Around dinner time on July 31, 1976, a storm system stalled high in the sky above the center of the canyon, which stretches between Estes Park and Loveland. Over the course of an hour, the clouds unleashed more than 7 inches of rain, swelling the river encased in the narrow canyon by a foot every three minutes.

By the end of the storm the following day, the system had dumped the equivalent of the area’s normal yearly rainfall on the canyon.

The torrent killed 144 people, injured more than 200 and stranded hundreds in the canyon, some of whom had to be rescued by helicopter. The flood destroyed more than 400 homes and 50 businesses as well as bridges, roads, power lines — nearly everything in its path. The damage totaled $234 million in today’s dollars.

Fifty years later, with the anniversary coming this Friday, the Big Thompson flood remains one of Colorado’s deadliest natural disasters. The catastrophe spurred changes to emergency response protocols and prompted deeper research into mountain floods. Larimer County officials installed warning signs in the canyon and more securely attached the canyon road to bedrock to keep it from washing away in future floods. They also banned the construction of new buildings in the floodway.

“It touched the social fabric of our community and of the nation,” Larimer County Sheriff John Feyen said.

Since the flood, technological improvements have made alerting people to flash floods easier and more effective. Weather forecasting, too, has become more accurate and specific.

While those changes make predicting and responding to a flash flood more seamless, they don’t change the whims of Mother Nature.

“Could the Big Thompson flood happen again? Of course it could,” said Bob Jarrett, a retired research hydrologist with the U.S. Geological Survey who studied the 1976 flood.

And there’s plenty of uncertainty, he added: “It could be bigger — or it could be smaller.”

Moving boulders like sand

In 1976, people in the canyon who survived the flood described hearing what sounded like a train coming at them. It was a surge of water carrying boulders, exploding propane tanks and houses.

Emergency responders used helicopters to drop sleeping bags, food and clothes to stranded survivors, as well as leaflets instructing them to gather on high ground and wait for extraction.

In the days after the flood, a National Guard helicopter deposited Jarrett in the canyon, which had become inaccessible by car. From a camp jokingly called the “Drake Hilton,” he and other researchers spent weeks in the canyon conducting a post-mortem on the floodwaters.

Jarrett and his coworkers later calculated that, at the flood’s peak, the Big Thompson River at the canyon mouth charged down at 31,200 cubic feet per second — nearly four times the previous maximum flow recorded. The torrent’s force moved boulders more than 20 feet in diameter and weighing more than 275 tons, equivalent to the heft of more than 150 Subaru Outbacks.

Smaller boulders, around 3 or 4 feet in diameter, were transported downstream like sand, he said.

To explain the river’s power, Jarrett tells people to imagine 31,200 basketballs, each measuring a little less than a cubic foot, coming toward them every second.

In some places, the river’s water rose from a foot deep to more than 20 feet in less than an hour. Standing waves reached 10 feet above the water surface.

The Big Thompson flood caused a surge in research on flash flooding in the Rocky Mountains, Jarrett said. Findings have included that flash floods are rare above 7,500 feet in elevation, but common below that altitude — like where the Big Thompson lies.

The disaster also prompted the study of ancient floods as a way to gauge how common large flash floods are in specific areas — a field called paleoflood hydrology. Jarrett later found that, in some areas of the Big Thompson River basin, the 1976 flood was the largest since the retreat of glaciers 10,000 years ago.

“We in the hydro-meteorological community, we’ve learned a lot,” he said. “But to convey that to the public is the most difficult thing to do.”

‘We’re better positioned to recover’

Dozens of static signs now instruct visitors to the Big Thompson Canyon to climb to safety in case of a flood. Electronic signs stand by to warn travelers of impending weather.

But in 1976, emergency responders had few ways to alert the thousands in the canyon of an impending storm or flood waters. Law enforcement officers drove up the canyon as flood waters rose to try to convince people to seek higher ground. Two officers — Colorado State Patrol Trooper Willis Hugh Purdy and off-duty Estes Park police officer Michael Owen Conley — drowned while helping others evacuate.

“The whole emergency alert and notification system changed because of the Big Thompson flood,” said Lori Hodges, the director of emergency management for Larimer County.

Technological improvements have made it easier to alert people to an impending disaster. Larimer County and the National Weather Service can send an alert to cell phones across a geographic area.

“You’re holding a computer stronger than the lunar module every time you pick up your phone,” said Feyen, the sheriff.

But law enforcement will still go in person to warn people, he said, especially in areas like the canyon where cell phone service is iffy.

The 1976 flood was one in a series of disasters that prompted the creation of incident command centers — which serve as a central hub for decision-making for all agencies responding to a crisis, Hodges said. The emergency system in the 1970s was primarily focused on nuclear threats, she said, and then expanded to encompass floods, tornadoes, hurricanes and other disasters. Incident command centers are now the norm during disasters.

Many large counties have also developed their own emergency management offices in the decades since the flood. Feyen remembers when Larimer County hired its first emergency manager — that person worked alone and out of a cubicle in the sheriff’s office.

Now, Hodges commands a staff of seven. Her agency not only responds to disasters, but also tries to prevent them from happening and to reduce the risk of damage ahead of time.

In the aftermath of the 1976 flood, Feyen remembers the pundits saying a similar flood would never happen again. Then, in 2013, another stalled storm flooded Larimer and neighboring counties, causing $4 billion in damage and killing nine people.

“Our hubris tells us that this will never, ever happen again,” he said. “I never want for a minute for people to think we’ll be able to stop fires and floods and snowmageddons.”

The changes implemented in the wake of disasters, like the 1976 flood, mitigate danger and damage.

“We’re not going to stop the event, but we’re better positioned to recover,” Feyen said.

While forecasting improved, uncertainty remains

In the aftermath of the flood, found a number of factors that impacted forecasters’ ability to predict the severity of the storm and warn those in the area.

Equipment was offline. Forecasters were receiving few on-the-ground reports from the area. And the two meteorologists working that night were handling multiple incidents at once.

Weather forecasting has improved by every metric in the last 50 years, state climatologist Russ Schumacher said. Radar networks are more robust, weather forecasting models are more accurate and information is more accessible to the public.

But accurately predicting exactly how much rain will fall and where remains a challenge, he said. It is difficult to know whether a storm will drop 4 inches or 12 inches, or whether the bulk of the rain will fall directly on a narrow canyon or a few miles south.

“What happened in the Big Thompson Canyon was so localized, it was so much rain in such a small area — that����ap always going to be hard to forecast,” Schumacher said.

