Ouray County commissioners are wary of a plan to conduct exploratory gold and silver drilling in one of the most scenic areas of Colorado – Yankee Boy Basin near both the San Juan Mountain towns of Telluride and Ouray. The Telluride Watch reported this week the Mt.

Projects as varied as Mesa Verde National Park improvements, Rifle drinking-water lines and trail access to Dominguez Canyon would benefit from an Interior Department appropriations bill that is headed to President Barack Obama’s desk.

Leaders both nationally and locally have been divided on hydraulic fracturing and its potential to contaminate drinking-water supplies. But a call from Congress for a study on the matter by the Environmental Protection Agency is being hailed as a positive development by both sides of the issue.

The trees, which were already under duress, are being killed by insects that thrive as the climate changes. Scientists call it Sudden Aspen Decline. From the hillsides of extinct volcanoes in Arizona to the jagged peaks of Idaho, aspen trees are falling by the tens of thousands, the latest example of how climate change is dramatically altering the American West.