Scott Franz
Scott Franz is a government watchdog reporter and photographer from Steamboat Springs. He spent the last seven years covering politics and government for the Steamboat Pilot & Today, a daily newspaper in northwest Colorado. His reporting in Steamboat stopped a police station from being built in a city park, saved a historic barn from being destroyed and helped a small town pastor quickly find a kidney donor. His favorite workday in Steamboat was Tuesday, when he could spend many of his mornings skiing untracked powder and his evenings covering city council meetings. Scott received his journalism degree from the University of Colorado at Boulder. He is an outdoorsman who spends at least 20 nights a year in a tent. He spoke his first word, 'outside', as a toddler in Edmonds, Washington. Scott visits the Great Sand Dunes, his favorite Colorado backpacking destination, twice a year. Scott's reporting is part of Capitol Coverage, a collaborative public policy reporting project, providing news and analysis to communities across Colorado for more than a decade. Fifteen public radio stations participate in Capitol Coverage from throughout Colorado.
-
Water users around the west seek billions in federal drought help as Colorado River forecast worsensIt's not clear yet how the money would be distributed among several states in a river basin where political fights and an impasse over how to share water long term have persisted even during historic drought. -
A federal hydrologist appeared to be momentarily at a loss for words Thursday as he described how dire the latest forecast has gotten for how much water will flow through the Colorado River Basin this summer. -
The sluggish Colorado River negotiations have entered a new phase: Long and fiery letter writing. -
Pressure to reach a deal is building. Forecasts for the water supply from the Colorado River continue to grow worse as snowpack lags far behind normal across the West. And negotiators from the basins have said there are "sticking points" that remain in the negotiations in recent weeks that even marathon talks have failed to resolve. -
Four days of negotiations in a Salt Lake City conference room earlier this month did not appear to have sparked a breakthrough. -
The announcement from Parks and Wildlife on Wednesday came three months after the Trump administration blocked Colorado's original plan to capture a second batch of wolves in British Columbia and fly them to the state. -
Facing the prospect of a pause in additional wolves, wolf advocates say Colorado should add new protections for its existing population of less than 50 wolves. -
The proposals range from taking "no action" to a scenario that might result in water cuts to the lower basin states of California, Nevada and Arizona. One alternative developed in partnership with conservation groups would incentivize states and water users to proactively conserve the river. -
At the dawn of Colorado’s wolf reintroduction project, tourism leaders in mountain towns are offering mixed views on the animals. Some are fearful or indifferent, while others are cautiously optimistic they could become an attraction. -
Like hundreds of other ranchers in Colorado, the Stanko family is anxious about wolf packs being airlifted back to this state, where they were eradicated by the 1940s.
