations to the FAA. 

Sarah Huntley, the Communications and Engagement Director of the City of Boulder, told Yellow Scene, “The question has to do with: we have over the years accepted some grant funding for infrastructure at the airport from the FAA, and there’s a lack of clarity as to how long we are obligated to continue to maintain that use of infrastructure given that we accepted the grants.” 

The city of Boulder [believes] there’s a set time clock on how long we’re obligated. And some recent communications from the FAA suggest that they think we are obligated in perpetuity. So, we’ve asked a court to look at the grant agreements and look at those different arguments and make a determination, explained Huntley. 

In a letter that was sent to the city of Boulder in March of this year, however, the FAA stated, “Grant assurances associated with land purchased with Federal aid do not expire, and the land must be used in perpetuity for its originally intended purpose.” 

The organization’s spokesperson explained that the airport provides a tremendous amount of benefit to civil aviation, pointing to this as a reason to maintain the restrictions. On the other hand, critics of the airport point to factors like noise and lead pollution as reasons to close it. And these fears aren’t unwarranted. In fact, studies have shown that living near lead-burning planes can contribute to higher concentrations of lead in the blood, which can cause issues like lower cognition and academic performance. 

The airport’s logs show about 65,000 flights annually. Comparatively, the nearby Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport conducts about three times as many flights. Yet one of the reasons why the city of Boulder is looking to close the airport is due to a small supply of affordable housing in the region. The airport’s closure could provide a developmental opportunity to create more community support. 

Both the city of Boulder and the Airport Neighbor Campaign community have taken steps to understand public sentiment surrounding the use of the Boulder Municipal Airport. The city’s surveys and meetings largely showed community support for keeping the airport open, with the caveat that issues like noise and pollution should be addressed. Opponents of the airport’s closure also point to the tremendous expenses that would be accrued from decommissioning the property. 

Taking the argument to court should clarify what terms – if any, should be held over the city., and whether or not anything can be done to change the airport at all. “The conversation about what to do with the airport in the future is going to be informed by our understanding of the timeline,” said Huntley. 

Independent to the city of Boulder, the Airport Neighborhood Campaign’s ballot measure committee gathered enough signatures to put a measure on November’s ballot, leaving the topic in voters’ hands as to whether or not the airport should be decommissioned. Since the original announcement, the committee has rescinded the measure until further clarification surrounding the terms of Boulder City’s agreement can be reached. 

One thing that’s clear is that keeping the airport open in “perpetuity” would lead to new developments and potentially more noise and carbon emissions – a big complaint to those who already live in the area. 

When asked about the FAA’s current position on the airport, the organization’s public affairs officer, Brittany Trotter, wrote, “Due to pending litigation with the City of Boulder and the airport, we cannot provide comment.” A court date has not yet been set to address the concerns of the FAA and the City of Boulder. However, the terms reached in court could set the tone for other small airports across the country. 

As it battles the FAA, the city has proposed two possible visions for the airport to the Boulder City Council. Both scenarios involve expansion. One would keep the airport open indefinitely, relying on private investments for capital improvements and maintenance. The other would close the airport, but not before offering 30 to 40-year leases to spur development and generate short-term revenue.

The airport closure campaign said Boulder has time to make this decision as a community. “The campaign for ‘housing for people, not parking for planes’ is a marathon, not a sprint,” it stated, adding that the campaign “stands ready to re-petition for the ballot measures after the litigation concludes.”

Like journalism like this? Consider becoming a sustaining supporter (and get our printed copy monthly at home.)

Democracy needs journalism more than ever. We’ve been telling the truth for 24 years. Your support helps us keep telling it for at least the next four years.

Democracy needs journalism more than ever. We’ve been telling the truth for 24 years. Your support helps us keep telling it for at least the next four years.

The post Boulder’s Municipal Airport Remains in Limbo Pending Litigation appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

The post New Polis Administration Rules Fail to Protect the Public from Fracking Impacts appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Civitas Resources plans to drill twenty-six wells just outside Erie limits concerns residents and town administration.

When Kelsey Barnholt moved to Erie four years ago, she thought its reputation as a mining town was based on a past era, the Gold Rush or a time before we really understood the consequences of mining fossil fuels on people’s health and the environment. 

But she can see oil and gas drilling rigs from the window of what she thought was her dream home, where she worries about her own health, that of her two young daughters, and whether she’ll eventually regret having ever lived in Erie at all. 

“We can’t stay here that much longer — within the next two years, we’ll be gone,” Barnholt said. “I’m just really worn out on fighting this fight and trying to compartmentalize that the air around you is totally toxic.” 

Barnholt has spent months voicing her opposition to the latest drilling proposal near her neighborhood, the Draco Well Pad. This proposal would drill twenty-six new fracking wells in Weld County just outside of the Town of Erie city limits. The plan involves drilling five miles underground across county lines into Boulder—wellbores nearly a mile longer than typically used. 

Residents, town officials, and environmental activists are concerned about how the project would contribute to air pollution, water pollution and scarcity, traffic and quality of life for the neighborhood, and site-specific risks from the extreme-reach wellbores and the presence of abandoned wells. 

On the west side of Erie, Boulder County has largely ceased oil and gas extraction, having plugged and abandoned many of its 200 remaining oil and gas drilling wells and receiving its last applications for new drilling permits in the early 2000s. But to the east, Weld County is the largest oil and gas producer in Colorado, with 17,317 active wells as of Sept. 1, 2023. 

Since the well pad is outside Erie’s official jurisdiction, the Town of Erie cannot approve or deny the proposal. However, the Town has been clear about its concerns regarding the plan, including health impacts from poor air quality and ground-level ozone emissions from extraction in the decades the well has been active. Then there’s also nuisance concerns, like high traffic in the area, noise pollution, odors, and aesthetic degradation of the neighborhood, said Environmental Services Director David Frank. 

Additionally, a housing development plan that has been in progress since 2017 would be only 1,500 feet from the Draco Pad, less than the State’s 2,000-foot buffer regulation, put in place for resident safety in 2020. 

The proposal is also complicated by the presence of twenty-eight legacy plugged and abandoned wells and twenty-four active or shut-in wells within the proposed drilling and spacing unit. Drilling near those wells without proper remediation could stir up soil containing contaminants from past extraction, some of which are linked to cancer and other severe health conditions. Civitas would plug and abandon twenty-two wells as part of the proposal to offset the impacts of new drilling. 

“Though the development doesn’t occur within Erie, it is directly adjacent, and obviously, a lot of those impacts are going to be felt by our residents and by the town,” Frank said. 

Barnholt is also concerned by the volume of water that would be used to drill the site and how it could affect Colorado’s landscape overall. A cumulative impacts analysis from Erie Protectors estimates that 541 million gallons of water would be used to frack the twenty-six wells. 

“We are in a climate crisis, and that water never re-enters the water cycle,” Barnholt said. “It’s pretty unconscionable that they could even consider a project like this, it’s irresponsible.” 

The Colorado Energy and Carbon Management Commission — which grants or denies oil and gas permits in the state — requires mitigation, minimization, and avoidance measures for the protection of public health, safety, and welfare of the environment and wildlife resources on all drilling projects. The Draco Pad will be reviewed by the ECMC Commission to ensure that the project complies with ECMC rules, wrote Community Relations Manager Kristin Kemp. 

Kemp wrote that the ECMC will require an engineering review of the horizontal wellbore design, offset well evaluations, and aquifer coverage, particularly for the Draco Pad. 

Public Affairs Manager Rich Coolidge wrote in an email that Civitas would develop the Draco well pad using an all-electric, lower-emission drill rig and a quiet completions fleet that reduces sound and emissions. Civitas also plans to remove tanks and equipment located in and around Erie from the twenty wells scheduled for remediation and return close to twelve acres of land.

“We know that Colorado’s regulations governing oil and natural gas development are some of the strictest in the world, and we see the Draco pad meeting and even exceeding the state’s regulations,” Coolidge wrote. “Following conversations from stakeholders, local governments, and others, we’ve developed that pad site to minimize and mitigate impacts by locating it east of Erie in unincorporated Weld County.” 

Concerned residents in the area contacted Colorado Rising, a nonprofit action group that opposes oil and gas in the state, to get support as they pushed back against the proposal by submitting public comments, demonstrations, and protests and sharing information with their community. 

Colorado Rising is entirely opposed to any kind of fracking in Colorado, particularly in a place like Weld County where it is so concentrated, said Co-Director Caitt Maeve. Residents have to deal with the consequences of oil and gas on a daily basis, like increased risk of wildlife, air pollution, environmental degradation, and the mental stress and uncertainty that results from living near drilling sites, she added. 

“Erie’s full of young families, and our communities deserve clean air, clean water, healthy lifestyles, and not the toxic fallout from Big Oil’s selfish agenda,” Maeve said. 

While Barnholt is at her own crossroads, deciding whether to stay in Erie or move on from the town she loves for the sake of her family’s health, she sees the town as being at its own crossroads. Will this be a place where the community thrives or the oil and gas industry? 

“You can’t have heavy industry and a thriving community,” Barnholt said. “You just can’t. They can’t coexist and keep everyone healthy.” 

The Colorado Energy & Carbon Management Commission will hold a local public hearing on the proposed Draco Pad on Oct. 29, 2024, at the Erie Middle School from 5 to 8 p.m.

Like journalism like this? Consider becoming a sustaining supporter (and get our printed copy monthly at home.)

Democracy needs journalism more than ever. We’ve been telling the truth for 24 years. Your support helps us keep telling it for at least the next four years.

Democracy needs journalism more than ever. We’ve been telling the truth for 24 years. Your support helps us keep telling it for at least the next four years.

The post Draco Well Pad Proposal Looms Over Erie appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

There’s currently very limited public transit options to get from Erie to Boulder, but that could change in the upcoming election

It’s been a little over a year now since I became a full-time pedestrian and user of public transportation. My beat-up 2006 Honda Pilot that I had more or less inherited from my mother was on its last legs—with the power steering failing, a driver’s side window that wouldn’t roll down, one working tail light, several dents, and a problem with the locking mechanism—and had finally reached the point where I would rather get rid of the car than go to the expense of having it fixed up. Thus, I resigned myself to rely on public transportation, which is harder to do in the Denver-Boulder Metro Area than I fully anticipated, which anyone who has tried to travel between Erie and Boulder can attest to.

Currently, there are limited public transit options from Erie to Boulder via the JUMP bus that picks up at Erie Community Center. In fact, there’s limited transportation to and from Erie and any destination in Colorado, and that’s largely due to a zoning issue. According to the Town of Erie website, the main problem is that most of Erie lies outside of the RTD service area, and, by state statute, RTD is not allowed to provide transportation options outside of their service area.

Car Centric Cities

The problem becomes that too many cities are based on car-centric planning. Design Dash defines a car-centric city as “an urban environment where the design and infrastructure predominantly cater to private vehicles. This setup often includes extensive road networks, large parking areas, and urban planning that prioritizes ease of vehicle access over other transportation methods.”

Car-centric cities assume that everyone is going to be using a car, resulting in increased traffic, more pollution, and difficulties for the homeless population. As Dr. Martin V. Melosi from the University of Houston points out, “as much as one-half of a modern American city’s land area is dedicated to streets and roads, parking lots, service stations, driveways, signals and traffic signs, automobile-oriented businesses, car dealerships, and more.” As a number of people on various social media sites have pointed out, if you look at the parking lot surrounding a major stadium, you can see how much more space cars take up than people, with lots far exceeding the size of the stadiums.

According to an article by Amanda Northrop in Vox, another problem with car-centric cities is the loneliness and isolation among people who can’t easily connect without a car. One result of car-centric city planning has been the development of suburban centers, putting people’s homes at a significant distance from the business center of the metropolitan area, which is where most people work. The “spontaneous encounters” that people experience with friends and strangers on the street become more difficult in car-centric cities. Lily Paliczak at Commonwealth Times agrees with this as she relates the story of moving from Westchester County, New York, to Aix-en-Provence, France, which she describes as a more “people-centric” city where meeting up with friends becomes easy due to the walkability of the city.

Some countries around the world have moved to make their cities more people-centric, such as the UK and Netherlands, which have limited construction on suburban shopping areas, and cities that are investing more in infrastructure and public transportation, such as Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Hong Kong, and one of the United States’ most infamously car-centric cities, Los Angeles. Still, progress has been slow, and many cities need a major overhaul before they truly become people-centric.