Schumacher pointed to the deadly as an example. Heavy rains flooded the Guadalupe River, which rose more than 25 feet in less than an hour. The surge killed 136 people, including more than 20 children at a summer camp.

It’s unclear how climate change will shape the future of flash flooding in Colorado, Schumacher said. Generally, climate change is expected to cause more extreme weather. Even if the average annual rainfall doesn’t change, the rain may fall in fewer but more intense storms.

“Even if we can’t really pin down exactly how climate change is going to affect our rainfall here, we have these awful floods in history, and we know we have the chance that they will happen again,” he said. “These are the things we know can happen, and that����ap why it’s important to learn the lessons from the big floods of the past.”

Commemorations

Several organizations are hosting events this week to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Big Thompson flood:

• The Colorado Climate Center is hosting . It is set to begin at 8:30 a.m. Friday at the Estes Valley Community Center in Estes Park. Attendees can .
• Larimer County is who were there 50 years ago. The event is set for 2-4 p.m. Friday at the Pulliam Community Building in Loveland.
• The Big Thompson Flood Memorial Inc. is hosting to honor those impacted by it. The event is scheduled from 4 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Friday at the Drake Firehouse in Loveland.
• The Loveland Museum is that explores the history of the flood. The reception is 5-7 p.m. Friday at the Loveland Museum.
• The Big Thompson Canyon Association is hosting about little-known facts about the flood and the stories of the responders who saved lives. The presentation is at 1:30 p.m. Saturday at 1479 Big Thompson Canyon Rd., Drake.

–Elise Schmelzer

Aurora has levied close to 200 fines to homeowners for violating city water restrictions this summer, a marked increase from the half-dozen it issued last year.

And tubing enthusiasts in Golden are emerging from Clear Creek with scrapes and bruises because of stream flows that are just over a quarter of what they should be at this point in July.

“This is definitely the lowest water level we’ve seen in the creek since 2002,” said Golden Deputy City Manager Carly Lorentz, who noted the 80-cubic-feet-per-second rhythm of the creek is akin to a mid-September volume. “But that low flow hasn’t scared anybody away.”

Welcome to one of the hottest and driest summers metro Denver has seen in years, notwithstanding scattered monsoon rain relief last week in pockets of the Front Range. And the critical buffer the state relies on — stored water in reservoirs — is shrinking steadily, hobbled by the lowest recorded snowpack in Colorado since 1941.

Cities and towns are grappling with whether to boost limits on water consumption, especially with forecasts calling for high temperatures to remain in the 90s well into this week. And don’t be surprised if a citation arrives in your mailbox, as new monitoring technology gives water providers a precise view of who is complying with watering rules at any hour — and who is trying to get away with an extra helping of forbidden H2O.

“I think it’s safe to say that 2026 will go down as the record drought year, and hopefully it won’t be exceeded for a long time,” said Jason Ullmann, Colorado’s state engineer. “But if we don’t get a good snowpack this winter, next year will be more difficult than this year.”

The state’s reservoirs are at 65% to 75% of where they should be at this time of year, Ullmann said.

And while parts of metro Denver got a slight reprieve from the dryness and heat last week — Thursday was the first day Denver saw a high temperature below 90 degrees in nearly two weeks, according to state climatologist Russ Schumacher — there’s a lot more summer to go.

After Denver saw its first 100-degree day of the season last week, temperatures are once again flirting with triple digits this weekend. Water managers everywhere are on edge.

Last week, Castle Rock , mandating a two-day-per-week watering limit, both by sprinkler and by hand. Most municipalities and utilities, including Denver Water, had already enacted similar watering restrictions earlier this year under levels they classified as Stage 1.

Mark Marlowe, the director of Castle Rock Water, said voluntary reductions in water use weren’t cutting it in the town of nearly 90,000, despite the town’s ban on the installation of thirsty new turf lawns and a recent ordinance for dormant and brown lawns.

Castle Rock was seeking a 10% cut in water use but “we weren’t seeing any meaningful reductions,” Marlowe said. While Plum Creek — a drinking water source for the town — has dried to a trickle, Castle Rock was still pushing out 18 million gallons on average to its customers every day, he said.

Now Castle Rock wants a reduction in water use of 25%. Violators , then $25 for a second violation and increasing amounts for subsequent breaches.

“It’s understandable; people are trying to protect their landscapes,” Marlowe said. “But when we get into a drought like this, we have to reduce water use.”

‘We need them to save more’

Denver Water, the state’s largest water provider with 1.5 million customers across the city and some suburbs, was shooting for a 20% reduction in water use under mandatory watering rules implemented in late March.

So far, water use has dropped 5%, said Greg Fisher, Denver Water’s manager of demand planning.

While the utility will happily take that savings to the water bank, Fisher’s message to customers is simple: “We need them to save more.”

Denver Water is preparing to turn up the heat on enforcement of its water restrictions in the latter half of summer, he said.

At the beginning of the season, the utility focused on educating customers. Homeowners reported to the utility’s tip line were sent postcards and robocalls , which limit outdoor watering to two assigned days per week. Watering also must occur before 10 a.m. or after 6 p.m.

“The vast majority of people, you only have to talk to them once,” Fisher said.

Residents found breaking the rules for the first time will receive a formal warning. Then fines kick in: $250 all the way up to $1,000, depending on the number of violations.

Denver Water officials have not yet seriously considered implementing stricter restrictions, Fisher said. Under Stage 2 rules — the next level of restrictions — the utility would ban lawn irrigation, limit watering to once a week and require restaurants to provide drinking water only upon request.

Users need to reduce water use — and hope for a good winter snowfall — to keep those tighter restrictions off the table next summer, Fisher said.

“More severe stages are certainly on the table for next year; the huge uncertainty is the winter,” he said. “… Everything we’re doing this year is to prevent that.”

As of last week, the water provider’s 10-reservoir system . Normally, the supply system is nearly full this time of year. Despite its grim standing, Fisher said, the reservoir situation is significantly better than in 2002, another year of record-breaking drought.

In Aurora, concerns over water bottler

That parched summer 24 years ago has become the “floor for modeling” stresses to Aurora’s water system, utility spokeswoman Shonnie Cline said.

But 2026 is giving 2002 a run for its money.

“We are seeing our reserves drawn down,” Cline said. “It is concerning.”

The dozen reservoirs Colorado’s third-largest city taps are at 51% of capacity — well below the 85% threshold they typically meet in late July. The city expects Spinney Mountain Reservoir in Park County, which on the Colorado and Arkansas rivers, to plunge to just a fifth of its capacity by year’s end, Cline said.

“About every three weeks, we’re losing about 1% of storage,” Cline said of the overall system, which serves around 400,000 customers.

