Work to end soon on deadly I-70 stretch

An Interstate 70 construction zone in Glenwood Canyon where two head-on collisions have claimed four lives this spring is scheduled to revert back to its normal traffic pattern June 3 as work winds down, Colorado Department of Transportation spokeswoman Nancy Shanks said Thursday. Shanks also said the agency will review the latest accident, which claimed one life Wednesday, to determine whether there’s anything that can be done differently in such zones to reduce the risk of crashes. ...

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Parachute Creek tests benzene-free for 2 days

Tests showed no benzene in Parachute Creek Tuesday and Wednesday, in another sign that remediation efforts related to a natural gas liquids leak there are proving effective. Aeration treatment of the creek and groundwater “has done a good job,” Parachute town administrator Robert Knight said Thursday. Williams estimates that about 10,000 gallons of natural gas liquids leaked this winter into soil and groundwater from a pipeline leaving its gas processing plant up the creek ...

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051913 OUT Sun fish Luke

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051913 OUT Sun fish Blake

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051913_OUT_Sun_fish_Luke

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Putting 
the bite 
back in 
Harvey 
Gap

With a setting sun lighting the waters of Harvey Gap Reservoir, a group of Limon High School students Thursday evening took the hard-earned product of months of school work and unceremoniously tossed it overboard. The students showed little sadness at the release of 250 tiger muskies in the reservoir a few miles north of Silt. Maybe that was because of all the time they spent enduring the sting of sharp teeth, and even occasionally watching the fish they were trying to raise eat each ...

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Official: Williams penalty not off table

Colorado’s top environmental official said Thursday that it’s too early to say Williams will not be fined in connection with a natural gas liquids leak in the Parachute Creek watershed. Dr. Chris Urbina, director of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, made the statement a day after the department said no financial penalty is planned under a consent order being drawn up with the company. While that is the case, Urbina reached out in calls to reporters ...

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Gas company won’t be fined in liquids leak

Williams will face no fine in connection with a natural gas liquids leak up Parachute Creek northwest of Parachute as long as it complies with a consent order being negotiated with the state. Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment spokesman Mark Salley said in a news release Wednesday that no penalty is being assessed under the order because the spill was not due to negligence, but rather resulted from “accidental equipment failure.” However, CDPHE’s ...

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Group wants drilling shutdown over ozone

A conservation group says the Bureau of Land Management should stop authorizing further energy development in and around Rio Blanco County until it addresses the fact that ozone readings in Rangely have exceeded the federal action limit. “Our request is simple: stop polluting the air and start fixing the problem,” Jeremy Nichols, WildEarth Guardians’ climate and energy program director, said in a news release. But Colorado BLM spokesman Steven Hall said he can’t ...

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Williams won’t be fined in liquids leak

Williams will face no fine in connection with a natural gas liquids leak northwest of Parachute as long as it complies with a consent order being negotiated with the state. Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment spokesman Mark Salley said in a news release this afternoon that no penalty is being assessed under the order “as the release was not due to negligence but to accidental equipment failure.” However, CDPHE’s Hazardous Materials and Waste Management ...

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Ozone hot spot suspects: oil, gas

Draft ozone readings this winter in Rio Blanco County put the county on track to be in violation of federal standards, the first time that will have happened in western Colorado. The high ozone levels were detected at a monitor in Rangely and will trigger stricter air pollution controls and a mandate on the state to clean up the pollution, the conservation group WildEarth Guardians said Tuesday. The county’s wintertime ozone problem is believed is be related to oil and gas ...

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Tests show ‘consistent’ drop in benzene levels
 at Parachute leak site

Benzene levels in Parachute Creek have shown consistent reductions in recent days, according to test results. The reductions come as Williams continues to work with state regulators to strip the carcinogen from groundwater before it reaches the creek, and to also remove benzene from the creek. The work follows the leaking this winter of what Williams estimates was about 10,000 gallons of natural gas liquids into soil and groundwater from a pipeline leaving its gas processing plant ...

