March 10, 2010 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Environment, Land
Prodded by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, the Forest Service is reviewing a Colorado coal-mining company’s stalled request to build roads in a federally protected “roadless” forest. The high-level handling reflects tension over efforts to preserve 58.4 million acres of relatively roadless national-forest land across the country. President Bill Clinton’s initiative to create the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule led to years of arguments — including government efforts to defend the rule today in Denver’s 10th Circuit Court of Appeals. Colorado has proposed an alternative state plan for managing 4.1 million roadless acres in a way that makes exceptions for coal mining, ski areas and towns threatened by wildfire that want to remove beetle-killed trees.
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March 5, 2010 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Environment, Wildlife
The federal government has picked a compromise path to protect the imperiled sage grouse, declaring it needs help to prevent extinction but giving Westerners a chance to save it voluntarily before Endangered Species Act restrictions are imposed. Sage grouse became “a candidate species,” in line along with 249 other candidates deemed deserving of federal protection.
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February 23, 2010 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Environment
Curators in a huge federal freezer west of Denver are bracing for a long-anticipated shipment of an increasingly coveted commodity: ice samples from 1,400 feet under the snowiest part of Antarctica. The ice cores drilled over the past year are expected to give the most detailed record yet of Earth’s ancient climate.
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February 17, 2010 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Environment, Water
Federal engineers Tuesday began scrutinizing a developer’s proposal to divert water from western Wyoming across the Continental Divide to meet Colorado Front Range needs through 2030.
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January 17, 2010 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Environment, Land
Two miles deep in their latest tunnel, coal miner Steve Baker and his cohorts barely blink at underground hazards: a cavern collapsing behind them, explosive gas around their boots, roiling clouds of black dust. But they dread the above-ground parrying of state and federal politicians over protection of the nation’s forests. Decisions expected soon by Gov. Bill Ritter and the Obama administration may threaten the miners’ livelihoods — and the future of a traditional industry in western Colorado.
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January 16, 2010 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Environment, Land
The mountain pine beetles that have ravaged about 3 million acres of Colorado and southern Wyoming forests may be exhausting their primary food source — raising the prospect that the beetle epidemic could end, state and federal foresters said this week. Regeneration of decimated forests has begun as the U.S. Forest Service hires loggers to remove dead trees. “I think we’ve seen the worst of it,” said Sky Stephens, Colorado State Forest Service entomologist.
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December 23, 2009 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Immigrants, Refugees
Recent beatings of South Asian refugees have prompted Denver police to hand out cellphones to newcomers from abroad. On Dec. 11, a group of men beat and robbed teenage refugees from Bhutan in east Denver, following them from an RTD bus, according to police. Six were beaten, one requiring emergency-room treatment. The attack spread fear among refugees from Bhutan, Burma and elsewhere — who are concentrated in low-rent apartments and have been victims of previous robberies. The hope is that the emergency-only phones, which require no payments, will help refugees reach paramedics and police to prevent future trouble and give a sense of security.
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December 21, 2009 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Water
Colorado Front Range residents are using less water, but some parts of the Western Slope have seen per capita water use explode in the past decade, according to a new state study.
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December 14, 2009 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Environment
Taxed by increasingly complex requests for climate modeling, the National Center for Atmospheric Research will build a new supercomputer — but house it in Wyoming, not Boulder. While climate-change modeling once dealt with global scenarios, the typical request now is more complex: ” ‘Where are the impacts?’ ‘How fast is it coming?’ and ‘What does it mean on a regional scale?’ ” Those who request models include utilities in major Western cities, insurance companies, an international bank and a ski area. All want to plug unique variables into computer models for climate change to anticipate how people can prepare and adapt.
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December 9, 2009 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Environment, Water
Denver has hit turbulence in its biggest water-supply project since the 1960s — a $225 million effort to prevent future shortages. Denver Water proposes to divert enough for 45,000 families from mountain rivers on the western side of the Continental Divide, then pump it through tunnels to Front Range reservoirs, including an expanded Gross Reservoir above Boulder. But the plan requires federal approval, and at public hearings, opponents concerned about environmental harm have argued that Denver must rely more on using less water — not pump more from the mountains.
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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.
