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 13, 2012 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Environment, Water, Wildfire
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.
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April 1, 2012 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Environment, Natural Resources, Oil and Gas Drilling, Water
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.
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February 24, 2012 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Environment, Water
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.
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January 17, 2012 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Environment, Water
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.
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January 14, 2012 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Environment, Land, Natural Resources, Pollution, Water
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.
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January 7, 2012 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Environment, Land, Oil and Gas Drilling, Pollution, Water
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.
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December 26, 2011 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Water
South-metro leaders and a growing number of fishermen are pushing to let the South Platte be more of a natural river as it flows down from the mountains through the Denver area.
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December 18, 2011 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Climate Change, Environment, International, Water
BOULDER – The U.S. government is deploying Colorado scientists to lead a $5.4 million effort to gauge the impact of shrinking Himalayan glaciers on water supplies across Asia.
The question is whether rivers that sustain more than 2 billion people are fed primarily by water from rainfall, by seasonal snowmelt or by the glaciers that are vulnerable to climate change.
A significant drop in water supply could lead to food shortages and, according to U.S. Agency for International Development officials, create new conflicts in already volatile areas.
The high-mountain glaciers, seen as water towers for Asia, have been shrinking at a rate of 0.5 percent a year – similar to glaciers in South America’s Andes and the European Alps . As Asia’s glaciers recede, Chinese and Indian governments are moving to control headwaters with at least 19 proposed dam projects, adding to eight or so existing major dams.
U.S. intelligence agencies were among those interested in enlisting University of Colorado senior research scientist Richard Armstrong and geography professor Mark Williams.
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December 2, 2011 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Environment, Pollution, Water
State health regulators on Thursday issued orders formalizing cleanup work already in progress to stanch the the flow of hazardous liquid seeping into Sand Creek and addressing newly identified contamination spreading underground from Suncor Energy’s refinery to an adjacent Metro Wastewater plant.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency cleanup coordinators determined that the black goo oozing from the bank of Sand Creek north of downtown Denver is “a gasoline-like material” that contains cancer-causing benzene.
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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.
