Boulder Votes to Free Its Electric Company

The city of Boulder, Colo., has won the right to take its power supply—and carbon emissions—away from corporate control. The change for Boulder came in November when voters passed two ballot measures that allow the city to begin the process of forming its own municipal power utility.

The city’s current electricity supplier, Xcel Energy, is a large corporation that sources more than 60 percent of its power from coal. Colorado climate activists tried for years to persuade Xcel to transition from coal to renewables, arguing that the state’s plains, mountains, and 300 days of annual sunshine give it abundant potential for the development of wind and solar power. But they found Xcel’s take-up of renewables was frustratingly slow. Xcel is investing $400 million in its coal-powered plants, and its plans for renewables stops at just 30 percent in 2020, with no further increase until 2028.

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Hope for Salmon as Dams Come Down

The largest dam removal project in U.S. history began in September, marking a victory for a campaign that spanned more than two decades.

The Elwha Dam, built in 1914, and the Glines Canyon Dam, built in 1925, stretch across the Elwha River on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State. They were constructed without fish ladders, blocking migratory fish from spawning. The river’s salmon runs, once consisting of more than 400,000 fish, are now fewer than 4,000, and its subspecies of Chinook, steelhead, and bull trout are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

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