One of those customers, California-based Niagara Bottling, is Aurora Water’s largest. It used more than 200 million gallons last year as it bottled city tap water to sell to retailers for their store-brand bottled water offerings.

Niagara so far has refused to adhere to Aurora Water’s mandate of a 20% reduction in use, as first — an issue Cline says the utility is in negotiations with the company about.

“It can be harder for businesses to pivot (than residential customers),” she told The Denver Post.

Niagara’s water consumption amounts to 1% of the utility’s total annual water output, she said. Last week, Niagara provided The Post with a statement saying the company “is willing to do its part to reduce water consumption during drought conditions.”

“That����ap why Niagara has already deployed meaningful water-efficiency measures, including the installation of an in-plant recovery system expected to save approximately 8 million to 10 million gallons of water in 2026, and (approximately) 20 million gallons annually thereafter,” the company said.

Meanwhile, Tim York, Aurora Water’s manager of water conservation, uses the latest smart meter technology — dubbed — to precisely track customer use across the city, button up water waste and pinpoint who the violators are.

So far, Aurora Water has issued around 200 citations for breaking watering rules, with for repeated infractions. York said the city so far was meeting its goal of a 20% reduction in water use, but the utility must remain vigilant.

“We do need to hold that into the next few months,” he said.

Officials at Highlands Ranch Water said customers in the Douglas County suburb didn’t necessarily wait until late spring to start up their sprinklers, given the extraordinarily warm and dry winter and spring this year.

“The irrigation season started a lot sooner,” said Swithin Dick, the utility’s water rights administrator.

That has added up to 2.3% more water consumed than expected through the first six months of the year, Dick said — an amount equaling 48.2 million gallons.

“The increased temperatures that you had this year really had a huge impact on the streams and the vegetation,” Dick said. “We are seeing a lot more yellow turf here in Highlands Ranch than we’ve seen in other years.”

But the message about saving water may be getting through, albeit with some old-fashioned prodding. Highlands Ranch Water has so far issued 300 violation notices to customers this year, the vast majority of them warnings.

“Most people need a tap on the shoulder to make them take a look at their sprinkler system,” said Paige McFarland, the utility’s water efficiency coordinator. “But we are physically present in the community, patrolling in the early morning.”

El Niño relief on horizon?

There are signs that earnest messaging about conserving water can change behavior, even without the punitive measures. In Erie, town leaders this spring asked residents and homeowners associations to voluntarily limit watering to just two days a week.

From April through June, Erie used about 475 million gallons of water, which was “roughly 54 million gallons less than the five-year average rate,” .

Whether 2027 will see the same need for watering curtailments is not yet known, but there are indications Coloradans could get more help from Mother Nature in the coming months.

The National Weather Service last month has established itself in the Pacific Ocean, with warming ocean temperatures bringing better chances of heavier snows this winter and monsoon rains this summer.

The weather service characterizes the current El Niño pattern as “very strong.”

“There’s a reason to be optimistic that things will get wetter later in the year,” Schumacher, the state climatologist, said. “If nothing else, it reduces the chance of a historically awful snowpack like last winter.”

But the longer-term outlook for moisture in Colorado is much bleaker.

Extreme snow droughts like the one that plagued the West last winter will become more frequent — and eventually the norm — across much of the West as climate change fuels warmer temperatures, according to a study led by a Colorado School of Mines professor.

The study, published last week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, concluded that the chance of a winter like the one just passed will hover around 10% through the end of the decade if fossil fuel emissions aren’t curbed.

By the 2050s, the risk will rise to 32%, and then to 87% by the 2090s, according to the study.

But Cline, with Aurora Water, can’t wait around until the dawn of the 22nd century to worry about possible conditions on the ground. Her utility’s concerns are more immediate.

“We have to assume a worst-case scenario and hold everybody to account for their water use now,” she said. “We knew 2026 was going to be bad, but we’re all the more worried about 2027 and 2028.”

The study, published in May 2025, sounded an alarm for communities surrounding well sites, and it got the attention of the , the state body that regulates the oil and gas industry.

The commission assembled a panel to review that report along with two others that looked at how exposure to oil and gas fracking impacted the people who live near well sites. They spent eight months reviewing and released in June.

However, the report did not reach any conclusions as to whether Colorado’s rule requiring oil and gas sites to be at least 2,000 feet from the nearest home is sufficient to protect people’s health. Nor did it make any policy recommendations, leaving the commission’s critics to wonder just how much evidence is needed to effect change.

“It����ap a good first step. But what’s missing here is what is the action that will come from these findings and from putting time into this work,” said Guadalupe Solis, who served on the commission’s panel and is director of public health and advocacy at , a community health nonprofit that is active in Adams County.

Meanwhile, oil and gas industry representatives welcomed the review, saying it is important for Colorado regulators to follow science.

Carly West, executive director of the , said the review reinforced confidence in the state’s 2,000-foot setback rule.

“The evidence doesn’t support changing Colorado’s existing regulatory framework at this time,” she said.

While no policy changes will be forthcoming, the ECMC is accepting on its Public Health Studies Review until Aug. 7. Comments may be submitted online at

The commission’s review reflects the nature of scientific research and how different parties can interpret results differently, based on their interests. Long-term studies are complicated and nuanced, rarely producing definitive conclusions. And that can make it hard for policymakers to enact change even as critics grow antsy over increasing public-health concerns.

Energy and Carbon Management commissioner Trisha Oeth said during a Tuesday night public meeting that she convened the panel after seeing the reports and hearing from the community.

She recruited 14 people, including medical doctors, scientists, state regulators, an industry representative and public health experts from the community, to meet with the researchers and ask questions.

She wanted the commission to understand the science, but she never intended for the group to make policy recommendations.

“It does not change ECMC rules,” Oeth said. “It doesn’t make permit decisions, and it does not say that every health question has been answered. We certainly did not take that on.”

Instead, the panel recommended further study of the cumulative risks of oil and gas development and what it means for people who live near multiple well sites.

And that frustrated those who live near the sites and have been fighting for better public health protections.

‘We need to keep paying attention’

Laurie Anderson, a Colorado field organizer for , said she believes that Oeth had the right intentions when she called for a panel to review the three studies.

But Anderson said the commission, the oil and gas industry and the public are looking for a definitive study that will answer everyone’s questions as to how far apart oil and gas development and neighborhoods should be.

“They just so badly want to justify that 2,000-foot setback and that everything is going to be OK,” Anderson said.

Anderson started fighting oil and gas development after moving to Broomfield in 2015, and she said there is mounting evidence that fracking operations cause illnesses, both long-term and short-term.