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Group: Ozone violation a first for Western Slope

Ozone levels in Rio Blanco County have violated federal limits, the first time that’s happened in western Colorado, an environmental group says. WildEarth Guardians said today the high ozone levels were detected at a monitor in Rangely, and trigger stricter air pollution controls and a mandate on the state to clean up the pollution. An emerging wintertime ozone problem in Rio Blanco County may be related to oil and gas development in the Uinta Basin, centered just over the border in ...

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Drilling critic: Rewrite of rules favors industry

Garfield County officials are overhauling the county’s land-use review process, an action that a critic says kowtows to the oil and gas industry. County commissioners on Monday continued a review of a rewrite of land-use regulations, an undertaking designed to remove redundancy where state and federal rules already apply, streamline procedures, and remove unnecessary obstacles to economic development. But Anita Sherman of Glenwood Springs told commissioners Monday that while ...

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Reduced roadkill: Fencing cuts collisions; more sections erected

Ever since the Colorado Department of Transportation erected wildlife fencing along Colorado Highway 82 in the Carbondale area in 2009, “it’s made a remarkable difference in roadkill,” said local wildlife advocate and Carbondale town Trustee Frosty Merriott. Indeed, CDOT’s own numbers bear that out. The agency says animal-vehicle collisions in the Carbondale area of Colorado 82 fell to below 100 in 2010 from the roughly 175 the previous year, and were well under 50 ...

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Authority over faulty pipeline remains mystery

A state regulator recently acknowledged the lack of clarity over what agency, if any, regulates pipelines like the one that’s the source of a natural gas liquids leak in the Parachute Creek watershed northwest of Parachute. The comments by Jim Milne, environmental manager for the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, came in response to a question by Commissioner DeAnn Craig at the commission’s meeting last week. Milne was providing an update on the investigation into ...

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Highway reopens after rockfall cleared

Colorado Highway 133 near Paonia Reservoir has reopened to two-way traffic as work continued after rockfall closed the road on Sunday. The Colorado Department of Transportation said contractor Yenter Companies has completed scaling of loose rock from the hillside, blasting rock on the roadway and much of the rock hauling. The road will remain fully open through the weekend, but hauling is expected to resume next week, possibly lasting through Friday. That will require a lane closure and ...

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Meeker torn 
over the fate 
of old school

MEEKER — This town’s old elementary school, built of hand-hewn stone through the Work Projects Administration in the 1930s, continued to stand rock-solid even while the one built to replace it was closed for structural repairs. But the historic structure is on shaky ground now after the town trustees agreed this week to proceed with the process of transferring ownership to Rio Blanco County for possible demolition of the building and construction of a new jail. The town’s ...

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Killer can seek 
to serve 
in U.K.

A decade-old Colorado program allows Marcus Bebb-Jones to seek to serve his murder sentence in his native country of England. If granted such a request, the former Grand Junction motel owner and professional gambler would become the first inmate in the state to successfully do time in his or her country of citizenship under a state program applying to foreign national offenders. Bebb-Jones also could be paroled as early as six and a half years from now, state Department of Corrections ...

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Williams delays gas plant expansion

Williams has suspended construction on a $200 million addition to its natural gas processing facility outside Parachute, in a move it says has nothing to do with a leak from a pipeline there and everything to do with sluggish local drilling levels. The Tulsa-based company says the project’s completion is now scheduled for mid-2016. It had begun work on the project last fall and had planned to put it in operation next year. The company estimates the project would have employed about ...

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Company bows to groups, gives up Thompson Divide lease

Opponents of drilling in the 220,000-acre Thompson Divide area won a minor victory this week when SG Interests said it would relinquish a 2,547-acre lease outside Redstone. SG said it won’t submit an application to drill and develop the lease, or ask that it be suspended, and will let it expire on May 31. As a result, “SG will forgo this development in the Coal Basin area” outside Redstone, the company said. “As part of our discussions and continuing negotiations ...

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Clifton Water keeping an eye on Parachute Creek contamination

The Clifton Water District said Tuesday it has been monitoring the benzene contamination in Parachute Creek, but tests of the Colorado River continue to show no evidence of the carcinogen. A leak of natural gas liquids leaving the Williams gas processing plant has resulted in small amounts of benzene reaching the creek. However, samples farther down the creek show no sign of the substance, which readily dissipates in moving water. Clifton Water said in a news release that it doesn’t ...