Ballot Measure to Annex Erie

For my own part, getting around in major cities in the Denver-Boulder metro area is not that hard, but I tend to balk at the idea of traveling between cities, knowing that it’s bound to be more complicated than it’s worth. In keeping the majority of the Town of Erie outside of RTD’s service area, Erie essentially becomes a car-centric city. But there remains hope that this will change in the coming months. The annexation of the city to RTD’s service area will require approval from voters, and the process to do that has already begun. In a special board meeting held by RTD on July 25, the board of directors passed a resolution calling for the issue to be voted on in the November 5 election.

The current sample ballot for the Town of Erie doesn’t show the question about annexation, but RTD project manager Chris Quinn told me that RTD had an agreement with Erie that the issue would be placed on the ballot for this coming election and, as far as he knows, the issue will be on the ballot. Unfortunately, the decision remains largely in the hands of Erie voters, leaving the residents of Boulder hoping for easier transportation to Erie to watch on expectantly. But hopefully, the residents of Erie make the correct choice in making their city more people-centric and less car-centric.

Like journalism like this? Consider becoming a sustaining supporter (and get our printed copy monthly at home.)

Democracy needs journalism more than ever. We’ve been telling the truth for 24 years. Your support helps us keep telling it for at least the next four years.

Democracy needs journalism more than ever. We’ve been telling the truth for 24 years. Your support helps us keep telling it for at least the next four years.

The post Car-Centric Cities and the Issue of Transportation Between Erie and Boulder appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Hydrogen. The smallest and most abundant molecule in the universe.

In the face of the climate crisis, some see harnessing hydrogen for energy as a miracle fix, while others think investing in hydrogen-based energy is doing more harm to our health and planet than it’s helping. The issue has been heavily debated since the early 2000s, and now, Colorado research facilities and developers are investigating just how far hydrogen can go.

Not all hydrogen is created equal.

Hydrogen is a secondary fuel, not an energy source, but a carrier of energy produced by solar, wind, fossil fuels, or another power source. Hydrogen is subject to a color labeling system, and we will focus on three: gray, blue, and green.

Gray hydrogen is the most common type produced today, accounting for about 95% of global supply. It uses steam methane reforming, which burns natural gas to produce methane, reacting with steam to produce hydrogen, with carbon dioxide as a byproduct. The environmental drawbacks of gray hydrogen are clear: It keeps us dependent on natural gas, a fossil fuel, and emits carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, contributing to global heating and climate change. But it’s easier, more efficient, and cheaper than other types of hydrogen.

Blue hydrogen is essentially gray hydrogen, plus carbon capture and storage. It’s sometimes referred to as a clean energy source. Still, critics point to the fossil fuel industry’s promotion of blue hydrogen as evidence that carbon capture methods only prolong our use of fossil fuels. Green hydrogen, conversely, uses electrolysis to separate hydrogen molecules from oxygen in a water molecule. This hydrogen fuel is a clean, renewable energy source when powered by renewables.

But high costs are challenging, explained Keith Wipke, Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Technologies program manager at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado. Electrolysis is an expensive and niche technology, making it currently uncompetitive against natural gas-based hydrogen production.

Wipke said NREL researchers mainly investigate electrolysis, which is used in limited contexts to power some industries like transportation and metal production. Their goal is to expand green hydrogen to fill gaps in the energy market where other renewables might not be reliable or efficient enough to fully decarbonize.

“The two big things for getting hydrogen to meet those opportunities are getting the cost of hydrogen down for low-carbon hydrogen and scaling it up so that it is at a scale where it can provide a meaningful contribution to our energy system,” Wipke added.

According to COO Buford Barr, the Denver-based company is working to develop the Colorado hydrogen supply by creating three fuel stations along the Front Range and stimulating the hydrogen demand market through education about hydrogen vehicles.

“[NREL is] a group that we reach out to a lot, some for technical questions, but they’ve been great in helping us get vehicles to show the public,” Barr said. “The reality for us is, unless people can touch and kick the tires, they don’t think this is real.”

New Day Hydrogen’s model will produce hydrogen through electrolysis on-site rather than be transported from an offsite location, which will be produced by hooking up to the existing energy grid. While the grid is still reliant on fossil fuels, so will the fueling station. However, once the grid decarbonizes, hydrogen fuel will be emissions-free.

Green hydrogen is widely considered the gold standard, but blue hydrogen is still an option for some. The Rocky Mountain Institute, a think tank based in Boulder, Colorado, invests in blue hydrogen solutions, such as detailed monitoring of emissions and methane leaks and fortifying hydrogen pipelines to minimize leaks during hydrogen transport.

RMI promotes green hydrogen applications for industries that could be tough to power solely through direct electrification but notes that hydrogen production should not take away capacity from existing renewable energy sources. That’s where blue hydrogen comes in to use already widely implemented steam methane reforming without the emissions.

However, because blue hydrogen projects use natural gas — often more natural gas than gray hydrogen projects because of the need to power carbon capture systems — they are thought to align with the interests of the fossil fuel industry.

RMI’s current hydrogen lead, Oleksiy Tatarenko, worked as a strategist at the oil company Shell for 13 years, prompting bias concerns over RMI’s dedication to blue hydrogen projects.

RMI did not respond to several requests for comment; however, its project descriptions include commitments to clean hydrogen with low carbon and leakage emissions and community investments to promote equity and local perspectives for those living near hydrogen projects.

When hydrogen comes in handy

One of my first questions, when I arrived on the hydrogen scene, was, “Why all the extra steps?” Why not just use the energy made from renewables or even fossil fuels directly rather than doing electrolysis, which is expensive and rather inefficient?

Hydrogen is somewhat like a battery in liquid or gas form. Picture a bright, sunny day with a strong breeze. Photovoltaic cells glare underneath the sun, and wind turbines spin at top speed—energy is flowing. Batteries store a lot of that energy for when we want to use it later, at night, for example.

But those batteries are big, and their size limits their capacity. So hydrogen steps in by storing that excess energy and allowing us to access it during low-energy periods.

“You need multiple-day storage, and even seasonal storage, to use more sunlight from the summer into the dark winter nights,” Wipke said. “Hydrogen can help get that last 10 or 20% of the grid.”

Wipke added that this might be particularly helpful in industries like transportation and fertilizer production, which currently rely heavily on fossil fuels.

Barr said New Day Hydrogen’s hydrogen fueling stations would look and feel fairly similar to a typical gas station, with people using a pump to refuel their vehicles in a few minutes. But for now, most people won’t be able to get far with only a few hydrogen fuel stations across Colorado, so the focus is primarily on commercial vehicles with fixed, consistent routes.

Wipke added that hydrogen might be appropriate for heavy-duty vehicles because it’s very light and can offset the need for large, heavy batteries on board.

“One of the challenges we’re going to face early on is the lack of infrastructure,” Barr said. “Right now, if you go on a trip, you don’t worry about ‘I guess I should plan this out and know where my gas stations are.’ There are very few places in this country where a gas station isn’t within 10 miles. That won’t be the case for the foreseeable future with hydrogen.”

Wipke said another hydrogen focus is blending hydrogen into existing natural gas lines, similar to how ethanol is mixed into gasoline.

The idea is to use hydrogen to displace some of the natural gas’s carbon emissions. Still, the amount of hydrogen that can be mixed into natural gas is very limited, said Chuck Kutscher, a fellow and senior research associate of the Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute at the University of Colorado Boulder.

Kutscher explained that hydrogen carries about one-third of the energy of natural gas by volume, so whatever percent of hydrogen goes in, only one-third of it comes out as usable energy. If you mix 21% Hydrogen into the gas pipeline, you will reduce carbon emissions by 7%.

“Climate change is a crisis; you’re not going to solve climate change by reducing emissions by 7%,” Kutscher added.

This strategy is further complicated by the fact that, like other high-temperature combustion processes, burning hydrogen produces nitrogen oxides, a category of harmful air pollutants. Because hydrogen burns at higher temperatures than natural gas, it could produce comparably higher NOx emissions.

This is not the case when hydrogen is used in a fuel cell, like in many hydrogen cars. In that application, water vapor is the only byproduct.

Kutscher said that to truly use hydrogen to address climate change, we need to focus on replacing all active gray hydrogen production with green hydrogen.

“It doesn’t make a lot of sense to produce green hydrogen and use it in other ways when it could be used to replace the steam methane reforming hydrogen,” Kutscher added.

Hydrogen’s holdups

However, the effort to replace other hydrogen projects with green hydrogen faces major roadblocks.

Electrolyzers are expensive to operate, and the cost is offset only by the hydrogen they produce. While supply and demand for hydrogen remain low, electrolysis is a huge expense, and the desire to bring the cost down could reduce the incentives to produce solar and wind power, Kutscher said.

“The challenge with producing green hydrogen is that if you say, ‘I’m just going to use cheap electricity when solar is being curtailed,’ that basically doesn’t allow you to pay off the cost of the electrolyzer,” Kutscher added.

Hydrogen will also always and forever be a secondary fuel source and an energy carrier, whereas solar and wind are primary energy sources. It takes a lot more energy, roughly three times as much, to use hydrogen to power a car as opposed to a battery.

Kutscher said that’s both expensive and inefficient. California invested $257 million to create 200 hydrogen fueling stations by 2025. Currently, the state has only 55 stations. As of August 11, 2024, 11 stations were unavailable, and 21 were partially or fully offline, according to real-time data from the Hydrogen Fuel Cell Partnership.

Fueling stations are expensive for developers to keep open and expensive for consumers to use. According to Bloomberg, filling up a passenger hydrogen vehicle costs a California driver about $200, equivalent to paying $14.60 for a gallon of gas.

By comparison, California operates more than 105,000 charging stations for electric vehicles.

“It’s a lot easier to build megawatt charging stations on the electric grid than it is to come up with whole new infrastructure to transport hydrogen,” Kutscher said. “And you still have the problem of all that electricity that has to be consumed to produce the hydrogen.”

Additionally, transporting hydrogen is risky and inefficient because the molecule’s small size means it often leaks through stainless steel carrier vessels, Kutscher said. Not only is hydrogen lost during transportation a big waste after so much energy was used to create it, but hydrogen is also highly flammable and can cause a fire or explosion if there is a spark.

Kutscher added that this is dangerous not only for workers at hydrogen plants but can also create risk for hydrogen vehicle owners.

“If you have a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle parked in your garage and it leaks hydrogen, anything from 4% to 75% hydrogen in the air, if it gets a spark, it could ignite.”

Hydrogen also poses health risks, particularly for people with preexisting health conditions like asthma or COPD, children, the elderly, and pregnant people, said Lauren Swain, coordinator for Colorado Physicians for Social Responsibility.

Flammability poses an obvious danger, but emissions from both hydrogen leaks and nitrogen dioxide from hydrogen burning also can contribute to illness, Swain explained. Additionally, the emissions from gray and blue hydrogen contribute to global heating and climate change, which have associated health risks from frequent heat waves and air pollution.

Swain added that these risks need to be effectively considered and communicated when proposing and developing new hydrogen projects, particularly since the consequences typically disproportionately impact vulnerable communities.

“They aren’t able to effectively resist or even become informed of the threats,” Swain said. “Anytime heavy industry comes into being, there’s a threat that disproportionately impacted communities will not be able to be fully informed or give full consent.”

Swain said these community impacts recently came to light with a proposed Xcel Clean Heat Plan to mix hydrogen with natural gas to heat buildings in Hudson, Colorado.

PSR pushed the company to submit to a Colorado Public Utilities Commission proceeding, a review by the regulatory body for public industry in Colorado, because of concerns that the surrounding community would be harmed by the project. The commission voted the project down and refused Xcel Energy the required permit.

Kutscher also submitted detailed written testimony to the commission against Xcel’s plan, expressing his concern that it would only increase natural gas use in the state.

Swain said any public hydrogen projects should be vetted and approved, with community engagement and sufficient knowledge of the potential side effects.

“What would that permitting process be like? How transparent is it? Would it be inclusive? Those are major, major considerations,” Swain added. “Even if it’s very transparent and very inclusive, it’s also going to be very dangerous.”

Climate solution or fossil fuel windfall?

