New law could finally address thousands of abandoned mines leaking pollution into Colorado water

Molly Morgan, a Geology PhD candidate, is quoted in this article examining the impact of a new law recently signed by President Biden.
January 4, 2025

Mining waste cleanup near Arkansas River would use cyanide to extract gold. Does it pose an environmental threat?

Corby Anderson, a professor of mining engineering and metallurgical and materials engineering at the Colorado School of Mines, said people have many misconceptions about cyanide, which is naturally occurring and can be found in foods like spinach and ....
May 15, 2024

Drinking water for 268,000 Coloradans exceeds new limits on “forever chemicals.” How will providers find millions to fix the water?

In Colorado, state water regulators have a good idea which water systems have PFAS in their drinking water supplies, said Christopher Higgins, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the Colorado School of Mines, who is an expert in ....
April 21, 2024

An attempt to ban all "forever chemicals" in Colorado failed. What will it take to finally get rid of PFAS?

“There are critical uses for PFAS that are going to be hard to replace with other chemicals — those will take more time,” said Timm Strathmann, a Colorado School of Mines professor who researches PFAS. “Then there are products where we already have ....
March 17, 2024

Vapor leak from unused pump caused Christmas Eve explosion and fire at Suncor refinery, OSHA finds

John Jechura, a Colorado School of Mines professor in the chemical and biological engineering department, described a dead leg as being like a garden hose that is turned off at the spigot and has the valve closed on the nozzle.
November 28, 2023

EPA’s proposed change on PFAS limits would deem dozens of Colorado water sources unsafe

Federal officials signaled that the proposal would come last summer and their new proposal strikes a balance between amounts of the chemicals that are safe to consume and amounts that water providers can realistically detect, Christopher Higgins, a ....
March 14, 2023

What happens if Suncor’s Colorado refinery closes? Less pollution, loss of jobs and tax revenue — and a big cleanup.

“One of my first questions, when Suncor went down, was, ‘How is DIA?'” said Ian Lange, director of the mineral and energy economics program at Colorado School of Mines. “Is DIA in trouble?”
February 21, 2023

Secrecy surrounds Suncor’s shutdown, but experts say it’s a sign the company’s invested in Commerce City

A hydrogen plant is critical to any refinery operation, said John Jechura, a Colorado School of Mines professor of practice who teaches a refining class.
January 13, 2023

Colorado project gets $9M in federal funds to advance geothermal technology

The Department of Energy said Wednesday that Occidental Petroleum, the Colorado School of Mines and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden will collaborate on the project.
December 15, 2022

“No safe level”: A lot of Colorado drinking water could contain potentially hazardous levels of “forever chemicals” under new EPA standard

Testing equipment also often isn’t sensitive enough to detect such small, but still potentially dangerous, traces of PFAS, Timothy Strathmann, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the Colorado School of Mines, said.
July 29, 2022