Whats up, Temperature readers. It’s arduous to know the place this subject will land with every little thing shifting so shortly today. Federally talking, first there have been the manager orders, then there was the funding freeze, now we’re wading by means of the land of tariffs and commerce curbs questioning what is going to occur to the value of gasoline.
As John Ingold wrote within the intro final week, selecting what to give attention to, or not, has grow to be a very particular talent. It isn’t the worst factor to need to apply prioritization, however it will probably actually be tiring.
I attempted to maintain that in thoughts when selecting right this moment’s tales. This week we’re enjoying with scale, taking a look at a mixture of federal strikes that might affect us domestically, and native initiatives that might have a nationwide affect. On the finish of the day, we’re all on this collectively, eh?
Let’s get to it.
ENERGY
A bunch in northwestern Colorado is quietly floating the thought of changing into the subsequent large nuclear waste web site
Spent by the federal authorities on a nationwide marketing campaign to discover a host for nuclear waste
Because the U.S. heads towards a nuclear-fueled future — the nation endorsed a declaration to triple nuclear vitality manufacturing by 2050 — a small however decided group of officers in northwestern Colorado are positioning themselves to leap on board.
Final fall the Northwest Colorado Vitality Initiative, a gaggle tasked with changing the coal trade in Garfield, Mesa, Moffat and Rio Blanco counties held shows for public officers to debate the chance for constructing the nation’s first consolidated nuclear storage web site.
Nuclear vitality at present produces about 20% of the nation’s energy in accordance with the U.S. Division of Vitality, and is taken into account a clear vitality supply as a result of it doesn’t emit greenhouse gasses or air toxins throughout manufacturing.
However the waste it generates — known as “spent gasoline” — is extremely radioactive. The federal authorities has because the Nineteen Eighties tried and didn’t discover a everlasting, secure and consolidated storage answer.
Spent gasoline is at present saved on-site at 70 of the nation’s 94 industrial reactors, and the federal government has doled out hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in quest of an “interim storage web site” till a long-term answer is set.
An investigative collection by Scott Franz at KUNC reveals that the financial improvement group within the northwestern nook of the state is quietly floating the thought of offering land for interim storage.
The challenge remains to be in an ideation section, and conferences between the vitality initiative leaders and public officers have intentionally taken place with out a lot discover or press. Due to the subject material, there’s a excessive threat of “emotional outcry,” Matt Soloman, challenge supervisor for the initiative, informed Franz, pointing to the proposed nuclear vitality facility in Pueblo that was in the end rejected.
Public hearings concerning the nuclear waste storage challenge will start within the spring.
However individuals have questions now, Franz reported — particularly, concerning the expertise used to retailer the waste, the logistics to move it, and the timeline of how lengthy this facility would stay in the neighborhood.
Proponents of the challenge level to the area’s historical past as pioneers within the vitality trade and emphasize the necessity to substitute an financial system fueled by coal. The world has three of the state’s seven working coal mines, and the coal plant in Craig is scheduled to start out shutting down in December. In addition they emphasize that the expertise for shifting and storing nuclear waste is extra superior than its repute makes it appear.
Opponents, although, like activists in Cañon Metropolis — a group nonetheless coping with the fallout of a uranium mine that leaked radioactive waste into the soil and groundwater a long time in the past — warned communities to be further considered about nuclear waste commitments, as the results might be multigenerational.
Click on over to The Colorado Solar for extra of Franz’s reporting, or head to KUNC to hearken to the three-par collection, “Poisonous Waste or Financial Gas?”
EPA
KC Becker exits the EPA, encourages group atmosphere teams to “keep vigilant”
Certainly one of KC Becker’s final acts as Area 8 administrator for the U.S. Environmental Safety Company was to get a signature on a civil rights settlement.
Becker is a Biden administration appointee who resigned Jan. 20.
That closing doc she shepherded by means of is formally known as an Casual Decision Settlement beneath Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. However all you have to know is that it’s basically a promise to maintain engaged on environmental justice.
The Trump administration has been unambiguous about its stance on environmental justice initiatives — the 52-page federal funding spreadsheet circulated final week asks federal departments to guage whether or not a program supplies funds to “‘environmental justice’ packages or ‘fairness associated’ grants.”
Colorado’s new settlement requires the state to vary its allowing course of for main polluters, just like the Suncor oil refinery, which Becker spent a considerable amount of her tenure centered on.
The change will power services to report “minor modifications” to the general public, in order that native communities, environmental teams and legal professionals find out about them earlier than it’s too late.
Becker is addressing a serious workaround that polluters can benefit from in Colorado’s present allowing course of known as “disaggregation,” or breaking apart one main change in air pollution into many minor modifications, thereby skirting the formal discover course of.
