Imagine Colorado 150 years ago, when hearing a faraway wolf howl or seeing a bighorn was not rare. While many things have changed in those 150 years, our Wildlife Program aims to restore this wildlife and ensure that it happens…
One of the most remarkable features of Southwest Colorado is the spectacular canyon carved by the Dolores River. On those occasions when an abundance of snowpack blesses our region, adventurers can enjoy floating through 100 miles of a wild canyon…
Rivers and streams in the West are facing a lot of challenges these days, especially in the face of an undeniably warming world. As climate change progresses, our waterways are increasingly stressed by worsening droughts, wildfire, and diminished flows. The…
We know that meaningful and permanent public lands protections take time. Lots of time. Lots of stakeholders are at the table and compromises are hashed out over years, not weeks. Often times such efforts are framed by politicians as being…
This is a big step forward for protecting the rivers and taxpayer dollars in Colorado! While the federal 1872 Mining Law is still in desperate need of reform, this improvement for Colorado provides long overdue protections for our water resources…
Photo: Jason Hatfield Fans of Utah’s spectacular redrock country can savor congressional action this week that advanced protections for a million acres of the incomparable San Rafael Swell, and one of the Colorado Plateau’s longest wild river segments through Desolation…
It’s been over two years since the designation of the Bonita Peak Mining District Superfund site above Silverton, CO, and questions remain as to the severity and extent of more than a century of hard-rock mining pollution in the upper…
Recently, Senator Gardner told a group gathering in Norwood, Colorado that he wouldn’t stand in the way of the San Juan Mountains Wilderness Act moving forward. We’re looking to him now to make to good on his commitment to move…
Our beloved Animas River has taken a shellacking the past few years, the most recent insults a combination of record low flows and wildfire induced mudslides. The Animas might be the blaring alarm bell for our society’s failure to act…
Photo: Wikipedia Commons By the time Scott Pruitt resigned as the Environmental Protection Agency’s administrator, he was the poster child for bungling personal entitlement. As Republican Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa put it, Pruitt was the swampiest of the Washington,…
Fifty years ago, Congress passed the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act. It was a counterpoint to the West’s flurry of dam-building in the 1950s and 1960s that saw dams erected across many of the region’s rivers. The mighty rivers of…
We’re celebrating! The Colorado state water court has upheld the instream water right instituted by the Colorado Water Conservation Board for the Dolores River in 2015. The standard was primarily intended to protect three struggling native fish populations, but will…
It’s official! Marcel Gaztambide is your Animas Riverkeeper! We’re thrilled to have him on as a full time advocate for the Animas Riverkeeper. He’ll be harnessing the expertise of over 300 other waterkeepers around the globe through the Waterkeeper Alliance to…
“The budget request before us today is downright offensive. I can’t square this with your rhetoric about returning EPA to its core responsibilities. Nothing was spared. EPA’s core is hollowed out…These cuts aren’t an intent to rein in spending, they…
What’s going on? Earlier in July, the Superfund team completed surface water sampling from the Upper Animas River, Cement Creek, and Mineral Creek as part of their ongoing study of our river’s headwaters. The samples will be analyzed for metal…
Waiving rules to prevent methane pollution. Stripping wetlands of protection under the Clean Water Act. Throwing out restrictions against strip-mining mountaintops and dumping the spoils into streams. The Trump administration has an ambitious agenda to eliminate protections for air, water…
What’s going on? This summer is the first full work season since the declaration of the Bonita Peak Mining District Superfund site last September. So what’s going on amidst those mountainous peaks to the north? Summer 2017 Projects Compiling and…
What’s the latest on the Bonita Peak Superfund District? Last week the Superfund Team, made up of folks from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), United States Forest Service (USFS), Bureau of Land Management (BLM), and the Colorado Department of Public…
Last night we hosted an event called Cookies for Calls: No Pruitt for EPA. We handed out homemade cookies to those of you who stopped by and made a call to your Senators. Many of you had never called an…
Has Animas River spring runoff been normal? Is normal safe? Definitely. Not. Got it? Late spring in the West means surging creeks and rivers. As water flows rapidly increase, so does the water’s turbidity and discoloration. Still reeling from the…
We’re all pretty aware these days that fracking requires ludicrous amounts of water mixed with nasty chemicals. And that the huge boom in drilling over the last decade was largely fueled by new fracking technologies. There has been a lot…
Durangoans demand more Superfund involvement, Durango Herald, February 3, 2016
It’s 3 weeks into January and here at the Alliance we’re finally taking a moment to clear the papers off our desks, breathe, and reflect on the past year. We started 2015 knowing there were thousands of people in the region…