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Delta group planning air-quality testing prior to drilling

A Delta County citizens group plans to undertake its own air quality testing in hopes of establishing baseline conditions in advance of possibly extensive oil and gas development. Citizens for a Healthy Community said Tuesday that local residents will carry backpacks with air-sampling devices and collect data over 24-hour periods. It says the project was developed with the help of scientists from The Endocrine Disruption Exchange, based in Paonia. CHC is working with residents to identify ...

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Antero fined $150,000 for Rifle-area pipe leak

The Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission approved a $150,000 fine Monday against Antero Resources in connection with a leak from a produced-water pipeline that resulted in oily contamination of groundwater and soil near Rifle. The fine was part of a consent agreement reached with Antero. The commission says Antero violated rules on pollution and management of waste in the incident, discovered in July 2010. The leak from a faulty weld in a plastic pipe resulted in seeps of a ...

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Enviros appeal lease suspension for drillers in Thompson Divide

A Carbondale-based conservation group asked Monday that the Colorado director of the Bureau of Land Management reconsider the agency’s decision to prolong the duration of 25 oil and gas leases in the Thompson Divide area. The Wilderness Workshop appealed the lease suspension decision with the help of Earthjustice attorney Mike Freeman, who also led litigation resulting in the BLM reconsidering its leasing of some 55,000 acres for oil and gas development in the Roan Plateau area west ...

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Rockfall closes McClure Pass; detour over Grand Mesa might last all week

Falling boulders including one as big as a dump truck have forced the closure of Colorado Highway 133 south of McClure Pass, and the closure will likely last throughout the week. Sunday’s incident means motorists traveling between Paonia and the Roaring Fork Valley must take a detour of about 140 miles over Grand Mesa. The Colorado Department of Transportation said the highway was closed about 9:30 a.m. Sunday at mile marker 29 about 13 miles south of the pass and just north of ...

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Rockfall closes highway south of McClure Pass

Falling boulders including one rock as big as a dump truck have forced the closure of Colorado Highway 133 south of McClure Pass, and the closure will likely last throughout the week. Sunday’s incident means motorists seeking to travel between Paonia and the Roaring Fork Valley must take a detour of about 140 miles over Grand Mesa. The Colorado Department of Transportation said the highway was closed around 9:30 a.m. Sunday at mile marker 29 about 13 miles south of the pass and just ...

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Colorado Mountain College bestows 1st bachelor’s degrees

Several years ago, Robyn Kent of New Castle was considering a return to work as her youngest child was approaching school age, but she worried about her prospects. “I was feeling like who’s going to ever hire me because I’ve been out of work for so long,” she recalls. Today, Kent, 33, has achieved what previously would have been impossible, taking local classes to obtain a bachelor’s degree. Now she’s dreaming of running her own business. All that was ...

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Cave cleaners need soft touch, strong stomach

With spring cleaning season here, imagine if the rooms you were trying to make sparkle were dark, underground and full of stalagmites and stalactites. Now imagine what could be left behind when 78,000 people have visited those rooms over the last year. Lint. Hair. Even skin cells — ugh. Sunflower seeds. Sunglasses. Once even a sandal, believe it or not. Welcome to the job of cleaning up Glenwood Caverns in preparation for another summer season. Even while staying on defined ...

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New rooms opened in Glenwood cavern

GLENWOOD SPRINGS—Steve Beckley leads visitors past the Reflection Room inside Glenwood Caverns when a drop of water falls from a formation onto one of their heads. “You’re getting cave-kissed,” said Beckley, who with his wife, Jeanne, owns Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park. For most anyone lucky enough to experience the same, it will be a first kiss, at least in this part of Glenwood Caverns. “This room — you couldn’t get to this room,” he ...

