November 29, 2011 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Environment
FORT COLLINS – As scientist Diana Wall and her team peered at them through microscopes, the trapped tiny creatures feasted on morsels in dirt.
A nematode’s innards bulged full of carbon and nitrogen. A water bear pulsed, devouring algae. Spiderlike mites and springtails jumped – the underground equivalents of zebras and giraffes.
Exploits of these subsurface organisms are a growing preoccupation for scientists because the ecological oomph of soils that people depend on for food, health and water is eroding. Understanding how the tiny creatures work may help restore soil fertility and stop deadly sicknesses.
Read More
November 23, 2011 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Environment, Oil and Gas Drilling, Pollution, Water
FORT LUPTON – Oil and gas drillers have bought at least 500 million gallons of water this year from cities for use in hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” along Colorado’s Front Range . Now they need more.
Read More
November 11, 2011 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Environment, Natural Resources, Pollution, Water
Nearly three-quarters of a ton of concentrated uranium removed from groundwater to protect metro-area drinking water is piling up at Cotter Corp.’s defunct mine west of Denver.
Read More
November 10, 2011 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Environment, Natural Resources, Water
Water has filled a massive new reservoir to the brim – the federal government’s first major project in 15 years that could help slake the arid West’s thirsts.
But the $513 million Nighthorse reservoir in south west Colorado will not supply any of the dozens of sprawling Western cities seeking water.
Instead, the 123,541 acre-feet of water stored here – more than Denver’s Cheesman and Gross reservoirs combined – belongs mostly to the Southern Ute and Ute Mountain Ute tribes.
The project reflects a quiet but substantial shift of control over a crucial resource as the federal government tries to turn a new page with tribes.
Six recent water settlements have forced the government to commit $2.04 billion for dam, pipeline and reservoir projects – giving sovereign tribes from Montana to New Mexico control over 1.5 million acre-feet of new water each year.
Read More
November 9, 2011 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Environment, Natural Resources, Pollution, Water
CAÑON CITY – Cotter Corp. crews jack-hammered concrete foundations and ripped apart contaminated remaining buildings at their uranium mill, pushing to consolidate all waste in a massive impoundment pond by year’s end. Cotter’s dismantling activities are happening at a turning point where licensing requirements may force a decision on the future of the mill.
Read More
November 4, 2011 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Environment, Natural Resources
The disassembly-line workers hammering, drilling, snipping and shredding in a north Denver warehouse each morning are pioneers in new urban mining. End product: gold, silver, copper, aluminum.
Read More
November 3, 2011 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Environment, Pollution, Water
LONGMONT – Gaps in state rules leave Colorado cities and towns in the lurch as they deal with increased oil and gas drilling within municipal limits.
Environmental and sportsmen’s groups, too, are frustrated, because state rules allow drilling near most mountain streams.
All are urging state regulators to live up to a commitment made in 2009 to launch stakeholder groups to finish rules for in-town and streamside drilling. Two years later, nothing has been done.
Read More
October 7, 2011 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Environment, International
BOULDER – A University of Colorado anthropologist who worked through Central America’s civil wars of the 1980s to unearth a 1,400-year-old Mayan village has made another unexpected discovery: an ancient roadway that may solve the mystery of how the villagers survived a sudden volcanic disaster.
Read More
September 30, 2011 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Environment, Natural Resources, Pollution
MOAB – Interior Secretary Ken Salazar swooped through Western hot spots this week trying to forge compromises as a century-old struggle intensifies over protecting pristine public lands versus leaving them open to development.
Pressure to drill for oil and gas is mounting. A surge of proposals to protect millions of acres as wilderness or “national conservation areas” also is gaining momentum.
Read More
September 28, 2011 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Environment, Wildlife
BOULDER – AF69, a 90-pound female cougar, makes a healthy living on human habitat – stalking, eating and hiding deer around houses – usually when people aren’t looking.
Read More
« Previous entries ·
Next entries »
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.
