The weekend is in our sights — but first, a little community journalism! 🤓
We’ve got a pair of top stories today: one on Boulder’s landmark legal action against fossil fuel giants ExxonMobil and Suncor, and another on the OSMP mitigation efforts that kept last month’s NCAR Fire from becoming a tragedy.
Plus all the good stuff you expect from BRL Today: essential community info, Covid-19 updates and things to do around town. Looking for the latest on Marshall Fire fund applications, Colorado’s new bike “safety stop” law and today’s weather? As always, you’ll find what you need to know in Boulder today right here. 👇
– Jezy, managing editor
Quickly
🌤️ Breezy and milder: Expect highs in the low-60s today, with partly sunny skies and westerly winds around 14 mph. “6-10 day temperature outlook favors above normal temperatures for late April,” per NWS Boulder.
💰 Delay in Marshall Fire fund applications: The Community Foundation Boulder County said last month that by April 15 — today — it would announce a process by which Marshall Fire victims could apply for some of the $20 million available through the Boulder County Wildfire Fund for rebuilding their homes, and to access “recovery navigators” to help in the process. It’s now tentatively planning for an early May announcement, as it works with Marshall Fire advocate groups and the county government, the community foundation told Boulder Reporting Lab.
❤️🩹 Recovery expo: The Superior Chamber of Commerce presents a Marshall Fire Recovery Expo tomorrow, April 16 (10 a.m.–3 p.m.) at the Superior Community Center located at 1500 Coalton Rd. The event is designed to connect fire victims with “valuable local resources on rebuilding, mitigation, mental health and more.”
🚌 Boulder Junction, what’s your function?: City of Boulder is looking for community feedback to help develop a “branding identity and associated wayfinding signs” for the Boulder Junction area, a transit-oriented development (TOD) district. As part of its future service plan, RTD has proposed restoring just one of the five bus routes that had served the Boulder Junction bus stop before the pandemic.
🚲 New “safety stop” bike law: Gov. Jared Polis signed into law a bill allowing people riding bicycles, electric-assisted bicycles, electric scooters and other non-motorized vehicles to make “safety stops” at traffic intersections, essentially allowing them to treat stop signs as yield signs and stoplights as stop signs. The law took effected with the governors signature at 12:50 p.m. on Wednesday.
🚧 Cycling-related road closures: And speaking of bikes — The Boulder Roubaix cycling race takes place tomorrow around Table Mountain as well as on county roads to the north of Boulder towards Hygiene. Eastbound Oxford Road will be closed from 41st Street to 49th Street during the race. Other roads along the course will remain open, but delays can be expected. The race begins at 8 a.m. and all riders will be off the road by 3:30 p.m.
⚖️ Legal clinic for fire victims: Louisville’s East County Housing Opportunity Coalition is offering “a free legal clinic for survivors of the Marshall Fire who require assistance with landlord-tenant relations, housing, insurance, or deceptive trade practices.” Sign up here.
📍 Lowe’s moves to new mixed-use development: Head’s up — Lowe’s Home Improvement on W. Dillon Road is moving out of Louisville around the end of May — and into Erie. The new location will be at Highway 287 and Arapahoe Road. Lowe’s will be one of several retailers in the new Nine Mile Corner, a 45-acre mixed-use development public-private partnership between the Town of Erie and Evergreen Development.
Top Stories
Climate change evidence continues to mount in Boulder. Will it be enough to help prove claims in landmark legal action against fossil fuel giants?
Colorado has abundant evidence of destruction caused by the warming, more volatile climate. Wildfires, ever larger and more destructive, now happen year-round — including the ghastly Marshall Fire of late December and the much smaller fires of recent weeks. Rising temperatures have robbed flows from the Colorado River, from which Boulder and Boulder County get substantial amounts of water. Air conditioning has become more necessity than luxury.
But can Boulder and other jurisdictions show harm from burning of fossil fuels — the primary cause of global warming — in their climate liability lawsuits against oil companies?
In 2018, Boulder (both the city and the county) as well as San Miguel County sued two oil giants, ExxonMobil and Suncor. These Colorado cases are among more than 20 climate lawsuits now in courts from Hawaii to Massachusetts. They’re the only cases from an inland state claiming actual damages from climate change — and after a recent legal victory, they could be among the first where substantive arguments are heard in court. (Only Honolulu’s case is on a faster track.)
Despite all the evidence of climate destruction, the legal case will be challenging, according to Pat Parenteau, a professor of environmental law at Vermont Law School.
“In a court of law, you have to prove by the preponderance of evidence and you have to convince the jury, all 12 of them,” says Parenteau, who has advised some parties who filed similar lawsuits, but is not currently involved directly in the litigation.
