The Colorado Independent

Posts Tagged USGS

Experts warn public policy must change in wake of wildfires

By | 06.28.12 | 9:28 am

ASPEN — Public policy and political will must shift as dramatically
as the winds that have whipped Colorado’s record wildfires, experts
say, or the state’s residents will continue to pay a higher and higher
price for forests that are dying due to global climate change.

A gas rig at the entrance to Battlement Mesa, Colo. (David O. Williams photo)

USGS scientist: ‘We’re only starting to learn’ about fracking, fluid injection, earthquakes

By | 08.27.11 | 10:41 am

A U.S. Geological Survey scientist Friday said large earthquakes in unusual places like Virginia and southern Colorado earlier this week aren’t typically associated with the controversial natural gas drilling process called hydraulic fracturing.

The Colorado River cuts through a mesa. (Photo/Wolfgang Staudt, Flickr)

Salazar: Bleak USGS Rocky Mountain water report shows ‘real impacts of carbon pollution’

By | 06.14.11 | 9:09 am

There’s more bad news for water watchers in the Rocky Mountain West, where record snowpack from last winter has led to a dangerous runoff in some places, including Colorado’s Western Slope. The bad news is this season is apparently a statistical blip in a 30-year historical decline in Rocky Mountain snowpack, which provide between 60 and 80 percent of the water supply for the 70 million people living in the western United States.