Kutscher said the hydrogen industry remains primarily focused on blue hydrogen, which aligns with fossil fuel company interests to keep the energy sector dependent on fuels like natural gas.

But, especially with green hydrogen, using hydrogen technology to aid sectors that may struggle to electrify can still help the grid convert. With the climate crisis advancing, we will need to use every resource at our disposal to adapt, Wipke said.

“We need a lot more renewables. We need them as fast as we can get for everything,” Wipke said. “Singling out hydrogen and saying, ‘Well, you’ve got to be pure from the beginning, which is a very high bar.”

Investments from the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act and The U.S. Department of Energy help make advancements in hydrogen possible, like the electrolysis work at NREL, which is funded by the U.S. DOE’s Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office.

The DOE announced its Energy Hydrogen Earthshot in June 2021, an ambitious goal to reduce the cost of clean hydrogen by 80% to $1 per one kilogram in one decade. The Hydrogen Shot establishes a framework for clean hydrogen projects (hydrogen produced with a carbon intensity equal to or less than 2 kilograms of carbon dioxide) and a financial investment of about $400 million.

The IRA stipulated a $0.12 to $0.60 hydrogen tax credit for hydrogen produced in the next decade after December 31, 2022 — the biggest hydrogen subsidy in the world.

But while hydrogen is on the rise, everything has limitations. New Day Hydrogen’s Barr said the industry needs oversight, regulations, and a healthy dose of realism.

“We’re not trying to sell a silver bullet,” Barr said. “If anyone comes to you and says, ‘My solution solves everything,’ they’re lying to you.”

Like journalism like this? Consider becoming a sustaining supporter (and get our printed copy monthly at home.)

Democracy needs journalism more than ever. We’ve been telling the truth for 24 years. Your support helps us keep telling it for at least the next four years.

Democracy needs journalism more than ever. We’ve been telling the truth for 24 years. Your support helps us keep telling it for at least the next four years.

The post Your Guide to Hydrogen Energy in Colorado appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Stationed in the Foothills of Northern Colorado, a taxpayer-funded bat breeding ground is in the works. Maintained by Colorado State University, unprecedented bat colonies will serve as a national resource for virus research. 

The project, expected to be completed by 2025, could advance scientific knowledge of virus cures and prevention. However, many are concerned about accidental exposures and ecological issues. Does the risk outweigh the reward? 

“Not only is it a cruel waste of tax dollars, because there’s no evidence that this type of experimentation at CSU or anywhere else has prevented a pandemic or stopped a pandemic from spreading,” Justin Goodman, the senior vice president of advocacy and public policy at the watchdog group White Coat Waste said.”It’s a grift.” 

In 2021, CSU published an article announcing that it received a grant from the National Institutes of Health, a taxpayer-funded medical research agency. The grant, totaling $6.7 million, was awarded to CSU because of the university’s experience with animals carrying pathogens that can harm humans. 

When asked to comment on the situation, CSU directed Yellow Scene to their FAQ page. On its site, CSU says the goal is to discover why bats often get infected with viruses but do not get sick. 

“They are not going to be infected with viruses at Colorado State, but rather be shipped elsewhere in the country where the hazardous work would be performed,” Bryce Nickels, a researcher in the Department of Genetics at Rutgers University, said. 

In addition to his research, Nickels works with BioSafety Now, an organization demanding restrictions on potential pandemic pathogen research. He is also involved with White Coat Waste.  According to the NIH’s project description, bat models are ‘critical’ to understanding viral pathogenesis and disease transmission.

On-site research

There is speculation that CSU will research deadly viruses on-site, such as Ebola and the NEPA virus, but the college denies these claims. CSU’s website clarifies that only Biosafety Level 2 research will occur in the facility. BSL-2 labs work with infectious organisms that can make people sick if released but are easily treatable. 

CSU details examples of the curable BSL-2 agents. Included are Strep Throat and Salmonella. 

Risky experiments won’t occur at CSU but may be conducted elsewhere. The bats or their tissue may be transported to higher-level labs, including BSL-3 and BSL-4. 

Research can include fatal infections if bats are transported to one of the few U.S. BSL-4 facilities. The CDC cites Ebola and Marburg Virus as examples. If deadly viruses are unintendedly released, the world could face another pandemic. 

Boulder concerns 

Residents of nearby cities such as Boulder voice their concerns on the community-centered website Nextdoor. Some users share their worries, while others argue there is nothing to fear. 

“Infectious disease research has been going on in Colorado since before WWII,” Glenn M., a Nextdoor user, commented on a concerned post. “My advice is, do independent verified fact-based research at your library on/offline, and don’t listen to neighbor gossip or conspiracy theorists spreading half-baked hearsay hype.”

How is Boulder County Public Health prepared for a potential outbreak? They declined to comment on the CSU Lab, but they shared information in an email about their own research and preparation for animal-borne disease outbreaks. 

The BCPH Consumer Protection Program Coordinator, Lane Drager, gave examples of how BCPH protects the public from outbreaks. BCPH works with animal control agencies, informs the community of risks to help prevent exposures, and has an infectious disease program that investigates reported illnesses. 

“Researching animal-borne diseases and their hosts is important because they are a source of morbidity and mortality,” Drager said. 

As part of outbreak prevention, BCPH occasionally studies Boulder’s native bat population. Research is not conducted on wild animals but only on those that have come in contact with humans or pets. At BCPH, researching bats always involves euthanization. 

“Testing involves analyzing brain tissue, so there isn’t a way to test without euthanizing the animal,” Drager said. 

The ethics of animal testing

Bat testing brings ethics into question. Since testing can involve euthanization or discomfort for animals, activists and organizations such as PETA are against it. 

“We’re taking a sentient and wonderful animal and doing very bad things to it, to a whole species when we should be celebrating them,” said Kate Myers, a Boulder resident who has dedicated her career to animal activism. 

Myers thinks the bat lab will be a ‘nightmare’ and lead to CSU’s monetary gain. She feels researchers will lose many bats as a result of ‘terrorizing them.’ She shared that it is wrong to remove an animal from its natural environment.

Through email communication, a spokesperson for CSU told Yellow Scene that the original bats will come from Bangladesh. “The bats themselves are not native to the U.S., so even bringing them into the US is problematic,” Nickels said. 

After the initial bats are transported, non-native bat species will breed in containment. However, if non-native bats escape, they can become invasive. Invasive species, such as foreign bats, can cause harm to native animals in any area. The National Invasive Species Center said that resource competition and habitat alteration by invasive species can cause a decline in native animals.

“Unfortunately, there are bad viruses out there, but I think the human race is the worst virus imaginable,” Myers said. “I don’t have a lot of hope because I’ve been fighting these things forever.” 

With many proposed risks, the future of the bat lab is still being determined. At the beginning of the project, CSU agreed to work with EcoHealth Alliance, an organization with potential links to COVID-19 origins. Echohealth’s federal funding has been suspended, and CSU is no longer collaborating with them. The university still has funding from the NIH, and the project is expected to progress. 

“If you think that all knowledge is valuable and what you’re doing is going to save the world, you will not want other people to meddle with it,” Nickels said. “ At the same time, maybe your judgment is slightly skewed, and it should be subject to some regulation and oversight.”

Like journalism like this? Consider becoming a sustaining supporter (and get our printed copy monthly at home.)

Democracy needs journalism more than ever. We’ve been telling the truth for 24 years. Your support helps us keep telling it for at least the next four years.

Democracy needs journalism more than ever. We’ve been telling the truth for 24 years. Your support helps us keep telling it for at least the next four years.

The post CSU to Build taxpayer-Funded Facility for Bat Breeding and Research appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

A planned subdivision near the Colorado National Golf Club in Erie has some residents raising concerns about building new homes on land formerly used by oil and gas companies.

The neighborhood is known as Redtail Ranch, a 290-acre development that includes 587 single-family and townhomes as well as roughly 29 acres of open space. Greenwood Village-based Stratus Companies has been trying to get the project approved for nearly four years, and Erie’s Town Council has been skeptical of the development.

Redtail Ranch also raises questions about how former oil and gas communities like Erie can repurpose land once used for natural resource extraction. If approved, the neighborhood would be located between three landfills. One is the infamous Columbine Landfill, where computer company IBM dumped more than 1,500 barrels — roughly 84,000 gallons — of solvents several decades ago. There are also 32 oil and gas wells surrounding the community, which Erie town staff described as an “eyesore.”

Erie’s town council laid over a bill to approve the project during its last scheduled public hearing on April 23. When the project was brought up again for discussion on May 14, the town council again decided to push back the approval until a later date. Doing so would give the developer “additional time to address some of the issues raised in the public hearing,” Town Trustee Dan Hoback said.
The next time the development is expected to be discussed is June 25.

A long time comin’

Redtail Ranch has been a topic of discussion inside Erie’s town hall for the last several years. When it was first introduced, the development included about 898 residential homes split between two parcels. However, the land that the subdivision will sit on and Erie’s development code have been two sticking points between the developer and community ever since.

Stratus Companies first discovered the waste IBM left behind in 2015 after it purchased the land. A year later, Stratus sued IBM for improperly disposing of the waste. The company claims to have spent more than $4 million to clean up the site.

In 2020, CDPHE approved Stratus Companies’ monitoring and maintenance plan for the plot after reviewing the extensive cleanup efforts the company undertook. An environmental study of the land conducted by Pinyon Environmental of Lakewood found the land contained torpedo propellant, carwash chemicals, and grease trap waste.

Home under construction. Photo by Brett Jordan via Unsplash.

Erie residents argued that these measures haven’t gone far enough to address the public health concerns of building a new development on this land. One concern multiple residents noted during the April 23 hearing was that old oil and gas tunnels could cause sinkholes in the future. Pinyon’s environmental study seemed to echo their concerns by suggesting that developers limit the foundation sizes of homes to mitigate sinkhole risk.

“I don’t see how this development is going to add any value to future Erie residents,” Erie resident Arnold Slabbekoorn told the Town Council in a written statement.

Erie’s Unified Development Code has also been an issue for the development. When Redtail Ranch was submitted to the town in 2021, Erie was in the midst of updating its code to increase residential setbacks from oil and gas facilities from 350 feet to 500 feet. The Redtail Ranch development plan has its home setback at 350 feet, which meets the pre-2021 code requirements.

“We have made sure that we are compliant with everything in the UDC as it was when we submitted [this project] in 2021,” Layla Rosales, principal of a Denver-based urban design firm called Terracina Design, told Erie Town Council in April.

“I don’t see how this development is going to add any value to future Erie residents” – Arnold Slabbekoorn

A long way to go

Outside of the development code, Redtail Ranch also seems to have a long way to go to win over the Erie community.
In the four years that the project has been under consideration, the developers have only held one neighborhood meeting, which occurred in April 2021. At the meeting, residents expressed concerns about the project’s impact to traffic and enrollment in the local school system, according to a summary of the meeting developers provided the council.

Fast forward a couple of years, and some of those concerns still remain. For instance, city staff noted that the project could increase overcrowding at Soaring Heights K-8. Highlands Elementary may be able to help mitigate the impact, staff said. Stratus Companies paid a more than $488,000 fee in lieu of development because of the impact to the school system, according to project documents.

Residents in nearby neighborhoods like Vista Pointe and Vista Ridge shared concerns about how the project could impact traffic along WCR 4 and WCR 5, which intersect near the proposed neighborhood. Pinyon found that it would not be possible to widen WCR 5 to accommodate more traffic because of oil and gas lines running under the road. This may require the town to fund additional road projects in the future.

The next hearing for the project is tentatively scheduled for later this month.

The post In Land We Trust: Redtail Ranch Development Raises Concerns About Living on Old Oil and Gas Land appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

By Alex Hager – KUNC , (Via AP Storyshare)

Good news on the Colorado River is rare. Its reservoirs, the two largest in the country, have shrunk to record lows. The policymakers who will decide its future are stuck at an impasse. Climate change has driven more than two decades of megadrought and strained the water supply for 40 million people across the Southwest.

But a new study is delivering a potential dose of optimism for the next 25 years of the Colorado River. The findings, published in the Journal of Climate, forecast a 70% chance the next quarter century will be wetter than the last.

Projections for Colorado River water supply have largely focused on the impact of temperature. Climate change means the region is getting hotter, which in turn drives a raft of environmental factors that mean less water ends up in rivers and reservoirs. For example, snow melts quicker and is more likely to evaporate. Dry, thirsty soil soaks up snow melt before it has a chance to flow into the nearest stream.

