EPA FACES FIFTH LAWSUIT OVER ’15 MINE SPILL
ALBUQUERQUE» A fifth lawsuit has been filed against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency over a mine waste spill the agency inadvertently triggered in 2015, polluting rivers in Colorado, New Mexico and Utah.
The lawsuit was filed Aug. 3 in federal court in Albuquerque by 295 Navajo farmers and ranchers. Their attorney, Kate Ferlic, said Friday the lawsuit asks for about $75 million.
The suit says the farmers and ranchers lost crops and livestock and had to pay to haul clean water because the spill kept them from using the polluted rivers.
A judge consolidated the new lawsuit with cases filed previously by the Navajo Nation, New Mexico, Utah and a dozen New Mexico residents. Those suits seek a total of $2.3 billion.
Mountain lion roams inside of home. BOULDER»
A mountain lion wound up getting trapped inside a Boulder home for more than an hour Thursday night before police and wildlife officers were able to scare it out.
Boulder police spokeswoman Shannon Cordingly said that a homeowner came back to their house at 10:40 p.m. in the 400 block of Marine Street when they found the mountain lion inside the house.
The mountain lion appeared to have pushed through a screen but could not get out, and roamed throughout the two levels of the house until about midnight.
Cordingly said Boulder police and Colorado Parks and Wildlife officers were finally able to use non-lethal rounds to scare the mountain lion out the front door and away from the neighborhood.
No people were inside at the time, but a house cat was killed by the mountain lion, Cordingly said. The mountain lion did not appear to be injured.
Cordingly said the incident was “very worrisome” for wildlife officials.
“At a minimum, please keep ground level doors and windows closed and locked at night and when you are not home,” Cordingly said.
Child killed in crash on I-70.
A child died Friday afternoon in a two-vehicle crash on Interstate 70 in the foothills of Jefferson County.
A silver Pontiac eastbound on the highway west of the Lookout Mountain exchange crossed over the median and crashed into a pickup truck that was westbound, said Trooper Gary Cutler, a Colorado State Patrol spokesman.
The westbound lanes were shut down after the crash.
The child who died was in the Pontiac. The driver of the car was taken to a local hospital. The driver of the pickup truck suffered minor injuries.
The cause of the crash is under investigation.
Fifth animal dies as result of hailstorm.
Katy Perry the peacock is the latest victim of the severe hailstorm that pelted the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo on Monday afternoon, killing animals, injuring guests and staff and demolishing hundreds of vehicles in the parking lot.
The peacock, named after the pop star, was found dead on Thursday. The hailstorm killed five animals including another peacock named Snoop, a Cape vulture named Motswari, Daisy the Muscovy duck and a meerkat pup that was originally considered unaccounted for but later determined to have burrowed underground during the storm.
The zoo is reopening Saturday after a week-long closure that allowed for staff to clean up the damaged facility and prepare temporary fixes to longterm problems like placing tarps and plywood over busted-out skylights that shattered from the softball-sized chunks of ice pummeling the area.
As of Friday, the nearly 400 damaged vehicles left in the parking lot on Monday had dwindled to less than 40. The remaining vehicles will be allowed to stay at the zoo until 8 a.m. on Tuesday, when they will begin being towed at the owner’s expense.
Contributions to help the zoo and its employees recover can be made at cmzoo.org/help.