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Earlier this month, employees of the Environmental Protection Agency, acting in their official capacities, caused one of the largest hazardous waste spills in recent history. “For almost a week, a torrent of toxic sludge — the color of hot mustard and rife with poisonous metals — has been flowing through Colorado, Utah and New Mexico. On Monday, the governor of Colorado declared a belated state of emergency, as officials announced that the popular Animas River would remain closed until at least Aug. 17,” NBC reports. The “transparent” Obama administration, however, is hiding the actual details of how the agency ostensibly...

WASHINGTON—U. S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy apologized Tuesday for a mine spill in Colorado caused by her agency, but she indicated she didn’t know much about what happened and would seek to fix any flaw in the agency’s procedures. “I am absolutely deeply sorry this ever happened,” Ms. McCarthy said at a news conference in Washington. “But I want to make sure we react positively and in a way that’s credible and we move this forward.”

DENVER — Unlike BP, which was fined $5.5 billion for the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster, the EPA will pay nothing in fines for unleashing the Animas River spill. “Sovereign immunity. The government doesn’t fine itself,” said Thomas L. Sansonetti, former assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s division of environment and natural resource. New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez and other lawmakers have called on the EPA to hold itself to the same standards as it would a private company in the aftermath of Wednesday’s accident, in which an EPA-led crew uncorked a 3 million-gallon spill of orange wastewater from the...

From his backyard in Durango, Colorado, Tom Bartles can see the Animas River, which was stained an unnatural orange. The Environmental Protection Agency accidentally released millions of gallons of pollutants into the water last week, turning the typically blue water to the color of mustard. "Everybody in town knew it was coming. It was hard to wake up in the morning and see an orange river," Bartles, 52, told CNN. "Many of the locals in this region are probably going to experience a certain level of mourning." [Snip] Officials said they believe the spill carried metals, mainly iron, zinc and...

Apparently Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains (PPRM) is proud of their abortion and organ harvesting business. The following picture was taken at their Planned Parenthood location in Denver. The Center for Medical Progress (CMP) released two videos featuring the medical director of PPRM, Dr. Savita Ginde. In the first, Dr. Ginde tells the actors posing as buyers for a human biologics company that she wants to charge per “tissue sample” because that will bring in the most money. She said, “I think the per-item [pricing] works a little better, just because we can see how much we can get...

Three more states—Alabama, Louisiana, and New Hampshire—have cut off state funding to Planned Parenthood (PP) in the wake of recent videos released by the Center for Medical Progress that appear to show PP officials negotiating over the sale of aborted baby organs and tissue. The three are the latest states to defund the nation’s largest abortion provider. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker ended state funding of abortion-performing facilities, including Planned Parenthood, in 2011. According to LifeSiteNews, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Indiana, Ohio, and Texas also prohibit state funds from going to any facility that performs abortions. …

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – Anger was mounting Monday at the federal Environmental Protection Agency over the massive spill of millions of gallons of toxic sludge from a Colorado gold mine that has already fouled three major waterways and may be three times bigger than originally reported. An 80-mile length of mustard-colored water -- laden with arsenic, lead, copper, aluminum and cadmium -- is working its way south toward New Mexico and Utah, following Wednesday's accidental release from the Gold King Mine, near Durango, when an EPA cleanup crew destabilized a dam of loose rock lodged in the mine. The crew was...

An explosion in the number of Coloradans signing up for medical insurance during the last 18 months shook up the state’s health insurance market and severely strained Rocky Mountain Health Plans’ bottom line. The federal government will soon funnel nearly $70 million to the Grand Junction-based carrier, a move that will help make up for some of those losses. But a significant rate increase for some of the more than a quarter-million members of RMHP could be on the horizon. The rise in coverage brought about by the Affordable Care Act has insurers around the country adjusting premium rates to...

Town hall Meeting with Jared Polis (D-Colorado) The Congressman scheduled three public meetings on Saturday, August 8 during the 2015 Congressional recess. This particular meeting was the second of the day; held in Berthoud at the town community center, during the noon hour. Berthoud is a small town of about 5,700 residents, located just off the highway 287 corridor. The meeting space was set up for 30 seats. People arrived early and the Congressman was late – reportedly delayed at a train crossing. His advance staff was on site registering the attendees, and two pleasant young interns wandered about chatting...

Reuters) - Some 3 million gallons of toxic wastewater, triple previous estimates, have poured from a defunct Colorado gold mine into local streams since a team of Environmental Protection Agency workers accidentally triggered the spill last week, EPA officials said on Sunday. The discharge, containing high concentrations of heavy metals such as arsenic, mercury and lead, was continuing to flow at the rate of 500 gallons per minute on Sunday, four days after the spill began at the Gold King Mine, the EPA said. An unspecified number of residents living downstream of the spill who draw their drinking supplies from...