She is growing tired of various government agencies waiting on a definitive study while continuing to issue drilling permits.

“They just continue to permit,” Anderson said. “Pretty much they’re going to frack anything in this area before they get the study that says, ‘Whoops, we weren’t as protective as we should have been.'”

During Tuesday night’s informational session on the health panel’s findings, Dr. Jacob Fox, a pulmonologist at UCHealth who studies respiratory disease and climate change, said the leukemia research was an “excellent study.” It showed an association between childhood leukemia and fracking, and it adds to a growing body of evidence that fracking emissions are associated with childhood cancer.

Still, it did not determine a safe distance for families with children, Fox said.

“It����ap something as community members we need to keep paying attention to,” he said.

William Allshouse, one of the paper’s authors, said it’s nearly impossible to make a definitive link between fracking and acute lymphoblastic leukemia, which mainly affects children between the ages of 2 and 5. That’s because the scientists were not measuring the actual pollutants the children were exposed to.

That would require more air monitors and more money, he said.

“This is the best we can do with the available information to build that body of evidence,” Allshouse said. “We can’t say this pollutant is causing this cancer at this distance. If we’re going to continue to drill these large sites, they should be monitored to see what’s coming off the well pad to protect the people that live near them.”

Still, Allshouse said he was glad to see the ECMC look at the study.

“Obviously I would like to see things happen more quickly, but I’m glad it����ap not getting lost either,” he said.

Examining three studies

The leukemia paper was one of three 2025 studies reviewed by the panel.

A by the Environmental Defense Fund and Colorado State University looked at the cumulative health risk of the Front Range’s ozone pollution and volatile organic compounds released by oil and gas sites. That study found acute health risks persist even when best management practices exist, and recommended that drilling and well construction stop during the summer ozone season, which stretches from June 1 to Aug. 31.

“There are limits to how broadly we can apply this finding,” Oeth said. “The sites studied had specific practices, and oil and gas practices were changing during the study period, which is very common in research. So ultimately this study helps us understand risk, but it certainly doesn’t answer every question for every site. No study can do that.”

A study by a CSU researcher measured air pollution and noise exposure at oil and gas development in northeastern Colorado’s . It was funded by the Health Effects Institute.

That study found that noise around wells is a concern and that benzene is the greatest air pollutant risk, but it did not identify any chronic health hazards during operations at the tested sites.

That result bolstered the industry’s arguments that a 2,000-foot setback is enough to protect nearby residents.

“One of the things the review reinforced was confidence in Colorado’s setback requirements,” said West, of the American Petroleum Institute. “The hope is always that the regulations you put into place achieve what you want to achieve.”

Oeth repeatedly reminded the audience at Tuesday’s meeting that the commission’s review did not settle every scientific question.

“It’s meant to help the public, help the ECMC as an agency and help our partner agencies better understand what these studies found, what they did not prove and where more work is needed,” she said.

Colorado needs to follow California’s lead and take a more comprehensive look at research that studies the connection between oil and gas drilling and public health, said Dr. Sara Carpenter, executive director of .

“What concerns me the most about the ECMC report is it����ap not that thorough,” Carpenter said. “I think it was a great idea to convene a panel and say, ‘Let����ap look at this.’ But it����ap only three studies.”

In 2024, the California Geologic Energy Management Division released after a 15-member panel it commissioned reviewed thousands of studies on oil and gas production’s impact on public health and then picked 72 from across the United States and Canada to focus on.

The panel concluded that enough evidence existed to show that oil and gas operations cause respiratory diseases such as asthma and perinatal health problems such as low birthweights, preterm births and congenital abnormalities, Carpenter said. And California clearly stated that its findings would be used to make policy decisions. It reinforced the state’s 2022 decision to make setbacks a minimum of 3,200 feet.

More research has been conducted since that paper was released, and Colorado could have picked up the torch and added to the body of work, she said.

“If this bleeds into inaction at a policy level, that����ap a problem,” Carpenter said. “Why reinvent the wheel? I think these guys reinvented a spoke.”

Re: “Tuberculosis inquiry remains stuck as officials press for access,” July 21 news story.

I was appalled but not surprised to read that the Geo Group at the ICE processing facility in Aurora is stalling or refusing to provide necessary information about a tuberculosis case or cases to state and county health officials so that a proper communicable disease investigation can be completed and additional cases averted. A case of a potentially fatal illness in a 1,530-bed facility is a major cause for concern. The Geo Group’s assertion that the case in question was treated and cleared is no substitute for a public health investigation, and Geo’s refusal to cooperate with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment����ap directive to allow the inspectors into the facility is unacceptable and dangerous. Geo seems to be operating a rogue operation in Aurora, following its own rules and resisting state laws. Why it is being allowed to skirt the law, risking the health of inmates and workers, is a profound mystery.

Nancy Vaughan, Denver

Trump’s priorities are askew

Re: “Trump renews election attacks,” July 17 news story.

This past week, President Donald Trump spoke to the nation. He did not discuss the war in Iran, the inflation that comes with it or the billions of dollars required to replenish our military stocks. He did not address the most recent killings by ICE agents. He did not talk about the kitchen table economics or the disaster relief funds that he has held up. He did not talk about the fact that the U.S. debt is greater than the gross domestic product. No, all he talked about was his obsession with the lost 2020 election and the problems with our election process. A process that got him elected twice. And in his speech, he threatened to pull the licenses for NBC and CBS for not broadcasting his speech even though it was available on their streaming apps.

Does our president or his sycophants care about human life? Does he or his sycophants care about free speech? Does he or his sycophants care about the nation’s debt? Does he or his sycophants care about how you’re going to survive until your next paycheck?

I think not.

John Okada, Loveland

Not carrying Trump’s speech was a cover-up

Tonight, NBC and ABC refused to carry President Trump’s speech. Why? If even 50% of what he said is correct, I am sure the whole thing will be investigated by all the political pundits since he (Trump) claims it will be put out for all to see. It seems to me there has been a huge cover-up pulled on the American people. NBC gave a 20-second statement trying to cover their butt on the 9 O’clock news, but it said nothing.

I don’t want to revisit the 2020 election; we have heard that story way too often. The real question is, why are major networks trying to censor news? Are they controlled by parties that don’t want certain things to get out? Or, instead of being neutral, are they only willing to publish negative news on some and positive news on others? I know this much; I won’t be watching NBC or ABC. They can forget about me seeing ads for any companies spending money, trying to get me to buy anything.