This new study, though, takes a closer look at the impact of precipitation.

Eighty five percent of the Colorado River starts as snow in the region’s headwaters – the high-altitude mountains of Colorado and Wyoming. The scientists behind the new paper predict an increase in precipitation over the next 25 years that could be big enough to offset the drying caused by rising temperatures, at least in the short term.

Researchers with the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder used data from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, to run forecasting models and form their conclusions.

Those scientists stressed the importance of variability in their findings. While the high end of their forecasts paint a positive picture, their models also showed a small chance that precipitation could go down in the next two decades. There’s a 4% chance that river flows could drop by 20% in the next 25 years.

“All of our thinking, our acting, our management should be humble and recognize the nature in which we live, which is, yeah, you have water, but it is very highly variable,” Balaji Rajagopalan, a water engineering professor who co-authored the study, said.

Good science about the region’s climate future is particularly important right now, as Colorado River policy makers renegotiate the rules for sharing its water. The region’s water crisis is driven by two big themes – climate change is shrinking supply, and the people in charge have struggled to rein in demand in response.

Right now, they’re hashing out a new set of rules for managing the river to replace the guidelines that expire in 2026. Rajagopalan said the findings from the new study underscore the need to build flexible rules that can adapt along with climate conditions.

“We want to emphasize that it’s not like, ‘Oh, there’s going to be water around, so let’s go party – we don’t have to do the hard work that needs to be done in terms of conservation and thoughtful management,’” he said. “If anything, it speaks to even more reason that you have to.”

Another climate scientist, Brad Udall, who was not involved in the study, cast a bit of skepticism on its findings and message. Udall, a climate researcher at Colorado State University’s Colorado Water Institute, said he holds the paper’s authors in high regard, but some aspects of the study’s approach gave him some “unease.”

“We just can’t rely on these models for precipitation,” he said. “We can rely on them for temperature, but we can’t rely on them for precipitation. There are just too many issues with them.”

He said climate models can’t always dependably predict precipitation because they are based on statistics, as opposed to the physics-based methods used to build long-term temperature forecasts.

Udall, who has referred to himself as “the skunk in the room” after years of sharing tough-to-stomach forecasts about the dire future of Western water, pointed to this year’s runoff as an example of temperature’s ability to chip away at the benefits of a wet winter.

While snow totals in the Colorado River headwaters region peaked at around 100% of normal, warm temperatures mean flows in the Colorado River are expected to reach about 80% of normal levels.

This story is part of ongoing coverage of the Colorado River, produced by KUNC in Colorado and supported by the Walton Family Foundation. KUNC is solely responsible for its editorial coverage.

The post A rare dose of hope for the Colorado River as new study says future may be wetter appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

By Robert Tann – Summit Daily News, (Via AP Storyshare)

The seasonal pattern is transitioning to its opposite heading into the summer, bringing with it a change in the jet stream

After months of being under an El Nino pattern, Colorado and the rest of the U.S. will begin to shift to the inverse, known as La Nina. 

Both terms refer to the change in surface temperature of the Pacific Ocean off the coast of South America — with El Nino signifying seasonally warmer temperatures and La Nina signifying cooler temperatures that impact the jet stream. Generally speaking, El Nino pushes the jet stream south and can bring more precipitation and cooler temperatures to southern regions while La Nina does the opposite. 

This past winter marked the first in three years to experience an El Nino season. But what impact the pattern had on the Rocky Mountains is harder to tell compared to other parts of the state.

In Breckenridge, for example, the majority of winter and early spring netted above-average precipitation, something that would be associated with a La Nina year, said Kenley Bonner, meteorologist for the National Weather Service office in Boulder. November was the only month to see below-normal precipitation, while the rest of the months through March were above normal, Bonner said. Temperature wise, this past winter was warmer than average, according to data collected in Dillon. 

The same can be said for much of the Western Slope. In Grand Junction, monthly average temperatures have hovered around 4 degrees above normal since November, said Lucas Boyer, meteorologist for the National Weather Service office in Grand Junction. 

“Time and again it’s proven hard to say, ‘It’s El Nino, it’s going to predict this or that,’” Boyer said of High Country and Western Slope areas. 

Still, in some areas, the trend in snowpack appears to have somewhat followed expectations based on previous El Nino years. 

Ahead of the 2023-24 winter season, OpenSnow meteorologist Sam Collentine predicted that, based on an analysis of past El Nino seasons at Copper Mountain in Summit County, winter snowfall may lag before increasing near the end of the season. 

“It tends to be that the shoulder seasons are above normal, while the winter months are below normal,” Collentine wrote in an Aug. 30 blog post on OpenSnow.com. 

Snowpack in the Blue River Basin, which encompasses all of Summit County, had a slow start to the season, with levels below the 30-year median for much of November through the first half of January. Snowpack climbed afterwards, trending along the 30-year median line for much of February before rising above normal for all of March and the first two weeks of April. 

The same was true for the entirety of the Colorado River Headwaters Basin, which includes some central and northern mountain areas as well as parts of the Western Slope. 

Looking to the rest of 2024, signs point to the return of a La Nina pattern brought on by cooling ocean temperatures. 

According to an April 11 report from the Climate Prediction Center, a transition from El Nino to a neutral system, where ocean temperatures are seasonally normal, is 85% likely to happen between April and June. There is currently a 60% chance that a La Nina system will then develop between June and August. 

Early reports show the transition could make for a hotter, dryer than normal summer across the U.S. 

“As we see the strong La Nina forecast evolve, there’s indications that we get into a dryer than expected seasonal pattern for what we normally expect for our monsoon season for the summer,” Boyer said. “If we don’t have monsoon showers or thunderstorm activity in the afternoon, we typically warm up and our temperatures stay above that climatological warmer mark.”

The reason has to do with the change in the jet stream, with La Nina patterns typically bringing warmer, dryer air from the south upwards. 

A three-month outlook released by the prediction center on April 11 shows Colorado has between a 33% and 50% chance of experiencing above-normal temperatures for May, June and July in various areas. The southwestern portion of the state also has between a 33% and 40% chance of seeing below-normal precipitation during that period, while the northeastern portion has equal chances of seeing above- or below-normal precipitation. 

Meteorologists noted that these predictions are long-term forecasts and that a lot can change in the coming weeks to shift their trajectory. When it comes to the High Country, especially, the correlation between La Nina and weather will be difficult to know. 

“Typically, if we do experience anything from La Nina it is from May to September, and that would favor warmer, dryer conditions in eastern Colorado,” said Bonner with the weather service’s Boulder office.

The post El Nino is winding down. Here’s what the winter season looked like for Colorado’s mountains — and what comes next. appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

By Lucas Brady Woods and Rae Solomon, KUNC (Via AP Storyshare)

Several Front Range counties received a failing grade on the American Lung Association’s air quality report card last week, even as state lawmakers back off of regulations for the fossil fuel industry.

Gov. Jared Polis and the state’s top two Democratic lawmakers, Senate President Steve Fenberg and House Speaker Julie McCluskie, announced a deal Monday with the oil and gas industry and environmental advocates that would raise money for public transit and increase air quality regulations, if it passes the state legislature by the end of this year’s lawmaking term next Wednesday, May 8.

As part of the agreement, the oil and gas industry and environmental advocates agreed to withdraw initiatives from the November ballot that threatened to derail the state’s current air quality strategy, which aims to transition the state to 100% clean energy within the next few decades. In return, the state agreed to pause new regulations on the fossil fuel industry for the next several years and to scrap pending legislation that would impose aggressive new air quality measures.

“It’s rare that we’re able to come together like this,” Polis said during Monday’s announcement. “This diverse group agreed that costly, divisive ballot measures and legislation are not in the interest of the state. It’s better to find a way to work together to an outcome that everybody can live with and moves the ball down the field in terms of achieving our goals.”

Colorado’s failing grades on air quality

At the same time that state leaders were brokering the sweeping air quality deal, a new report from the American Lung Association reaffirmed the urgency of addressing air pollution.

The report looked at two aspects of air quality: ozone and particle pollution.

Ozone is a reactive gas that forms when other pollutants bake in the hot sun. Particle pollution is particulate matter trapped in the air from sources like power plants, vehicle emissions and wildfire smoke.

In the latest American Lung Association report, Larimer, Weld, Boulder, and Denver counties all received failing grades for both types of pollution. All of those counties had dozens of days last year when poor air quality made it unsafe for “sensitive” people — those with heart or lung disease, young children, teens and older adults, for example — to go outside.

But the findings in the American Lung Association report card are hardly revelations. Colorado’s Front Range has long suffered from poor air quality, with persistently high levels of ozone pollution in particular. The region has struggled for decades to meet EPA standards for ground-level ozone pollution.

“In Colorado, we tend to have a really big problem with ozone,” said Lisa Maier, a pulmonologist who co-directs the Center for Environment, Climate and Health. “That’s a big problem, primarily in the summer, really, with higher heat days.”

That’s because on the one hand, the Front Range is host to a lot of the underlying sources of ozone, like emissions from oil and gas production and vehicle traffic. Those pollutants then react with the region’s famous sunshine to form unhealthy amounts of ground-level ozone.

According to James Crooks, an epidemiologist who also co-directs the Center for Environment, Climate and Health, the local geography doesn’t help.

“Denver itself is in a bowl,” Crooks said. “We have the mountains to our west, we have a rise to our east. So that tends to concentrate air pollution in Denver itself.”

Negotiating air quality measures

Addressing the Front Range’s poor air quality has long been a priority for state lawmakers. Earlier this year, they introduced a package of bills intended to address Front Range air quality issues through aggressive new regulations on fossil fuel producers. One of the measures would have paused oil and gas production during the summer months when air quality is particularly poor. Other measures would have capped the distance driven by gas-powered cars and increased fines for repeat air quality violators, like the SunCor refinery in Commerce City.

In response, the fossil fuel industry filed ballot measures that would conflict with state policy and potentially create confusion at the ballot box. One measure would have blocked the state from forcing Coloradans to move away from gas-powered appliances in favor of electric ones. Environmental groups responded with their own measures focused on pollution regulation.

Now, under the compromise announced this week, all parties agreed to abandon their respective proposals in favor of new legislation they can all support.

The agreement includes two bills. One would impose a new fee on every barrel of oil produced in Colorado. The specific amount would change depending on market prices, but bill sponsor Senate President Fenberg expects it to generate about $138 million annually. 80% of the funding raised would be dedicated to transit projects, and 20% would go towards conservation.

“Transportation is a very large source of emissions and our ozone problem, especially along the Front Range, and it’s really important that we invest more in diversifying transit options,” Fenberg said. “The other (piece) is investing money in public lands, more particularly around restoration and the nexus where oil and gas production does have displacement impacts on wildlife and does affect our public lands.”

The other bill would impose new emission reduction goals for the oil and gas industry, including a 50% reduction in nitrogen oxides, which are a major contributor to harmful air pollution and smog. It would also strengthen enforcement mechanisms, take steps to address the disproportionate impacts of air pollution on communities and fund efforts to cap abandoned oil and gas wells that leak greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

“I really believe that these are monumental next steps in dealing with ozone and air quality in the state,” House Speaker Julie McCluskie, who is also behind the new legislation, said. “Creating greater transparencies, building better avenues with our public for outreach and communication, new community liaisons that will help engage many of the people that we serve and that we hear from with concerns.”

The groups directly involved in this week’s agreement include environmental advocates Conservation Colorado, Earthjustice, Southwest Energy Efficiency Project, and Green Latinos, as well as the major oil and gas companies Chevron, Occidental, and Civitas.

This is not the first time the state has struck a deal with the fossil fuel industry and environmentalists. When Polis was in Congress, he was central to a 2014 deal that avoided a ballot measure fight over local control of oil and gas.

Why the air quality deal matters for your health

The flurry of negotiations is not just an exercise in diplomacy. Measures to stem air pollution at the statehouse have a direct and profound impact on Coloradans’ wellbeing because both ozone and particle pollution are extremely harmful to human health.

“(Ozone) tends to inflame the lung and cause adverse outcomes for people with asthma and COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) and other respiratory diseases,” Crooks said.

Studies have shown a direct link between bad air quality days and hospitalizations for heart attack, heart failure and stroke.

