Home Care In Arvada, CO

In a warehouse in Arvada, there’s a place called Crater Beach. It’s really just a giant open box filled with about 30 tons of sand and a handful of artificial boulders. And on one recent day, rolling around Crater Beach, is a rover. To the degree that “breadbox” is a relevant yardstick in a 21st century discussion about space entrepreneurship, this test rover is about the size of a breadbox.

Near the beach, a 20-something is using a modified Xbox controller to operate the rover and help test its autopilot software. Does it do the right thing when it rolls into one of those boulders? How does it adjust to the sand?

The experiments in Crater Beach are some of the innumerable late-stage tests the company Lunar Outpost is running before they try to send a rover, one much larger than a breadbox, to the South Pole of the Moon later this year.

There are about 500 companies focused on the space industry in Colorado and more and more of them are opting for a different path from the military-focused applications that have dominated the state’s contribution for decades. Instead, these relatively small startups are trying to make a mark in what they see as a commercial space sector poised for explosive growth.

And now may be just the time to do it.

Of those 500 or so companies, about half of them are based in Colorado Springs, and it’s no wonder why.

The worldwide Global Positioning System (GPS) is run out of Schriever Space Force Base east of the city. The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) operates from the nearby Peterson and Cheyenne Mountain bases. The U.S. Air Force Academy was an early leader in the field of aerospace education.

Additionally, Colorado’s inland location made it a logical host for some of the country’s first intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Today, the part of the space sector specifically serving the Department of Defense is only expected to grow, especially with Colorado Springs hosting the largest share of personnel in the new United States Space Force.

The Catalyst Campus for Technology and Innovation is a startup incubator on the east side of downtown Colorado Springs. Senior Executive Director Dawn Conley said about 80-percent of the companies on the campus are space-focused; the fact that almost all of those cater to military needs is itself representative of a shift in the overall industry.

“Over the last couple of years or several years, the reliance on the space domain … especially how the military conducts some of their business, has evolved and is very important and progressive,” Conley said.

The military has long sought contracts with the country’s largest aerospace corporations. Think Lockheed Martin. Think Raytheon. Think Northrop Grumman and Boeing. That certainly hasn’t changed. However, the rapidly accelerating competition with potential adversaries like China and Russia has even some of the smallest startups successfully pitching their new ideas and technologies.

“Even the Department of Defense has recognized that that’s where the real innovations and solutions are coming from and that’s where the opportunity is,” said Andy Merritt, chief strategy officer for The O’Neil Group, a real estate and venture capital firm that owns Catalyst Campus and invests in emerging space and cybersecurity companies.

The rover that Lunar Outpost is planning to send to the Moon on a SpaceX rocket in November is not much to look at. This vehicle is closer to the size of a wheelbarrow than it is to a breadbox and — to the untrained eye — the clunky silver box does not look too dissimilar from what high school and college students compete with each year at the Colorado Robotics Challenge at Great Sand Dunes National Park. But, of course, in reality, the Lunar Outpost rover is the product of thousands of hours of planning and tens of millions of dollars.

It is engineered to handle the Sun’s circuit-frying direct radiation and to tolerate temperature changes from -200 to 200 degrees Celsius (changes which happen in seconds in the vacuum of space.) It needs to be able to transmit its exact location from a world without GPS and make sure the technologies other private companies have paid Lunar Outpost to attach to the rover have a chance to do their jobs as well.

It also needs to know when it has run into a boulder and adjust — on its own — accordingly.

When Justin Cyrus, 30, co-founded Lunar Outpost in 2017, he and his team wanted to find a niche with both high potential for growth and diversification, but one still small enough to avoid having to compete against the biggest in the industry.

“At the end of the day, we didn’t want to compete against Elon Musk, we didn’t want to compete against Jeff Bezos,” Cyrus said, referring to the heads of SpaceX and Blue Origin.

