Agriculture

Some water experts warn the upper Colorado River is an endangered species if current residential growth patterns and water consumption patterns continue along the state’s Front Range, and they’re increasingly concerned proposed energy production on the Western Slope will accelerate its demise.

“I hope America can’t come here and trash out my country here to support the current [oil shale] industry,” said one Routt County commissioner.

Water experts are meeting en masse in Denver today and Wednesday to try to figure out how to plan for an expected doubling of Colorado’s population to 10 million people by 2050, according the Durango Herald.
State water officials, in conjunction with the Western States Water Council, are trying to sort out conflicts between growing residential [...]

The League of Conservation Voters Thursday launched a television ad campaign in Grand Junction, Pueblo, Colorado Springs and Denver blasting U.S. Rep. John Salazar for voting against the Waxman-Markey climate change bill.
Only two of those cities – Grand Junction and Pueblo – are actually in Salazar’s 3rd Congressional District, but the message of the campaign [...]

The debate over a uranium mill proposed by a Canadian company in the western end of Montrose County has come down to a question of what people would rather have in their back yard: uranium processing, farms and ranches, or multi-million-dollar McMansions fueled by the outdoor recreation and tourism industry?
The Telluride Daily Planet reported that [...]

Oil shale development was the 800-pound camel in the room last week during a meeting in Crested Butte of the Interbasin Compact Committee, according to the Pueblo Chieftain.
The IBCC and nine river-basin roundtables were set up by the Colorado Legislature in 2005 to try to bring together all the various water users and stakeholders on [...]

House lawmakers announced a deal last night on their sweeping proposal to tackle climate change, but not before the bill’s sponsors were forced to bow once more to a polluting industry that would be affected by the proposal.

A dustup between politicians and landowners at an oil and gas royalty owners meeting in Grand Junction last weekend underscores the complexity of the new drilling regulations – and the heated emotions they stir in some mineral-rights holders.

Despite an exemption from a proposed cap on greenhouse gas emissions, Big Agriculture has declared war on clean energy legislation making its way through Congress.

Grist has the details on what it describes as a sop to large agribusinesses to continue its old, polluting ways:

The failure of the $2 billion New Frontier Bank of Greeley April 10 has left farmers and dairy owners struggling to find agriculture loans to finance the impending growing season, The Greeley Tribune reports. “This is the time of year when farmers need to rely on a line of credit,” said Tony Miller, president of First FarmBank of Greeley.

Way back in late 2006 former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack ran for the democratic nomination for president — for a whole three months until he gave it up in Feb. 2007. While on the routine nationwide criss-cross tour to make the case for his candidacy Vilsack, long known as a pragmatic centrist, launched into a rather fiery Q&A following a speech at the University of Colorado Law School.

Those remarks could serve as an interesting predictor of Vilsack’s approach to food, farming and energy as Pres.-elect Barack Obama’s newly nominated U.S. Agriculture Secretary.