environment
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Colorado rancher donates 72,000 pounds of hay to ranchers affected by Lee fire
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“We’re grateful that we can be a part of it. It’s the Western way.” The Lee fire burned more than 138,000 acres of grassland used by ranchers and wildlife in northwestern Colorado in August and September, affecting the livelihoods of dozens of ranchers and landowners on the Roan Plateau. The fire destroyed prime grazing lands…
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Rocky Mountain National Park at ‘tipping point’ with moose
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Moose’s impact on one of Colorado’s most cherished landscapes has been a concern over the years. Now, Rocky Mountain National Park officials are launching an effort to address it. A recent webinar marked “the very beginning of this planning process,” Will Deacy – the park’s large mammal ecologist – emphasized to the virtual audience. This…
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Cloning: The latest in black-footed ferret recovery in Colorado and beyond
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For years, Colorado Parks and Wildlife officers have driven out to the eastern plains in the middle of the night, a predator’s hunting hours, in hopes of spotting a pair of green, gleaming eyes. Officers are expected to do just that sometime next year, out on a sweeping ranch near Lamar. This is where they…
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Protection or overreach? In western Colorado, national monument proposal ignites controversy
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Sean Pond was around a small town of his native western Colorado when he spotted a man in a blue ball cap. Above the bill were the words at the center of an ongoing controversy: “PROTECT THE DOLORES.” Pond approached the man. “He said someone at REI just gave it to him and he liked…
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A year makes a big difference for first-refusal, housing-study efforts
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One year after Gov. Jared Polis saw local-government backers block his land-use reform bill and then vetoed his party’s efforts to give cities and counties right of first refusal on some apartment sales, he signed two housing bills Thursday that attack the issues in new ways. In separate ceremonies, Polis inked a scaled-down measure granting…
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Bill to raise short-term rental tax rates suffers defeat
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A bill that sought to quadruple tax-assessment rates for Colorado owners of active short-term rental properties died at its first legislative committee hearing on Tuesday, even after its author attempted to scrap the controversial tax hike in favor of studying the issue instead. Sponsoring Sen. Chris Hansen, D-Denver, called Senate Bill 33 as a tax-fairness…
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Bill to raise short-term rental tax rates suffers defeat
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A bill that sought to quadruple tax-assessment rates for Colorado owners of active short-term rental properties died at its first legislative committee hearing on Tuesday, even after its author attempted to scrap the controversial tax hike in favor of studying the issue instead. Sponsoring Sen. Chris Hansen, D-Denver, called Senate Bill 33 as a tax-fairness…
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Boulder County oil, gas leases not terminated after temporary maintenance pause, Supreme Court says
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The Colorado Supreme Court walked back a ruling by the state’s second-highest court on Monday, holding that a pair of oil and gas leases in Boulder County did not terminate simply because the pipeline operator halted production for four months to make repairs. The justices’ ruling had implications for extraction operations throughout the state, with…
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Plan calls for more protection of scenic, recreation areas in large swath of Colorado
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The Bureau of Land Management has released a plan to manage a vast mosaic of canyonlands, grasslands and mountains in southern, central and eastern Colorado. In the works for close to a decade, the plan is officially called the Eastern Colorado Resource Management Plan. “Eastern” might be deceiving; the focus area spans beyond the plains…
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Denver Park Hill redevelopment plan draws contentious debate between open space advocates, developer
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The future of the former Park Hill Golf Course land went up for debate Wednesday, as representatives from the developer and the opposition faced a room full of homeowners. When asked for a show of hands for those who did not own a home, one person in the audience raised a hand. Lawsuit filed against…
