Denver council’s rezoning of Shattuck site applauded
The Denver City Council approved a rezoning Monday night that could pave the way for lofts, small businesses and retail shops at the 6-acre radioactive Shattuck Superfund site, which is in the final stages of cleanup.
The council unanimously approved the rezoning of the site, located in the 1800 block of South Bannock Street in the Overland Park neighborhood.
“I hope everyone will recognize what a momentous event this is,” said Councilwoman Kathleen MacKenzie, who represents the area. “This has been a battle no longer measured in years, but in decades.”
Residents of the Overland Park neighborhood attending the council meeting applauded.
The Shattuck plant stopped operating in 1982, a year after it was added to the list of the nation’s most polluted plants. In 1992, after more than a decade of community pressure, the Environmental Protection Agency mixed together concrete and fly ash over the radioactive site and covered it with rocks and clay, creating a 15-foot tall monolith.
Further pressure prompted the agency to revise its plans and excavate the monolith and refill the area with clean soil.
James Hanley, the EPA’s project manager for the site, told the council the cleanup of the site could be completed by late summer.
Tom Connolly, the site’s trustee, said developers already are expressing interest in the land, which is located near light rail, one of the city’s largest greenways and the South Platte River.
DENVER
Police ID suspect in inmate’s slaying
Denver police have named Encarnacion Grijalvaa, 63, as a suspect in the murder of an inmate last week in the Denver County Jail. The victim was identified as Frank Ortega, 56, whose last known address was a post office box in Denver.
Ortega was being held for court proceedings on charges of menacing and assault. The cause of death was listed as blunt-force trauma to the head, sheriff’s spokesman Darryle Brown said.
Grijalvaa had been jailed while waiting for court proceedings on charges of second-degree assault and aggravated intimidation of a witness. Authorities could not say whether Ortega was the witness Grijalvaa was accused of intimidating.
It was the first known homicide at the county jail since June 10, 1977.
Former jail warden John Simonet, who ran the jail from 1980 to 2000, said murders are rare at the crowded, old facility because of a strict classification system, in which incoming prisoners are thoroughly questioned before being placed with other inmates.
DELTA
State offers reward for escaped inmate
State corrections officials have asked for the public’s help to find an inmate who disappeared from a Delta County facility over the weekend.
Robert Horn, 42, was serving time for forgery convictions in Adams and Jefferson counties when, officials said, he walked away from the Delta Correctional Center on Saturday morning.
Horn is described as 5 feet 11 inches, weighing 195 pounds, with blue eyes, short brown hair, a mustache and a goatee. Authorities said he also has a heart-shaped tattoo on his upper right arm.
Authorities said he should be considered dangerous.
WASHINGTON
Western Dems balk at axing wildfire funds
Trying to make up for Katrina costs, the White House has proposed eliminating a $500 million reserve fund to fight fires in heavy wildfire years. Western-state Democrats criticized the plan Monday as shortsighted and risky.
“This fund – developed on a bipartisan basis – ensured that firefighting costs could be met,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., adding that the loss of funds might force officials to scale back fire-prevention efforts as well.
“If this fire season is worse than normal, the Forest Service will have to cancel other projects like the removal of dead and dying trees infested by bark beetles in order to pay for firefighting costs,” she said.
The proposal is part of a $2.3 billion package of cuts.
The plan still requires approval from Congress.
The $500 million reserve firefighting fund was approved by Congress last year for use if fire-suppression money is depleted – as it has been in recent years as wildfires have scorched the West.
Eliminating it is the single biggest cut in the list of reductions in the $2.3 billion package Bush proposed.
BOULDER
Scientists: Pluto may have two more moons
Three moons, not one, appear to orbit Pluto, researchers said Monday.
Using the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers found two unknown bodies moving around Pluto, which is known already to have one moon, Charon.
Pluto and Charon inhabit the Kuiper Belt, a frigid region of space, nearly three billion miles away, that is filled with rocky and icy bodies.
The two new moons are likely tiny things, much smaller than the 750-mile-diameter Charon, but scientists have not been able to precisely calculate mass yet.
The research team, which is co-led by Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, plans to run follow-up observations with Hubble in February to confirm if the objects are truly moons.
BOULDER
Physicist wins prize, national recognition
A Boulder physicist has won national recognition, and a prize worth $10,000, for his research on liquid crystals.
The American Physical Society picked University of Colorado physicist Noel Clark to share the the 2006 Oliver E. Buckley Condensed Matter Prize with Robert Meyer, a physics professor at Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass.
Sixteen of the past 73 Buckley Prize recipients have gone on to win Nobel Prizes in physics or chemistry, according to CU.
Liquid crystals exhibit properties of both liquids and solids, and are used in computers, flat-panel televisions, cellphones, calculators and watches.
Clark’s research helped engineers build faster liquid-crystal devices.
He and Meyer will be awarded the prize during the American Physical Society’s meeting in Baltimore in March.