“With ozone, we can actually see that people end up in hospitals with a worsening of their heart and lung disease,” Maier said.

When it comes to particle pollution, “small particles can dig deep into the lung when you breath them, and can even pass into the body through the lung lining,” Crooks said. “They can affect basically any part of your body, from your lungs, to your heart, to your brain, to your reproductive system. Particle pollution has really broad health impacts.”

Air pollution can negatively impact health before a patient is even born.

“We can see impacts on birth outcomes,” Maier said. “If moms are exposed, we know that these particles and ozone actually impact the baby.”

Indeed, air pollution has been shown to harm lung development of babies in utero and can cause low birth weight and preterm birth.

According to a study published in the Annals of the American Thoracic Society in 2023, ozone pollution causes 123 deaths and 115 adverse birth outcomes annually in the Denver Metro area alone.

“When you breathe air pollution, you tend to feel it in your lungs. But if you look at the data, it’s actually the cardiovascular outcomes – heart attacks, strokes, things like that, where we see actually the most deaths from air pollution.”

Maier and Crooks said the best way to control the negative impacts of air pollution is to try to avoid breathing it in altogether. They recommend staying indoors and running an air conditioner during the hottest hours on bad air quality days.

Meanwhile, they said, state and national leaders must continue regulating polluters and working to mitigate climate change, which exacerbates poor air quality.

“Every time they tighten the standard a little bit, it tends to bring down air pollution over the course of the next decade, which has really profound effects on health,” Crooks said.

The post Front Range gets abysmal air quality rating as lawmakers strike deal with oil and gas industry appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Between his upcoming documentary and future plans, Hedden does more than tell us to make greener decisions. He wants to show us how.

Brian Hedden didn’t set out to make a documentary on fracking in Colorado. But back in 2017 he met some Lakota Elders, who had been at Standing Rock, and they convinced him to just look into it. 

“At the time my thoughts were more about climate change in general, and what a person can do about it,” said Hedden. 

But before he knew it, Hedden was going to meetings, talking to activists, recording thousands of stories, filming protests, and editing together footage that would become “Fracking the System: Colorado’s Oil and Gas Wars.” Early on, he was also hit with a lawsuit from the oil and gas companies who claimed he was illegally filming. They didn’t want any money. They just wanted the footage. The suit dragged on for 10 months, but eventually Hedden won. 

That’s when he knew he was on to something. 

“Of course, that’s just one little piece of the whole puzzle,” said Hedden. “But it inspired me to keep going with the film and try to get even better footage.” 

Still from “Fracking the System.” Provided by Brian Hedden

Trying to wrap a complex, ongoing story neatly into a documentary is no small feat. He leaned on his men’s group, The Mankind Project, for support. 

“There were so many times I wanted to quit and just put the footage I had on YouTube and say ‘Hey everybody, hope someone can use this for something better,'” said Hedden. “But their feedback was so supportive and encouraging.”

However, in 2018, it looked like the story may have its ending when activists were successful in getting Colorado Proposition 112 on the ballot. The proposition would mandate oil and gas wells be at least 2,500 feet from “occupied buildings” such as schools and homes.

But it didn’t pass.

“I had all this footage and when [the activists] didn’t win, I was like ‘I don’t know how this story ends now.’” So the footage sat. But the buzz surrounding the proposition didn’t fade, which resulted in the passing of Senate Bill 181 in 2019.

“I just picked up my camera and went to the capital and started filming,” said Hedden. The activists had a victory and Hedden had an ending of sorts. Under the new ruling, fracking sites had to be set back at least 2,000 feet from inhabited buildings, and the Colorado Oil & Gas Conservation Commission, COGCC, changed their guidelines from “fostering” to “regulating” the oil and gas industry. However, the law didn’t go into effect until 2020 and in that time the COGCC approved nearly 4,000 permits that didn’t necessarily fit the new guidelines but were nevertheless grandfathered in. 

So while it was a victory of sorts, it didn’t feel that way to the neighborhoods that still had wells right behind their homes and schools, as “Fracking the System” points out. 

Still from “Fracking the System.” Provided by Brian Hedden

But the activists aren’t done fighting. In response, Safe & Healthy Colorado was formed. This grassroots campaign of activists and volunteers is currently working to get the 135,000 signatures needed to get a measure on the 2024 ballot that would phase out new fracking permits by 2030. According to the organization’s website, if it passes the 50,000 active oil wells in Colorado will continue to operate. 

As for Hedden, his documentary will debut at Golden’s Environmental Film Festival, February 22–25, 2024. 

But Hedden is far from done with his plans to cover the environmental movement.  

“The argument against banning fracking is that we need oil and gas,” said Hedden. “And they aren’t wrong. And to transition away from that is not a small task. It’s convenient and hopeful to say ‘let’s switch to green energy,’ as if it’s a quick swap. It’s not that easy. That’s why, over the next 10 years, I want to make videos about sustainable, green, and regenerative economies. I also want to start an ecovillage to demonstrate what it’s like to live within planetary boundaries, through growing our own food, using green energy, and using the global economy as little as possible.”

The post Brian Hedden Leads Colorado’s Environmental Movement By Example appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Bees face mass die-offs but there are some steps we can take to help save the important pollinators

Honeybees have thrived on Earth for around 50 million years, but now we’re seeing massive numbers of bees dying each year. Why? Bees are becoming more threatened by the day due to factors like habitat loss, changes in weather patterns, and especially intensive farming practices that rely on agrochemicals.

Our bees are becoming more threatened and dying en masse, yet they help fertilize the fruits and plants in our backyard. Without them, we’re in serious trouble. To help combat this growing problem, we have reached out to the beekeeping movement to find out what you can do to keep these important pollinators safe and make your garden pro-bee.

A background of bees

Honeybees may look small, but these tiny pollinators play an important role in biodiversity, which we all depend on for our own survival. They provide us with high-quality food, beeswax products, propolis, and honey bee venom. Honey bee venom has been studied in greater detail for its medical purposes because of its anti-inflammatory properties, and it is even used to assist with multiple sclerosis (MS). In fact, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, about one-third of the world’s food population relies on bees. Dr. Marla Spivak, a McKnight Professor in the Department of Entomology at the University of Minnesota, explained that bees are “the most beneficial pollinators of our flowers, fruits, and vegetables.”   

The fact that we’re seeing a global decrease in bees is worrying indeed.

AP News reported that nearly half of U.S. honeybee colonies died in 2022 due to a combination of pesticides, parasites and climate change. According to data gathered from Statista, between 2022 and 2023, 48% of U.S. honeybee colonies died, an increase from the previous year’s 39%.

The high mortality rate of bees is a major problem for the beekeeping movement due to a multitude of reasons, and Pontus Jakobsson from Björn’s Colorado Honey admitted that “we can’t really pinpoint to one thing today why the bees are leaving.” One reason may be development sprawl and destruction of natural habitat. Dr. Spivak elaborated further on one of the main causes. “There’s continued high mortality of honeybee colonies yearly, mostly due to a parasitic mite that all colonies have called Varroa.”

The Varroa mite is a tiny parasite that attaches itself to the surface of honeybees and feeds on their blood, as well as transmits viruses. Dr Spivak explained that “without treatment, it’s deadly.” To try to treat the appearance of these mites, Dr Spivak suggests that beekeepers can use miticides that kill the mites but won’t harm the bees. “All beekeepers must be paying attention to the treatment of Varroa.”

Making your garden more bee-friendly

Photo by Aaron Burden via Unsplash.

Whether you’re a budding beekeeper or someone with years of experience, making your garden more pro-bee is something that we should all strive for. For some, this could mean creating more nest sites to house honeybee colonies, and for others, this could mean simple changes like planting native plants, gardening without pesticides, and creating a water source for the bees. In fact, Beth Conrey from Bee’s Squared Apiary believes that you can do “great things for bees without keeping bees.”  

For a long time now, many people have thought that beekeeping has always been for professionals, and for some time, that was true to some extent. Beekeeping has always been a small-scale trade but has gotten bigger with more people now beekeeping as a hobby. Dr. Spivak explained that since the 1970s, beekeeping started growing as “a lot of families kept bees, they taught their kids and neighbors, and there were just many, many hobby beekeepers.”  

Pontus echoed this, and said that many of his professional beekeeping friends “are generational beekeepers and that education was passed along.” He agreed that beekeeping is becoming more accessible now with the likes of the internet and even dedicated YouTube channels. Pontus explained that “people having an easier way to educate themselves from home with whatever you want to do,” which makes beekeeping a growing hobby.   

Backyard beekeepers don’t need all the fancy tools that many think they need to make their garden pro-bee. There’s a growing movement of making your own bee hotels (bee nests). Cob bricks are a popular and easy choice to use. All you need to do is make a variety of holes in and out of the brick, around 3-10mm wide. You’ll also need to keep this nest somewhat dry by creating some kind of roof over the nest for wet weather. Keep a natural pond or a moist mud patch for nest-building materials.

What you plant in your garden also plays an important role in attracting bees the natural way and without having to buy bees from apiaries and breeders. Your ability to pollinate your garden with bees depends on your colony’s size. The larger the colony, the more efficient they will be and the more honey you’ll get. Beth explained, “In Colorado, we have over 950 different species of bees and 11 species of honeybees worldwide. The ability of the bees to produce honey is because of the colony.” So, if you want to get honey out of your bees, you need a colony bee, like the honeybee, and you’re going to need a lot of them.    

Beth advised that you need a blooming plant that is nectar-rich, including trees and shrubs. These plants should also provide nectar for at least eight months of the year. For example, Bee Balm is a low-maintenance, drought-tolerant plant that is common in Colorado, the lavender flowers are a great bee magnet. Other plants like milkweed and Purple Poppy Mallow are also great at attracting beads to your garden. Keeping a variety of pollen-rich plants is good backyard beekeeping practice.

A very important way to keep your garden bee-friendly is to avoid using pesticides because they are extremely toxic to bees. As an alternative, you can use natural fertilizers made from organic materials. Keeping a compost pile filled with organic debris, fruit peels, coffee grounds and eggshells is a great way to make fertilizer. There are even certain plant combinations that can be used to repel insects, like garlic and neem.

Photo by Bianca Ackermann via Unsplash.

Reaping the rewards of your bee-friendly garden

There’s nothing more rewarding than harvesting honey from your bee-friendly garden, and when it comes to honey, there is more than meets the eye.   

What’s interesting in honey making is that the nectar from the flower influences what type of honey you’ll get, and even in your own backyard, you can add some variety. For example, Beth explained that in Colorado, you can get “Clover honey (sourced from clover fields), which is an early season product.” So, if you want to experiment a bit, adding flowers like clovers or lavender can influence the type of honey you’ll get. According to Beth, “Across the country, there are over 200 varieties of honey that are produced.”        

When it comes to harvesting honey, Dr. Spivak explained, “There’s not one ideal time, but at the end of what we call the honey flow, when the flowers are not blooming anymore, and the colony’s not bringing in any more honey for the season.”  Always make sure you leave enough honey for the bees to survive the winter because Beth explained that they “need it for their own nutrition and for their overwintering. So, you have to be cautious and make sure that you leave them adequate nourishment.”    

Overall, backyard beekeeping is something that many homeowners can slowly get into and poses very few extreme risks. Of course, with anything, there are some risks involved that you should always be aware of. When handling your bees or collecting honey, it is best to always pay attention to your surroundings to keep yourself and your bees safe. Beth advised, “If you don’t pay attention, you can make mistakes, and sometimes those mistakes are more costly than other times.”

The post Backyard Bees: A Way to Help Save Colorado’s Bees appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

English language version available here

La misión de GreenLatinos es continuar contribuyendo a la conservación del medio ambiente y abogar por la justicia climática.

Los impactos de la crisis climática son implacables. No hay manera de razonar con la furia de la tierra cambiante, y desafortunadamente, sus impactos afectan desproporcionadamente a las comunidades marginadas.

La misión de GreenLatinos es continuar contribuyendo a la conservación del medio ambiente y abogar por la justicia climática. La organización, conocida formalmente como la Coalición Nacional Latinos sobre Cambio Climático, comenzó su trabajo en 2008. Su labor se centra principalmente en expresar el trabajo de políticas a los funcionarios electos dentro del Congreso y ayudar en iniciativas legislativas para la justicia climática.

