Colorado
Colorado water regulators consider change that would put more “nasty toxins” in urban rivers and streams

Colorado environmental regulators may eradicate rules that keep some polluted groundwater from being discharged into the state’s rivers and streams, alarming environmental advocates who fear the change could further harm already polluted urban waterways.
The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment’s Water Quality Control Division has proposed the elimination of a permitting system that regulates how owners of underground structures deal with contaminated groundwater. The change would allow building owners to send groundwater contaminated with PFAS chemicals, arsenic and other contaminants directly into stormwater systems without treatment.
Environmental advocates and former Water Quality Control Division staff fear the change could damage the water quality of the South Platte River and its tributary Cherry Creek as they flow through Denver, along with other Front Range waterways.
“We’re talking about some really nasty toxins,” said Josh Kuhn, the senior water campaign manager for Conservation Colorado.
The permits in question regulate subterranean dewatering: the process of removing groundwater that seeps into underground structures like parking garages and basements. CDPHE oversees 113 long-term dewatering permits that require building owners to measure how much water they are discharging, test the water for pollutants and treat the water if pollutant levels exceed contamination limits.
The policy changes, if approved, would remove all permitting, reporting and treatment requirements for dewatering systems. State water quality officials said the permitting system was burdensome for building owners and that undoing the regulations would not have a large impact on water health. The water quality division is accepting public comment on the proposed change through Saturday.
Most of the 113 permitted buildings are concentrated in downtown Denver, though some are in Boulder and other Front Range communities. The Colorado Convention Center, the nearby Hyatt Regency Denver hotel and many other large downtown buildings maintain permits for their dewatering systems.
The systems remove the groundwater and send it to stormwater systems. In Denver, all stormwater flows to the South Platte, which communities downstream use for drinking water. The river for decades has suffered from poor water quality.
Groundwater in urban areas is often contaminated by the chemicals used in modern life — like fertilizers, toxic PFAS known as “forever chemicals,” firefighting foam and gasoline — as well as naturally occurring metals, like arsenic and selenium.
Many of the facilities with dewatering systems are treating water that far exceeds water quality standards, according to CDPHE data compiled by Meg Parish, an attorney with the Environmental Integrity Project who previously worked for Colorado’s water quality division managing permitting. Without the permit system, the facilities wouldn’t be required to treat the water and could instead send the contaminated water to the stormwater system and, eventually, the river.
For example, among current permittees, an apartment building in Highland is discharging water to the stormwater system with 202 micrograms of arsenic per liter — more than 10,000 times the water quality standard of 0.02 micrograms per liter for aquatic and human life. A retirement home for priests in southeast Denver is treating water with nearly four times as much uranium as the water quality standard allows.
And a parking garage on Wewatta Street next to Cherry Creek is treating water with about 15 times the concentration of PFAS included in state guidelines, which are more lax than newly announced federal drinking water standards.
CDPHE official: “Very low risk” in change
The water quality division’s director, Nicole Rowan, said eliminating the permits would have a negligible impact on the South Platte’s water quality because the number of permitted buildings was low and they were not discharging that much water.
“We do think that this proposed policy change in dewatering permits represents a very low risk to overall water policy,” Rowan said.
The change would affect only a small number of the thousands of water-quality permits the division oversees, Rowan said. Also, she said, the groundwater will make its way to the river eventually, with or without the permits.
In Denver, buildings are typically discharging about 5 gallons a minute, Rowan said. That’s about 8 acre-feet a year per building going into the South Platte, which contains about 342,000 acre-feet of water. An acre-foot is the amount of water it takes to cover an acre — about the size of a football field — with a foot of water.
The water quality division has heard concerns over the last year about the affordability of complying with the permit requirements, especially when it comes to affordable housing projects, Rowan said.
But concerns about affordability should not cause the entire permitting process to be canceled, Parish said. The current system allows for developers and building owners to apply for exceptions to requirements, such as when the required treatment is exorbitantly expensive or technically impossible, she said.
“I think this is something that developers should be spending their money on,” Parish said. “But if the argument is that this treatment is too expensive, they can’t afford it — then there are legal ways to address that.”
“It prioritizes short-term convenience”
Advocates with Conservation Colorado are particularly concerned about the planned extensive redevelopments of Elitch Gardens Theme and Water Park and around Ball Arena — two large sites that sit in the crux of the confluence of the South Platte and Cherry Creek.