Instead, Lunar Outpost takes advantage of the primary innovations of those two companies, which has been to cut the cost of getting payloads into orbit by about 90 percent in some cases. The Lunar team decided to focus on transportation technologies beyond earth’s orbit, eventually landing on industrial robotics for use in extreme environments.

The company has also embodied Musk’s ethos to “move fast and break things.” The rovers made by the company certainly seem expensive, but they cost a fraction of those developed and sent into space by NASA, which have cost billions of dollars each.

“That’s what it’s going to cost if you have to have 99.99999-percent chance of success,” Cyrus said. “However, if you’re willing to accept an 80-percent chance of success, you can send dozens of rovers, dozens and potentially even hundreds of rovers for the same cost of one rover.”

That tradeoff, he said, would allow for much more work and science to be done on the lunar surface, even with a few broken down rovers. Then, as has been the case with SpaceX, data provided from the failures allows for rapid iteration and improvements on the next ones set for launch.

Cyrus has high hopes the rover being sent to the Moon in November will accomplish all its goals. But, he said if his rover is able to just successfully drive off its lunar lander, his team will consider that a success. They have three more launches scheduled in the next three years to try again.

Cyrus said Colorado’s space community is different from the space and technology sectors in other places, like Silicon Valley or Boston.

“Those startup environments are very competitive,” he said. “Here in Colorado, it’s quite a bit different. It’s a very collaborative environment and that’s what I love about Colorado. It’s been a great ecosystem for our company to grow and thrive in.”

Bob Cone, chair of the Colorado Space Business Roundtable, said states including California, Texas, Alabama and Florida all have thriving Space industries, but that nowhere else has been able to foster innovation quite like Colorado.

“We have the highest concentration of aerospace employment in the U.S., maybe in the world, here between Fort Collins and Colorado Springs,” Cone said.

He said the state’s industry is well-diversified, with the largest companies having a firm presence all the way down to the small startups like Lunar Outpost, which currently has about 70 employees.

A 2023 report from the Metro Denver Economic Development Corporation notes that more than 60-percent of Colorado space companies employ fewer than 10 people.

With costs coming down and advancements in everything from materials and electronics to artificial intelligence, Cone said that of any time in his more than 30-year career, the period now feels like a new space renaissance.

“I have never witnessed the confluence of really positive effects for an industry — in this case aerospace — like I have in the last five to 10 years, across the board,” he said.

You want to know what is really going on these days, especially in Colorado. We can help you keep up. The Lookout is a free, daily email newsletter with news and happenings from all over Colorado. Sign up here and we will see you in the morning!

In a warehouse in Arvada, there’s a place called Crater Beach. It’s really just a giant open box filled with about 30 tons of sand and a handful of artificial boulders. And on one recent day, rolling around Crater Beach, is a rover. To the degree that “breadbox” is a relevant yardstick in a 21st century discussion about space entrepreneurship, this test rover is about the size of a breadbox.

Near the beach, a 20-something is using a modified Xbox controller to operate the rover and help test its autopilot software. Does it do the right thing when it rolls into one of those boulders? How does it adjust to the sand?

The experiments in Crater Beach are some of the innumerable late-stage tests the company Lunar Outpost is running before they try to send a rover, one much larger than a breadbox, to the South Pole of the Moon later this year.

There are about 500 companies focused on the space industry in Colorado and more and more of them are opting for a different path from the military-focused applications that have dominated the state’s contribution for decades. Instead, these relatively small startups are trying to make a mark in what they see as a commercial space sector poised for explosive growth.

And now may be just the time to do it.

Of those 500 or so companies, about half of them are based in Colorado Springs, and it’s no wonder why.

The worldwide Global Positioning System (GPS) is run out of Schriever Space Force Base east of the city. The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) operates from the nearby Peterson and Cheyenne Mountain bases. The U.S. Air Force Academy was an early leader in the field of aerospace education.

Additionally, Colorado’s inland location made it a logical host for some of the country’s first intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Today, the part of the space sector specifically serving the Department of Defense is only expected to grow, especially with Colorado Springs hosting the largest share of personnel in the new United States Space Force.