Mark Magaña atribuyó la fundación de GreenLatinos a dos eventos que cambiaron su vida: el nacimiento de su primer hija y el fallecimiento de su madre. Poco después del nacimiento de su primer hija, hizo un esfuerzo por reunirla con su madre, quien estaba en las últimas etapas de la leucemia, cuya causa se cree que estaba asociada con el benceno industrial. Después de la unión, Magaña reflexionó sobre el futuro de sus hijos y los impactos de la crisis climática en su generación, reconociendo: Los momentos en que estás en tu punto más bajo son cuando sientes que ‘tengo que cambiar, tengo que hacerlo'”.

GreenLatinos. Photo por Roma Vista Photography.

La génesis de GreenLatinos fue principalmente centrarse en aprobar un proyecto de ley nacional de comercio de emisiones llamado Waxman y Markey. Desafortunadamente, el esfuerzo por impulsar la causa  y la voz de la comunidad Latino en apoyo al proyecto de ley “llegó demasiado tarde,” explicó Magaña. El proyecto de ley no logró aprobarse, pero el trabajo de la organización apenas comenzaba. Trabajando en gran medida en el sector legislativo, los desafíos continuaron durante el mandato del expresidente Trump. La falta de preocupación por la justicia ambiental a nivel federal llevó a GreenLatinos a centrarse en las organizaciones estatales.

“Poder, a pesar del presidente, seguir avanzando en las cosas a nivel estatal, y no solo jugar a la defensiva a nivel federal. Y enfatizar la asignación de recursos a quienes están haciendo el trabajo, para que sigamos obteniendo victorias”.

La organización sirve como un enlace entre diferentes sectores de la justicia climática para compartir una voz unificada en el gobierno, la salud pública, la academia y las fundaciones. Los más desfavorecidos son los trabajadores de la justicia ambiental en primera línea. GreenLatinosd busca servir al trabajo que ya se está realizando, en lugar de suplantar operaciones.

“Nuestra capacidad para colaborar y avanzar en la misión de las entidades que ya están ahí es realmente nuestra mayor inversión; construir esa capacidad, construir recursos, construir esfuerzos de abogacía, para que las pequeñas organizaciones comunitarias de primera línea puedan sentarse en la misma mesa que los grandes grupos ecologistas y determinar su propio futuro”, explicó Magaña.

GreenLatinos trabaja para fortalecer la comunidad, considerándola la base de cualquier movimiento. Las voces de las personas de color están sobrepresentadas en diferentes sectores de la justicia ambiental, sin embargo, el impacto de la crisis climática se siente más profundamente entre ellos. El Fondo de Defensa Ambiental señala que uno de cada dos Latinos vive en áreas con violaciones de ozono a nivel del suelo, y con medidas protectoras inequitativas. Además, enfrentarse a una variedad de personas con experiencias muy diferentes puede ser un obstáculo en el trabajo de defensa. Al crear conexiones entre diferentes sectores de defensa y unir a todos a través de reuniones frecuentes, GreenLatinos ha creado una base inmutable.

GreenLatinos. Photo por Roma Vista Photography.

Mostrar cuidado por la tierra se ha integrado en la conciencia de muchos en la comunidad latina. No es raro que la comunidad intente reparar objetos rotos antes de comprar un reemplazo o abrir un recipiente de mantequilla solo para descubrir que está lleno de cualquier cosa menos de mantequilla. Magaña expresa la necesidad de seguir las prácticas indígenas de la tierra para “realmente cuidar de lo que tienes, cuidar de los demás, la tierra, el aire, el agua”. Sin embargo, la crisis climática no ha mostrado gracia para la comunidad latina. Inundaciones, sequías y desplazamientos son solo algunos de los resultados que afectan a los países Centroamericanos. La devastación de la pérdida de tierra también resulta en que partes de la cultura sean arrastradas: alimentos, idioma, comunidades.

A nivel local, GreenLatinos ha trabajado en informar sobre las diversas violaciones de las corporaciones de energía locales en el norte de Denver, como Suncor. Han trabajado para abordar la expansión de la I-70 y sus impactos en los vecindarios circundantes. El crecimiento de la población de Colorado ha demostrado ser un desafío para abordar el cambio climático. La expansión del estado ha llevado a más viviendas y, de consecuencia, hay menos espacios verdes, al mismo tiempo que enfrentan el problema de la falta de vivienda. GreenLatinos tiene como objetivo centrar a las personas que viven en las áreas afectadas por estas entidades industriales para que hagan oír sus voces.

Bajo el liderazgo de Magaña, GreenLatinos trabaja para expandir su alcance local a otros estados al proporcionar más recursos, ayudar a coordinar el trabajo de defensa y ofrecer espacios para que las personas se reúnan.

“Se necesitará un activismo sostenido durante largos períodos de tiempo para llegar a un punto donde podamos superar el poder de la industria del petróleo y el gas. Implica algunos sacrificios, pero cuando ese sacrificio se hace en nombre del amor, la alegría, la música y el baile, puedes salir allí día tras día y hacer el trabajo”.

The post Mark Magaña y GreenLatinos: 15 Años Después appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Versión en español aquí

GreenLatinos has been fighting for climate justice for 15 years

The impacts of the climate crisis are unforgiving. There are no means to reason with the wrath of the changing Earth, and unfortunately, its impacts disproportionately affect marginalized communities.

The mission of GreenLatinos is to continue to aid in environmental conservation and advocacy for climate justice. The organization, formally known as the National Latinos Coalition on Climate Change, began its work in 2008. Their work mainly focuses on voicing policy work to elected officials within Congress and aiding in legislative initiatives for climate justice.

Mark Magaña credited his founding of GreenLatinos to the life-changing events of birth and passing. Shortly after the birth of his first child, he made an effort to unite her with his mother, who was going through the late stages of leukemia, the cause of which is believed to have been associated with industrial benzene. After the union, Magaña pondered the future of his children and the impacts of the climate crisis on their generation, acknowledging, “Moments, when you’re at your lowest, is when you feel like ‘I got to change, I’ve got to go for it.’”

GreenLatinos advocacy work. Photo by Roma Vista Photography.

The genesis of GreenLatinos was primarily a focus on passing a national cap and trade bill, the American Clean Energy and Security Act.  Unfortunately, the effort to boost the momentum and voice of the Latinos community in support of the bill “came too late,” Magaña explained. The bill failed to pass, yet the work of the organization was just beginning. Working largely in the legislative sector, the challenges continued during former President Trump’s term in office. The lack of concern for environmental justice on a federal level caused GreenLatinos to hone their focus on state organizations.

“Being able to, despite the president, move to advance things on a state level, not just play defense on a federal level. And emphasizing resourcing those who are doing the work, so we still get wins.”

The organization serves as a link across different sectors of climate justice to share a unified voice in government, public health, academics, and foundations. The most under-resourced are the frontline environment justice workers. GreenLatinos aims to service the work already being done, rather than overtake operations.

“Our ability to collaborate and further the mission of the entities that are already there is really our biggest investment; building that capacity, building resources, building the advocacy efforts, so small frontline community-based organizations can be at the same table as big green groups and determine their future themselves,” explained Magaña

GreenLatinos works to build the strength of the community, viewing it as the foundation for any movement. The voices of people of color are underrepresented across different sectors of environmental justice, yet the impact of the climate crisis is felt more profoundly among them. The Environmental Defense Fund notes one in two Latinos live in areas with ground-level ozone violations, and inequitable protective measures. Additionally, facing an array of people with experiences far removed from one’s own can be a deterrent in advocacy work. By creating connections among different sectors of advocacy and uniting everyone through frequent convenings, GreenLatinos has created an immutable foundation.

GreenLatinos meeting. Photo by Roma Vista Photography.

Showing care for the land has been integrated into the psyches of many a part of the Latino community. It is common for the community to attempt to fix broken items before purchasing a replacement or opening a tub of butter only to find it filled with anything but. Magaña expresses the need to follow Indigenous practices of the land to “really take care of what you have, take care of each other, the land, the air, the water.” The climate crisis has not shown grace for the Latino community, however. Flooding, droughts, and displacement are just a few outcomes plaguing Central American countries. The devastation of land loss also results in pieces of culture being swept away: food, language, communities.

Locally, GreenLatinos has worked on reporting the various violations from local energy corporations in North Denver, such as Suncor. They have worked to address the expansion of I-70 and its impacts on the neighborhoods surrounding the area. The growing population of Colorado has proved to be a challenge for tackling climate change. The expansion of the state has led to more housing and consequently, fewer green spaces, while also facing the ongoing issue of homelessness. GreenLatinos aims to center individuals who live in the areas impacted by these industrial entities to make their voices heard.

Under Magaña’s leadership, GreenLatinos is working towards expanding their local reach to other states by further providing resources, helping coordinate advocacy work, and offering spaces for individuals to convene.

“It’s going to take sustained activism over long periods of time to get us to a point where we are able to overcome the power of the oil and gas industry. It involves some sacrifice but when that sacrifice is done in the name of love, joy, music, and dancing, you can get out there day after day and do that work.”

The post Mark Magaña and GreenLatinos: 15 Years Later appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Sparse communication between the oil company, Town of Erie, and residents has caused confusion and frustration, though remediation is entering final stages.

On the morning of Thursday, April 11, 2024, Sara Amodio evacuated her home.

Amodio has a chronic and rare lung condition that she receives regular treatment for, but nearby work to clean up an oil well that was discovered to be leaking in November 2023 has worsened her condition to the point that her doctors don’t want her anywhere in Erie when the site is actively being worked on.

“Once they start digging up and doing more of this remediation, I can’t be in Erie, I have to go be with my family in Kansas City,” Amodio said. “I can’t be here while they’re digging this up, it’s that serious.”

Remediating the leak

Sara Amodio stands in front of the remediation site on April 11. Photo by Natalie Kerr.

Civitas Resources, a Colorado-based energy producer began to plug and abandon oil and gas well 1-24 in the Country Fields/Country Meadows neighborhood in September 2023, discovering the leak during the decommissioning process. Remediation began on April 11, but neighbors are concerned about the potential health and environmental impacts of the leak and heavy machinery stirring up contaminated soil near the residential area.

The leak has been referred to as a “historic” spill, often in contexts that misconstrue “historic” with “unprecedented,” said Gabi Rae, communications director for the Town of Erie. Historic only means that the leak began at an unknown date in the past. The Town will be discontinuing the use of that term to avoid future confusion.

As of a March 6, 2024 notice from the Town of Erie, lab testing shows no evidence of groundwater contamination from the well leak, and the contaminated soil has been removed from the site. Even though the leak is no longer active, additional excavation is necessary to remediate the site, and once additional testing confirms all contaminants are removed, the site will need to be leveled and re-vegetated.

Original contamination testing found drilling fluid, crude oil, crude oil water byproduct, and condensate — a chemical byproduct of drilling. Several organic volatile compounds in the contamination were above state regulatory levels, including benzene, one of the components of ozone, ethylbenzene, xylene, naphthalene, trimethylbenzene, and total volatile petroleum hydrocarbons.

These waste products of petroleum drilling are often referred to as BTEX compounds, and they are potentially carcinogenic, with benzene being a known carcinogen, and can lead to cancer, neurological impairment, and blood diseases, according to the Federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.

Amodio noticed difficulty breathing in February, which aligns with when the workover rig was mobilized at the site and the soil was being disturbed by machinery. She is concerned by the fact that Civitas doesn’t know when the leak began or how long these chemicals might have been leaching into the surrounding wetland area.

She is additionally concerned that she sees residents walking their dogs and children biking to school close to the site, without any signs or fencing to warn people about the contamination.

“They have said that, ‘yes, there’s still contaminated soil there, yes, they still need to do the remediation, and they have work to do,’” Amodio said. “But there are no signs, there is no fencing. People have been back there with their dogs, kids have been playing back there because they’re curious about what’s going on.”

Based on state-regulated lab testing of soil and water samples, the contamination is not a threat to anyone nearby, nor to any water sources at this point, Rae said. The Town of Erie is not aware of any health risks that existed prior to the cleanup, particularly because the town was not made aware of contamination at the site until months after Civitas and state agencies identified it.

The remediation of well 1-24 began on April 11 after the leak was discovered by Civitas in September 2023. Photo by Natalie Kerr.

