May 30, 2011 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Environment, Natural Resources, Pollution, Water
As mountain snow starts to melt, trickling toxic acid laced with dissolved metals — arsenic, cadmium, copper, zinc — is fouling Colorado watersheds.
Nobody dares try to stop it.
Among the casualties: Peru Creek east of the Keystone ski area has been pronounced “biologically dead.”
State environmental officials also have listed 32 sites along the Animas River in critical condition. Some headwaters of the Arkansas River, too, are “virtually devoid of any aquatic life.”
The source of the contamination is abandoned mines — about 500,000 across the West, at least 7,300 in Colorado. Federal authorities estimate that the headwaters of 40 percent of Western rivers are tainted with toxic discharge from abandoned mines.
Colorado Department of Natural Resources records show 450 abandoned mines are known to be leaking measurable toxins into watersheds. So far, 1,300 miles of streams have been impaired.
But as bad as the damage is, community watershed groups, mining companies and even state agencies contend they cannot embark on cleanups for fear of incurring legal liability.
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May 21, 2011 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Environment, Water
PUEBLO — As much as 100 million gallons a day of Arkansas River water trapped in a reservoir for southern Colorado and downriver states is about to take a left turn — to Colorado’s biggest water project in decades.
Construction crews this week began work on the $2.3 billion Southern Delivery System. It is designed to pump water uphill and north from Pueblo Reservoir — through a 62-mile pipeline — to sustain Colorado Springs, which owns the rights to the river water, and other growing Front Range cities.
The cities embarked on this project because water supplies have emerged as a constraint on population growth.
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April 27, 2011 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Environment, Water
South metro suburbs worried about a slowing flow of underground water are preparing to spend billions to end their reliance on super-deep wells to supply tens of thousands of households.
Today, nearly every glass of water drawn by residents in Castle Rock, Castle Pines and Parker originates deep underground, data from utility managers show.
Twenty-five utilities between Denver and Colorado Springs are together pumping 38,742 acre-feet of water from 449 municipal wells each year, according to data provided by the water suppliers.
That works out to about 400 gallons per second being squeezed from the Denver Basin aquifer.
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March 26, 2011 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Environment, Land, Natural Resources
For years, federal land managers have aimed at letting wildfires burn to boost forest health — and save taxpayers some of the billions the government spends dousing nearly every blaze.
“We’re looking for opportunities to let fire play its natural role in the landscape,” regional U.S. Forest Service chief Rick Cables said this week.
But Colorado’s growing population and energy industry near forests, combined with surging numbers of wildfires, is making a let-it-burn approach increasingly difficult.
Twenty-seven wildfires have threatened the northern Front Range suburbs this month, nine times the 15-year March average of three.
Rather than try to let some wildfires burn to stimulate forests and grasslands, federal officials have moved into traditional suppression, mobilizing ground crews early and pushing to pre-position slurry bombers on runways to stop the flames.
Over the past year, federal land managers in Colorado let 30 remote wildfires run their course, agency data show. Meanwhile, more than 3,000 wildfires were suppressed in Colorado.
Nationwide, firefighters suppress about 99 percent of the more than 71,000 wildfires that break out each year, mostly in Western states.
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March 16, 2011 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Environment, Water
Developers citing the need to deal with looming water shortages propose to build a massive reservoir in the foothills southwest of Denver.
But they don’t have water to fill it.
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March 13, 2011 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Environment, Water
Colorado farmers still own more than 80 percent of water flowing in the state, but control is rapidly passing from them as growing suburbs move to secure supplies for the future.
The scramble is intensifying as aging farmers offer their valuable water rights to thirsty cities, drying up ag land so quickly that state overseers are worried about the life span of Colorado’s agricultural economy.
“The status quo has been going to agriculture (interests) and buying and drying. That’s not good,” said John Stulp, a cattle rancher and former state agriculture commissioner who is Gov. John Hickenlooper’s special policy adviser on water. “We need to do it in a smarter way.”
Since 1987, Colorado farmers and ranchers have sold at least 191,000 acre-feet of water to suburbs, according to a review of water transactional data.
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February 13, 2011 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Environment, Wildlife
FOURMILE CREEK – A swath of Colorado’s most fire-ravaged forest last week became home to a band of Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep, a species that has made the best of degraded land before.
Across the western U.S., Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep have been hammered by respiratory disease, some of it spread from domestic livestock, and other stressors, such as development eclipsing their habitat and competition with non-native mountain goats for terrain.
A statewide sheep population estimate from 2001 of 8,000 this week was revised to 7,600.
But bighorn sheep are revered here as Colorado’s official state animal.
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February 7, 2011 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Environment, Water
Colorado has so many deficient dams restricted from holding water that, if owners were to fix them, the state would gain four Chatfield Reservoirs worth of coveted water-storage capacity.
A review of state dam safety records also shows that a breach at any of 21 “high hazard” dams today likely would kill people living or working nearby. Failures at another 33 deficient “significant hazard” dams would cause major property damage.
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January 16, 2011 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
China, Environment, International, Natural Resources
China may rule the increasingly ravenous world market for rare metals used to make smartphones, clean-energy technology, guided missiles and bombs.
But Colorado and other Western states also contain significant caches of rare metals – the makings of a modern-day gold rush. Mining companies, the federal government and state agencies are pushing to find out just how much potential new money lies beneath the dirt.
The exploratory work is intensifying because, after undercutting global prices for rare earths in the 1990s, China now mines 97 percent of the world supply. Past mining operations left Colorado with 7,300 abandoned projects that still leak toxic waste into soil and water.
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December 18, 2010 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Environment, Wildlife
Government scientists are grappling with unchecked elk herds infected with a mysterious disease.
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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.
