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.
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A Boulder County man was sentenced to 48 years in prison for murdering his ex-girlfriend and dumping her body in 2024.
The Boulder County Sheriff’s Office said Christine Barron Olivas’s body was discovered in a remote area of unincorporated Boulder County on Sept. 14, 2024. She was last seen leaving the neighborhood with her boyfriend, Carlos Dosal, the week prior.
The coroner’s office determined the cause of her death was strangulation.
In Feb. 2026, Dosal pleaded guilty to second-degree murder as a crime of domestic violence in her death. On Saturday, the judge sentenced him to 48 years in the Colorado Department of Corrections.
Leading the Way
Nate the Great
MacKinnon is tied for fifth in the NHL in points (10), while ranking tied for seventh in goals (4) and tied for ninth in assists (6).
All Hail Cale
Cale Makar is tied for first in goals (4) among NHL defensemen,
Toewser Laser
Among NHL blueliners, Devon Toews is tied for third in points (7) while ranking tied for fifth in assists (5) and tied for sixth in goals (2).
Series History
The Avalanche and Wild have met in the playoffs on three previous occasions, all in the Round One, with Minnesota winning in 2003 and 2014 in seven games while Colorado was victorious in six contests in 2008.
Making Plays Against Minnesota
MacKinnon has posted 16 points (4g/12a) in nine playoff games against the Wild, in addition to 70 points (27g/43a) in 55 regular-season contests.
Makar has registered three points (2g/1a) in two playoff contests against Minnesota, along with 26 points (6g/20a) in 29 regular-season games.
Necas has recorded five points (1g/4a) in two playoff games against the Wild, in addition to nine points (5g/4a) in 15 regular-season games.
Scoring in the Twin Cities
Quinn Hughes is tied for the Wild lead in points (11) and assists (8) while ranking tied for second in goals (3).
Kaprizov is tied for first on the Wild in assists (8) and points (11) while ranking tied for second in goals (3).
Matt Boldy leads the Wild in goals (6) while ranking third in points (10) and tied for fourth in assists (4).
A Numbers Game
4.50
Colorado’s 4.50 goals per game on the road in the playoffs are tied for the most in the NHL.
39
MacKinnon’s 39 playoff goals since 2020-21 are the second most in the NHL.
2.17
The Avalanche’s 2.17 goals against per game in the playoffs are the second fewest in the NHL.
Quote That Left a Mark
“It should definitely get you up and excited. It’s gonna be a good test. [It’s a] great building and [it’s] against a desperate team. It’s gonna be great.”
— Gabriel Landeskog on playing in Minnesota
Colorado
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis signs state budget, with Medicaid taking brunt of cuts to close $1.5 billion gap
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis on Friday, May 8, signed into law a $46.8 billion state budget that cuts healthcare spending but preserves funding for K-12 education.
The budget applies to the 2026-27 fiscal year, which begins on July 1, and caps months of work by lawmakers, who wrestled with how to close a roughly $1.5 billion gap that ultimately forced reductions to Medicaid funding and other programs.
“This year was incredibly difficult and challenged each of us in a myriad of ways that put our values to the test,” said Rep. Emily Sirtota, a Denver Democrat and chair of the bipartisan Joint Budget Committee, which crafts the state’s spending plan before it is voted on by the full legislature. “It’s a zero-sum game. A dollar here means a dollar less over here.”
The state’s spending gap was the result of several factors.
The legislature is limited in how it can spend under the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, or TABOR, an amendment to the state constitution approved by voters in 1992 that limits government revenue growth to the rate of population growth plus inflation.
Lawmakers are also dealing with the consequences of increased spending on programs they created or expanded in recent years, some of which have seen their costs balloon beyond their original estimates. Costs for Medicaid services, in particular, have surged, driven by inflation, expanded benefits and greater demand for expensive, long-term care services due to Colorado’s aging population.
Medicaid cuts
Medicaid recently eclipsed K-12 education as the single-largest chunk of the state’s general fund and now accounts for roughly one-third of all spending from that fund.
Lawmakers, who are required by the state constitution to pass a deficit-free budget, said they had no choice but to cut Medicaid funding as a result.
That includes a 2% reduction to the state’s reimbursement rate for most Medicaid providers. The budget also institutes a $3,000 cap on adult dental benefits, limits billable hours for at-home caregivers of family members with severe disabilities to 56 hours per week and phases out, by Jan. 1, automatic enrollment for children with disabilities to receive 24/7 care as adults.