Who’s job is it anyway?

Civitas, as a private company, is only required to communicate well-related information to the state and can choose to communicate with the town if it wants. This has contributed to a number of problems for both the town government and the residents.

“This is such a weird space, when a private company that is primarily regulated by the state can basically decide how much they communicate with us or the public — that really is something that they get to decide,” Rae said. “We didn’t know about the work, the leak, or the contamination until long after it was first found.”

In particular, the Town of Erie noticed non-permitted activity at the site in January 2024, which raised red flags. The town issued a stop work order and required Civitas to get a stormwater impact permit, which was granted on March 27, 2024.

Amodio herself has been dedicated to getting more information from the town and Civitas. She and members of the Canyon Creek Homeowners Association presented about the leak at a town council meeting, and afterward Amodio received her first communication from Civitas after weeks of unanswered outreach.

Even so, Civitas was not forthright in information, such as when work would be happening at the site, which Amodio needed in advance to plan her evacuation.

Civitas also wrote to her via email that machinery would only enter the site via the Erie Parkway. However, on April 10, 2024, workers were using an access point about 25 feet from her home off of Simmons St.

“I just learned that the excavator couldn’t navigate through the northern entrance and needed to use the south end,” wrote Rich Coolidge, public affairs manager at Civitas. “The other vehicles did and will continue to use the north entrance and exit, but, once the work is complete, we’ll need to remove the excavator back through the south entrance.”

Amodio worries about the machinery tracking contaminated dirt through the neighborhood.

Civitas did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

The oil and gas operations are held to state regulations and overseen by the Energy and Carbon Management Commission, the state’s oil and gas regulation agency, and Colorado Department of Public Health & Environment for health and safety regulations. Because most of the oil and gas developments in Erie are located on private property owned by private oil and gas companies, the town has little control over enforcing its own requirements on companies like Civitas.

A truck carries contaminated soil from the well pad to an offsite location on April 11, 2024. Photo by Natalie Kerr.

This is part of the reason the town did not post signage indicating a contaminated site, because the land is under Civitas’ jurisdiction, and at this point because the contamination has been cleaned, the only relevant signage is to warn residents about heavy machinery activity, which is posted near the site, Rae said.

But Amodio and her neighbors are frustrated by the finger-pointing between Civitas, the town, and the HOA, who all claim that things like signage are another entity’s job, which has only meant that less gets done overall.

“Who’s responsible for signage? Who’s responsible for keeping people out of that site? Who’s responsible for letting the neighborhood know?” Amodio asked.

Amodio spoke to neighbors as recently as mid-March who had no idea there was a leak at the oil well, she said. The sluggish pace and sporadic nature of information about the oil well frustrated her, and she decided to compile it all in one place.

She has been operating an updates page since she first found out about the spill with a timeline of events, compiled announcements from the town, and posted contact information for people in Town government and at Civitas who can be called or emailed for further information.

She hopes this kind of resource gives people more clarity about what’s happening at the site.

“It’s been put out very piecemeal, and then people start panicking about that, because then they think, ‘Well, what more is there?’” Amodio said.

The Town of Erie encourages all residents to fact-check information from non-official sources, including Facebook groups, with information from the Town of Erie website, ECMC, and CDPHE.

“There’s not any information that we’re deciding to withhold for any reason, as soon as we get information about any of this, we’re providing it to our public,” Rae said. “This is something that we have to do, there’s not a legal requirement for us to share any of this, but we know it’s the right thing to do.”

A sign for well 1-24 near a wetland area in Erie. The well was discovered to be leaking in September 2023. Photo by Natalie Kerr.

Final phases begin.

The Town of Erie expects post-excavation lab testing to commence around April 21, 2024. If soil passes state testing regulations, final cleanup will begin in May 2024, including placing more water barriers, removing excess material, adding topsoil, and planting seeds and vegetation to match the local environment. If it fails testing, more remediation will be required.

Neighbors are worried that this won’t be the last time something like this happens in Erie because other oil wells might be getting old and at risk of similar malfunction, Amodio said.

What is Erie’s plan moving forward with these oil and gas wells that are getting old?” Amodio questioned. “Because granted, this is all post facto for us, and we’re now dealing with the aftermath of it, but I have to imagine that there are other wells out there that would be impacting the population of Erie.”

The Environmental Services Director David Frank is in regular contact with the State and with oil and gas developers during different stages of their development, or plugging and abandoning to make contact, do walk-throughs, and gather as much information as possible about the state of the wells, Rae said.

The entire process has been incredibly disruptive and difficult for Amodio, who has had to switch chemotherapy treatments for her illness and go on medication that costs $20,000 per monthly injection since work at the oil well began.

Amodio wrote about her experience and concerns in a letter to the Town of Erie Board of Trustees and is meeting with them on April 23, 2024, to discuss the situation further.

“Erie has been my home since 2004, and it breaks my heart that my town is making me sick,” Amodio wrote.

Like journalism like this? Consider becoming a sustaining supporter (and get our printed copy monthly at home.)

Democracy needs journalism more than ever. We’ve been telling the truth for 24 years. Your support helps us keep telling it for at least the next four years.

Democracy needs journalism more than ever. We’ve been telling the truth for 24 years. Your support helps us keep telling it for at least the next four years.

The post Erie Oil Well Leak Poses Health, Environmental Concerns for Residents appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Press releases are provided to Yellow Scene Magazine. In an effort to keep our community informed, we publish some press releases in whole.

World Premiere

We had a wonderful world premiere at the 2024 Colorado Environmental Film Festival and we were honored with the Spirit of Activism Award. Producer Jessica Daugherty came in from Portland, director Brian Hedden’s parents came in from New Jersey and we had 12 activists from the film participate in the Q and A after the screening. It was a beautiful and momentous kickoff to our screening tour.

Watch my acceptance speech at CEFF.

Durango Film Festival and DocUtah

The weekend after the world premiere, we screened at two other film festivals, DocUtah and the Durango International. Director Brian Hedden attended Durango while activist-participant Patricia Garcia-Nelson attended DocUtah. In Utah, the film received a standing ovation and the Environmental Award. In Durango, Brian received continual praise for the film and feedback about the inspiring perseverance of the activists.

As a result of these screenings, we’ve gotten some great press and lots of leads for community screening tour.

A New Fracking Bill: SB24-159

SB24-159, commonly known as the ‘Phase Out and Clean Up’ bill, would phase out new fracking in Colorado by 2030 and would make the oil and gas industry liable for cleaning up abandoned wells. This is the first bill of its kind to be introduced at the Colorado capitol and would be a huge win for the environmental and impacted communities (most Coloradans). If you want to testify to support this bill, fill out this form from 350Colorado (the original hearing date was postponed but will be coming up again soon.).

There are four other key environmental bills at the legislature this session. (Summaries below from PSR Colorado)

• HB24-166 Air Quality Enforcement creates a more stringent penalty structure for repeat violators of air quality regulations and allows the Air Pollution Control Division (APCD) to directly assess civil penalties. Penalties will be higher for violations in disproportionately impacted communities (DIC)s.
• SB24-165 Air Quality Improvements will require the Air Quality Control Commission to adopt emissions standards for trucks and develop rules for controlling emissions from all structures emitting pollutants within the ozone nonattainment area. The bill will require oil and gas operators to submit an annual emission inventory report and develop a plan to reduce nitrogen oxides emissions in the nonattainment area.
• HB24-1330 Air Quality Permitting will require that the APCD cease issuing air permits in ozone nonattainment areas and in DICs, and that air quality modeling be done before any construction permit is issued. It will require the Division to aggregate emissions from all sources within oil and gas facilities (currently any one well pad may have hundreds of small air permits).
• Regarding Large Industrial facilities, including the Suncor Refinery, HB24-1339, Disproportionately Impacted Community Air Pollution expands the AQCC to include one DIC member and one climate scientist, prohibits emission increases from this sector in the near term, prohibits payments to the state to avoid compliance, and requires direct source specific reductions of GHG in DIC.

To get updates about these bills and how you can support them, sign up for updates from 350Colorado or PSR Colorado.

A Successful Climate Lobby Day

On March 1st, over 100 concerned citizens and climate activists attended Climate Lobby Day in Denver. After learning about this year’s environmental bills and lobbying procedures, they spoke with state representatives to educate and urge them to pass these laws. A huge thanks to all of the activists and Earth-lovers who continue to stand up for our planet.

Upcoming Screenings

The post Fracking the System; World Premiere, Awards, A New Fracking Bill, and Upcoming Screenings appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Story by Rae Solomon/KUNC (Via AP Storyshare)

Researchers at Colorado State University’s Master Gardener program have finally settled the age-old question of which tomatoes and peppers grow best in Northern Colorado, where the growing season is notoriously short and difficult.

Their answers are the result of five years of field experiments that took root in a garden bed in northeast Fort Collins, coordinated by Master Gardener volunteer and retired seed breeder Jon Weiss.

While most moderately skilled Colorado gardeners can certainly eke a crop out of hundreds of tomato and pepper varieties, Weiss said that a knowledge gap persisted about which of those varieties perform best under the unique climatic conditions in the greater Larimer County area.

“We retired here in 2016 and one of the questions I started looking up is what kind of tomato varieties can you grow here? And I really couldn’t find any solid information on that topic,” Weiss said. “You can read seed catalogs all you want. But the key to any of this is to trial them out, compare varieties to varieties, plant types, two different types of tomatoes, and see what does well here.”

CSU Extension Professor of Horticulture Alison O’Conner, who was also involved in the trials, said that Northern Colorado’s unpredictable weather can cause most varieties to struggle. “With the wind, with our increasingly high summer temperatures, with the potential for hail always looming, we just face a lot of different conditions.”

Out of 15 tomato varieties the researchers tested, 2 types stood out. An indeterminant red variety called New Girl withstood the harsh climate with grace.

“It was the earliest, the best tasting, and one of the highest yielding tomatoes in the trial,” Weiss said.

A compact yellow cherry tomato called Patio Choice Yellow was also a top performer.

As for the sweet peppers, two bell pepper varieties, Ace and Olympus had the best outcomes, along with a smaller, lunchbox pepper, the Just Sweet.

“It’s kind of an orange color, a lot of fruit, great flavor,” Weiss said of the latter. “Most of the [pepper] plants don’t exceed 24 inches in height, so they’re quite manageable in in any kind of environment.”

Weiss said the team hopes the trials will give Northern Colorado gardeners a little more information to work with when planning out their gardens for the next season.

“Most homeowners just want to have a nice juicy red tomato at the end of the day from their plants, that they grew in their own garden,” he said. “That’s all we’re trying to do is help them to reach that goal.”

“We want to make sure that people who are investing time and energy growing plants do get to harvest fruit,” O’Conner added.

O’Conner cautioned that the trial results are hyper-local and specific to the greater Larimer County area. Other parts of Colorado might favor different varieties – that research hasn’t been done yet.

“We hope this encourages other potential Master Gardener programs or extension programs to try to do some more local research,” O’Conner said.

The team has some work to do to popularize the best performing varieties, which, when it comes to the tomatoes at least, have not been widely available as transplants from local garden centers.

“We’re trying to encourage our garden centers to look at our results and ask the simple question: ‘well, if this is doing well in the trial, why not try offering some of these varieties to our public?’” Weiss said.

The Master Gardener Larimer County vegetable trials will continue into the next season. Now that the question of tomatoes and peppers has been put to bed, the team will turn their attention to winter squash and cut flowers that do well in Northern Colorado’s unique terrain.

The post These are the tomatoes and peppers that grow best in Northern Colorado appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

The drilling continues in Coyote Trails

It was late spring of 2023 and David Frank was doing routine reviews of permits filed near Erie when he stumbled across something strange. Extraction Oil and Gas had filed seven new permits to drill at Coyote Trails, a site the community believed had finished drilling. 

Frank, who was the Town of Erie’s energy and environmental programs specialist at the time, reached out to the Energy and Carbon Management Commission (ECMC) to see what they planned on doing. 

This was the first time that one of the about 4,900 drilling projects that were approved in Colorado between 2009 and 2021 attempted to resume drilling on a project since Senate Bill 19-181 sweepingly overhauled drilling regulations.

“[SB19-181] changed the entire mission of the regulatory body from fostering oil and gas development to protecting human health, the environment, and wildlife resources,” Frank, who is now director of environmental services for the Town of Erie, said.