If the permitting system is nixed, some of the progress made by state lawmakers and federal regulators to limit the spread of PFAS will be undone, Kuhn said.
“It prioritizes short-term convenience and cutting costs over long-term health and environmental protections,” he said.
The change also would violate state and federal clean water law, Kuhn and Parish said. It could open the division up to litigation and create legal uncertainty in the regulatory process, Kuhn said.
The Water Quality Control Division’s own policy states that the Colorado Water Quality Control Act mandates that all point source discharges of pollutants to state waters — such as from dewatering systems — are subject to discharge permit requirements. The division then states it will not use permits to regulate dewatering discharges, however.
Rowan said the division is using its enforcement discretion to no longer implement regulations on dewatering. The division administers thousands of permits and must triage which pollutant sources they use resources on, she said.
“I think our decision here was to propose exercising enforcement discretion based on weighing the high cost of treatment and resources with what we think are relatively low environmental benefits from the permits,” Roman said.
The water quality division does not have an implementation date for the proposed policy change, if enacted. Public comment can be sent to Rowan via email at nicole.rowan@state.co.us.
“I think we’re going to let the feedback inform next steps on this policy,” Rowan said.
Get more Colorado news by signing up for our Mile High Roundup email newsletter.

Colorado
They hoped their children’s deaths would bring change. Then a Colorado bill to protect kids online failed

Bereaved parents saw their hopes for change dashed after a bill meant to protect children from sexual predators and drug dealers online died in the Colorado state legislature last month.
Several of those parents had helped shape the bill, including Lori Schott, whose 18-year-old daughter Annalee died by suicide in 2020 after consuming content on TikTok and Instagram about depression, anxiety and suicide.
“When the legislators failed to vote and pushed it off onto some fake calendar date where they’re not even in session, to not even have accountability for where they stand – as a parent, it’s a slap in the face,” said Schott, who identifies as a pro-second amendment Republican. “It’s a slap in the face of my daughter, and to other kids that we’ve lost.”
Had the legislation passed, it would have required social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and TikTok to investigate and take down accounts engaged in gun or drug sales or in the sexual exploitation or trafficking of minors. It also mandated the creation of direct hotlines to tech company personnel for law enforcement and a 72-hour response window for police requests, a higher burden than under current law.
Additionally, platforms would have had to report on how many minors used their services, how often they did so, for how long and how much those young users engaged with content that violated company policies. Several big tech firms registered official positions on the bill. According to Colorado lobbying disclosures, Meta’s longtime in-state lobby firm, Headwater Strategies, is registered as a proponent for changing the bill. Google and TikTok also hired lobbyists to oppose it.
“We’re just extremely disappointed,” said Kim Osterman, whose 18-year-old son Max died in 2021 after purchasing drugs spiked with fentanyl from a dealer he met on Snapchat. “[Legislators] chose big tech over protecting children and families.”
Protections for users of social media (SB 25-086) passed both chambers before being vetoed on 24 April by governor Jared Polis, a Democrat, who cited the bill’s potential to “erode privacy, freedom and innovation” as reasons for his veto. Colorado’s senate voted to override the veto on 25 April, yet those efforts fell apart on 28 April when the state house opted to delay the vote until after the legislative session ended, effectively blocking an override and keeping the bill alive.
The bill originally passed the senate by a 29-6 vote and the house by a 46-18 margin. On 25 April, the senate voted 29-6 to override Polis’s veto. Lawmakers anticipated that the house would take up the override later that day. At the time, according to those interviewed, there appeared to be enough bipartisan support to successfully overturn his veto.
“It was an easy vote for folks because of what we were voting on: protecting kids from social media companies,” said the senator Lindsey Daugherty, a Democrat and a co-sponsor of the bill. She said she urged house leadership to hold the vote Friday, but they declined: “The speaker knew the governor didn’t want us to do it on Friday, because they knew we would win.”
The parents who advocated for the bill attribute its failure to an unexpected, 11th-hour lobbying campaign by a far-right gun owners’ association in Colorado. Two state legislators as well as seven people involved in the legislative process echoed the parents’ claims.