The budget also cuts benefits and places new limits on Cover All Coloradans, a program created by the legislature in 2022 that provides identical coverage as Medicaid to low-income immigrant children and pregnant women, regardless of their immigration status.
That includes an end to long-term care services for new enrollees, a $1,100 limit on dental benefits, and an annual enrollment cap of 25,000 for children 18 or younger. The cuts come as spending on the program has grown more than 600% beyond its original estimate, going from roughly $14.7 million to an estimated $104.5 million for the 2025-26 fiscal year.
While the budget still represents an overall increase in Medicaid spending compared to this year, funding is roughly half of what it would have been had lawmakers not made any changes to benefits and provider rates, which total about $270 million in savings for the state.
Healthcare leaders say the cuts will exacerbate an already challenging environment for providers, who are bracing for less federal support after Congress last year passed sweeping Medicaid cuts and declined to renew enhanced subsidies for the Affordable Care Act.
For rural hospitals in particular, Medicaid is one of their key funding drivers.
“While a 2% (Medicaid reimbursement rate cut) doesn’t sound like a whole lot, when we already have close to 50% of our rural hospitals statewide operating in the red and 70% with unsustainable margins, facing another 2% (cut) on top of that is just devastating,” said Michelle Mills, CEO for the Colorado Rural Health Center, which represents rural hospitals on the Western Slope and Eastern Plains.
If the state provides less reimbursement for Medicaid services, Mills said it will lead to fewer providers accepting Medicaid plans. That in turn will mean fewer care options for people, particularly in Colorado’s rural counties, where healthcare services are already more limited.
“I feel like all of the decisions and cuts that they’re making are hitting everyone,” she said.
Rep. Rick Taggart, a Grand Junction Republican and budget committee member, said cuts to healthcare led to “a lot of tears.”
“This was a tough budget, and nobody won in this budget, but we did what we had to do by way of the (state) constitution,” he said.
While Medicaid saw some of the biggest cuts, lawmakers also trimmed spending from a suite of other programs, including financial aid for adoptive parents and grants providing mental health support for law enforcement.
Preserving K-12 education
One of the brighter spots for Polis and lawmakers in the budget is K-12 education.
After years of chronically underfunding the state’s schools, lawmakers in 2024 rolled out a revamped funding formula and abolished what was known as the budget stabilization factor, a Great Recession-era mechanism that had allowed the state to skirt its constitutional funding obligation to schools for more than a decade.
The new funding formula went into effect this school year, and the state is set to continue delivering higher levels of K-12 funding in the 2026-27 fiscal year budget. The budget allocates roughly $10.19 billion in K-12 funding, an increase of roughly $194.8 million, though the specifics of that spending are still being worked out in a separate bill, the 2026 School Finance Act, which has yet to pass the legislature.
The finance act guides how state and local funds are allocated to Colorado’s 178 school districts on a per-pupil basis. As it stands now, the bill is on track to increase per-pupil funding by $440 per student for the 2026-27 fiscal year, for a total of $12,314 per student.
“We are not returning to the days of underfunding our schools and a budget stabilization factor,” Polis said.
Still, there are challenges on the horizon for some districts.
Combined with a proposed three-year averaging model for student counts instead of the current four-year averaging, recent dips in student enrollment across the state will weigh more heavily on how much funding is allocated to each district. The shift to three-year averaging advances the state’s plan to gradually phase in the new school finance formula by 2030-31.
With several districts seeing decreased year-over-year enrollment and rising operational expenses like healthcare, some Western Slope school districts are poised to see less funding compared to this year, while others are seeing their increases eaten up by inflation.
A note on wolves
The topic of Colorado’s spending on gray wolf reintroduction hasn’t gone away, and while Medicaid headlined much of the budget discussions, lawmakers also used the spending plan to send a message on the future of the wolf program.
While the budget allocates $2.1 from the general fund to Colorado Parks and Wildlife to spend on wolf reintroduction, it also contains a footnote from lawmakers asking the agency not to use the money to acquire new wolves.
Footnotes are not legally binding, but rather serve as a direction or guidance from lawmakers to agencies on how they want certain funds spent.
Under the footnote, the wildlife agency could still use gifts, grants, donations and non-license revenue from its wildlife cash fund to bring additional wolves to Colorado. Most of the agency’s wolf funding goes toward personnel, followed by operating costs, compensation for ranchers and conflict minimization programs and tools.
Education reporter Andrea Teres-Martinez and wildlife and environmental reporter Ali Longwell contributed to this story.
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