Preserve designed to protect rare toad
Breckenridge – Town officials have designated Cucumber Gulch a nature preserve in a redoubled effort to protect the fragile wetlands, habitat of the endangered boreal toad.
“It’s really important for gulch visitors to understand how vulnerable this area is,” said Matt Stais, chairman of the Breckenridge Open Space Advisory Committee. “By labeling the area a ‘preserve’ and managing it accordingly, we hope to send the message that we take the protection of this area very seriously.”
Over the summer, researchers discovered a toad killed by a dog in the gulch just below Breckenridge Ski Resort, and, as a result, officials have reasserted efforts to prohibit dogs.
Suit claims aquifers hurt by energy firms
Bayfield – Two families who live near Bayfield have filed a lawsuit alleging energy companies drilling for coal-bed methane are draining the aquifers that provide water for their ranches.
Attorneys for the families filed the lawsuit in the Durango water court against Colorado state engineer Harold Simpson and Ken Beegles, head of the state Division of Water Resources’ Durango field office.
The lawsuit asks that Simpson require energy companies to obtain well permits and water augmentation plans to protect the plaintiffs’ senior water rights.
Otherwise, the families fear coal-bed methane drilling will drain the groundwater that supplies their ponds, springs and irrigation systems, attorney Sarah Klahn said.
Fish, wildlife official moving to new job
Ralph Morgenweck, regional director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service since 1992, is resigning, the federal agency announced Thursday.
One of the service’s top officials in the West, Morgenweck said he has accepted a job as a senior science adviser on U.S. Department of Interior programs, effective Dec. 12.
“I have been in the job for 13 years – that’s a long time for a regional director,” said Morgenweck, who will remain in Denver.
Mitch King, currently the service’s assistant director for Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration Programs in Washington, D.C., will serve as the regional acting director.
Deputies on stakeout fire back at suspects
Grand Junction – Two sheriff’s deputies escaped injury when someone fired at least three bullets into their patrol car during a chase, and authorities said the suspects may be two men wanted in an earlier shooting.
Deputies fired back and then launched an intensive, door-to-door search after the gunfight Thursday night, but the suspects escaped, Mesa County sheriff’s spokeswoman Susan McBurney said.
The deputies had been staking out a building after getting a tip that Charles Pruitt, 39, and Samuel Lincoln, 24, might be inside. Pruitt and Lincoln are wanted in the Nov. 23 shooting of James Finnegan, 20, of Grand Junction, who was left for dead in the desert.
Finnegan survived and is improving, McBurney said.
Two people had left the building under surveillance Thursday night and were driving away when the deputies followed.
As the deputies tried to get the car to pull over, someone inside fired on them, McBurney said.
Three shots hit the windshield of the patrol car and a fourth may have hit the grill, Sheriff Stan Hilkey said.
The search for Pruitt and Lincoln continued Friday, McBurney said.
Initiative-easing measure on ballot
Secretary of State Gigi Dennis certified the first initiative for next year’s ballot on Friday, a measure that would ease restrictions on petitions for ballot measures in Colorado.
Dennis said petition supporters turned in 121,317 signatures.
State law requires 67,829 valid signatures to qualify for next year’s ballot.
Dennis Polhill, a sponsor, said the measure would condense thousands of pages of conflicting statutes, charters, court opinions and regulations, allow petitions to all local governments, reduce lawsuits and protect petitioners from government campaigns against their using public funds.
“It’s not easing the restraints, it’s returning the rules to how they are defined in the constitution,” Polhill said.
Lawmakers have opposed making the process easier, worried that changes to the state Constitution become difficult if problems are found with citizen initiatives.
Polhill said he expected opposition from politicians and lobbyists.
Beauprez hires campaign manager
U.S. Rep. Bob Beauprez on Friday announced that he has hired Jack St. Martin, senior vice president of Direct Impact, a grassroots public affairs firm based in Alexandria, Va., as manager of his gubernatorial campaign.
St. Martin has previously worked for the Republican National Committee and as the national field director for the Christian Coalition and the executive director of Americans of Faith.
Campaign spokesman John Marshall, has been promoted to deputy campaign manager-communications director.
