Free Republic

Three people were killed during an off-roading tour of Colorado’s San Juan Mountains when their Jeep plunged over a cliff on Monday... Arizona tourists Diana Robles, 28, Ofelia Figueroa-Perez, 60, and hired driver Don Fehd, 72, were all killed when their 2022 Jeep Gladiator drifted off the edge of Ouray County Road 361 and landed hundreds of feet below... The vehicle first fell 100 feet to the bottom of a cliff... It then rolled about 140 feet down a rocky embankment, ejecting Fehd... ... Before the crash, Robles, a Yuma nurse, had reportedly just snapped a picture of the iconic...

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — Former Silverton Mayor Stu Rasmussen, who was the nation’s first openly transgender mayor, passed away around 11 a.m. Wednesday from metastatic prostate cancer after spending several weeks in home hospice.

Shane Fuhrman cites ‘threats’ and ‘divisiveness’ as reasons, but gives no further explanation.. The mayor of Silverton suspended recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance at town meetings Monday, saying the pledge has led to threats and community divisiveness. “Due to direct and indirect threats, inappropriate comments in and out of public meetings, and the general divisiveness this is creating in our community, we will not be doing the Pledge of Allegiance during town of Silverton board of trustee meetings,” said Mayor Shane Fuhrman during Monday’s town board meeting. “And it’s removed from agendas and our protocols until such time that...

Gina McCarthy and Deb Haaland are on Biden’s climate team. This should be interesting given both of their ties to the disastrous Gold King Mine spill of 2015. That year, a mine up near Silverton, Colorado was under clean-up protocols by the EPA. The same EPA that Gina McCarthy was running at the time. Then, the spill happened. The Animas River turned into yellow sludge from southwestern Colorado all the way into and nearly through New Mexico. Who lives in New Mexico and just the year before lost her bid to be NM Lieutenant Governor? Joe Biden’s new choice for...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency plans to drill a test well into an inactive mine tunnel in southwestern Colorado to get information for a Superfund cleanup, the agency said Friday. The EPA said it will drill into the American Tunnel next month to measure water levels and investigate how the passage is connected to other shafts. ... The agency designated the Superfund site after it inadvertently ( LOL ) triggered a spill while doing excavation work at the inactive Gold King Mine in August 2015. The spill released 3 million gallons of wastewater, polluting rivers in Colorado, New Mexico and...

Critics fear move will impact upper Animas River aquatic life. Could the Environmental Protection Agency’s plan to haul waste from the Gold King Mine to the banks of the upper Animas River put undue stress on a fishery already struggling to survive? ... Three months after the EPA triggered the Gold King Mine blowout in August 2015, the agency built a temporary water-treatment plant, in an area known as Gladstone, 10 miles north of Silverton within the Cement Creek watershed. But for the past year, the EPA has said room is running out at Gladstone to store the waste byproduct...

DENVER (Reuters) - Federal investigators said on Monday they have opened a criminal probe into the 2015 spill of some 3 million gallons (11 million liters) of toxic wastewater from a defunct Colorado gold mine that was triggered by a contractor with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). At the urging of congressional leaders, the EPA's Office of Inspector General is investigating the rupture from the Gold King Mine above Silverton, Colorado, that fouled waterways in three states and Native American lands, the agency said in a statement. "Based on requests from several members of the House and Senate, the OIG...

A decades-long battle between federal environmental officials and a small Colorado town is about to end in the government’s favor, thanks to the agency-caused Gold King Mine spill disaster ... Residents surrendered to federal demands only after an EPA work-crew turned the nearby Animas River bright yellow for nearly a week by releasing a three-million-gallon flood of acidic mine waste under extremely questionable circumstances in August 2015. Suspended in the flood was 880,000 pounds of toxic metals, including lead and arsenic, that poured into the river that supplies drinking water for people living in three states and the Navajo Nation....

Authorities say rivers tainted by last week’s massive spill from an abandoned Colorado gold mine are starting to recover, but for the Environmental Protection Agency the political fallout from the disaster could linger. The federal agency’s critics are already seeking to use its much-maligned handling of the mine spill to undercut the Obama administration’s rollout of major regulations aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions at the nation’s power plants. Members of oversight committees in both the House and Senate say they are planning hearings after Congress returns from its August recess. “The EPA is supposed to help prevent environmental catastrophes,...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKJ7Tk0sfbc The pick for this week's feature is "Night Passage". This 1957 western features decorated WWII vets and patriots Jimmy Stewart and Audie Murphy as brothers on the opposite sides of the law. I miss patriotic, pro-American actors like Stewart and Murphy. Also features, Hugh Beaumont(a/k/a Ward Cleaver, one of TV's best on-screen dads) as a railroad tycoon.

The Silverton, Oregon, city council has censured its transgender mayor. Mayor Stu Rasmussen admitted to wearing an open-back bathing suit, mini skirt, and high heels when he spoke before a group of children at a non-profit organization. A person attending the speech was displeased and filed a complaint. Andrea Lafferty is with the Traditional Values Coalition. "This is a man who's dressing like a woman. He was born a man. He has male DNA. That cannot change," she believes. Lafferty says the idea of making the appearance in front of children is an affront to parents who do not want...

Barack Obama wasn't the only candidate who made history Tuesday. On the same day the United States elected its first black president, the tiny town of Silverton, Ore., elected the country's first openly transgender mayor. Stu Rasmussen served two terms as Silverton's mayor in the 1990s, but he was still living in the closet -- and dressing in men's clothing. He came out a few years ago, proudly donning a skirt and high heels. On Tuesday, Rasmussen won a third term, by 13 percentage points. He attributes his victory to his deep knowledge of the issues.