More monitoring may be recommended; “We definitely need to dig deeper,” said one Pitkin County official

Greater efficiency, renewable energy storage are implementation goals.

Public access to be determined in the context of biodiversity using ’best available science’ as the guide.

Studies show residential buildout is no more than halfway done, and that new homes are getting bigger and consuming more.

Average summer-month temperatures in Pitkin, Garfield counties up between 2 and 3.5 degrees as runoff comes earlier and streamflows decline.

Researchers expect more smoke days per year, while public health experts uncover far-reaching consequences

“We not only do have to keep them because there was nowhere to go with them, and then all of a sudden we find ourselves in the middle of a drought. We basically got to the point where we had to get rid of them, whatever price was being offered.”

When natural foods aren’t abundant, bears are forced to move around more, searching for calories. This makes bears more vulnerable to hunters, and it also leads to an increase in roadkills and conflicts in developed areas. 

The number of enforcement contacts — in which rangers had to remind people of the rules through a simple conversation, a warning or a ticket — exploded in the spring, especially in May.

Fees from Pitkin County’s Renewable Energy Mitigation Program are likely to continue to decline because of recent changes to the building and energy codes.