It’s simply one of many methods Becker pushed the state to come back down tougher on the Suncor facility, and to maintain an eye fixed and an ear out for communities fighting air pollution.
“Within the new administration the phrases ‘environmental justice’ are anathema to some people, however the concept that you prioritize communities who want probably the most help is just not a controversial concept,” Becker stated. “I’ve to imagine and imagine the subsequent regional administrator can be going to need to know the place communities are which might be probably the most polluted, as a result of that’s EPA’s job, it doesn’t matter what you name it.”
And to the group teams that might face pushback from a brand new administration, Becker stated:
“Keep vigilant, hold paying consideration, hold offering data to each the state of Colorado and the EPA.”
FEDERAL FUNDING FREEZE
Photo voltaic suppliers iced out of federal funds
Colorado was prepared to absorb its supposed 300 days of sunshine final spring with the announcement of a $156 million grant from the federal “Photo voltaic For All” program. It was only one grant in a $7 billion package deal created to decrease the barrier to entry to solar energy by protecting set up prices and offering incentives to builders.
The Colorado Vitality Workplace, which gained the grant, spent the previous yr understanding its contract with the U.S. Environmental Safety Company, which oversees the funds, and establishing a statewide program. However they haven’t began accepting purposes for this system — and now they may not get to.
Final week, when President Trump ordered the federal funding freeze, the EPA despatched letters to 60 recipients of the awards — states, tribes and multistate areas — informing them the cash was on maintain till additional discover.
Since then, the freeze was rescinded and blocked by two federal judges. However whereas among the frozen funds thawed, others, like these within the “Photo voltaic For All” program, stay locked up and inaccessible.
As of Tuesday afternoon, the Colorado Vitality Workplace couldn’t entry its photo voltaic accounts or file for reimbursements.
“Colorado is considered one of many states that efficiently introduced a brief restraining order to unfreeze these funds and make them obtainable for this necessary work in our state,” a spokesperson for the Vitality Workplace wrote in an emailed assertion. “We’re carefully monitoring the administration’s response to that order.”
That restraining order, issued by a federal choose Friday, states that the administration “shall not pause, freeze, impede, block, cancel, or terminate” federal awards, obligations or monetary help to states.
MORE ENVIRONMENT AND HEALTH NEWS
Extra of a map and a timeline this week, however you may say we’re charting the course of the Perkins County Canal.
Final week Colorado Lawyer Common Phil Weiser despatched a letter to Sedgwick County commissioners within the northeastern nook of the state, the place Nebraska had been handing out notices of condemnation to native landowners. The notices gave landowners till April 17 to answer Nebraska’s supply — $1.4 million for about 650 acres of land — or face eminent area; Weiser’s letter informed landowners to hunt authorized counsel and battle the neighbor state’s claims to their land.
“We’re in a brand new chapter, there was a shift,” Weiser informed The Colorado Solar on Friday.
The story is that of the Perkins County Canal, a 135-year-old challenge to cart water from the South Platte River to a storage facility on the Nebraska facet of the state line. Since people in Sedgwick will make necessary selections within the coming weeks, and lawsuits are nearly sure to observe, let’s make amends for the final century or so.
Eighteen Nineties — Work begins on the South Divide Canal, now referred to as the Perkins County Canal challenge. The canal was meant to convey water into Nebraska throughout the offseason and retailer it for dry occasions. Building is dear — $180,000 in 1891 — however offers native farmers work throughout a extreme drought.
1902 — Funding dries up and the challenge collapses. Perkins County foots the invoice.
1923 — Nebraska and Colorado signal the South Platte River Compact which divvies up water shares and grants Nebraska permission to assemble the Perkins County Canal beneath a sure set of situations. These situations embody consent from the state of Colorado and a assured provide to Colorado farmers. The compact additionally expressly mentions the usage of eminent area to assemble the canal, which is able to come into play a century later.
April 2022 — Nebraska lawmakers approve a $500 million revival of the canal challenge and the Governor indicators it into regulation, together with $53.5 million in funds to start out designing the challenge.
March 2023 — Colorado’s former state water engineer research Nebraska’s canal plans and responds with a five-page letter that basically says: go forward and construct it, simply don’t anticipate any water.
December 2023 — The Nebraska Division of Pure Sources purchases 90 acres east of Julesburg, the primary acquisition of Colorado property utilizing the canal challenge funds.
January 2025 — Nebraska sends notices of condemnation to the six Sedgwick County landowners, and Lawyer Common Phil Weiser responds, threatening authorized motion.
Talking of the mix between state and nationwide information, did you see that Colorado is getting it’s first Nationwide Girls’s Soccer crew? Video games begin in 2026 and season tickets are already promoting quick.
— Parker & John
Corrections & Clarifications
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