Duane Ross, Aurora

Huckins’ art inspires climate action

Re: “Watching heaven burn,” July 19 features story.

Thanks to Ray Mark Rinaldi for describing the work of painter Shawn Huckins in the Sunday Post. Viewing wildfire through a partly drawn curtain serves up a powerful metaphor of our collective reaction to a warming planet. Our instinct is to turn away from the ongoing consequences of climate change, to close the curtains. The artist shows us that the “burn” cannot now be avoided — even a sliver of a view exposes us to the reality of an overheating planet. The next step is increasingly compelling: to step out of the room and take action to deal with the burning world.

 Phil Nelson, Golden

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Veratrum californicum, more commonly known as the corn lily, is a tall, stalky plant with wide green leaves that grows in alpine areas between roughly 8,000 and 11,500 feet in elevation. When it blooms, the main stalk grows extra length and produces hundreds of little white flowers. It’s common for the plant to reach several feet tall.

Though visually stunning, the corn lily is toxic to animals and also unattractive to many traditional pollinators, said David Inouye, principal investigator at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory in Gothic. The plant����ap toxicity is so legendary, in fact, that what happens when animals ingest it sounds like something out of a science fiction novel.

Corn lily leaves contain a chemical called cyclopamine, so named because researchers found it to be the culprit behind certain birth defects in lambs, including those born with one eye in the center of their skull.

Scientists with the U.S. Department of Agriculture , after ranchers in Idaho reported some of their ewes gave birth to lambs with just one eye. They traced it to the pregnant sheep eating wild corn lilies, though it would take several more decades for someone to discover to produce this defect and others like skull malformation and cleft palate.

Beyond the lore, Inouye said corn lily blooms may become increasingly rare as climate change continues to warm Colorado’s high country. The plant does not flower in a regular cadence and instead responds to environmental cues that trigger the plant to invest its energy making flowers instead of additional leaves, he said. The last two significant blooming events were in 2021 and 2017, and Inouye notes there have only been eight total since he began studying them in 1984.

The theory is that when Colorado’s alpine terrain experiences a colder-than-average summer, the lilies will flower two years later. In addition to dropping seeds, when corn lilies bloom, they grow new roots and effectively reproduce by creating clones. Inouye said more research is needed to confirm the environmental factors that lead to flowering, but if they need cooler temperatures, the effects on future proliferation could be severe.

“One implication we can draw from that is if it takes a below-average temperature summer to trigger that flowering, then as the climate warms, the flowering is going to become less and less common,” he said — all the more reason to catch them while you can.

Right now, corn lilies are blooming sporadically throughout the state, so Inouye wouldn’t go as far as to call the event a “superbloom.” Even so, the flowers likely won’t last long since hot and dry conditions caused wildflowers to bloom early this year. So keep your eyes — or just one — peeled to enjoy them as you hike through the high country.

Climate change made the season’s low snowfall four times more likely to occur than during the preindustrial period from 1850 to 1900, says , published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The size of the impact surprised the study’s lead author, Adrienne Marshall, who is a computational hydrologist and assistant professor of geology and geological engineering at the School of Mines. She expected an increase in likelihood of just 20% or 30% due to climate change — not the many times over that she found.

“It was a gut punch in a way that (other findings) haven’t been,” she said. “I’m looking at and living through the snow conditions we have right now, and I don’t like it. It makes them real in a way that feels new, even for someone that has been working in this field for a while.”

The lack of snow has translated this summer to extreme drought, parched rivers and reservoirs, water use restrictions and increased wildfire risk across Colorado and the region.

Similarly dry winters will become more common across the West if greenhouse gas emissions are not curbed and climate change continues to intensify. Through the end of the decade, the chance of such a winter will hover around 10%, .

Endangered Snowpack: How climate change will affect Colorado skiing

By the 2050s, the risk will rise to 32%, and then to 87% by the 2090s.

That means that a snow drought like the one this winter will become the norm -- predicted to happen almost every nine years out of 10 --  not the exception.

In the Upper Colorado River Basin, which encompasses nearly all of western Colorado, climate change made this winter's drought 14 times more likely to happen than during the preindustrial era, the study says.

There's a slice of less-bad news for those who live in the Upper Colorado River Basin, however.

This winter was so extraordinarily dry that similar winters will remain rare through the end of the century. By the 2090s, the chances of such a snow drought will rise to only 17%, though less-severe snow droughts will still become more common in the decades to come.

The study is one of the first to quantify how the warming climate changes the likelihood of severe snow droughts. But her research adds to studies that have predicted significant impacts on snowfall and snowsports in the coming decades, as The Denver Post explored in its "Endangered Snowpack" project in February.

Marshall was already considering how to apply something called "" -- the process of determining how much of a role climate change plays in a phenomenon -- when the winter's lack of snow became noticeable.

"It provided a great and terrible opportunity to use a case study to further the attribution science we were thinking of," Marshall said.

The findings are grim, Marshall said, but she hopes they will help people better understand what the future will look like and compel them to reduce emissions and slow the pace of climate change.

"I hope they give us clarity on where we are now and what climate change looks like so far," she said. "Second, I hope they help us to adapt."

“Children have to be constantly reminded to drink water, and parents and coaches should be encouraging that excessively in heat like this,” said parent Calli Parker, whose child played for Denver Parks & Recreation’s Carla Madison Recreation Center and its 9-to-10-year-old baseball team. “Because they’re usually not going to do it themselves.”

Denver on Monday broke its own heat record when thermometers reached 101 degrees at Denver International Airport, according to meteorologists, notching the date’s highest temperature since 1878.

But protecting kids’ health during extreme weather, whether that’s searing heat, thunderstorms or freezing cold, is less clear-cut when parents, coaches and players assemble for practice and games. Adults must carefully weigh whether it’s safe for kids to play, since they’re often the last stop for protecting children’s safety on the field, said Dennis Coonan, manager of the Sports Medicine Center at Children’s Hospital Colorado.

“It really should be up to the organization or the coaching staff, which ultimately needs to be in charge of safety,” he said. “But it’s also everybody’s responsibility to keep an eye on these things.”

Climate change-caused extreme heat and poor air quality from wildfire smoke have become summer fixtures in Denver and elsewhere, with the Mile High City breaking or tying its record summer temperatures each of the last five years, according to the National Weather Service.

And yet, there is no objective temperature at which it’s unsafe to play, according to sports organizations. Humidity, sun or cloud cover, wind and other factors can easily make 95 degrees feel like 85 or 105. Rather, the best measure is the Wet Bulb Heat Index, which takes all of those into account, Coonan said.

