Day: June 4, 2025

US Supreme Court paves way for controversial Uinta Basin rail project that would haul crude oil along #ColoradoRiver: Unanimous ruling narrows the scope of a decades-old environmental review law — The Sky-Hi News #COriver

Uinta Basin Railway project proposed routes.Credit:Surface Transportation Board

Click the link to read the article on the Sky-Hi News website (Robert Tann). Here’s an excerpt:

May 30, 2025

In a 36-page ruling, Supreme Court justices said the Surface Transportation Board, a federal agency that oversees rail transit, had sufficiently considered the proposal’s environmental impacts when it approved the plan in 2021. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, writing the opinion for the other justices, said the board “identified and analyzed numerous ‘significant and adverse impacts that could occur as a result’ of the railroad line’s construction and operation — including disruptions to local wetlands, land use, and recreation.”

[…]

The plan had been on hold after a lower appeals court in 2023 ruled in favor of a lawsuit brought by Eagle County and five environmental groups that claimed the transportation board’s review had underestimated the railway’s environmental impact.  The lawsuit garnered support from a coalition of local governments, including Pitkin, Routt, Grand and Boulder counties, the cities of Basalt, Avon, Minturn, Red Cliff, Crested Butte, Glenwood Springs and Grand Junction, and the Northwest Colorado Council of Governments…

At the heart of the lawsuit and the question before the Supreme Court was whether the transportation board had sufficiently followed the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA,  when it approved the railway…The 55-year-old law requires federal agencies to consider the environmental impacts of their decisions, and the transportation board issued a 3,600-page environmental analysis as part of that review. 

#Drought conditions likely to get worse in #Colorado as Western water supplies shrink — Colorado Public Radio

Sunset in the Republican River Basin May 13, 2025. Photo credit: Joel Schneekloth

Click the link to read the article on the Colorado Public Radio website (Ishan Thakore). Here’s an excerpt:

May 27, 2025

Pockets of Colorado remain in drought as federal forecasters expect an unusually hot and dry summer, which could lead to an uptick in fire activity, according to data from the National Integrated Drought Information System.  The data, released May 20, show that drought conditions across Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona and Wyoming have worsened over the last two months, driven by a warm dry spring. Nearly all of Arizona is experiencing some form of drought; Utah declared a drought emergency in late April for over a dozen counties. In Colorado, high temperatures in April and May rapidly melted snow in the mountains, pushing the state’s snowpack levels to well below normal, compared to past years. Coupled with below-average precipitation in April, summer water supplies in the Colorado River basin are expected to decline, according to data from NOAA stations. Water supply forecasts are also declining through June for the Rio Grande basin.

Colorado Drought Monitor map May 27, 2025.

Federal forecasts indicate that hotter-than-normal temperatures will likely continue through the summer in Colorado. That means that drought conditions, particularly on the Western Slope, will likely get worse.  There may be some relief – federal data indicate that there may be an above-average monsoon season from July – September in the Southwest. If that forecast pans out, those summer rainstorms could ease the state’s drought and tamp down wildfire risk.

Ribbon cut on long-awaited #GlenwoodSprings river restoration project — The Glenwood Spring Post Independent

Glenwood Springs via Wikipedia

Click the link to read the article on the Glenwood Springs Post Independent website (Taylor Cramer). Here’s an excerpt:

May 22, 2025

A long-awaited restoration project along the Roaring Fork River in Glenwood Springs is officially complete. City officials, project partners and community members gathered [May 21, 2025] to mark the opening of a newly rehabilitated stretch of parkland near the Atkinson Trail — a site once plagued by erosion, invasive plants and deteriorating irrigation infrastructure.

“This project shores up a resource that was starting to wash away,” Glenwood Springs City Manager Steve Boyd said. “It’s a very valuable little park. It’s been years in the making, but we’re super glad it’s finally finished.”

Planning for the project began in 2019, with input and support from the city’s River Commission and several environmental groups. Years of grant writing, design changes and budgeting followed before construction could begin. City Engineer Ryan Gordon said the goal was to preserve the riverfront area’s natural look while solving multiple safety and environmental problems…Behind the fence where officials gathered Wednesday, the Atkinson Ditch has been filled in and replanted. Once a half-full water channel that bred mosquitoes and collected trash, the ditch was also home to an old head gate with sharp metal remnants from deteriorated culverts…Further upstream, crews removed invasive Russian olive trees, stabilized approximately 700 linear feet of riverbank and reinforced eroding areas that had begun to threaten the trail. In doing so, they protected both the public recreation area and the surrounding habitat. Long Range Principal Planner and River Commission liaison Jim Hardcastle said the project addressed persistent seepage and standing water issues that turned the area into “a festering mosquito log.”