More turf bans, and a recycling quiz

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It’s that time of the year again. A quiet moment to make lists, appreciate family, consider how much to spend, and wonder at the life-changing miracles we can’t begin to understand.

It’s health insurance Open Enrollment time, of course.

You thought we meant Christmas? Easy mistake to make, they’re so similar in the joy and fulfillment they bring to humanity.

But it’s not the season to be cynical, so I’ll stop. Besides, John Ingold has just the cure for that cynicism tonight, on the kind of top-expert informational panel the Colorado Sun likes to think we specialize in. John’s Open Enrollment panel kicks off at 6 p.m., free online, with your chance to query the head of the state health insurance exchange, the insurance commissioner himself, and one of the state’s top insurance brokers.

You have until Dec. 15 to make a choice, either from your employer’s insurance plan or for independent insurance bought on the exchange (with or without subsidy, but that’s why you need to ask.)

So join us tonight, and then get back to filling out forms for that other guy in the funny suit who keeps you waiting too long in your pajamas. Your doctor, of course.

CLIMATE

How to cram for your recycling quiz

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Sorted recyclables — or are they — at a transfer station in California. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)

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Sure, you think it’s obvious that you can recycle a gallon milk jug.

But what about the white plastic cap you tossed just before rinsing the jug? And should you rinse the jug?

Were you aware that even if that opaque green bag says “compostable,” the compost folks really don’t want it?

And let’s say you’re a recycling savant and already know that “1” or “2” on the bottom of a plastic container translates to a definite “yes.” What about “5”? Do you feel lucky?

Might want to study up, because our collective knowledge or lack thereof when it comes to home recycling and composting can have a cumulative impact on city-scale recycling policies. Just earlier this year, the main Front Range composting company ordered major changes in what customers could toss in the big green bins, because we were screwing up so much that it was ruining their machinery and the compost itself.

So we’re going to try a little teaching in the form of asking. Next week, coloradosun.com will offer you a 10-question recycling and composting quiz, complete with glamor shots of greasy pizza boxes. You’ll end up with a score that might boost you through the holidays or ruin your day. And when we give the answers, we’ll add in a thoroughly reported explanation of why you can’t do what you thought you could with that dead AA battery. Or how big that piece of crumpled aluminum foil needs to be before it’s useful to a scrap dealer.

Keep an eye out here and in our daily newsletter, Sunriser, and we’ll hook you up with that quiz. We promise it’ll be an eye-opener.

Edgewater joins the turf ban wave

Units at the Geos community in Arvada contain xeriscaped yards to minimize the need for watering. (Olivia Sun, The Colorado Sun)

Edgewater, a small but mighty city next to Sloan’s Lake in Denver, is the latest in a string of Colorado communities to sharply limit thirsty turf grass in new developments.

“As we got more development, we were just seeing more and more go in with artificial turf grass, or nothing really at all,” said Paige Johnson, Edgewater’s sustainability coordinator.

So the city decided to meld aesthetics with sustainable landscaping, she said. Come Jan. 1, new developments, and some big rebuilds, will have to swap out thirsty turf like Kentucky bluegrass for more water-friendly alternatives, like blue grama. (Detached garages wouldn’t necessarily trigger the restriction, but a 500-square-foot addition to a building would.)

Under the new ordinance, passed in October, there are limits on installing new turf that rarely gets used or is planted on steep slopes or thin strips of land. Homeowners will face restrictions on using certain types of turf, like cool season grass which is limited to 25% of an area. Say goodbye to planting new aspens and cottonwoods — say hello to more water-efficient plants.

“We don’t have a ton of control over many things, being so small,” Johnson said. “This is one area where we can really make an impact hopefully, locally, on both how our landscapes look and feel, and how they function.”

One big motivator for Edgewater’s city council: combatting hotter summer temperatures, she said. The city’s tree canopy dropped by 6% between 2011 and 2017, Johnson said. They don’t know why, but it might be because the city hasn’t had any broad landscaping requirements in place until now.

Colorado communities could be heading toward future aggregate water shortages of 230,000 acre-feet to 740,000 acre-feet, according to the state water plan. One acre-foot of water can support two to three households for one year.

The city is also thinking of future generations, Johnson said, adding that it’s exciting to see more communities planning for ways to leave more water available to the Edgewater of tomorrow.

“Municipal water use is going to need more and more water in future years if we’re going to keep up with demand,” she said. “There’s definitely some worry about if we’re going to have enough to meet the current demand.”

