Western Slope

Badly needed snowfall is expected in Colorado’s high country this week, but one expert says the state will need much more than the amount in the forecast to stave off drought on par with the one that marked the parched year of 2002, which saw reservoirs depleted to record-low levels and raging wildfires.

State Rep. Daniel Kagan, D-Denver, is proposing a bill to improve conditions for immigrant shepherds on Colorado’s Western Slope, according to the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel.
His efforts are reportedly based on a two-year survey of 93 shepherds conducted by Mesa State College Spanish professor Thomas Acker for the Migrant Farm Workers Division of the nonprofit [...]

Aspenites, long vilified as second-home-owning, heated-driveway-loving, jet-setting energy hogs, use 10 times more water than the average American, reported the Denver Post on Monday, citing a new report from the Colorado Water Conservation Board.
Not so fast, say Aspen officials, who are arguing today that the data is flawed.

ExxonMobil’s acquisition of natural gas giant XTO Energy – the hot topic in the gas-field communities of Colorado’s Western Slope this week – has implications far beyond an industry typically dominated by smaller, independent operators.
According to National Public Radio, ExxonMobil, the largest, most powerful lobby in Washington, is now conflicted on the climate change legislation [...]

The Los Angeles Times continues to follow the e-mail trail in the 11th-hour Bush administration bid to lock in low royalty rates for highly speculative, as-yet-unproven oil shale production in the Green River Formation of northwest Colorado, eastern Utah and southwest Wyoming.

EDWARDS — Energy attorney Scott McInnis this week continued to hammer Gov. Bill Ritter for policies McInnis says have crippled Colorado’s natural gas industry and cost the state thousands of jobs at a time of severe economic hardship.

Three oil and gas companies have been fined nearly $700,000 for allowing loose dirt from a pipeline project and access road to wash over a cliff into Garden Gulch and then on into Parachute Creek above the Western Slope town of Parachute.
According to a press release from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment [...]

Perhaps when mayors of small mountain towns on Colorado’s Western Slope express concerns about the environmental impacts of natural gas drilling it doesn’t cause too many ripples nationally, but when it becomes a campaign issue in the Big Apple, people tend to notice.
Last year, the mayors of Colorado towns like New Castle and Rifle complained [...]

Analysts who track natural gas prices and supplies say the industry is banking on a cold winter and an economic recovery to bolster a commodity that has taken a beating on stock exchanges in recent days.
Natural gas price plummeted 8 percent Thursday to $4.466 per 1,000 cubic feet, according to the Associated Press, while the [...]

The resignation of Meg Collins as president of the Colorado Oil and Gas Association (COGA) has touched off speculation in conservation circles that the state’s leading trade group for the oil and gas industry was dissatisfied with the worsening regulatory climate for energy extraction in Colorado.
Collins, who stepped down last week to “pursue other interest,” [...]