COLORADO RIVER NAMED ‘MOST ENDANGERED’
LAS VEGAS (AP) – An advocacy group is calling the Colorado River the nation’s most endangered waterway. An annual American Rivers report being released today doesn’t call pollution the problem. It instead cites drought and demand. The federal Bureau of Reclamation said the same thing last December. The Colorado River supplies cities including Denver, Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Phoenix. The report says that over the next 50 years, the river will run short of supply for the more than 40 million people it serves in Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming.
HOSES BLAMED FOR LEAK AT PARACHUTE CREEK
PARACHUTE. (AP) – Officials in Parachute say pumper trucks leaving their hoses in Parachute Creek probably are responsible for diesel-like organics found near the town’s irrigation water. According to the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, the state Department of Natural Resources says the latest tests show no contamination at any creek monitoring points associated with a hydrocarbons leak.
SKI AREA SEARCH AND RESCUE LIABILITY A CONCERN
DENVER (AP) – Colorado ski areas and sheriffs are becoming increasingly concerned over liability for dangerous backcountry rescues outside ski area boundaries.
Steamboat ski patrollers have taken part in two dozen rescues this season. Vail is also participating. Sheriffs and ski areas are listing ski patrollers as members of volunteer search-and-rescue teams who operate under county insurance and worker’s compensation policies, but those policies usually protect only volunteers who are not being paid.
Ski areas want to continue to pay their employees while they are out on the search and rescue, but once they volunteer, they need other protection.
HICKENLOOPER RETURNING FROM ISRAEL, HAS WORK TO DO
DENVER (AP) – Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper is returning from a weeklong trip to Israel, and he will have some big decisions to make when he gets back on the job.
Hickenlooper’s weeklong trip was a personal visit he took at his own expense. While he was away, state lawmakers sent him some bills he will have decide whether to sign. The governor was to return late Wednesday, returning to work Thursday.
The biggest item is a budget for next fiscal year that adds money to K-12 and higher education after years of cuts. But lawmakers rejected a project the governor asked them to fund. They turned down his idea to renovate a former prison in southeast Colorado to transform it into a treatment center for the long-term homeless.