He points to the difficulty of pinning health impacts on tobacco companies in the 1990s. “Cigarettes kill people. Global warming, per se, kills people: Heat waves kill people. High tides kill people.”
Proving responsibility in a courtroom will be the tricky part.
The NCAR Fire was a mitigation success. What can it tell us about preparing for the next disaster?
Dan Burke, director of Boulder Open Space and Mountain Parks (OSMP), didn’t expect he’d be presenting to the Board of Trustees about another wildfire just three months after the Marshall Fire destroyed more than 1,000 homes in southern Boulder County late last year.
But as Burke said during Wednesday’s board meeting to discuss mitigation efforts surrounding last month’s NCAR Fire: “Emergencies and disasters tend to not adhere to our human constructs of schedules and timelines.”
However, according to OSMP staff, it was the human effort behind the department’s fire mitigation program that proved essential in keeping the fire from becoming a tragedy like the Dec. 30 disaster.
Luckily, wind speeds during the NCAR Fire weren’t as strong as they had been during the Marshall Fire, when gusts topped 100 miles per hour. The lower northerly winds allowed firefighting aircraft to respond by dropping retardant to keep the fire boxed in.
As climate change extends Boulder’s wildfire season, lessons learned from close calls like the NCAR Fire will be essential in preparing for the next disaster. And the insight shared during this week’s board meeting demonstrated the importance of fire mitigation. Thanks to previous OSMP efforts to reduce flammable vegetation and undergrowth, the NCAR Fire was slower and less intense than it otherwise would have been.
BRL Picks
🚗 School travel study: Participants in the Boulder County School Travel Study, for families and households with students ages 9-18 who attend public schools in either of Boulder County’s two school districts, will receive a $50 gift card for participating. “Students & their parents or caregivers, are invited to participate in one 3-hour, virtual or in-person, small-group community interview session about youth travel to school & other key destinations.”
🏆 Conservation Awards: Boulder County is accepting nominations for the 2022 Conservation Awards (formally known as the Land Conservation Awards) through Wednesday, June 1. “Anyone may nominate individuals, families, community groups, or organizations that have made outstanding contributions in Boulder County in Land Conservation, Environmental Stewardship, or Cultural and Historic Preservation.”
🌷 Spring In-Service Day: Celebrate Earth Day and the coming of spring with Thorne Nature Experience at the Sombrero Marsh Environmental Education Center during BVSD’s Spring In-Service Day. This free, kid-friendly event features art projects, a bird-banding demo, scavenger hunts with Thorne educators and live music from nature performers Jeff & Paige.
🎞 Local documentary screening: Did you miss the premiere of the award-winning documentary This Is [Not] Who We Are at Boulder International Film Festival last month? Catch it on Thursday, April 28, during an in-person community screening at YWCA Boulder County. Be sure to stick around for the panel discussion, and check out our Q&A with the filmmakers in advance.
Covid-19 Updates: April 15, 2022
- 93 daily new cases (7-day avg.) 🔺Up 37% over preceding 7-day avg.
- 0 patients hospitalized with Covid (7-day avg.) ⬇Down from avg. of 40 since July 2020.
- 45% percent of ICU is occupied. ⬇Down from avg. of 71% since July 2020.
What We’re Reading
📖 Drought to hamper electricity production at Lake Powell: “Electricity produced at Lake Powell’s Glen Canyon Dam, which serves some 50 Colorado utilities, and dozens of others in the Colorado River Basin, has been cut in half by the 20-year drought, with power levels over the next two years projected to be 47% lower than normal, according to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.” [Fresh Water News]
📖 Labor bill divides coalition: “Colorado’s organized labor coalition entered this legislative session united behind an effort to grant more than 250,000 public-sector workers the right to collectively bargain over wages, benefits and working conditions. Three months later, a bill is set to debut with language that would empower far fewer workers at the bargaining table, and the coalition has fractured as a result — so much so that some labor leaders say they could actively oppose the bill once it’s out.” [Denver Post]
ICYMI from BRL
📈 What’s the air quality index in the Marshall Fire burn area? You can sign up for real-time alerts to find out. County health officials are urging residents to wear masks and stay indoors if windy and dry conditions stir up visible ash from the Dec. 30 disaster that destroyed more than a thousand homes.
🎨 Following poignant gallery show on the King Soopers shooting, Museum of Boulder ushers in hope of a new season with local painter Jennifer Hohlfelder. Thirty-five colorful works by the homegrown visual artist bring light after the darkness to the downtown local history center through June 16, 2022.
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– The BRL Team
