This week’s cover story, “Parks and Wreck,” looks into a series of evolving controversies over the way Mayor Michael Hancock’s administration is managing Denver’s park system, from battles over ballfield revenue and use to a lawsuit triggered by trading city-owned open space in the Cherry Creek corridor for an office…
After years in limbo, hundreds of Native Americans’ remains will be going home. On Friday, state and federal officials joined tribal representatives at the State Capitol to sign a “Memorandum of Understanding” allowing for human remains housed in various museums and universities to be reinterred on public lands in Colorado…
The debate about whether or not Denver shoppers should pay a fee for disposable plastic bags has been going on for well over a year. But finally, a measure that would charge five cents per bag at many stores will be considered by the Denver City Council tonight — and…
There’s street art and then there’s graffiti. One can be beautiful, creative and inspiring; the other can be destructive, ugly and a huge nuisance. But the dividing line is difficult to determine. For proof of that, just head to the front of the graffiti war: Sheridan Boulevard, where you can…
A long-festering conflict between southeast Colorado ranchers and the Pentagon slipped into a wary truce Monday, when a senior Army official announced a strategic retreat from plans to expand the 367-square-mile Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site. The move, coming after months of unofficial hints and assurances, illustrates the shifting priorities of…
Until 5 p.m. today, the Environmental Protection Agency is holding a public listening session in Denver to “solicit ideas and input…about the best Clean Air Act approaches to reducing carbon pollution from existing power plants.” The folks at Environment Colorado, who recently released a report about the 100 dirtiest power…
At public hearings, Denver Public Schools officials have expressed the hope that a new elementary school to be built in southeast Denver, on an undeveloped site formerly designated as a natural area, could offer a curriculum built around teaching kids about the environment. Prospective students got their first lesson in…
In the devastating aftermath of our recent floods, it’s easy to forget that water has typically been a scarce resource in Colorado, battled over by competing interests, even as its rivers feed into eighteen states, from the Pacific Ocean to the Mississippi. But The Great Divide, a recently announced documentary…
At this hour, Environment Colorado is issuing “America’s Dirtiest Power Plants,” an eye-opening report (see it below) that includes the organization’s picks for the one-hundred most-polluting facilities in the country — and two from Colorado make the less-than-proud cut. An Environment Colorado rep notes that the data is timely given…
Boulder County is known for leading the state in matters of open space, animal rights, environmental protections and all-around tree-hugging. But next week may present the acid test for local officials’ greeniness. On September 18 the county planning commission will listen to a presentation from staff and ponder whether to…
In 2011, Boulderites voted to take care of their own power needs, giving Xcel Energy the boot. Now, New Era Colorado, a pro-municipal-energy outfit, says Question 310, an Xcel-linked measure on the November ballot, may undo the entire project. To fight back, New Era created a video casting the battle…
Contrary to what you read in the papers, the legal battle over the artist Christo’s controversial “Over the River” project — which involves suspending translucent, silvery fabric panels at intervals along a 42-mile stretch of the Arkansas River — isn’t about to go away any time soon. In fact, the…
Americans have well-established rights to free speech. But at what point do such activities cross the line into defamation? That’s a question currently confronting Michelle Gabrieloff-Parish, a mother of three who lives near the site of Rocky Flats, a facility that once made triggers for nuclear weapons. A powerful law…
Since the terribly destructive Black Forest and Royal Gorge blazes, which were brought under control last month, wildfires haven’t made nearly as many headlines in Colorado. But with a couple of substantial fires ongoing in Western Colorado and the summer heat at its most intense, the danger isn’t over –…
Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission director Matt Lepore says he made an “improper leap” last week in suggesting that anti-fracking activists are affluent and consequently unconcerned about rising energy costs. Those comments prompted jeers and scoldings from grassroots groups pushing for tougher regulation of the hydraulic fracturing process used…
They started out questioning the ability of Denver city officials to trade a formerly designated natural area for an office building. But opponents of the Hentzell Park land swap now have another bone to pick with Denver Clerk and Recorder Debra Johnson, claiming that her rejection of their efforts to…
Last week’s Bike to Work Day was a big success, with a large number of Denverites taking to two wheels rather than four. And those who peddled on a LoDo section of Wynkoop were greeted with something new — a “pop-up” protected bike lane, which created a safety barrier between…
In a stunning defeat for the beleaguered coal industry, a southeast Colorado utility group has agreed to shut down a troubled coal-fired power plant, as well as to pay $325,000 in legal fees to environmental groups who challenged the plant in court over emission violations. The settlement also calls for…
Denver residents have roamed, biked and ridden horses along the natural area adjoining Paul A. Hentzell Park for decades. Now, Denver District Judge Herbert Stern must decide if that usage — along with some signage, maps and other historical reference points — do indeed make a park out of a…
The North American Prairie is a land mass that covers about 1.4 million square miles. It stretches north to Alberta and Saskatchewan in Canada and south as far as Texas — and it once made up 40 percent of the continental United States. Even so, many people find the plains…
A long-awaited report by the National Academy of Sciences on the federal government’s efforts to manage herds of wild horses across the West is finally out, and it confirms what mustang advocates have been saying for years: The Bureau of Land Management program is poorly managed, relies on an unsustainable…
A lawsuit filed by a citizens’ group, seeking to put the brakes on a plan by Denver city officials to swap an open space area in the Cherry Creek corridor for an office building, contends that Mayor Michael Hancock’s administration has violated a provision of the city charter that prohibits…
