SUMMITVILLE MINE — At the top of a snowy peak in the middle of the San Juan Mountain Range in Rio Grande county Colorado sit piles of toxic orange sludge covered in fresh white snow. The sludge, dirt, and heavy metals removed from the creek water has been moved here as part of a United…
ALAMOSA—Colorado’s San Luis Valley faces a water crisis that threatens survival of thousands of residents due to over use and over development of a marginal supply. Over the past 100 years, insurance companies subsidized the development of the San Luis Valley by offering coverage to farmers. Those companies helped promote this arid, desolate part of the United States…
WELD COUNTY – Scattered brick houses sit amid tidy farm fields in politically-conservative Weld County, the heart of Colorado’s oil and gas drilling boom. Here, fossil fuel companies regularly tout their adherence to golden rule principles – treating your neighbor as you would want to be treated. The companies claim they want to be good…
SAN LUIS VALLEY – Great Sand Dunes National Park maybe the most desolate place in Colorado, but this inhospitable landscape is may be an economic jackpot for the financially plagued San Luis Valley. As agriculture in the region faces an uncertain future, tourism is emerging as a promising new revenue source. “It’s inspiration,” says Fred…
COLORADO SPRINGS – A large, blue generator sits in the middle of an empty industrial floor. The side is adorned with a faded Colorado Springs Utilities sign. The 297,000 horsepower General Electric turbine emits a constant roar, bouncing sound off a maze of pipes and echoing of the high cement ceiling. While the generator room…
GREAT SAND DUNES NATIONAL PARK- At the Great Sand Dunes National Park, Fred Bunch, the park resources manager, faces a conundrum. He wants to make the night quieter, the skies darker, and increase visitor traffic. The dunes lie in the shadow of the Sangre de Cristo mountain range. They rise out of the landscape between…
COLORADO SPRINGS- The Ray Nixon Power Plant, located on the outskirts of Colorado Springs, exemplifies what it means to be using coal, one of the oldest and dirtiest resources, in the midst of a present day push to shift away from fossil fuels. Driving into the plant, all is calm. Open prairie stretches for miles…
GREAT SAND DUNES NATIONAL PARK – The sun glints off of a long line of cars sitting outside the entrance of Great Sand Dunes National Park. It got so congested that park officials even went as far as to place an outhouse along the road for guests as they waited to enter. The park simply…
COLORADO SPRINGS- As our group of Colorado college students rode up to Colorado Springs’s (CSU) coal fired power plant southeast of the city, CSU’s public relations chief Amy Trinidad waited energetically in front of the plant. She greeted us as we got off our bus, seemingly eager to show off the utilities recent efforts to…
GREAT SAND DUNES NATIONAL PARK — Rangers at Great Sand Dunes are fighting to save the population of Rio Grande cutthroat trout within its borders, according to Park Resources Manager Fred Bunch. The fish has seen serious population decline in the southwestern part of Colorado after invasive Brown and Rainbow trout push cutthroats out…