An abnormal, last-minute campaign disrupts bipartisan consensus
Rocky Mountain Gun Owners (RMGO) cast the bill as an instrument of government censorship in texts and emails over the legislation’s provisions against “ghost guns”, untraceable weapons assembled from kits purchased online, which would have been prohibited.
RMGO launched massive social media and email campaigns urging its 200,000 members to contact their legislators to demand they vote against the bill. A source with knowledge of the workings of the Colorado state house described the gun group’s social media and text campaigns, encouraging Republicans voters to contact their legislators to demand opposition to the bill, as incessant.
“[Legislators] were getting countless calls and emails and being yelled at by activists. It was a full-fledged attack. There was a whole campaign saying: ‘This is a government censorship bill,’” they said.
The group’s actions were instrumental in a campaign to deter house Republicans from voting against the veto, resulting in the quashing of the bill, and unexpected from an organization that had been facing funding shortfalls, according to 10 people interviewed who were involved in the design of the bill and legislative process. Sources in the Colorado state house spoke to the Guardian on condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisal from RMGO.
The house had delayed the vote until 28 April, which allowed RMGO time to launch a campaign against the bill over the weekend. When lawmakers reconvened Monday, the house voted 51-13 to postpone the override until after the legislative session ended – effectively killing the effort.
The gun activists’ mass text message campaign to registered Republican voters asserted the social media bill would constitute an attempt to “compel social media companies to conduct mass surveillance of content posted on their platforms” to search for violations of Colorado’s gun laws, describing the bill as an attack on first and second amendment rights, according to texts seen by the Guardian.
A familiar, aggressive foe
Founded in 1996, RMGO claims to have a membership of more than 200,000 activists. It is recognized as a far-right group that takes a “no-compromise” stance on gun rights. Dudley Brown, its founder and leader, also serves as the president of the National Association for Gun Rights, which positions itself further to the right than the National Rifle Association (NRA). RMGO has mounted criticism against the NRA for being too moderate and politically compromising. Critics have described RMGO as “bullies” and “extremists” because of its combative tactics, which include targeting and smearing Democrats and moderate Republicans. The group did not respond to requests for comment on its legislative efforts.
RMGO is a well-known presence at the Colorado capitol, typically opposing gun-control legislation. Daugherty described its typical campaign tactics as “scary”. She got rid of her X account after being singled out by the group over her work on a bill to ban assault weapons earlier this year.
“When we were running any of the gun bills at the capitol, they put my and some other legislators’ faces on their websites,” she said. A screenshot of a tweet from RMGO showed Daugherty with a red “traitor” stamp on her forehead.
The group’s campaign resulted in the spread of misinformation about the bill’s impact on gun ownership rights, sources involved in the legislative process said.
“The reason I was in support of the bill, and in support of the override, was it has to do with child trafficking and protecting the kids,” said the senator Rod Pelton, a Republican, who voted in favor of the veto override in the senate. “I just didn’t really buy into the whole second amendment argument.”
after newsletter promotion
The bill had enjoyed the backing of all 23 of Colorado’s district attorneys as well as bipartisan state house support.
RMGO’s late-stage opposition to the social media bill marked a break from its usual playbook. The group generally weighs in on legislation earlier in the process, according to eight sources, including two of the bill’s co-sponsors, Daugherty and the representative Andy Boesenecker.
“They really ramped up their efforts,” Boesenecker said. “It was curious to me that their opposition came in very late and appeared to be very well funded at the end.”
In recent years, RMGO group had been less active due to well-documented money problems that limited its ability to campaign on legislative issues. In a 2024 interview, the group’s leaders stated plainly that it struggled with funding. Daugherty believes RMGO would not have been able to embark on such an apparently costly outreach campaign without a major infusion of cash. A major text campaign like the one launched for SB-86 was beyond their financial capacity, she said. Others in Colorado politics agreed.
“Rocky Mountain Gun Owners have not been important or effective in probably at least four years in the legislature. They’ve had no money, and then all of a sudden they had tons of money, funding their rise back into power,” said Dawn Reinfeld, executive director of Blue Rising Together, a Colorado-based non-profit focused on youth rights.
The campaign made legislators feel threatened, with primary elections in their districts over the weekend, Daugherty said, particularly after accounts on X, formerly Twitter, bombarded the bill’s supporters.
