In The NOCO

The Hayman Fire burned through a huge swath of forest southwest of Denver in 2002. It left behind a massive burn scar. Workers quickly replanted thousands of trees to reestablish the forest.   But more than two decades later, large areas of the Hayman burn scar still resemble a moonscape, with some scraggly young trees here and there.   Burn scars that take decades to heal are becoming a fact of l...

Tourists love the sight of a moose with their long noses, large sloping antlers, and gangly legs.   But Rocky Mountain National Park biologists say the growing moose population appears to be harming wetlands in the park. That’s according to a recent story in the Fort Collins Coloradoan. And state wildlife officials say they also want to make sure a ‘moose boom’ doesn’t threaten the willows, aspen...

A massive reservoir project that will eventually clear the way for a half-million new residents in Northern Colorado is now a step closer to breaking ground.   The $2 billion water project will create two new reservoirs that will feed 15 towns and water districts in Northern Colorado. Advocates for NISP, the Northern Integrated Supply Project, say it’s essential to ensure that these fast-growing c...

A bill under consideration at the state capitol would allow religious organizations to use their properties to build housing developments. It's an idea some state lawmakers see as an opportunity.  Supporters say it would help alleviate Colorado's housing shortage, using thousands of acres of available church-owned property around the state.  KUNC's Stephanie Daniel has been reporting on this issue...

March is Colorado’s snowiest month. Which means lots of us will be looking to make fresh tracks on that deep powder this time of year.   And if you live in Colorado, you know that amazing powder brings with it truly astonishing sunburns for skiers and snowboarders.   There are scientific reasons that your friends come home from the slopes with goggle marks scorched onto their faces. And one scient...

Last year, Colorado lawmakers passed an unusual law .   It directed every county in the state to set up in-person voting for incarcerated people in jails, many of whom are awaiting trial and haven’t been convicted of a crime.    The new law is the first of its kind in the nation. It's an effort to support voting rights for a population that is often considered out of sight, out of mind.   Alex Bur...

Spring is approaching, and the garden beckons. Which means it’s not too early to start making gardening and landscaping plans for the year.  And if you’re like a lot of homeowners in Colorado, you might be thinking about adding some native plants.  Experts say it’s a great way to save water. Native plants also support bees, birds and other pollinators. And native vegetation can require less prunin...

Five years ago this month, the coronavirus pandemic upended life in Colorado and around the world.    More than 14,000 Coloradans died, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the state saw more than 1.7 million COVID-19 cases .  It was a global health crisis that also reshaped the state’s economy in an instant.   Businesses and air travel largely shut down for a time. Rem...

State wildlife officials will pay nearly $350,000 to reimburse ranchers in Colorado’s high country who saw their livestock killed or harmed by wolves last year.   The Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission voted to approve those claims recently. It’s a key part of the state’s program to reintroduce wolves. And it gets less attention than photos of newly released wolves turned loose by wildlife off...

A handful of Colorado schools monitor their students with cameras that use facial recognition software. It’s a security measure: An administrator with access to the technology can upload a student’s photo and then the system can use cameras around the school to pinpoint the student’s location.   More school districts across the state have been exploring whether to adopt this technology, the Denver...

An estimated 13 percent of the construction workforce in Colorado is made up of immigrants without legal status, according to the American Immigration Council . These workers often handle lower-paying jobs at construction sites like installing drywall or laying bricks.  Colorado has a housing shortage. So we wondered what is likely to happen to Colorado’s construction industry as the Trump adminis...

It’s one of the first concepts you learned in science class: Trees take in carbon dioxide and release oxygen. It’s part of why forests play such a critical role in reducing carbon in the atmosphere.   Which is why a recent report on Colorado’s forests sounds a bit alarming.  Researchers set out to gauge how many tons of carbon are taken in by Colorado’s nearly 23 million acres of forest – and also...

The Trump administration announced recently it’s terminating hundreds of jobs at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration . The announcement sparked protests, including one in Boulder in which NOAA supporters and employees took part.  The threat of layoffs at NOAA also led our guest to write a defense of the work the organization does.  Kari Bowen is an atmospheric scientist at the Univ...