“It also depends on your acclimatization,” he said. “Are you from here or South Texas? Are you from a higher altitude where you might be used to thinner air? It makes a difference.”

The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment had declared Monday, July 20, an Ozone Action Day, while the National Weather Service issued its heat advisory due to temperatures “that may cause heat illness.” Symptoms of those illnesses range from cramps to, on the extreme side, life-threatening heatstroke, when one’s internal temperature hits 104 degrees or higher and symptoms such as a rapid heart rate, excessive sweating, dizziness, confusion or even seizures can occur at once and without warning.

Denver Parks & Recreation guidance dictates that the city agency may “cancel or delay games, practices, or activities due to wet/unsafe playing conditions, cold temperatures (below 40 degrees Fahrenheit), imminent threat of lightning (within 10 miles of location), or other adverse weather conditions.” But there’s often no specific mention of heat or air quality in city advisories, so individual coaches and recreation centers are typically allowed to make those decisions.

“Site staff and umpires will work with coaches to take hydration breaks as needed during play,” according to the department’s guidelines, which also note that players should plan to “bring extra water and sun protection; limit physical activity prior to games; wear lightweight clothing; and avoid caffeine and eat smaller but more frequent meals or snacks.”

Denver Parks & Recreation employees always follow heat-stress and air-quality safety recommendations to guide their programs, which has different levels of action depending on the severity, said spokesperson Stephanie Figueroa. On Monday, for example, DPR added a pop-up window to their with the heat advisory, but also noted that “games will be played as scheduled.”

“If a heat-related illness occurs, it is important not only to recognize the signs but also to act quickly by lowering the individual’s body temperature and calling 911,” said Josh Polgar, general manager of athletics at South Suburban Parks and Recreation in Littleton. “Parents also play an important role by ensuring their child is well hydrated and appropriately dressed, keeping them home if they are sick or have a condition that makes them more susceptible to heat-related illness, and informing coaches of any medical conditions or medications that may increase their risk.”

Kent Wilhemli, whose 10-year-old played baseball at the Montbello rec center on Monday night, said young people depend on adults to protect them in all sorts of ways, and the immediate danger of dehydration, heatstroke and serious respiratory issues as a result of poor air quality is the most crucial during outdoor summer sports.

More 100-degree days likely to pop up in August, meteorologists have warned, even as many youth sports leagues have ended and back-to-school practices rev up.

“I’ve seen kids taken away in ambulances from race courses and skiing, so I’m sensitive to it,” said Wilhelmi. “But one of our teammates’ families brought a whole cooler of Gatorade today, so kudos to them.”

The ���ɲ����������ٳ�� a $268,428 grant in the fall of 2024. The funds were slated for a project teaming up CU media and communication students with information science students to create educational social media content about artificial intelligence.

Scholars well-versed in communication would learn more about the complicated nature of AI. Information science students would learn how to become better science communicators. And social media users would benefit from accurate, compelling information.

That was the goal.

But Fiesler was among the legion of academics whose research was . The grant terminations stalled or stopped progress on scholarship that the Trump administration deemed out of alignment with its mission — largely, research surrounding , misinformation and climate change.

“The project just died, and my assumption is the reason it got cut was the abstract had the word ‘misinformation’ in it,” Fiesler said. The Trump administration focused on canceling grants across the country , stating this kind of research could infringe on protected speech rights.

In Colorado, more than $375 million in grants from the National Science Foundation, , and the were disrupted — either terminated and reinstated through , or axed altogether — in the first 18 months of the Trump administration, according to the .

Some of the terminated grant money has since been reinstated, and some , but Colorado academics say the damage is far-reaching beyond the individual grants. When federal money dried up, some schools let researchers go. Others chose to leave, unwilling or unable to deal with the months of financial uncertainty.

The loss in funding hurt researchers’ careers and stunted young scholars from entering the profession, experts say. But, in the bigger picture, in rescinded research dollars across the nation blighted scientific progress and innovation for years to come, academics said.

“The U.S. has for a long time been a respected source of innovation in knowledge generation, and that����ap what we’re losing,” said Lynn Schofield Clark, a professor at the who lost a $150,000 grant last year. “That’s something we can’t get back.”

Getting ‘DOGE’d’

More than 170 grants were disrupted in 2025 among Colorado research institutions CU Boulder, DU, Colorado State University and the Colorado School of Mines, according to those schools.

At CU Boulder, a $1.2 million National Science Foundation grant intended to reduce racially biased beliefs through teaching human genetics in high school biology was axed. At CSU, a $6 million grant studying the growth of artificial joints to help osteoarthritis patients met its demise. At Mines, $105,000 toward increasing degree completion for underrepresented students in STEM was terminated.

DU’s Schofield Clark, a journalism and media studies professor, lost a grant from the for her work incorporating local Chicano history into common curriculum classes at the university, so all students had the chance to learn Chicano history in general education courses.

“We wanted to see if we could look into resources and generate new resources and teach our students by enabling them to have direct contact with the cultural arts scene, the history scene and hear from people who had an impact on shaping this area,” Schofield Clark said.

The program, which reached about 350 DU students, kicked off in the spring semester of 2023. The grant funding allowed Schofield Clark to take DU students to local Chicano festivals, the History Colorado museum and music events, and to bring Chicano community members to campus to tell their stories directly to students.

It was going so well that last year, Schofield Clark and two of her graduate students went to a Chicano studies academic conference to present their work. At the conference, they learned their grant funding had been “DOGE’D,” as Schofield Clark and other researchers called the federal funding terminations.

The , or DOGE, was one of Trump’s first initiatives during his second term, initially spearheaded by Elon Musk. The initiative, which , was “maximizing governmental efficiency and productivity.” The department is responsible for mass federal layoffs and the termination of more than 15,800 federal grants across agencies totaling about $49 billion, .

Many of those terminations targeted grants associated with marginalized populations — like researching how a new drug might affect women or how to better recruit and retain students of color in science programs.

Schofield Clark’s vision of bringing the Chicano community to DU students put a target on her back. The professor recalled receiving a termination letter from the federal government with a “very insulting” tone similar to “we are rescinding this grant and giving it to people who are more worthy,” she said.

“That definitely derailed things,” Schofield Clark said.

The program slowed. The university funded what it could, Schofield Clark said.

At DU, 21 grants were terminated under the Trump administration, though all but five have been reinstated, said Corinne Lengsfeld, the university’s vice provost for research and graduate education.

Still, Lengsfeld said research expenditures at the university have decreased “significantly,” about 20%, during Trump’s second term, as faculty continue to face long delays in federal grant approvals and ongoing uncertainty.