The Catalyst Campus for Technology and Innovation is a startup incubator on the east side of downtown Colorado Springs. Senior Executive Director Dawn Conley said about 80-percent of the companies on the campus are space-focused; the fact that almost all of those cater to military needs is itself representative of a shift in the overall industry.

“Over the last couple of years or several years, the reliance on the space domain … especially how the military conducts some of their business, has evolved and is very important and progressive,” Conley said.

The military has long sought contracts with the country’s largest aerospace corporations. Think Lockheed Martin. Think Raytheon. Think Northrop Grumman and Boeing. That certainly hasn’t changed. However, the rapidly accelerating competition with potential adversaries like China and Russia has even some of the smallest startups successfully pitching their new ideas and technologies.

“Even the Department of Defense has recognized that that’s where the real innovations and solutions are coming from and that’s where the opportunity is,” said Andy Merritt, chief strategy officer for The O’Neil Group, a real estate and venture capital firm that owns Catalyst Campus and invests in emerging space and cybersecurity companies.

The rover that Lunar Outpost is planning to send to the Moon on a SpaceX rocket in November is not much to look at. This vehicle is closer to the size of a wheelbarrow than it is to a breadbox and — to the untrained eye — the clunky silver box does not look too dissimilar from what high school and college students compete with each year at the Colorado Robotics Challenge at Great Sand Dunes National Park. But, of course, in reality, the Lunar Outpost rover is the product of thousands of hours of planning and tens of millions of dollars.

It is engineered to handle the Sun’s circuit-frying direct radiation and to tolerate temperature changes from -200 to 200 degrees Celsius (changes which happen in seconds in the vacuum of space.) It needs to be able to transmit its exact location from a world without GPS and make sure the technologies other private companies have paid Lunar Outpost to attach to the rover have a chance to do their jobs as well.

It also needs to know when it has run into a boulder and adjust — on its own — accordingly.

When Justin Cyrus, 30, co-founded Lunar Outpost in 2017, he and his team wanted to find a niche with both high potential for growth and diversification, but one still small enough to avoid having to compete against the biggest in the industry.

“At the end of the day, we didn’t want to compete against Elon Musk, we didn’t want to compete against Jeff Bezos,” Cyrus said, referring to the heads of SpaceX and Blue Origin.

Instead, Lunar Outpost takes advantage of the primary innovations of those two companies, which has been to cut the cost of getting payloads into orbit by about 90 percent in some cases. The Lunar team decided to focus on transportation technologies beyond earth’s orbit, eventually landing on industrial robotics for use in extreme environments.

The company has also embodied Musk’s ethos to “move fast and break things.” The rovers made by the company certainly seem expensive, but they cost a fraction of those developed and sent into space by NASA, which have cost billions of dollars each.

“That’s what it’s going to cost if you have to have 99.99999-percent chance of success,” Cyrus said. “However, if you’re willing to accept an 80-percent chance of success, you can send dozens of rovers, dozens and potentially even hundreds of rovers for the same cost of one rover.”

That tradeoff, he said, would allow for much more work and science to be done on the lunar surface, even with a few broken down rovers. Then, as has been the case with SpaceX, data provided from the failures allows for rapid iteration and improvements on the next ones set for launch.

Cyrus has high hopes the rover being sent to the Moon in November will accomplish all its goals. But, he said if his rover is able to just successfully drive off its lunar lander, his team will consider that a success. They have three more launches scheduled in the next three years to try again.

Cyrus said Colorado’s space community is different from the space and technology sectors in other places, like Silicon Valley or Boston.

“Those startup environments are very competitive,” he said. “Here in Colorado, it’s quite a bit different. It’s a very collaborative environment and that’s what I love about Colorado. It’s been a great ecosystem for our company to grow and thrive in.”

Bob Cone, chair of the Colorado Space Business Roundtable, said states including California, Texas, Alabama and Florida all have thriving Space industries, but that nowhere else has been able to foster innovation quite like Colorado.

