January 20, 2013 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Environment, Pollution, Water
A snow-covered tailings heap on Boreas Pass leaks toxic cadmium and zinc, deadly for fish, into creeks that flow down through Breckenridge and, eventually, into Denver’s Dillon Reservoir.
This mining mess from a century ago sat largely ignored until Friday, when national, state and local authorities trudged in and eyed it as a potential demonstration project to jumpstart cleanups of thousands of festering mines around Colorado and the West.
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December 9, 2012 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Environment, Oil and Gas Drilling, Pollution, Water
Oil and gas have contaminated groundwater in 17 percent of the 2,078 spills and slow releases that companies reported to state regulators over the past five years, state data show.
The damage is worse in Weld County, where 40 percent of spills reach groundwater, the data show.
Most of the spills are happening less than 30 feet underground — not in the deep well bores that carry drilling fluids into rock.
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October 7, 2012 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Environment, Pollution
Mobile equipment is being installed on the South Platte River to clean benzene from groundwater spreading from under Suncor Energy’s oil refinery to metro Denver’s adjacent sewage-treatment plant.
Suncor had proposed that Metro Wastewater help handle the cleanup. Metro declined.
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September 9, 2012 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Environment, Pollution, Water
MONTEZUMA — Colorado mining authorities have dug through a mountainside and reopened the dark granite shaft of an abandoned mine that turned deadly — trying to find options for dealing with one of the West’s worst environmental problems.
The Pennsylvania Mine, perched above timberline, discharges an acidic orange stream moving 181 pounds per day of toxic metals into Peru Creek and the Snake River, which flow into Denver Water’s Dillon Reservoir.
The poisoning of the watershed has gone on for more than 60 years.
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August 24, 2012 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Environment, Natural Resources, Oil and Gas Drilling, Pollution, Water
FAIRPLAY — The federal Bureau of Land Management is preparing to open South Park — metro Denver’s main water source — to oil and gas drilling.
But Aurora Water, local authorities and conservationists are pushing back, demanding careful planning before any land is leased.
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June 17, 2012 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Environment, Pollution, Water, Wildfire, Wildlife
The hundreds of thousands of gallons of red slurry that air tankers are dropping on Colorado forests to shield mountain houses from wildfires has a downside: It is toxic. Laced with ammonia and nitrates, it has the potential to kill fish and taint water supplies.
Federal authorities say they’re implementing new rules prohibiting application of fire-retardant chemicals within 600 feet of waterways. Air tanker pilots and crew commanders now are required to carry maps that identify sensitive terrain — such as areas where greenback cutthroat trout and Pawnee montane skipper butterflies are monitored as sentinel species.
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May 11, 2012 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Environment, Pollution, Water
An underground plume of toxic petrochemicals spreading from Suncor Energy’s oil refinery in Commerce City is complicating a $211 million upgrade at the adjacent Metro Wastewater Treatment Plant — work that must be completed on schedule to meet water-quality requirements.
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May 2, 2012 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Environment, Pollution, Water
COMMERCE CITY — State-ordered remedies have not stopped toxic pollution from Suncor Energy’s oil refinery north of Denver — with new data showing benzene levels in Sand Creek and the South Platte River more than doubling last month.
Neither state regulators nor Suncor has calculated how much cancer-causing benzene and other contaminants have entered the waterways from an underground plume spreading from the refinery under the adjacent Metro Wastewater Treatment Plant.
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April 21, 2012 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Environment, Pollution
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?
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April 10, 2012 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Environment, Oil and Gas Drilling, Pollution
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.
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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.
