The Colorado Sun

School board in El Paso County moves to restrict transgender athletes, citing safety and fairness

8May

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School board in El Paso County moves to restrict transgender athletes, citing safety and fairness

By Ann Schimke | Colorado Sun At an April school board meeting near Colorado Springs, debate raged over a proposed policy to ban transgender students from playing on school sports teams that match their gender identity. A high school student named Sadie, who spoke against the policy, asked why her district would need a blanket policy when a tiny percentage of student athletes are transgender. A 60-year-old man who supported the policy and described himself as stronger than any woman in the building claimed a transgender girl could slam a ball into a girl’s head hard enough to put her in the hospital. A father opposed to the policy said his son, a district student, has an extra X chromosome and suggested gender is more complicated than it seems. He said of the proposed policy...

Colorado gives $8 million tax credit to fuel “clean iron” plant in Jefferson County

7May

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Colorado gives $8 million tax credit to fuel “clean iron” plant in Jefferson County

By Michael Booth | Colorado Sun A Boulder company with a patented method to take most of the carbon emissions out of the energy-intensive iron and steelmaking process will use $8 million from the inaugural state industrial tax credit to build a manufacturing plant in Jefferson County, officials said Tuesday. The patented process produces “clean” industrial iron at the temperature of a cup of coffee, rather than the 1,200-degree Fahrenheit furnaces traditionally used in iron and steelmaking, according to Electrasteel Inc, known as Electra. Currently employing more than 130 people, Electra uses an electrochemical process and hopes to cut 30% or more of the carbon emissions from traditional production. “We founded Electra here in Colorado to decarbonize a carbon-heavy industri...

Rural Southwest Colorado farmers face 65% water shortfall after dry winter

6May

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Rural Southwest Colorado farmers face 65% water shortfall after dry winter

By Shannon Mullane | Colorado Sun Ken Curtis, a water manager in southwestern Colorado, had two words to describe his district’s expected water supply this summer: “Pretty bad.” “(We’re) looking at about 30%, maybe 35% supply,” said Curtis, who manages the Dolores Water Conservancy District. Water managers across Colorado and the West are looking at this winter’s snowfall and weather forecasts to plan for summer water supplies, whether it’s using water for gardens, lawns, fisheries, crops or livestock. The conditions vary widely at the local level. In some parts of Colorado, like Denver, the winter provided enough snow to fill reservoirs and avoid extra restrictions. Other regions are tightening their belts. Curtis hoped to at least give water users in his district ...

Colorado’s gray wave drives up costs, exposes policy gaps

4May

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Colorado’s gray wave drives up costs, exposes policy gaps

By Thelma Grimes | Colorado Politics “The only reality in the world is that we are going to get older and we’re going to die.” Nobody can escape that reality, according to Christian Itin, a member of the Colorado Strategic Action Group on Aging. “I think we need to remind folks that this will happen to me,” he said. “It will happen to you. It’ll happen to your family. We can’t put our heads in the sand and hide from that reality.” In Colorado, the older population is growing fast, with ramifications for the major challenges the state already faces, notably housing, healthcare costs and workforce needs. It also affects student enrollment, which, in turn, means a direct impact on school financing. Many have sounded the alarm over Colorado's graying population, saying thi...

Can Gross Dam expansion be completed before activists and courts dry it up?

3May

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Can Gross Dam expansion be completed before activists and courts dry it up?

By Jerd Smith | Colorado Sun As Save the Colorado and Denver Water prepare to face off in a federal courtroom Tuesday, water officials across the state are watching the Gross Dam expansion case closely for its environmental impact and its affect on water projects across the West. Kirk Klancke, a long-time Grand County environmentalist and president of the Colorado River Headwaters Chapter of Trout Unlimited, said a decision that shuts down the $531 million water project, could also shut down 12 years of work on the Fraser River and its tributaries. Here’s why: Denver Water owns much of the Fraser with water rights dating back more than 100 years. And it is that water that has historically been piped through the Moffat Tunnel near Rollinsville to fill the existing Gross Reservoir. ...

