COMMERCE CITY — Suncor Energy is spraying Sand Creek water contaminated by its oil refinery into the air, trying to remove more cancer-causing benzene before the creek water flows into the South Platte River.
This poses a regulatory dilemma: Is it worse to release benzene into the air or into the water?
WESTCREEK — Pushing to accelerate nature’s healing, the U.S. Forest Service is deploying contract labor crews who this week began planting 146,000 more pine and fir trees — an effort to stabilize wildfire-ravaged mountainsides that slump into metro Denver water supplies.
But every new catastrophic wildfire adds to the blackened-dead acreage west of Colorado’s Front Range cities. And water providers face increasing costs — which are passed to residents in monthly water bills — as more eroding sediment descends across burned watershed and clogs reservoirs.
ERIE — This town is trying a new approach to protect residents riled by oil and gas drilling along Colorado’s Front Range: implementing local air- and water-quality rules.
Town officials are asking companies to let them review drilling plans for compatibility with local development. They’re demanding new drilling operations capture 100 percent of air emissions. They’ve begun using a $50,000 device that tests water for hydrocarbons.
Front Range farmers bidding for water to grow crops through the coming hot summer and possible drought face new competition from oil and gas drillers.
At Colorado’s premier auction for unallocated water this spring, companies that provide water for hydraulic fracturing at well sites were top bidders on supplies once claimed exclusively by farmers.
The prospect of tussling with energy industry giants over water leaves some farmers and environmentalists uneasy.
Suncor Energy has expanded the hose system blowing air bubbles into Sand Creek attempting to expel cancer-causing benzene spreading from under the company’s oil refinery north of Denver.
Its crews also have been packing a trench with bentonite clay from Wyoming, focused on meeting a deadline today for the completion of a 1,000-foot-long, 30-foot-deep underground wall designed to hold back contaminated groundwater.
Conservationists are casting a project to pipe water from Wyoming to Colorado as dead after federal authorities Thursday nixed an entrepreneur’s pitch for a preliminary permit.
“The Flaming Gorge Pipeline is a zombie. It’s just staggering around looking for anything to latch onto to keep it alive,” said Stacy Tellinghuisen, a Western Resources Advocates energy policy analyst.
SAN PABLO — Water here is so scarce that farmers habitually gaze up at the mountains surrounding their valley — where overpumping from aquifers may force 80,000 irrigated acres out of production.
As Rose Medina traversed her ancestral lands last week, scanning the Sangre de Cristos for the promise of a strong spring runoff, she saw barely a dusting of snow.
It’ll take at least a decade before Cotter Corp.’s contaminated Colorado
uranium mill is cleaned up under a new deal aimed at accelerating work
at the site.
The agreement settles a long-running dispute about the
surety fund – state officials have estimated cleanup would cost as much
as $40 million – and also sets Cotter’s timetable and penalties if
deadlines aren’t met.
A watchdog group criticized the deal, saying plans
were revised with little public input.
Workers at Suncor Energy ‘s oil refinery north of Denver – nearly all 500 – have had their blood tested for benzene as Suncor excavates pipeline to deal with tainted tap water and tries to contain contamination of Sand Creek.
Nobody knows how long drinking water at the Suncor refinery has contained benzene. Results of blood tests were kept confidential.
Denver metro planners who often don’t see eye to eye on land-use issues are trying to create a green ring of public open space flanking the metro area’s two-thirds-completed high- speed beltway.
A journalist and lawyer, Bruce Finley has investigated local, national and international issues with on-site reporting in more than 40 countries. In his position as a staff writer for the Denver Post, he is focusing on environment-related news including water challenges, the oil and gas boom and wildfire.
Learn more... 