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Resident near
 creek questions 
benzene levels


A state official says regulators are seeking to protect Parachute Creek according to drinking water standards even though they technically don’t apply. The comment by David Walker, with the Hazardous Materials and Waste Management Division of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, came after a resident living near the creek downstream of a natural gas liquids leak questioned the standard applying to the creek. A leak from a pressure gauge on a pipeline leaving ...

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Man talked down from I-70 bridge

A suicidal man who was in danger of jumping or falling from a pedestrian bridge briefly forced the closure of Interstate 70 in Glenwood Springs earlier this week. Police Chief Terry Wilson said negotiators with the multijurisdictional All-Hazards Response Team eventually were able to convince the 34-year-old Glenwood Springs man to return to safety. The incident was further complicated by someone allegedly challenging the man to a fight during the incident. Wilson said the incident began ...

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Benzene level in Parachute Creek higher than drinking-water standard

Benzene in Parachute Creek has exceeded the drinking water standard for the first time since the discovery of a Williams natural gas liquids leak near the creek earlier this year. Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment spokesman Mark Salley said in an email to reporters Thursday that a sample on Wednesday contained a reading of 5.3 parts per billion, which compares to the drinking water standard of 5 ppb. But he noted that the creek is not considered a drinking water source, ...

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Benzene in creek tops drinking water standard

Benzene in Parachute Creek has exceeded the drinking water standard for the first time since the discovery of a Williams natural gas liquids leak near the creek earlier this year. Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment spokesman Mark Salley said in an email to reporters Thursday that a sample on Wednesday contained a reading of 5.3 parts per billion, which compares to the drinking water standard of 5 ppb. But he noted that the creek is not considered a drinking water source, ...

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Wife killer gets 20 years in prison

A man who once owned a Grand Junction hotel has told authorities he struck and killed his wife with his hand in an argument in 1997, an action that led to him receiving a 20-year sentence Wednesday. Marcus Bebb-Jones, who in more recent years became a successful gambler in England, was sentenced by 9th Judicial District Court Judge Daniel Petre after apologizing in court in Glenwood Springs for his actions. “I didn’t intentionally kill Sabrina, but what I did do was wrong and ...

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Bebb-Jones apologizes, gets 20 years for killing wife

A man who once owned Grand Junction hotel and went on to be a successful gambler in England today received a 20-year prison sentence for killing his wife in 1997. Marcus Bebb-Jones was sentenced by 9th Judicial District Court Judge Daniel Petre after apologizing in court in Glenwood Springs earlier in the day for his actions. “I didn’t intentionally kill Sabrina, but what I did do was wrong and I ask for your forgiveness,” Marcus Bebb-Jones said during his sentencing ...

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Parachute Creek water safe for irrigation use, schools told

The school district serving the Parachute and Battlement Mesa areas plans to begin using irrigation water from Parachute Creek after receiving assurances from state officials that doing so won’t endanger students. Ken Haptonstall, superintendent of Garfield County School District 16, said the district initially had been concerned about the benzene that has shown up in the creek as a result of the natural gas liquids leak from a pipeline leaving the Williams gas processing plant ...

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BLM proposes land swap near Mount Sopris

The Bureau of Land Management on Monday proposed a land trade that would let a billionaire retailer add 1,268 acres to his ranch at the base of Mount Sopris near Carbondale. The agency’s proposal, contained in a preliminary environmental assessment, comes a few months after Pitkin County dropped its opposition to the idea after winning additional concessions. The proposal is subject to a public comment period ending May 29. The proposal has been sought by Ohioan Leslie Wexner, ...

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Officials try to calm nerves over Parachute Creek leak

BATTLEMENT MESA—A natural gas liquids leak that contaminated Parachute Creek hasn’t affected public health and is unlikely to do so in the future, a state health official told local residents Monday. “We have technology to deal with any level of contamination from this site in groundwater and surface water,” said David Walker, with the Hazardous Materials and Waste Management Division of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. Despite such ...

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BLM proposes swap of land near Mount Sopris

The Bureau of Land Management today proposed a land trade that would let a billionaire retailer add 1,268 acres to his ranch at the base of Mount Sopris near Carbondale. The agency’s proposal, contained in a preliminary environmental assessment, comes a few months after Pitkin County dropped its opposition to the idea after winning additional concessions. The proposal is subject to a public comment period ending May 29. The proposal has been sought by Ohioan Leslie Wexner, founder ...