These permits to drill came as a surprise because no notice is given when a permission to drill request is submitted. 

“Sometimes those are issued on a Friday afternoon, and so I may not know that a rig is moving into town and Monday morning when I check my email the rig is already there,” Frank said.

This is usually not a problem, because officials and community members would be aware for months prior that a new project was moving in. But, in this case, the community presumed the project was complete as equipment had been removed from the site for years.

Extraction argued that it was in their rights to continue the project as 45 wells were approved, but only 27 were drilled. In their eyes, this meant that they had the right to drill 18 more wells whenever they chose.

The town of Erie argued that those wells were approved under a different environmental landscape, and the new wells Extraction Oil and Gas hoped to drill would never be approved under the current regulations. 

All of this uncertainty led to a public hearing on January 24, where community stakeholders were invited to voice their views on the issue. In a 4-1 vote, the ECMC denied the seven applications to drill.

This is new territory for a community that has been entrenched in oil and gas for decades.

The long fight

Christiaan van Woudenberg, founder and chief editor of the Erie Protectors, knows this all too well. He started Erie Protectors, an organization informing the community and fighting against further oil and gas drilling in Erie, back in 2015 when a drilling project started just 800 feet from his family home.

Quickly, he learned that the oil and gas companies were not likely to back down.

“We organized to try and fight against it and were just completely overwhelmed by the industry and how quickly they were able to move in and dig up and create this incredibly industrial site,” van Woudenberg said.

In the following years, he has worked to fight drilling in his backyard through creating detailed maps that explain where wells are, encouraging his community to speak up, and making the connection between this drilling and the climate crisis.

He said it is particularly challenging because a majority of the surrounding Erie area is funded by the oil and gas industry. This makes folks hesitant to move away from what has supported their families and community for years – even if they don’t yet know the long-term health impacts.

While residents may be slow to accept this transition, it is happening whether they like it or not. There are already more than twice the amount of people employed by the Colorado solar industry than in the fossil fuel industry, according to a 2022 analysis by Clean Jobs Colorado.

“It’s akin to in the very early days the farmers that provided hay to horses that drew people around in carriages were mad because of the car coming out,” van Woudenberg said. “You’re the dinosaur. I know it’s difficult, but you must change.”

Unfortunately, the residents of Weld County are inevitably going to suffer because of this transition. But, van Woudenberg says there is a way for the movement towards renewables to be just and equitable.

Oil and gas workers can be retrained to learn how to install solar panels, farmers can invest in agrovoltaics by using their land for farming and energy production, and these now shut-down wells will have to be monitored and retired safely. These are all jobs that may slowly come to replace the current oil and gas jobs.

While the January decision was a win for Erie Protectors, the town, and the community, it is not over yet. Extraction Oil and Gas has several options, including appealing the decision, submitting the request with updated information, or potentially suing.

In van Woudenberg’s opinion, they won’t step back easily. His experience as an activist from the beginning has been fighting the small battles that he can in the scope of a much larger war.

“It’s David fighting Goliath with a feather,” van Woudenberg said. “Do you take pleasure out of tickling his feet? If you don’t, you take no pleasure at all.”

Change in the weather

But, this recent ECMC ruling does provide some feeling that all of the work Erie Protectors and the town have been doing means something. All of the complaints filed against the Coyote Trails project did not matter when the project was originally approved, but they certainly mattered in January’s hearing.

“The Coyote [Trails] hearing for me, was a true testament to the work that we have done over the last six to eight years,” van Woudenberg said. “It took a really long time, but we at least achieved some meaningful pushback against an industry that has had the ability to do whatever they want for so so long.”

In addition to Extraction Oil and Gas’ options, Frank says there are at least four other spots in the surrounding Erie area that might be subject to a similar situation as Coyote Trails. It is possible that these sites will remain closed, but Coyote Trails is setting a precedent for the potential of these other sites.

Not only should other sites expect pushback, Erie, Broomfield, and Boulder County are currently working together to write a suggestion for the ECMC on how to handle potential similar issues. If this doesn’t work they will go to the state government to suggest legislation ensuring the protection of residents.

On the statewide scale, on February 13 2024, Colorado State Senators Sonya Jaquez Lewis and Kevin Priola introduced legislation that would stop new oil and gas permits from being issued in Colorado by 2030. This would be a huge redirection in focus for the fifth-highest fossil fuel producing state.

“The change to solve the climate crisis does not rest on the shoulders of individuals,” van Woudenberg said. “It rests on the shoulders of governments and corporations, they are the ones that are responsible for doing this.”

Like journalism like this? Consider becoming a sustaining supporter (and get our printed copy monthly at home.)

Democracy needs journalism more than ever. We’ve been telling the truth for 24 years. Your support helps us keep telling it for at least the next four years.

Democracy needs journalism more than ever. We’ve been telling the truth for 24 years. Your support helps us keep telling it for at least the next four years.

The post A Local Erie Ruling May Indicate a Statewide Shift Away From Fossil Fuels appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

A look at the life and legacy of Colorado’s premiere nature photographer

Perhaps, one of the greatest, and sometimes overlooked, elements that shaped Colorado’s long, complex web of history is water. Water shaped landscapes, acted as a driving factor in where Indigenous populations settled, forced farmers off their land, and inspired many of John Fielder’s more than 200,000 photographs.

In January of 2023, Fielder donated over 6,000 photographs to the History Colorado museum before his passing in August of the same year. For the next five years, the museum will be showing rotating exhibitions of his work in his namesake gallery. Additionally, they just closed their special exhibition: “Revealed: John Fielder’s Favorite Place.” Admission to the museum is free for those under 18.

But no matter the exhibit you attend, you’ll notice water is often the main subject.

If you check out the permanent collection, you’ll see quotes from Fielder “we pulled from interviews we did with him and from published sources,” said Jason Hanson, chief creative officer for History Colorado. “So he can explain in his own words why it’s so important to protect Colorado’s rivers, which is the most significant and consequential river system in the U.S. West.”

“Every Time I Come Back from a Beautiful Place […] I Say ‘Wow That was Unbelievable. But I Still Think I Like Colorado Better” — John Fielder

Slate Creek Eagles Nest Wilderness. Photo by John Fielder

Fielder started photographing Colorado in 1973 to make a living initially. But that shifted in the 90s.

“In the 90s he slowly, almost reluctantly, was convinced to translate his love of nature into activism,” Hanson said. “And he became a very powerful, eloquent voice over the next three decades.”

Indeed, in the early 90s, Fielder traveled the state and showed his photographs in an effort to get citizens to vote on allocating lottery profits to preserve and maintain outdoor spaces. Citizens showed the bill overwhelming support, with 58% voting yes. To this day, Colorado has the only lottery in the world where the profits go mainly to outdoor spaces.

He was also one of the founders of Great Outdoors Colorado, which helps allocate lottery funds to various outdoor spaces. Since the organization’s inception, its preserved over one million acres and created or maintained over 1,000 parks.

“I was lucky to be on GOCO’s board for eight years and help determine the places that would be protected around the state,” John Fielder told Hanson in an interview in 2023. “GOCO also spawned open space taxes, which doubled the impact. For instance, instead of 50 acres being preserved, it might be 100. It was a very catalytic process and one that I’m very proud of.”

Hanson echoed this sentiment. “Fielder understood we live in a really special place. And he worked to make sure these incredible places were protected for future generations.”

Along with legislation, Fielder had his work featured in over 50 books and also published a number of his own including “Colorado Black on White”, “Wildflowers of Colorado,” and others. But perhaps his most influential book was “Colorado 1870-2000.” In it he used photos by William Henry Jackson who surveyed and photographed Colorado in the 1800s. Fielder photographed the same spots as Jackson and presented the photos side-by-side.

“When he looked at the pictures, he could see changes in the land,” said Hanson. “And that was part of what helped drive his commitment to environmental advocacy,” Hanson explained Fielder wanted to create a record of how the land was being impacted by humans.

“Seeing is believing,” said Hanson. “He was making sure we would have a record of not just what we were protecting but why we were protecting it.”

“There Really are Very Few Experiences on Earth That are As Sublime As Rafting the Yampa River” — John Fielder

Rattlesnake Canyon Black Ridge Canyons Wilderness. Photo by John Fielder.

“Something I like to say is ‘close your eyes and picture Colorado.’ I think what people often picture is a photograph by John Fielder… Fielder went to every corner of the state, he photographed effectively every square mile of Colorado. He showed us places that many won’t ever get to see with their own eyes,” Hanson shared. 

Like Hanson said, many of us won’t travel to all of Colorado’s 104,984 square miles like Fielder did; raft the Yampa; or spend days trekking in the backcountry with llamas to see these places.

But Fielder’s work brings those spaces to you.

Additionally, “we hope the work inspires you to get out there and find your own special place,” Hanson stated. “You can’t really fight to protect a place until you’ve been out in it, smelled it, tasted the water, and really got to know it. Fielder advocated that it was important for people to understand the sensuousness of nature so that they vote to protect it.”

It’s impossible to sum up the lasting legacy of Fielder. But perhaps he sums up the driving force of his work best when he said “It would be a shame and a tragedy if one day the only way we can enjoy our state’s unmatched beauty is through one of my photographs.”

The post John Fielder: Legacy In Color appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Press releases are provided to Yellow Scene Magazine. In an effort to keep our community informed, we publish some press releases in whole.

In its world premiere on February 23rd, 7:30pm at the Colorado Environmental Film Festival, the feature documentary Fracking the System: Colorado’s Oil and Gas Wars, directed by Brian Hedden, will expose the racketeering and environmental racism employed by the oil and gas industry to undermine efforts of Colorado community activists in passing a 2018 ballot initiative to keep fracking drilling sites farther away from schools and residential areas. 

Thousands of drilling sites near homes and schools in Colorado have increased health risks for local adults and children, from nose bleeds to respiratory problems to child leukemia. And the volatile sites, severely under regulated, have also caused deaths due to explosion and exposure.

Fracking the System: Colorado’s Oil and Gas Wars is an investigative exposé about the harms of fracking, the lengths to which the government is complacent with industrial pollution, and the nefarious tactics that the oil and gas industry uses to undermine democratic elections. 

When Patrica Garcia Nelson learns about the fracking site going in behind her son’s school, she is in disbelief. She is even more shocked to learn it was moved to her BIPOC community from a predominantly White neighborhood after those parents protested. She joins the fight to stop the well and gets connected to the state-wide movement to push new oil and gas wells further away from all communities. The conflict erupts in 2018 when the activists’ state-wide ballot initiative prompts a $50 million response from the oil and gas industry, complete with dirty tricks, harassment, and sabotage. Finally, an oil and gas overhaul bill in the 2019 Colorado State Legislature fundamentally shifts the playing field. But, the Colorado Oil and Gas wars are just a small microcosm of the climate justice movement at large and a harbinger of climate battles to come. Fracking the System: Colorado’s Oil and Gas Wars reveals shocking and powerful lessons from the front lines of environmental activism that leaves the audience aghast and ready to join the fight.

Fracking the System: Colorado’s Oil and Gas Wars is a production by Boulder-based Earth Dog Films, helmed by first-time feature film director Brian Hedden. Hedden says, “The purpose of the film is to shed light on these grave injustices and to inspire the next waves of climate justice activism.”

Originally invited to consider making a film about fracking by local Lakota elders, Hedden began filming activists’ efforts to push for fracking site setbacks in 2018. Along the way, he was slapped with an 80-page lawsuit from Extraction Oil and Gas.

The oil company was after his footage exposing the environmental racism of their Bella Romero fracking site, and after a 10-month legal battle, Hedden retained the rights to his own footage.

At the world premiere screening of the film in Golden, Colorado, as part of CEFF, audiences will finally be able to see this controversial story that exposes the tactics of the oil and gas industry to uphold the status quo, which means continuing to poison Colorado communities through these massively polluting and under-regulated fracking sites.

The film is a herald of the next wave of the movement lead by Safe and Healthy Colorado and 350 Colorado who are leading the charge on a new statewide ballot initiative to phase out fracking by 2030.

Check out their websites safeandhealthyco.org and 350colorado.org stopping-fracking to find out ways you can get involved now.

The post Fracking the System: Colorado’s Oil and Gas Wars World Premiere – Feb. 23rd, 2024 appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.