Wildfires are an ever-present threat in Colorado. And those that grow and spread quickly are becoming more common – and more destructive .    But there’s a piece of technology that could help spot a blaze in the earliest stages, before it spreads.   Cameras equipped with artificial intelligence can detect plumes of smoke in the air – even in remote areas – and alert firefighters nearby. This makes...

Crowds of sandhill crane admirers gather in Southern Colorado each spring to watch these birds – which have recovered after nearly being wiped out a century ago.  The birds’ admirers are fascinated by the cranes’ calls, their mating behaviors, and the fact that the species has existed for 2.5 million years.  Scott Weidensaul is a writer and ornithologist who has also found inspiration from the san...

Colorado has ambitious goals around renewable energy.  Governor Jared Polis is aiming for 100 percent of the energy in the state to come from renewable sources by the year 2040.    But there’s an obstacle: Colorado doesn’t have enough power lines to deliver all that renewable energy from where it’s produced – often in rural parts of the state – to where it’s needed. A new study from the state’s El...

Democrats in Colorado control the governor’s office and both houses of the state legislature. Many of them openly oppose the Republican Trump administration’s actions to ramp up arrests and deportation of immigrants without legal status in the state.    And those Democratic lawmakers have heard from many constituents in recent weeks who also oppose immigration raids.    But more than a month after...

Challenging anti-trans legislation – and   finding a way to laugh about it.  That’s the idea behind a new national comedy tour created by a transgender comedian who lives in Gunbarrel, outside of Boulder.   Ren Q Dawe is the organizer of the tour – called “Here  to Pee” – which launches this Saturday at Junkyard Social in Boulder. The comedians have stops planned in all 50 states. And some of the...

A piece of U.S. immigration law allows some people who have entered the country illegally to be detained and quickly deported – without typical legal proceedings and a hearing before an immigration judge.    Until recently, this policy applied to people without legal status who had been in the country for less than two weeks, if they were detained near the U.S. border.   But on the first day of hi...

Dozens of childcare and preschool centers in Colorado are run by companies backed by private equity funding.    Private equity firms use investor money to buy companies with a goal of improving them and selling them for a profit. This kind of investment can help a small childcare business grow and make upgrades, which could be useful in a state like Colorado that has a childcare shortage.   But ma...

In 2018 the City of Boulder and Boulder County filed an unusual lawsuit: they sued Exxon Mobil and Suncor Energy for contributing to climate change.   Climate change, the lawsuit argued , has caused a plethora of problems like flooding, road damage, and an increase in wildfires. The city and county have spent millions of dollars reacting to these problems.   And they wanted help paying for it.   S...

Nuclear Waste is piling up at power plants around the country, and we have no idea where to put it. Many states are aggressively fighting plans for new storage facilities.  But northwest Colorado is quietly opening the door.  KUNC’s investigative reporter Scott Franz recently traveled around rural Colorado talking with people about what nuclear waste storage could do for the local economy – and al...

Over the past few months, crews have worked on an unusual firefighting operation near Boulder. They extinguished a blaze that has burned underground for more than a century.   The work happened at Marshall Mesa near an open area that's popular for hiking. A fire in a a coal seam there had smoldered beneath the surface for years. It was a remnant of a time when coal mining thrived in the area. And...

After the recent death of President Jimmy Carter, many of the tributes mentioned his environmental legacy and push for energy-efficient development. And one unusual part of his plan was focused here in Colorado.   Carter’s administration had backed the design of some experimental homes along the Front Range. They were warmed by the sun and fueled by renewable sources – an exciting idea in the late...

A note: Today’s episode deals with issues around suicide and firearm violence.  Over the past decade, Colorado has seen more than 7,000 deaths by suicide that involved a firearm. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, guns are involved in more than half of Colorado’s deaths by suicide.  A bill making its way through the state legislature could help reduce those numbers.   The...