“Because of all this, we are not going to be a top, intellectually rich country soon, and that is concerning,” Lengsfeld said.

Schofield Clark’s grant could now be reinstated.

After losing in court following the agency’s termination of more than 1,400 grants, the National Endowment for the Humanities started offering terminated grant recipients the

Schofield Clark hopes to receive the rest of her funding and continue the work. She wants to share her history curriculum with other universities so they can implement similar programs — a step she wasn’t able to take after the funding loss.

While her own funding loss was frustrating, Schofield Clark noted broader implications. Within the past decade, she said, researchers have contended with the reality that so much academic scholarship has advanced through a white, Western lens.

“We’ve had a lot of knowledge gaps, and we need to address those because that����ap part of who we are as a country,” Schofield Clark said. “This was a major disruption and a major slap in the face for a large population of people who have every right to have more knowledge about their history and health and everything.”

‘The disruptions have been real’

Full grant terminations have not been the only hit to academic research under the Trump administration.

Rescinded grants that ultimately were reinstated through court challenges left universities in limbo long enough to either force them to lay off researchers or cause frustrated faculty to quit or go elsewhere, said Cass Moseley, CSU’s vice president for research.

“A lot of faculty are trying to either pivot to slightly adjacent work that����ap maybe more fundable for the federal government or seeking non-federal sources, although we know non-federal funding cannot replace federal money,” Moseley said.

CSU saw nearly 70 grants disrupted since last year, totaling more than $84 million, according to university tracking. Many of those were climate-related or tied to diversity, equity, and inclusion, Moseley said.

Even so, Moseley said there are huge delays in grant approvals and more complicated processes to apply for and receive federal funding, straining a nation that was once a thriving research enterprise.

“The disruptions have been real,” said Massimo Ruzzene, CU Boulder’s vice chancellor of research and innovation.

Ruzzene is worried about the hit to workforce development. Young academics just starting their research careers were seeing their work halted by funding cuts before they even got started, Ruzzene said.

“This impacts the training of a new generation of scientists and scholars,” Ruzzene said.

Postdoctoral scholar Alice Taylor was thrilled to be hired to work on a DU project researching anti-authoritarian movements led by women and LGBTQ+ activists worldwide.

In April of 2025, the $486,000 National Science Foundation grant that funded Taylor’s position was terminated, and the emerging scholar was left scrambling to pay rent.

“There’s a reason why authoritarian regimes go after universities first,” said Taylor, who is now faculty at DU. “What����ap happened with Trump and DOGE is straight from authoritarian playbooks. Universities have the potential to stand up and be leaders and defend what universities are best at: freedom of speech, having robust faculty unions, high-quality, critical education.”

A new threat

The Trump administration is trying to assert even more control over academic research as the proposes — a framework governing how federal agencies administer funds.

Colorado academics, , spoke of the overhaul in cataclysmic terms, noting the proposed guidelines would politicize research and innovation in a way that would be hard to pull back.

The proposal would authorize federal agencies to change or cut awards based on shifting presidential priorities and take away existing appeals processes, academic experts said.

“Those terms and conditions reflect the president����ap agenda in some ways that are quite hard for universities,” Moseley said.

The ⁠Trump administration said the changes are intended to improve transparency, accountability and oversight for federal grants.

Meanwhile, the the “harmful” proposal would be “extremely disruptive to the lifesaving research that the federal government funds and oversees.”

These overarching observations about the federal government’s impact on life-saving, innovative, revolutionary academic research are what most concerned the Colorado academics who spoke to The Denver Post.

“The loss in funding, of course, will have immediate operational impacts for students and researchers,” Ruzzene said. “It will also have scientific impacts as researchers cannot do their work. It will have workforce impacts. There will be less innovation — less products, less patents, less industry partnerships. This erosion will be difficult and take a long time to rebuild. That will have an impact on our ability to be prosperous economically as a nation, to fund careers for our children, to have scientific progress.”

“While we are in challenging times, we need to keep focus on what we do best, which is creating knowledge and transferring that knowledge to our students,” Ruzzene said.

After hours of deliberation, Colorado Parks and Wildlife commissioners on Thursday night voted to limit hunters to killing two individuals per day from each of the 17 furbearer species in the state. Until now, state regulations have not imposed a limit on the number of furbearers hunters could take in a day.

The commission , which is stricter than the options presented by Colorado Parks and Wildlife staff. Agency staff members told commissioners that they did not believe a daily trapping limit — called a bag limit — was necessary because there was no evidence that trapping levels were high enough to impact the species’ population.

But after the commission asked the staff to present potential limits, CPW put forth two possible alternatives.

During the discussion, commissioners noted that it was unlikely that a bag limit would change the number of animals killed or trappers’ behavior, as most trappers take only a few animals per year.

Instead, they said, the conversation was necessary to address what some might see as a regulatory loophole that allowed unlimited trapping, while balancing the needs of trappers themselves.

“All of this comes down to values,” Commissioner Becky Niemiec said. “There is no biological reason for a high bag limit, and there is no biological reason for a low bag limit. It’s about whose values do we uphold?”

The changes to furbearer trapping come amid a broader conversation about hunting in the state, including consideration of a potential ban on the sale of fur from hunted furbearers. Wildlife advocacy groups in recent years have pursued several restrictions, including a failed attempt to ban mountain lion and bobcat hunting through a ballot initiative.

The trend has prompted that would ask voters in November to enshrine the right to hunt and fish in the state constitution and better protect those practices from further challenges.

Coloradans who spoke in opposition to bag limits at the commission’s meeting Thursday said they didn’t understand the need for a regulation they saw as needless. If the commission needed to adopt a bag limit, they urged it to select one of the options presented by CPW staff.

“I don’t know why we continue to consider very radical changes to systems and science that has worked for decades in our state,” said Reece Melton, the natural resources director for Rio Blanco County in northwest Colorado.

Commissioners at their March meeting requested that CPW staff compile information about the rules regulating how many furbearers could be hunted on a single day. The wildlife agency lists 17 species as huntable furbearers: badgers, bobcats, beavers, coyotes, gray foxes, swift foxes, red foxes, mink, muskrats, opossums, pine martens, ring-tailed cats, striped skunks, western spotted skunks, raccoons, long-tailed weasels and short-tailed weasels.

CPW staff members on said Thursday that their preferred option was a daily limit of 15 animals of each species per hunter. They also presented a stricter option, which would allow a daily bag limit of eight for some species and four for others.

Agency staff said CPW had never imposed a bag limit on furbearers because its leaders never saw it as necessary.

