After one of the mildest winters in recent years, leaving some areas of the parched high country with less than 10 percent of normal snowpack — not to mention forests ravaged by drought and pine beetles, ready to explode into wildfires like the rapidly expanding High Park blaze — this…
To keep up with the world’s exploding population, farmers will have to produce more food over the next fifty years than during the past 10,000 years combined. Given environmental issues and a scarcity of fossil resources, this daunting task seems almost impossible. But it’s a problem 31-year-old John-Paul Maxfield is…
Compared to the billions-a-day standard flow rate of tax dollars pouring into and out of Washington, $25 million amounts to scarcely more than chump change. But the passage of an amendment by Congressman Jared Polis yesterday, cutting that amount in oil shale subsidies, is a remarkable break with what adds…
About 40 percent of the nation’s electrical grid depends on coal for fuel. But facing increasing state and federal regulations that are shutting down many coal plants, a battery of pesky scientists moaning about climate change, increasing competition from ever-cheaper natural gas and renewables, and other threats, even power industry…
Known as a high-strung, high-country lagomorph that’s particularly susceptible to dramatic temperature shifts, the American pika has been described as a kind of “canary in the coal mine” for gauging the impact of climate change on alpine species. And an unusual collaboration between a local environmental group and Groupon’s philanthropic…
Today was a good day for Aurora tourism — and not for the same reason as on November 28, 1979, when a mysterious Hollywood stunt man showed up with a plan to build a massive amusement park called Science Fiction Land. Today’s good news came courtesy the Colorado Economic Development…
See, it’s like this. Far from being the obstructionist tree-hugger his critics accuse him of being, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar really, really wants to drill, baby, drill, for oil and gas on federal lands and offshore. He wants to drill the hell out of the place. But the…
When the Colorado Department of Transportation put the historic Dotsero Bridge “up for adoption” in late April, the agency caught the attention of at least one person in Denver who just happens to be in the market for a cool bridge to span the South Platte River — the subject…
Phil Anschutz didn’t get to the top of the moguldom heap by thinking small. The billionaire Quest founder has built his sprawling empire on audacity as well as savvy, and his latest venture — which involves wooing the NFL back to Los Angeles — may be the most ambitious of…
A new 45-minute waiting area — complete with food court and real bathrooms — isn’t the only improvement planned for Denver International Airport. At a city council committee meeting yesterday, DIA managers presented a plan that would add outposts of the Tattered Cover — a true Denver institution — to…
To the side of Pena Boulevard is an inadvertent monument to airport planning, pre-9/11: No one in the ’90s anticipated the incredible demand for a waiting area far away from arrival doors, and the 116 spaces that Denver International Airport shoehorned into its jerry-rigged, 45-minute waiting area are almost always…
The Republican House leadership’s successful effort to block passage of a civil unions bill yesterday, orchestrated by Speaker Frank McNulty, could well have aftershocks stretching to the fall elections. And lawmakers who opted for inaction may be facing much more than the wrath of liberals and activists committed to the…
The competition for state tourism incentives will remain as stiff as ever thanks to a veto this morning from Governor John Hickenlooper. Hick nixed a bill that would have allowed the Colorado Economic Development Commission to approve up to six new projects for sales-tax rebates. Six projects, including a proposed…
Yesterday the U.S. Bureau of Land Management announced that it would remove 22 proposed oil and gas parcels in the scenic North Fork Valley from a summer lease sale, opting instead to “conduct additional analysis…based on public input.” And the public that’s been deluging the BLM with input — objections,…
Beginning at 9:45 a.m., Spirit Airlines will celebrate its return to Denver International Airport with a slew of events, including the first landing of a flight from the discount carrier in eight years. But something else is arriving along with this Las Vegas-to-Denver junket — terrible publicity related to call…
What does it look like when a bunch of mascots converge on the Capitol steps? Kinda goofy. That’s what happened at today’s Discover Colorado Rally, a yearly meetup that could be summed up in two words: “Yay, tourism!” Grown-ups dressed as sharks and bears listened as officials rattled off statistics…
No, this lady didn’t win the Publishers Clearing House Sweepstakes. Instead, Dorthy Gibbons is being rewarded for how she handled her Shih Tzu’s shit. For twelve years, the local company called Pet Scoop has scooped Sasha’s poop. And yesterday, it so happened that Gibbons’s was the millionth yard Pet Scoop…
This week, Colorado Rockies pitcher Jamie Moyer became the oldest Major League Baseball pitcher to win a game. But that’s not his only recent claim to fame. Moyer has also been named to the TopTenRealEstateDeals.com list of best MLB players’ homes for sale by virtue of a spectacular spread in…
Sam Johnson’s job title is unique: President and Scoop Master. Except he’s not in the ice cream business. He’s in the dog poop business. And tomorrow, the business he started in 1994 — Pet Scoop, advertised as “Denver’s most reliable pooper scooper service” — will celebrate its millionth yard cleanup…
A parrot, a tree frog and a chipmunk. These are the three animals that made the finals in Frontier Airlines’ publicity stunt to choose a new mascot and spokes-animal for the tails of some of its planes. All three have been campaigning at coffee shops and yogurt joints around Denver,…
Frank Gray is president of the Castle Rock Economic Development Council in Douglas County. Yet at a public hearing yesterday on six projects vying for big-bucks state tourism incentives, Gray eschewed his county’s own project and, like many of the 23 people who testified, spoke in favor of Gaylord Entertainment’s…
April Fool’s Day jokes often seem funnier to those pulling them than they do to their targets. That was undoubtedly the case for bogus letters claiming that Xcel Energy would be cutting off anyone who voted to end Boulder’s relationship with the power supplier…
