Dennis Webb

1 week ago | gjsentinel.com | Dennis Webb

Colorado Parks and Wildlife has taken the unprecedented step of killing a gray wolf in Pitkin County after it was determined that livestock producers had experienced chronic wolf depredation despite efforts to avoid it. The agency says in a news release that the removed wolf was a member of the Copper Creek pack. That pack became established in Grand County last year and was removed from there following depredation issues, held in a holding facility and later released back into the wild.

1 week ago | gjsentinel.com | Dennis Webb

The U.S. Supreme Court has unanimously reversed aspects of a federal appeals court ruling overturning an agency’s approval of an 88-mile railway in northeastern Utah that would facilitate shipment of oil through Colorado and to the Gulf Coast. The ruling broadly speaking lays out limits on the reach of the National Environmental Policy Act, while also specifically being a victory for the Seven County Infrastructure Coalition in northeast Utah and a Utah railway company.

1 week ago | gjsentinel.com | Dennis Webb

A bid by U.S. Rep. Jeff Hurd to rescind new local Bureau of Land Management plans, sharply reducing the acreage available for oil and gas leasing, was dropped for procedural reasons from the sweeping House budget reconciliation bill approved this week, although Hurd is continuing to pursue the matter through separate legislation.

1 week ago | gjsentinel.com | Dennis Webb

A high-priority $7.2 million Department of Energy project to address water accumulation that threatened the structural integrity of a uranium milling tailings disposal site north of Rifle has been completed and is working as expected. A team of DOE Office of Legacy Management experts devised the project to deal with the operational challenge that had developed at the 71-acre Rifle Disposal Site, which was built in 1996 — six miles north of Rifle in Estes Gulch.

2 weeks ago | gjsentinel.com | Dennis Webb

Gov. Jared Polis on Thursday signed a bill that designates wild bison in Colorado as big game wildlife, meaning people can no longer shoot them without a license. Also Thursday he signed another measure extending the state’s wild horse management program and permanently implementing a working group’s recommendations. The bison bill, Senate Bill 53, was prompted by instances of people shooting wild bison that wander into northwest Colorado from northeastern Utah.