Ideas. Stories. Community.
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

KSJD Local Newscast - February 4, 2025

Ways To Subscribe

Following a lengthy executive session with their attorney, the Montezuma County commissioners on Tuesday delayed the continuation of two public hearings on applications for after-the-fact variances. The board voiced concern about such variances at last week’s meeting and continued the two applications until this Tuesday. The commissioners say after-the-fact variances may encourage people to violate provisions of the land use code, then come in seeking variances once they have already built structures or taken other actions that can’t easily be reversed. The board set the delayed variance applications to be heard on April 8.

It’s warm and dry in the Four Corners, and those conditions are likely to continue for some time. That’s according to a webinar on Intermountain Drought Conditions & Outlooks that was presented Tuesday. Southwest Colorado is considered to be in moderate drought, having declined from the normal moisture conditions it had as of October. Tony Bergantino is director of the Wyoming State Climate Office at the University of Wyoming. He said the Four Corners area is likely to see above-normal temperatures and below-normal precipitation for the next three months. Bergantino said the climate pattern called La Niña, which can lead to drought in the southern United States, is currently present and is expected to continue through April. Lake Powell and Lake Mead, which both sit on the Colorado River, are currently just 34 percent full.

Stay Connected
Gail Binkly is a career journalist who has worked for the Colorado Springs Gazette and Cortez Journal, and was the editor of the Four Corners Free Press, based in Cortez.