The Temperature 07/30/2025

This will likely be fast, as a result of an icy cooler filled with environmental information awaits simply downstream. We’d such as you to contemplate taking our Colorado Sun reader survey in the event you haven’t already.

If you need extra miserable well being information and fewer miserable environmental information, let us know.

If you need to be reminded that the Rockies’ latest 18-0 loss at Baltimore was not even their worst shutout lack of the season to this point, tell us.

We truly learn survey solutions as a result of journalism shouldn’t be significant except we all know you might be Out There.

So give it a glance, proper after a breezy spin by way of the newest Temperature information.

Lichenology/Etymology

Why are we lichen the Indigo Girls? Because they rock

Last week at ColoradoSun.com we informed you a few famend University of Colorado lichenologist’s obsession with the Indigo Girls, and the way she named three newly recognized Colorado lichen species after the band and its eco-friendly founders.

That was dreamy sufficient for biology professor Erin Manzitto-Tripp and her Ph.D. candidate discovery accomplice Jacob Watts, whose mission in life is to inform the world about missed lichens and their key position within the atmosphere.

But it bought dreamier.

The Indigo Girls lit up Red Rocks Friday night time, and have been so tickled their environmental ethos had led to a namesake species that they invited the discoverers for a meetup after the live performance.

“Spreading the lichen gospel!” Manzitto-Tripp stated afterward, nonetheless floating, and desperate to hit the highway for extra lichen discoveries this summer season within the Colorado excessive nation. Officially within the botany books are Lecanora indigoana, Lepraria saliersiae, and Pertusaria rayana, named after the band and cofounders Emily Saliers and Amy Ray.

“Amy was especially enthusiastic,” Manzitto-Tripp stories.

Invasive Species

Will zebra mussels seize maintain of the wakeboarding championships?

How dedicated are we to power-boating the best of environmental journalism to each shore throughout Colorado? We keep up late studying aquatic biology reports from the University of Minnesota, that’s how a lot.

Well, OK, possibly we don’t volunteer that a lot effort on our personal accord. But we are going to if a reader tells us to. And a really alert, zebra mussel-hating reader pointed us to a Golden Gopher tutorial research that made her suppose a boating occasion at Highline Lake this week could possibly be a nasty concept.

Turns out the design of wakeboarding boats makes them hard-to-clean transporters of zebra mussel larvae, which disguise out in ballast tanks and different boat sections seeking new watery hosts. And Highline Lake, the place state wildlife officers simply discovered larvae once more after draining the lake to kill off a earlier invasion, is hosting the national wakeboarding championships.

Bad timing!

Wakeboard boats tackle extra water than different pace boats with a view to journey decrease within the water and thus create a much bigger wake wave for the athletes. Zebra mussel larvae can turn out to be so embedded inside that model of boat that it takes a scorching water flush or 5 days of drying to clear them safely, the University of Minnesota research stated.

“Perhaps you can highlight the stupidity of holding this event at that lake,” our tipster stated.

We’re conscious, was Colorado’s response.

“Yes, Highline’s designation as an infested body of water was considered in the planning process of this event,” Colorado Parks and Wildlife spokesperson Rachael Gonzales stated.

“CPW and the event organizers continue to work closely to ensure we are not spreading zebra mussels to other bodies of water.”

Only two wakeboarding boats are wanted for the competitors, Gonzales famous. “They will have to go through the same inspection and decontamination process like any other boat entering and leaving Highline Lake. These protocols have been in place since 2023, after zebra mussels were first discovered in Highline Lake in 2022.”

In warning that half the Minnesota boats studied have been carrying zebra mussel larvae or “veligers” of their ballast tanks, the U of M famous how all this began. The voracious, fast-reproducing mussels got here to the Midwest from Europe in Atlantic-crossing industrial ships dumping ballast water into the Great Lakes.

Did Colorado officers learn the entire research, our skeptical reader needed to know. She’s heard hundreds of enthusiastic spectators from all around the U.S. will trek to the Highline Lake championships.

