http://brucefinley.com Wed, 24 Feb 2010 02:05:38 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Two miles deep in their latest tunnel, coal miner Steve Baker and his cohorts barely blink at underground hazards: a cavern collapsing behind them, explosive gas around their boots, roiling clouds of black dust. But they dread the above-ground parrying of state and federal politicians over protection of the nation's ... http://brucefinley.com/environment/colorado-coal-miners-fear-losing-jobs-if-access-to-federal-lands-curbed/ The mountain pine beetles that have ravaged about 3 million acres of Colorado and southern Wyoming forests may be exhausting their primary food source — raising the prospect that the beetle epidemic could end, state and federal foresters said this week. Regeneration of decimated forests has begun as the U.S. ... http://brucefinley.com/environment/pine-beetles-exhausting-food-source-foresters-say/ Recent beatings of South Asian refugees have prompted Denver police to hand out cellphones to newcomers from abroad. On Dec. 11, a group of men beat and robbed teenage refugees from Bhutan in east Denver, following them from an RTD bus, according to police. Six were beaten, one requiring emergency-room ... http://brucefinley.com/refugees/denver-cops-give-911-only-cellphones-to-refugees-worried-about-recent-attacks/ Colorado Front Range residents are using less water, but some parts of the Western Slope have seen per capita water use explode in the past decade, according to a new state study. Read More http://brucefinley.com/water/as-water-use-falls-in-front-range-it-explodes-elsewhere-in-colorado/ Taxed by increasingly complex requests for climate modeling, the National Center for Atmospheric Research will build a new supercomputer — but house it in Wyoming, not Boulder. While climate-change modeling once dealt with global scenarios, the typical request now is more complex: " 'Where are the impacts?' 'How fast is ... http://brucefinley.com/environment/boulder-climate-center-will-build-supercomputer-in-wyoming/ Denver has hit turbulence in its biggest water-supply project since the 1960s — a $225 million effort to prevent future shortages. Denver Water proposes to divert enough for 45,000 families from mountain rivers on the western side of the Continental Divide, then pump it through tunnels to Front Range reservoirs, ... http://brucefinley.com/environment/environmentalists-oppose-denver-project-to-divert-more-water-from-western-slope/ State water stewards have continued to permit groundwater pumping south of Denver, despite data and near universal agreement that underground water levels are falling and the resource is being depleted. Read More http://brucefinley.com/water/colorado-issues-well-permits-despite-declining-groundwater/ Three Iraq combat veterans from Colorado have launched themselves on a new kind of mission abroad: fighting poverty as civilians. Discharged this year from the Quebec Battery, 5th Battalion, 14th Regiment of the 4th Marine Division, a reserve unit based at Buckley Air Force Base, the three are devoting themselves ... http://brucefinley.com/us-role-in-the-world/iraq-veterans-launch-humanitarian-missions/ If the United States really wants to stabilize Afghanistan, say six Afghans visiting Colorado farms, then it should focus more on building agricultural options beyond the illicit drug trade for the war-torn nation's mostly agrarian people. "If we keep people busy in agriculture, that will be good for security," said ... http://brucefinley.com/pakistan-afghanistan-borderlands/afghans-tour-colo-farms-to-pick-up-agriculture-tips/ An armada of giant yellow earthmovers on the prairie south of Denver is racing to dig one of Colorado's biggest water-supply reservoirs in decades — a hole 180 feet deep across 1,400 acres — designed to wean suburbs off waning aquifers. But the water to fill this reservoir? Not yet ... http://brucefinley.com/water/reservoir-under-construction-south-of-denver-but-theres-no-water-to-hold/