News

High snowpack in the southern Rocky Mountains this winter will likely stave off a shortage declaration in the Colorado River watershed in 2020, relieving pressure on water managers attempting to navigate future scarcity.

New data from U.S. Bureau of Reclamation models show a lessened risk of a key Colorado River reservoir dropping far enough to trigger a first-ever shortage declaration. Snowpack in the Upper Colorado River Basin is at 138 percent of the long-term median, a level not seen in mid-March since 1997.

About 100 people gathered outside the Greeley Chamber of Commerce on Friday to protest a bill that could tighten regulations on the oil and gas industry.  

“It’s just kind of sneaky,” Weld County resident Jolene Luster said about the bill. “We don’t understand it and it’s going to affect a lot of people. And we need to make sure that it doesn’t go through.

Dozens of residents of a community in Eagle County have been allowed to return to their homes after being evacuated the night before because of a gas leak.

The Vail Daily reports that a construction worker ruptured a natural gas line at about 5 p.m. Thursday at Edwards, which is located along Interstate 70 west of Vail.

The marijuana lobby in Colorado has grown in spending and stature as the industry tops $6 billion in sales in its fifth year of legalization in the state.

The Colorado Sun reported Wednesday that it has analyzed state-level lobbying by the industry, finding that spending has more than tripled from fiscal year 2013 to more than $955,000 last year.

After days of fierce partisanship at the state Capitol, Democrats in the Colorado Senate advanced a bill Wednesday that will give local governments more control over oil and gas drilling operations.

But as the bill heads over to the House for more debate, there are signs it will undergo some more changes in the coming days.

About 85,000 people remained without power Thursday morning in Colorado, mostly in the Denver area.

Xcel Energy says it is making progress to restore power to those who lost service in Wednesday's blizzard but that some will remain without power into the weekend. It says it has hundreds of workers on the job.

Employees of Colorado King Soopers and City Market stores begin voting today on their first strike authorization since 1996.

That means around 12,000 unionized butchers, cashiers and shelf-stockers might soon walk off the job.