This holiday season I’d like to propose a corollary to Durango’s well-loved buy local movement: give local. December is a month awash in fundraising requests, and let’s face it: being on the receiving end can get tiresome. But let’s face…
We just finished our latest newsletter and it’s heading to your mailbox this week! It covers our work on regional ozone, protecting Chaco from rampant oil and gas development and our commitment to ensuring permanent clean up of the Animas…
Responsible management of energy and water may be two of the biggest challenges we face this century, particularly in light of climate change. Colorado’s first-ever state water plan was a difficult but important step toward successfully meeting those challenges. The Alliance joins other…
For immediate release: Sept. 17, 2015 Media Contacts: Allyson Siwik, Gila Resources Information Project, 575-590-7619, allysonsiwik@gmail.com Mike Eisenfeld, San Juan Citizens Alliance, 505-360-8994, mike@sanjuancitizens.org Rachel Conn, Amigos Bravos, 575.770.8327, rconn@amigosbravos.org Eleanor Bravo, Food and Water Watch, 505-633-7366, ebravo@fwwatch.org Liliana Castillo,…
The toxic plume from the Gold King Mine release has passed. Our river is no longer orange. Where do we go from here? It is possible that this disaster, like so many horrors we hear about daily, will pass us…
The Alliance and our partners have been working for years to secure these instream protections for the Dolores vital to the native fish and overall health of the river. This is a big win! We were disappointed that our local Southwest…
If emotions were assigned a color, along the banks of the Animas and San Juan rivers, the color of fear is muddled orange. In the turbulent wake of the Gold King Mine accident, it is hard to miss the signs…
Photo Credit: Kathy Myrick If you are like me, you were probably hoping that by now – 6 days into the Gold King Mine release – the EPA would be giving our beloved river the “all clear.” Unfortunately, that is…
Photo Credit: Kathy Myrick The recent disaster on the Animas has earned national media attention. If you are following this or interested in the various perspectives or evolution the coverage has taken, below is a listing of the coverage we have tracked…
Well… that was lively. Here are a few SJCA takeaways from tonight’s EPA/Community meeting: 1. Our communities want good data on what is in the water, and the EPA has been slow in producing that data. Sure, it takes time…
This is a sample of Animas River water taken by Mountain Studies Institute late last night in Durango. Not good folks. A lot of people have been contacting SJCA to ask what they can do. Here’s a pass at our…
We’ve been getting a lot of compliments on our new and improved newsletter. The format is a little (OK, a lot) different than the last time we put one together (some two years ago…) and you’ll be proud to leave it on…
Photo Credit: Mark Pearson The entire Dolores River Canyon below McPhee Reservoir is a special place to be sure. Anyone that has had the opportunity to explore the corridor via boat, foot, horseback, bike or vehicle, knows this to be…
Where would the outdoor industry be without the public lands on which we explore, dream and play? The Conservation Alliance, comprised of such iconic companies as Patagonia, Osprey Packs and REI, actively protect the wild and protected landscapes on which…
Photo: Mark Pearson San Juan Citizens Alliance has long prioritized protection for the Lower Dolores River. We worked with the Dolores Water Conservancy District to start the Dolores River Dialogue in 2004. In 2008, we became a stakeholder in the…
Photo Credit: EcoFlight Busted. Again. A federal judge just denied a plan by the Office of Surface and Mining (OSM) to expand the Navajo Mine, which feeds the Four Corners Power Plant, based on the fact that the environmental analysis…
The day before the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Tres Rios Field Office (TRFO) released its Resource Management Plan (RMP), the Alliance drafted a list of 10 things to watch for in the final document. I’d like to think that…
If you’ve been following the multi-year saga of the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) Tres Rios Field Office (TRFO) Resource Management Plan (RMP), then you know a lot is at stake. As we highlighted in a previous post, this planning…
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Tres Rios Field Office (TRFO) manages over 503,000 acres of public lands in southwest Colorado. Their management includes oversight of federal minerals exploration and development on more than 804,000 acres of private, state, and…
Ever wonder what the Alliance has been up to? Or how we put your donations to work? If so, this blog is for you. As we head into 2015, we thought we’d take a moment to recap some of our…
Yes!!! A long step was made today down the trail towards enhanced protections for the Hermosa Creek watershed with the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources unanimously voting to move forward the Hermosa Creek Watershed Protection Act. The…
What does democracy look like? Last week, I marched through the streets of Manhattan with a crowd 400,000 strong. I could hardly keep count of the number of times march participants trotted out the tried and true protest slogan: This…
The Animas River has long been polluted by run-off from old mines throughout the San Juan Mountains. At a meeting with county commissioners, the EPA announced plans to “plug” two of those mines in 2015 to slow the flow of…
