Rural & Small Communities

The Biden administration announced last week that it's giving $502 million in loans and grants to rural communities and telecommunications companies to expand high-speed internet access. The list of grantees includes projects in Colorado, Montana and Wyoming.

Colorado’s water shortages are not relegated to the distant future. Water supplies cannot meet current demands in many communities, and are only likely to worsen as climate change heats up and dries out the state’s cities and farms.

Cities and agriculture across the West put intense pressure on groundwater supplies. In some regions, there are few rules governing how and when people can pump. That’s true in rural Southern Arizona. Residents there are seeing their wells dry up as big farms move in.

Many officials proudly talk up the unique decision-making powers Colorado gives the smallest levels of government. Some bills this session would shift more county and municipal powers to the state, leading to concerns about Colorado’s emphasis on “local control” going away.

Hospital administrators say they are losing money on their obstetrics programs. But many are keeping these wings open anyway to answer a dire community need.

Colorado lawmakers voted to advance a bill Wednesday that would shift emergency medical service licensing power away from counties to the state, starting in July 2024.

Pregnant mothers in many rural areas struggle to access adequate care. A lack of specialized doctors and maternity wards can increase the risk of labor complications and force patients to drive long distances. A new telehealth pilot program aims to connect rural physicians in Northeast Colorado with OB-GYN hospitalists at North Colorado Medical Center in Greeley.

Rural Northeast Colorado has fewer employed artists than any other region in the state, according to a 2020 report. While musicians, dancers and fashion designers may sell a lot less out there, they are still creating. KUNC asked two musicians, one very young and one much older, to meet and discuss their craft.

Part one of KUNC's Republican River series showed how dropping river flows and groundwater levels are impacting farmers and ranchers in northeastern Colorado. From a 1930s flood to extended drought today, the river has been managed by three states, sometimes cooperatively and sometimes combatively. To meet the terms of a decades-old compact, 25,000 irrigated acres of Colorado farmland must soon be shut down. Part two looks at part of the history that got the basin to this point.

In Idaho, Utah and Wyoming, less than 8% of qualifying households had taken advantage of a federal broadband subsidy. But an expansion in eligibility may mean an uptick in uptake.