Posts by Laura Paskus
All We’ve Surveyed: Five Years After the Gold King Mine Spill
By Laura Paskus Five years ago, crews reopening an abandoned mine in the mountains of southern Colorado breached a containment wall, spewing three million gallons of mining waste into a tributary of the Animas River. Given the mine’s alpine location—which averages 15 feet of snow each year—fieldwork is limited and conditions can change drastically between…
Read MoreOur Land: A Decent Winter Becomes a Lousy Spring on the Rio Grande
Two years ago, New Mexico’s largest river dried in April, right when the Rio Grande would normally churn with muddy spring snowmelt. It was a bad situation—harmful to endangered species and the ecosystem, worrisome for farmers who draw water from the river to irrigate their crops and orchards, and stressful for water managers. But it…
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