Federal mandates, real costs: EPA’s gas policy hits Coloradans at the pump

1May

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Federal mandates, real costs: EPA’s gas policy hits Coloradans at the pump

By Michael Booth | The Colorado Sun The future of Colorado’s ozone-fighting reformulated gasoline is getting a lot more complicated this spring. To recap: The Front Range creates so much toxic ozone that we blew through EPA limits a long time ago. One sanction the EPA gave us for these “severe” violations is that in summer months, we must buy “reformulated gas,” or RFG, that creates less ozone-causing vapor. Oil companies and Gov. Jared Polis say the benefits of RFG in fighting ozone are minimal, and the refining process costs consumers up to 50 cents more a gallon. The EPA said no, the extra cost is only a few cents a gallon. Plus, the EPA said, while Suncor controls 40% of the gasoline market here, other gasoline companies would expand their RFG pipelines and ...

Yadira Caraveo’s former aides say they were mistreated, traumatized by Colorado congresswoman

1May

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Yadira Caraveo’s former aides say they were mistreated, traumatized by Colorado congresswoman

By Jesse Paul | Colorado Sun U.S. Rep. Yadira Caraveo’s behavior last year while serving in Congress and running for reelection was so frightening and traumatizing to staff that aides proposed a safety plan requesting that sharp objects be removed from the Colorado Democrat’s offices. They also wanted assurances that subordinates not be responsible for talking her “through suicidal thoughts” or “keeping her company during a crisis.” The plan, a copy of which was obtained by The Colorado Sun, was dismissed and staffers say they were told they had a choice: either commit to contending with Caraveo’s mental health challenges or resign within a day. This story is based on nearly a year of reporting and conversations with more than 20 people, including interviews with four former...

Colorado braces for special session over bloated Medicaid spending amid federal pressure

30Apr

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Colorado braces for special session over bloated Medicaid spending amid federal pressure

By John Ingold | Colorado Sun There are now only seven days left in Colorado’s legislative session. But lawmakers and other state officials have for weeks been bracing for the possibility of coming back to the Capitol later this year to deal with potential federal cuts to Medicaid likely to be included in Congressional Republicans’ still-being-written budget proposal. “There certainly are a lot of indicators that would suggest that we might end up having to come back in the event that there’s a dramatic cut to Medicaid,” state Sen. Judy Amabile, a Boulder Democrat and member of the legislature’s Joint Budget Committee, said last month, as first reported in The Colorado Sun’s politics newsletter, The Unaffiliated. Speaking to a group of health care leaders earlier this mo...

Gross Reservoir safety work can continue under appeals court ruling

27Apr

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Gross Reservoir safety work can continue under appeals court ruling

By Michael Booth | Colorado Sun Denver Water may continue shoring up its partially-finished Gross Dam expansion in southwestern Boulder County until a May 6 U.S. District Court hearing detailing long-term safety issues of a permanent injunction against further construction, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals said late Friday. The appeals court granted Denver Water’s request for a temporary stay of the halt to construction at least through the May hearing. “Denver Water makes numerous allegations of immediate and irreparable harm from the district court’s injunction of further dam construction,” the appeals court order said. U.S. District Court Judge Christine Arguello had previously issued the injunction against further Denver Water construction on the dam raising, saying t...

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School board in El Paso County moves to restrict transgender athletes, citing safety and fairness

Colorado gives $8 million tax credit to fuel “clean iron” plant in Jefferson County

Rural Southwest Colorado farmers face 65% water shortfall after dry winter

Colorado’s gray wave drives up costs, exposes policy gaps

Can Gross Dam expansion be completed before activists and courts dry it up?

Federal mandates, real costs: EPA’s gas policy hits Coloradans at the pump

Yadira Caraveo’s former aides say they were mistreated, traumatized by Colorado congresswoman

Colorado braces for special session over bloated Medicaid spending amid federal pressure

Gross Reservoir safety work can continue under appeals court ruling

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