“I guarantee a good number of them will have their own boats, jet skis, paddleboards, etcetera, as they attend the event,” she wrote. “As it is a nationwide occasion, all of those of us and no matter water gear they convey have the potential to unfold zebra mussels.

“Still sounds totally boneheaded to me.”

Renewable Energy

EV gross sales in Colorado begin to sputter a bit

It’s turning into a sample. Months of warnings that Colorado electrical automobile gross sales might sluggish are actually exhibiting up as actuality within the quarterly auto sellers’ stories on new automobile registrations.

Clean vitality analysts had been predicting {that a} mixture of things might drag down burgeoning U.S. and native EV gross sales: beforehand scheduled cuts to Colorado’s tax credit score; threats (finally delivered) to dump the profitable federal tax credit score; and numerous political and cultural factions’ anger at Tesla chief Elon Musk, tarnishing the chief by far in U.S. EV gross sales.

Combined electrical and plug-in hybrid electrical automobile gross sales — the 2 drive trains that qualify as clear beneath Colorado guidelines — slumped to 24.2% of registrations within the second quarter of 2025, in accordance with the Colorado Auto Dealers Association report. That’s down from a mixed 26% of the general new automobile and light-weight truck market within the first quarter, and 31.3% within the fourth quarter of 2024.

The drop in share occurred whilst general Colorado gross sales jumped 8.3% within the first half of 2025 from the yr ancient times. CADA isn’t leaping for pleasure, nonetheless. Their financial evaluation discovered folks speeding to safe new automobiles earlier than tariffs kicked in for the second half of 2025, merely shifting gross sales sooner moderately than indicating a booming automobile atmosphere general.

Colorado officers, who constructed assumptions of almost 1,000,000 EVs on the highway by 2030 into their fashions of mandated carbon emission reductions, have made “buy now” into state coverage. The Colorado Energy Office notes the $7,500 federal EV credit score disappears at closing time Sept. 30. The state credit score was scheduled to step down once more Jan. 1, then price range analysts stated guidelines required it to be halved after slowing income progress triggered cuts to subsidies.

Colorado had beforehand been working forward of EV gross sales objectives to achieve the 2030 targets, however extra extreme backsliding would erase any margins for error.

Boy-band Water Warnings Part 2

Denver Water’s “Splashstreet” is again, child

The music begins. An individual carrying a bathroom costume with “Denver Water” printed on the tank sits down on a sofa, and presumably, falls asleep. Enter Nick, Brian, AJ, Kevin and Howie in a Halloween-themed dream sequence.

You could know the place that is going: Denver Water’s Splashstreet Boys are again. Alright.

The oldest water supplier in Colorado has determined to take a brand new strategy to getting the phrase out about Denver water conservation. Last summer season, 5 staff donned sideways baseball caps and all-white outfits to sing “I Water That Way,” an homage to the Backstreet Boys that concurrently educated prospects on watering guidelines.

The video went (relatively) viral and now has 138,000 views on YouTube, by the web site’s built-in counter. (The authentic “I Want it That Way” video has greater than 1.6 billion!) News retailers picked it up. The actual Backstreet Boys even weighed in, saying the water crew nailed it.

This week the band was at it once more, reminding water customers to verify their sprinkler schedules whereas serving to Millennials keep in mind what it was wish to be a preteen. Water on Tuesdays and Thursdays, not Mondays or Wednesdays, the group sings. Think about water-efficient Coloradoscaping to your lawns and gardens. (The Backstreet Boys have but to reply.)

“Water’s precious, don’t you understand,” they sing. “Asking you to care for water is the whole point of this band.”

The track, which parodies the Halloween-themed basic “Everybody” (Backstreet’s Back) from 1997, is a enjoyable tackle a critical actuality, the water supplier stated in a information launch Monday.

When everybody waters on the identical time on Monday and Wednesday mornings, it results in greater vitality prices whereas testing the capability limits of Denver Water’s remedy vegetation and storage amenities across the Denver metro space. Eventually, Denver Water could also be required to construct pricey new infrastructure to fulfill this demand, the discharge stated.