MORE CLIMATE NEWS

One of Colorado’s worst carbon sources closing earlier than planned.
Tri-State Generation announced that its last Craig coal-fired unit will now close at the beginning of 2028, about two years earlier than previously planned, as the co-op adjusts to big members leaving the group and state demands to clean up its power sources, Michael Booth reports. The Craig station currently pumps 8 million tons of carbon dioxide into Colorado’s air, so early closure is a happy idea for conservationists. — The Colorado Sun State’s top water cop hits retirement. Colorado’s top water-law enforcer, Kevin Rein, has been a key adviser in some of the state’s prickliest water debates. Now, he’s ready to let another person take the helm, Shannon Mullane reports. Rein, 64, will retire this month after spending more than six years of his 43-year career as state engineer, where he helped to ensure essential water resources flow to Coloradans, people in 19 downstream states and Mexico. — The Colorado Sun DUG gets the growth bug with new EPA funds. VIPs joined local gardeners to celebrate a big $500,000 grant to expand a popular series of urban gardens and forests, Clare Zhang reports. Denver Urban Gardens will use the grant in six West Denver neighborhoods: West Colfax, Barnum, Barnum West, Sun Valley, Valverde and Villa Park. Like Elyria-Swansea, these neighborhoods have high concentrations of industrial buildings and sit close to Interstate 70. The grant program is one of many created by the Inflation Reduction Act to work toward environmental and climate justice.
— The Colorado Sun Everybody in Steamboat wants new trails. Except there. Or here. Or over there. Already six years in the making, a proposal to expand the popular trail network around Rabbit Ears Pass near Steamboat Springs is proving to be an example of the challenges facing both communities and land managers, as they balance growing recreational demands with the need to conserve and minimize impacts to wildlife and habitat. Eugene Buchanan reports on how the conflicting desires might be reconciled. — The Colorado Sun

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HEALTH

More from the Colorado Health Access Survey

A screenshot of a slide presented Dec. 1 during the Colorado Health Institute’s annual Hot Issues in Health Conference, that shows the change in Colorado’s uninsured rate over time, according to the Colorado Health Access Survey. (Colorado Health Institute)

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Last week, the Colorado Health Institute previewed some data from its every-other-year Colorado Health Access Survey, known as CHAS by its friends.

The big headline? Colorado’s rate of people without health insurance hit a record low in 2023. But, as pandemic-era federal protections designed to keep people covered by Medicaid unwind, it’s seriously unclear whether the state can sustain that number. You can read all about that in our story last week on the announcement.

But there were a couple of other nuggets to come out of the early CHAS data.

For one, Colorado’s need for mental health services continues to grow. In 2023, 26.2% of people reported at least eight days of poor mental health per month, up from 23.7% in 2021 and from 10.6% in 2013 when the survey began tracking the question. Meanwhile, 17% of people reported that they did not get the mental health care they needed in the past 12 months, also the highest figure the CHAS has ever seen for the question.

But why Coloradans aren’t getting mental health care seems to be changing. In previous years, cost was the main factor. In 2013, 75.6% of people who said they didn’t receive needed mental health care cited worries about the cost.

Since then, concerns over cost have declined — in 2023, 53.9% of people cited cost as a factor. But issues with access have increased and are now the top reason people cite for not receiving mental health care. In 2023, 57.2% of people said they couldn’t get an appointment when they needed one.

This year also marked the first time the CHAS had asked questions about attitudes toward climate change. Nearly half of adults surveyed statewide said they do not believe their communities are prepared for a climate disaster. In the Denver metro area and on the Eastern Plains, that percentage is even higher — as much as 60%.

Communities on the Western Slope are generally more confident in their climate response, with around only 30% to 35% of adults doubting their communities’ preparedness. Jeff Bontrager, CHI’s director of research and evaluation, said this may be tied to the work Western Slope communities have done to prepare for major wildfires, though, of course, climate disasters do not always come with flames.

CHI plans to release more data from the survey early next year.

ABORTION

Colorado isn’t appealing the injunction ruling in the abortion “reversal” lawsuit

Boxes of the drug mifepristone sit on a shelf at the West Alabama Women’s Center in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. (AP Photo/Allen G. Breed, File)

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Attorneys for the state of Colorado have decided not to appeal a ruling that at least temporarily blocks a new law banning so-called abortion pill “reversal.”

U.S. District Court Judge Daniel D. Domenico issued an order granting a preliminary injunction against the law in late October. The state had 30 days to appeal, a deadline that passed just before Thanksgiving.