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Moisture may help Pine Ridge regrowth

A Bureau of Land Management official says recent precipitation has boosted the prospects for reseeding efforts taking hold in the area of the Pine Ridge Fire, and he is hoping for more moisture. “This last storm that we got, where we got the snow here in the valley, was very timely because it was starting to dry out,” said Jim Dollerschell, a rangeland management specialist for the BLM in Grand Junction. Last summer’s Pine Ridge Fire burned some 14,000 acres near De ...

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Dilution may keep water supply safe

Dilution should protect De Beque from benzene contamination in an upstream tributary of its water supply, the Colorado River, the town’s manager says. “We don’t see any particularly large (red) flags right now,” Town Manager Guy Patterson said Thursday. The river is the town’s sole source of potable water, and De Beque is about 10 miles downstream from Parachute Creek, the site of benzene contamination from what Williams says was a natural gas liquids leak ...

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Group assails fracking water use

Billions of gallons of water a year are being lost forever to future use due to hydraulic fracturing for oil and gas development in Colorado and three other arid western states, an advocacy group said Thursday. The Western Organization of Resource Councils raised the issue in a report called “Gone for Good.” The group is a multistate network of community organizations, including the Western Colorado Congress. The study focused on Colorado, Montana, Wyoming and North Dakota. In ...

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Better late than never, snow eases drought

On average, Colorado gets only about 8 percent of its seasonal snowpack in April. This April, “we blew (that) out of the water, which is kind of what we needed to do,” said Mage Hultstrand, assistant snow survey supervisor with the Natural Resources Conservation Service in Colorado. It wasn’t enough to end the drought. And it didn’t share the wealth equally across the state. But the recent moisture that fell in late-season storms in good parts of the state’s ...

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Meeting planned on leak near Parachute

Garfield County is holding a community meeting Monday about the ongoing investigation into the hydrocarbons leak investigation near Parachute. Representatives from the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, Garfield County Public Health and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will attend to answer questions, review each agency’s role in the investigation and cleanup process, and address potential public and ...

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Firms pay more than $1 million to settle collusion case

Two energy companies have agreed to pay a total of $1,001,250 to settle alleged collusion in acquiring federal oil and gas leases in Gunnison and Delta counties after a federal judge had rejected a settlement under which they would have paid a little more than half that amount. U.S. District Court Senior Judge Richard Matsch on Monday accepted a revised settlement under which SG Interests and Gunnison Energy each will pay $275,000 to settle a civil antitrust action in the case. In ...

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Victims of violent crime talk about moving on

GLENWOOD SPRINGS — When John Michael Keyes and his wife, Ellen, lost their daughter Emily in 2006 in a shooting at Platte Canyon High School near Bailey, they immediately looked to how they might respond positively to their loss. “Emily was a victim of a horrible thing but we aren’t going to be that victim family. ... You can choose your response in the face of tragedy,” Keyes said. He and Ellen ended up creating a foundation focused on introducing a standard ...

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Oil, gas lease bid collusion case settled

Two energy companies have agreed to pay a total of $1,001,250 to settle alleged collusion in acquiring federal oil and gas leases in Gunnison and Delta counties after a federal judge had rejected a settlement under which they would have paid a little more than half that amount. U.S. District Court Senior Judge Richard Matsch on Monday accepted a revised settlement under which SG Interests and Gunnison Energy each will pay $275,000 to settle a civil antitrust action in the case. In ...

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Benzene near Parachute leak is monitored, still within limits

Weekend tests continue to show the presence of benzene in Parachute Creek downstream of a natural gas liquids leak, but at what the state Department of Natural Resources said are trace amounts. In fact, while the detections were somewhat below the standard of 5 parts per billion for drinking water, they are far under what’s allowable for the creek, agency spokesman Todd Hartman said in a press release. “Since Parachute Creek has not been designated as a drinking water supply ...

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