“We’ve talked publicly about this issue for a while now, but we haven’t yet seen the results we need to alleviate pressures on our system,” Greg Fisher, Denver Water’s supervisor of demand planning stated within the launch.

So they determined to name in reinforcements, he stated. Check out Splashstreet’s latest, not-yet-viral video on Youtube or the Denver Water web site.

MORE ENVIRONMENT AND HEALTH NEWS

• Short staffing, complicated guidelines drop Colorado behind on water high quality permits. Colorado is lagging far behind some Western states in water high quality permits for giant dischargers into state rivers, Jerd Smith stories. It’s a mix of understaffing and low budgets, plus a contradiction: Colorado has some enviable excessive water high quality requirements, however writing these guidelines into permits can take longer.
• Colorado might achieve from dispersing USDA past Washington, however critics see solely cuts. The U.S. Department of Agriculture will transfer hundreds of staff out of the nation’s capital in a reorganization the company says will put them nearer to prospects whereas saving cash. Around 2,600 employees — greater than half the Washington, D.C., workforce — will likely be moved to hubs in Raleigh, North Carolina, Kansas City, Missouri, Indianapolis, Fort Collins and Salt Lake City. The union representing federal employees instantly criticized the plan as a ploy to chop federal jobs, mentioning that some 95% of the division’s staff already work outdoors Washington.
• Why did it take 60 years for Colorado’s tribes to faucet into their Lake Nighthorse water?
  Southern Colorado tribal leaders’ efforts to get federal waterworks initiatives on the identical helpful scale as have been accomplished for different geographies and demographics of the state are lastly paying off, Shannon Mullane stories. But why did it take so lengthy?
• Pitched battle now underway between Colorado clear vitality ambitions and federal shift. When it comes to scrub vitality, President Donald Trump and Colorado aren’t simply on totally different pages — they may be on totally different planets. By 2030, Colorado aspires to place virtually 1,000,000 electrical automobiles on the highway, minimize its greenhouse fuel emissions 50%, and shut down its remaining coal-fire energy vegetation. The state additionally goals to have 100% clear vitality era by 2040 and net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. A Trump govt order put all of that beneath direct, withering hearth, Mark Jaffe stories.
• Holy Cross Energy hits 96% clear vitality provide. The co-op that provides Garfield, Eagle, Pitkin and different mountain counties continues its radical transition to a clear vitality chief, with a number of months over 90% clear vitality this yr. Further progress, nonetheless, could possibly be slowed by lack of federal clear vitality growth credit and better prices from tariffs.
• A bonus natural history of climate change, from Harper’s. We couldn’t put this essay down after launching into its poetic descriptions of ominous observations: “But we have kept the count for decades now, and the trend is clear. In thirty-five years, the number of individual butterflies observed has dropped by more than half. The number of species has fallen by a third. A dozen butterflies are now missing, including the showy Baltimore Checkerspot and the Aphrodite Fritillary.”

Did the now-canceled federal subsidies for growing clear vitality make a distinction in Colorado?

A chart from Holy Cross Energy is right here to let you know, “yes.”

Bringing on-line photo voltaic and wind initiatives that loved tax credit slicing prices 30% to 50%, the Western Slope utility is serving 45,000 prospects with 85% inexperienced electrical energy to this point this yr. That’s an unlimited leap from the 39% inexperienced vitality Holy Cross was in a position to ship in 2018.

The large leap occurred in 2024, when large initiatives just like the Bronco 2 wind farm close to Flagler began pumping electrical energy into the Colorado grid. As we wrote at ColoradoSun.com earlier this week, Holy Cross is now hitting as excessive as 96% in its peak-generating summer season months.

Thanks for looking. If you’ve given up on the Rockies, by the best way, you possibly can head to Colorado Springs the subsequent couple of nights to see the intrastate minor league battle between the Rocky Mountain Vibes and the Grand Junction Jackalopes. Best mascots within the state. How are you able to beat a toasty s’extra with sun shades, and a fictional horned bunny?

When the baseball high quality doesn’t captivate you, the merch tent should.

— Michael & John

Corrections & Clarifications

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