A spokesman for Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, who is defending the law in the federal lawsuit, declined to comment on the reason for not appealing, writing in an email that the office “cannot comment on legal strategy.” A spokesman for the Colorado Medical Board, which is named as a defendant in the suit, also declined to comment.

The lawsuit was filed by a Catholic clinic based in Englewood called Bella Health and Wellness. The clinic says it provides “reversal” treatment — essentially giving high doses of progesterone to try to counteract the effects of the abortion drug mifepristone — as part of its religious beliefs.

Democrats at the state legislature said the practice is not supported by science and passed a law to ban it. Domenico granted the injunction after concluding that lawmakers knew the law would burden religious practice and did not meet the legal standard to ban it.

In a statement, the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a national religious-freedom organization that is representing Bella Health in the lawsuit, said two patients have come to the clinic seeking to counteract the effects of mifepristone since the injunction was issued, while “multiple” other patients are due to give birth within weeks.

“Colorado’s decision not to appeal means that expecting mothers in Colorado can continue to receive help in reversing the effects of the first abortion pill and be protected from the state’s unscientific, harmful law,” Becket attorney Laura Wolk Slavis said in the statement.

The lawsuit could take months to resolve. A proposed scheduling order submitted by attorneys earlier this month doesn’t foresee wrapping up substantive motions in the case until September, after which there would still need to be a bench trial before Domenico or another judge.

MORE HEALTH NEWS

Colorado foster kids are less likely to graduate than homeless children. A new program is trying to fix that. Only 30% of foster teens graduate from high school on time, according to state data. That’s often due to the impacts of constantly changing living situations and the unrelenting psychological stress that goes along with it. But, a new program in Colorado Springs that tutors kids who have been in the child welfare system is working to change that. As Jennifer Brown reports, the program is showing some really promising signs of success. Source: Platte River Power Authority

In the abstract, fair to say It’s hard to get folks excited about utilities’ energy loads. But it’s a key to understanding the clean energy revolution. What if you had a color-coded chart showing what sources are generating one utility’s electricity, minute by minute, for a whole day? Now that would be cool.

So guess what, the little-known Platte River Power Authority, which supplies electricity to hundreds of thousands of Northern Colorado residents, refreshes its website power chart every few minutes.

What you see, then, is PRPA’s current reliance on coal from the Rawhide generating station, and how it has worked to bring wind and solar into the mix. The utility, which supplies municipal distributors for Fort Collins, Longmont, Loveland and Estes Park, was one of the nation’s earliest to pledge carbon-free electricity by the 2030s. So now they need to close down Rawhide and replace it with a mix of more solar, wind, utility-scale battery backups and more. We’ll have more about that next week at ColoradoSun.com.

You can see the coal-fired electricity spike in the afternoon and early evening, when people get home from work and school, start cooking, turn on lights in the winter darkness, and warm up chilly houses. And you can viscerally understand why PRPA and others need reliable backups for the solar and wind resources that may not be available on a cold, dark December afternoon.

CLIMATE

Offsetting airline pollution by burying bricks made of sawdust. >> Aviation companies are buying into a new carbon offset employing old-school materials. >> WSJ Is plastic recycling through chemicals a dangerous fraud? >> The process can create toxic byproducts and discourage plastics bans, opponents say. >> OilandGasWatch Sustainable aviation fuel makes the bigtime with longer flights. >> Advocates still unsure if it can move from curiosity to part of climate solution. >> CNBC The new electrical generation, country by country. >> In the coal-friendly nations, it doesn’t look all that different. >> NYT

HEALTH

Tuberculosis cases on the rise in Colorado. >> After a 10-year decline, the number of tuberculosis cases in Colorado has risen 60% this year, which is not the kind of throwback to Colorado’s colorful past that we endorse . >> 9News Driving for Medicaid dollars. >> State officials are investigating an apparent scheme to defraud Medicaid by driving patients longer-than-needed distances to receive treatment for opioid addiction. >> The Denver Post🔑 Insurance industry consolidation rolls on. >> Giant health insurance companies Cigna and Humana are discussing a merger to create a mega health insurance company, but regulators will also get a say. >> Axios Where is Ammon Bundy, the guy who doxxed health care workers over false claims of kidnapping? >> He appears to have fled to avoid paying a judgment in a defamation suit. >> The Atlantic🔑

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So you’re all set for climate, environment and health news for the week. Time to get a nice hot cup of cocoa, sit down by the fire or a warm rice bag, and let the visions dance over the advantages of a low cost high deductible bronze HSA vs. a low deductible broad network gold PPO. We’ll leave you to that good cheer, and best of luck. .

— Michael & John