"For decades, a creek in the mountains west of Denver sometimes ran yellow from toxic waste gurgling out of abandoned mines — a painfully familiar story in the picturesque wreckage of Colorado's 1859 gold rush. But after a three-decade, $62 million Superfund cleanup, Clear Creek now lives up to its pristine-sounding name, at least most of the time."
"Health workers are piecing together a complicated puzzle in El Paso County, Colo. In January, three cities — Security, Fountain and Widefield — noticed synthetic chemicals known as PFCs in the drinking water."
"A federal judge ordered U.S. wildlife managers on Wednesday to enlarge habitat protections in Idaho, Montana and Colorado for the Canada lynx, a rare wild cat that roams the Rockies and mountain forests of several other states."
A lawsuit over Wyoming's controversial "data trespass" law, which made it illegal to document pollution violations on "private open land", was settled in August without really resolving any of the important Constitutional issues behind it — and with both sides claiming victory.
"A parasite that is killing tens of thousands of fish is blamed on low stream flow and warming waters, both impacts of climate change in the West."
"One coal-fired power plant in Colorado will shut down and part of a second plant will stop operating under an agreement that will make deep cuts in air pollution but cost at least 90 jobs over the next decade, officials said Thursday."
"Two anti-fracking initiatives did not get enough valid signatures to qualify for the November ballot, Colorado officials announced on Monday, giving the oil and gas industry its latest victory over communities seeking to exert local control over fracking."
"Populations of a rabbit-like animal known as the American pika are vanishing in many mountainous areas of the West as climate change alters its habitat, according to findings released Thursday by the U.S. Geological Survey."
"In an unprecedented move, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks is closing 183 miles of the Yellowstone River from Gardiner to Laurel to all water-based recreation — fishing, wading, floating, tubing, boating."
"A puzzling concentration of the greenhouse gas methane over the Southwestern United States appears to come mostly from leaks in natural gas production, scientists said Monday."
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