COLORADO SPRINGS – America’s wild places are increasingly swamped under a deluge of sightseers and adventure seekers. In 2013, national parks drew almost 274 million visitors nationwide. In 2017, they drew more than 330 million. In Colorado, visitation at Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve during that period nearly doubled. The short-term economic benefits…
ROCKY MOUNTAIN ARSENAL – Prairie used to cover hundreds of millions of acres of North America, from Canada to Mexico and from the Rocky Mountains to eastern Missouri. Much of it has since been plowed over. “There’s not very much of it anymore,” Rocky Mountain Arsenal (RMA) National Wildlife Refuge manager David Lucas said in…
SUMMITVILLE – Toxic mine sites can never be fully restored. In 2021, Rio Grande County and the state of Colorado will take over ownership and operation of the Summitville Mine Site, one of the worst Superfund cleanups in Colorado history. Ongoing containment operations at the site will cost Colorado $2 million annually – indefinitely. “You…
ALAMOSA – As the country’s second-largest potato producing region, the San Luis Valley is known for its agriculture. The growing season lasts only 90 days. Killing frosts can occur at any time. But fertile soils, low pest populations, and irrigation have made farming here worthwhile for generations. Or at least, they have until overpumping of…
GREAT SAND DUNES – With encroaching light pollution, agricultural water diversion, and climate change, managers at the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve, the iconic park located in the San Luis Valley outside of Hooper, Colorado, have increasing reasons to monitor the land outside the park’s borders. “If we’re in the natural business,” says…
COLORADO SPRINGS – An October 2018 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warns that in order to minimize drastic changes in Earth’s climate, electricity production from coal must make up less than 2 percent of total electricity generation by the year 2050. Yet utilities around the country rely on coal to produce…
DENVER – Scientists studying ancient air trapped in ice cores in the federal government’s minus-40 freezer say there’s no doubt human air pollution is causing global climate change. But U.S. politicians, especially at the federal level, are failing to lead the shift away from fossil fuels that scientists say is necessary to avoid environmental catastrophe.…
Becoming straw-free is suddenly the newest, trendiest, environmentally conscious action to take. The impetus of the movement, according to various straw-free campaign organizations like the Plastic Pollution Coalition, is thought to come from a 2015 video of scientists pulling a straw from the bleeding nose of a turtle. In the past year, the video has…