“Folks were worried about being primaried, mostly the Republicans, and that’s kind of what it came down to,” Daugherty said.
Aaron Ping’s 16-year-old son Avery died of an overdose in December after buying what he thought was ecstasy over Snapchat and receiving instead a substance laced with fentanyl. Ping saw the campaign against the bill as an intentional misconstrual of its intent.
“It was looking like the bill was going to pass, until all this misinformation about it taking away people’s gun rights because it addresses people buying illegal shadow guns off the internet,” he said.
Ping gave testimony in support of the bill in February before the first senate vote, alongside other bereaved parents, teens in recovery and a district attorney.
“The bill gave me hope that Avery’s legacy would be to help. So when it didn’t pass, it was pretty soul-crushing,” said Ping.
States take up online child-safety bills as federal lawmakers falter
Several states, including California, Maryland, Vermont, Minnesota, Hawaii, Illinois, New Mexico, South Carolina and Nevada, have introduced legislation aimed at improving online safety for children in the past two years. These efforts have faced strong resistance from the tech industry, including heavy lobbying and lawsuits.
Maryland became the first state to successfully pass a Kids Code bill, signing it into law in May 2024. But the victory may be short-lived: NetChoice, a tech industry coalition representing companies including Meta, Google and Amazon, quickly launched a legal challenge against the measure, which is ongoing.
Meanwhile, in the US federal government, the kids online safety act (Kosa), which had wound its way through the legislature for years, died in February when it failed to pass in the House after years of markups and votes. A revamped version of the bill was reintroduced to Congress on 14 May.
In California, a similar bill known as the age-appropriate design code act, modeled after UK legislation, was blocked in late 2023. A federal judge granted NetChoice a preliminary injunction, citing potential violations of the first amendment, which stopped the law from going into effect.
Colorado
1 dead, 4 injured in Denver crash on I-25

One person was killed and four were injured in a Sunday morning crash on Interstate 25 in Denver, police said.
The Denver Police Department first posted about the two-vehicle crash on northbound I-25 near 20th Street just before 4 a.m. Sunday.
One person died from their injuries at the scene of the crash and paramedics took four to the hospital, three with serious injuries, police said.
Northbound I-25 was temporarily closed Sunday for the crash cleanup and investigation, but all lanes had reopened before 9 a.m., according to the Colorado Department of Transportation.
Information about the cause of the crash was not available Sunday morning.
This is a developing story and may be updated.
Sign up to get crime news sent straight to your inbox each day.
Colorado
Southern Colorado police officer reportedly assaulted, suspect sought

EL PASO COUNTY, Colo. (KKTV) – Police are looking for a suspect that reportedly assaulted an officer on Friday.
The Palmer Lake Police Department said an officer was doing a traffic stop around 11:38 p.m. on Friday near Highway 105 and Peak View Boulevard. During the stop, they said a dark blue sedan with a white rear fender sped by and someone in that car threw a bottle at the officer while yelling obscenities.
Police said that officer got a partial description of the passenger, who was described to be a white man wearing a black shirt. Police said the suspect’s vehicle headed toward the Monument area, near the McDonald’s off Highway 105.
That suspect then reportedly returned to the Palmer Lake area, speeding past the officer again.
Police said they tried to stop the vehicle, but the suspect evaded, heading south on I-25.
If you have any information or footage, you can call the El Paso County non-emergency line at (719) 390-5555. You can also submit an anonymous tip with Crime Stoppers at (719) 634-STOP.
Copyright 2025 KKTV. All rights reserved.
-
Politics1 week ago
Michelle Obama facing backlash over claim about women's reproductive health
-
Technology1 week ago
OpenAI wants ChatGPT to be a ‘super assistant’ for every part of your life
-
Movie Reviews1 week ago
The Verdict Movie Review: When manipulation meets its match
-
Technology1 week ago
Why do SpaceX rockets keep exploding?
-
Finance1 week ago
Here's what will boost your feeling of financial well-being the most, researchers say
-
World1 week ago
Two killed in Russian attacks on Ukraine before possible talks in Turkiye
-
West2 days ago
Battle over Space Command HQ location heats up as lawmakers press new Air Force secretary
-
News1 week ago
Department of Homeland Security lists sanctuary jurisdictions in Northern California