Gov. John Hickenlooper has pledged that Colorado will comply with the EPA’s Clean Power Plan, but this effort to cut so-called “CO2 pollution” could come at a dear price to the state’s coal industry. ... Colorado is among the top states in coal production and consumption. In the year 2013, 64 percent of energy produced in Colorado came from coal, 20 percent from natural gas, and around 15 percent from various renewables including hydroelectric, biomass, solar and wind. The history of Colorado’s coal mining industry stretches over the past two centuries. Not to mention, coal jobs have a multiplier effect...

New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez blasted the EPA for accidentally flooding the Animas River with toxic orange wastewater, calling on the agency to hold itself to the same standard for the disaster as it would a private entity. “Imagine what would happen if a private company caused this waste spill,” the Republican governor said in a Friday statement. “This was caused by the EPA and the EPA should demand the same of itself as it would of a private business responsible for such a spill, particularly when it comes to making information available to the public and state and local...

Effective Aug. 17, tenants of Boulder County Housing Authority properties will no longer be able to use electronic cigarettes or vapor-smoking devices inside any of the county's 611 rental units or on most of the grounds outside those units. On Thursday, the Boulder County commissioners added such electronic or battery-operated simulated-smoking devices to the county Housing Authority's 7-year-old prohibition on smoking tobacco products in or outside its rental units. That 2008 smoke-free policy was created to prevent fire hazards, to protect residents, staff and guests from the health effects of secondhand smoke, and to reduce maintenance costs that sometimes resulted...

The EPA announced that some of its regulators working in Colorado dumped a million gallons of orange waste water containing sediments and metals into the Animas river. In their defense the machinery they were working with was described as heavy so there’s that. Oh, and they said it was an accident. The companies responsible for Love Canal in the 1970s probably didn’t realize they could use that as an excuse. If a company had done it, there would be Congressional hearings and fines and calls to action, but a spokesman for the Colorado Parks and Wildlife said there’s nothing that...

CENTENNIAL, Colo. -- It took almost three years for the case to reach trial. That trial played out over the course of three months. The jury needed just 6.5 hours to render a verdict. James Holmes has been sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

DENVER (AP) — The mustard-colored muck that spilled from a Colorado mine and surged into a river contains heavy metals including lead and arsenic, federal environmental officials confirmed Friday, but they didn't immediately discuss amounts in the water or health risks. The spill also contained cadmium, aluminum, copper and calcium, the Environmental Protection Agency said. During a public meeting in Durango, EPA Regional Director Shaun McGrath did not mention whether the elements posed a health hazard but said local authorities were right to close the Animas River to human activities. At least two of the heavy metals can be lethal...

The Environmental Protection Agency will hold a public meeting in Durango to discuss mine waste contamination of the Animas River Friday afternoon. The EPA said its workers triggered the release of a million gallons of waste while using heavy machinery to investigate pollutants at the Gold King Mine north of Silverton, Colorado. The agency plans to answer questions and share information about the waste at the board room of the County Administration Building at 1101 E. 2nd Avenue in Durango. The meeting is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. KOB's crew reported seeing the sludge cross the state line into New Mexico...

How often do we see sad stories such as this in the news? Evil industrialists carelessly create a swath of damage across our pristine natural resources through pollution and reckless destruction. Another such event took place in Colorado this week when millions of gallons of toxic, metal laden waste water were dumped into a local stream, feeding into the local river system used by swimmers and fishermen. And the culprit for this horrendous act was… the Environmental Protection Agency. A team of U.S. regulators probing contamination at a Colorado gold mine accidentally released a million gallons (3.8 million liters)...

Jurors in the Colorado theater shooting case have reached a decision on whether James Holmes should get life in prison or the death penalty. They deliberated for about six and a half hours before reaching a decision Friday. It will be announced at 5 p.m. The same jurors rejected Holmes' insanity defense and convicted him of murdering 12 people

Industry blasts suggestion as harmful to the country. A conservation group that has succeeded in dealing recent legal setbacks to western Colorado coal mines called Thursday for a phase-out of federal coal leasing to help combat climate change. “It’s time for the Interior Department to shut it down,” Jeremy Nichols, Climate and Energy Program director for WildEarth Guardians, said in a news release. The group outlined a plan for ending the federal coal program over 10 to 25 years through a moratorium on leasing publicly owned coal, retiring existing leases that aren’t producing, honestly reporting the climate impacts of the...