The number of animals hunted each year is small compared to the species’ overall populations, and CPW is not concerned about hunting impacting species’ populations, said Matt Eckert, the deputy assistant director for the agency’s Terrestrial Branch.

“Annual harvest estimates, even without a bag limit, have been low — and far below the sustainable level,” he said, noting that disease, habitat changes, weather and car collisions play a much larger role in species’ population sizes.

A 1996 change in hunting regulations that banned the use of all traps — except for live traps — greatly reduced furbearer hunters’ success, reducing the need for a limit on daily take, Eckert said.

With the exception of bobcats, CPW does not require that hunters report how many furbearers they’ve killed. The agency instead conducts a voluntary survey of furbearer hunters and from those responses.

For example, CPW estimates that at least 53,000 beavers live in Colorado. On average, hunters trap and kill about 1,300 beavers every year — far less than the 10,600 kills CPW considers the maximum limit for the species’ sustainability.

CPW tracks more precise data on bobcat trapping, since the state requires hunters to report every bobcat they kill. Between 2022 and 2024, hunters killed an average of 968 bobcats annually — far less than the 3,521 that CPW considers the upper limit of hunting. The agency estimates that more than 20,700 bobcats live in Colorado.

Most trappers kill very few animals every year — an average of two or less, according to CPW data about six species.

A few trappers, however, are killing dozens of animals every year. One hunter killed 128 beavers one year and another harvested 63 gray foxes, data shows.

Several commissioners expressed concerns about those trappers and the impacts they could have on their hunting grounds, especially as wild animals weather drought and climate change.

Commissioners on Friday heard CPW staff present on the implications of from hunted furbearers. A wildlife advocacy group, the Center for Biological Diversity, last year submitted a petition asking the commission to ban the practice.

Although CPW staff recommended denying the petition and maintaining the status quo, the commissioners in March rejected that recommendation. On Friday, however, the commission voted 6-5 to stop considering the proposed ban.

When major disasters strike, Americans are routinely waiting weeks — or even months — to receive presidential approval for aid. And if they live in a state that didn’t support President Donald Trump, chances are greater that aid will be denied.

Since taking office last year, Trump has approved about 65 requests for major disaster declarations and denied more than two dozen others from states, tribes or territories seeking federal financial assistance following hurricanes, tornadoes, storms, floods and fires.

 on average to approve disaster requests than any other president, according to an Associated Press analysis of data dating back to 1989, when a federal law setting new parameters for disaster determinations was implemented. And no other president has such a disparity in denials between states that supported him politically and those that did not.

The delays and denials come as Trump’s administration contemplates a makeover of the , which administers disaster aid. Major disaster declarations are intended for events that are beyond the resources of state and local governments.

Trump is saying yes to Republicans more than Democrats

During his second term, Trump has denied a greater percentage of disaster requests than any president dating to 1989.  have not been evenly distributed among states.

Trump has approved 80% of the disaster requests from Republican governors but only about 60% from Democratic governors, according to the AP’s analysis of FEMA data.

The discrepancy is even more apparent when analyzing major disaster declarations based on presidential elections. Trump has approved more than three-fourths of the requests from states that voted for him in the 2024 election but less than half the requests from states that did not. Although there are federal criteria for disaster aid, decisions ultimately are at the president����ap discretion.

A batch of denials earlier this month included four Democratic states — Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Rhode Island — seeking federal aid for a February snowstorm.

“The President����ap denial is part of a pattern of extreme partisanship as he tries to shift a heavier economic burden onto blue states. Disaster aid should be merit-based, not politicized,” Rhode Island’s Democratic U.S. Senate and House members said in a joint statement.

White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a statement that “there is no politicization to the President����ap decisions on disaster relief.”

During his first term, Trump actually approved a greater share of requests from states that had opposed him than those that supported him.

Yet no other president had such a wide  as currently exists under Trump. Obama approved 87% of the disaster requests from Democratic governors during his second term and 79% from Republican governors, but Obama’s approval rate was identical for states that voted for and against him.

When requests are denied, individuals, insurers and local governments are left to shoulder the costs themselves.

Trump is waiting longer to declare disasters

Since Trump assumed office last year, it����ap taken him an average of a month and a half to approve  after receiving a request from the governor or chief executive of a state, territory or tribe, the AP found. Because it can take several weeks after a disaster for officials to inspect the damage and submit a request, the total wait time often has exceeded two months.

By comparison, Trump approved major disaster requests in an average of about three weeks during his first term, a pace similar to President Joe Biden. Their predecessors — Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush — all had average disaster approval times of less than two weeks.

All presidents have taken longer to approve some requests. But that����ap become the norm in Trump’s second term. Of Trump’s approvals, 70% have taken at least a month — up from about one-quarter of requests during Trump’s first term and Biden’s administration, and fewer than 10% under their predecessors.

Jackson said that Trump conducts a more thorough review than any administration before him, “ensuring American tax dollars are used appropriately and efficiently by the states to supplement — not substitute — their obligation to respond to and recover from disasters.”

The longer the approval process takes, the longer people must wait to receive federal aid for daily living expenses, temporary lodging and home repairs. Delays in major disaster declarations also can hamper recovery efforts by local officials uncertain whether they will receive federal reimbursement for cleaning up debris and rebuilding infrastructure.

FEMA nominee is pledging faster decisions

FEMA has had four different temporary leaders since Trump took office in January 2025. One of those, , is awaiting Senate confirmation as the agency’s permanent director.

During a Senate committee hearing last month, Hamilton said he would try to speed up disaster declaration decisions and reimbursements. He also pledged to ensure that FEMA is objective,  in reviewing disaster declaration requests and making recommendations to the president.

Hamilton, a former Navy SEAL, had been fired as FEMA’s acting director in May 2025 after publicly disagreeing with Trump’s idea of dismantling the agency. His reemergence signals that Trump now may support changes to FEMA instead of an outright elimination of the agency.

Panel’s recommendations could lead to more denials

���� has recommended a series of changes to FEMA that would shift greater responsibility to states, potentially reducing the number of major disaster declarations and the amount of federal money paid out.

The council suggested revised criteria to qualify for presidential declarations, including a prerequisite of annual minimum expenditures by states, territories and tribes.

Another recommendation, which would require congressional approval, would reduce the federal government’s share of the disaster aid from a minimum of 75% to 50% of the costs, leaving state and local governments more to cover. For governments approved for assistance, federal funding could get there quicker — within 30 days of a federal disaster declaration, instead of waiting months or years for reimbursements that are based on proof of expenditures.

For individuals, the council recommended consolidating several different types of aid into one payment targeted for those whose homes are uninhabitable.