“We have the highest concentration of aerospace employment in the U.S., maybe in the world, here between Fort Collins and Colorado Springs,” Cone said.

He said the state’s industry is well-diversified, with the largest companies having a firm presence all the way down to the small startups like Lunar Outpost, which currently has about 70 employees.

A 2023 report from the Metro Denver Economic Development Corporation notes that more than 60-percent of Colorado space companies employ fewer than 10 people.

With costs coming down and advancements in everything from materials and electronics to artificial intelligence, Cone said that of any time in his more than 30-year career, the period now feels like a new space renaissance.

“I have never witnessed the confluence of really positive effects for an industry — in this case aerospace — like I have in the last five to 10 years, across the board,” he said.

You want to know what is really going on these days, especially in Colorado. We can help you keep up. The Lookout is a free, daily email newsletter with news and happenings from all over Colorado. Sign up here and we will see you in the morning!

October 12, 2023, Tampa FL. Arvada, CO is home to a rising star in the world of auto racing. At just 20 years old, Cassidy Hinds has been blazing a trail in the local racing scene, making a name for herself with impressive performances at Colorado National Speedway. In the 2023 season, she finished 4th in the championship points standings in the Super Late Model division and 9th in the Pro Truck Series.

Now, Cassidy is taking her talents back to the West Coast, where she will be pulling double duty in the SPEARS SRL Southwest Tour, competing in both the Pro and Super Late Model divisions for Naake Klauer Motorsports (NKM). This exciting return to NKM demonstrates Cassidy's hunger for new challenges and her ambition to conquer the racing world on a broader scale by making her first start in a Super Late Model at Kern County Raceway on Sunday. “We are looking for Cassidy to gain valuable seat time in the Super Late Model since this will be her first start at Kern in that series but look for her to make a run for the checkers in the Pro Late Model,” said NKM owner Mike Naake. The 35^th Annual October Classic will attract the top seasoned Super Late Model drivers from the West Coast.

Advertisement

Hinds is known for her fearless driving style and remarkable skill behind the wheel in what is a predominantly male-dominated sport. Cassidy has made a significant impact on the Colorado racing community both on and off the track and is definitely a fan favorite at her home track of Colorado National Speedway. Her passion for racing and unyielding determination have been evident as she has been able to maintain a balance between racing and school. Cassidy is a Junior at Metropolitan State University of Denver where she is majoring in Sports Nutrition.

“I’m so excited to be racing a Super Late Model at Kern Country Raceway in the Southwest Tour. This will be a new experience for me. I’ve raced pro late models at Kern for three years but haven’t gotten a chance to run a Super Late Model for Naake-Klauer Motorsports until now which will be super exciting! I can’t wait to see what we can do with both the Pro Late Model and Super Late Model this weekend,” said Cassidy.

Cassidy's supporters, fellow racers, and fans eagerly anticipate her performance on the West Coast, where she will undoubtedly bring her trademark enthusiasm, determination, and competitive spirit to the track.

Image courtesy Cassidy Hinds

Advertisement

October 12, 2023, Tampa FL. Arvada, CO is home to a rising star in the world of auto racing. At just 20 years old, Cassidy Hinds has been blazing a trail in the local racing scene, making a name for herself with impressive performances at Colorado National Speedway. In the 2023 season, she finished 4th in the championship points standings in the Super Late Model division and 9th in the Pro Truck Series.

Now, Cassidy is taking her talents back to the West Coast, where she will be pulling double duty in the SPEARS SRL Southwest Tour, competing in both the Pro and Super Late Model divisions for Naake Klauer Motorsports (NKM). This exciting return to NKM demonstrates Cassidy's hunger for new challenges and her ambition to conquer the racing world on a broader scale by making her first start in a Super Late Model at Kern County Raceway on Sunday. “We are looking for Cassidy to gain valuable seat time in the Super Late Model since this will be her first start at Kern in that series but look for her to make a run for the checkers in the Pro Late Model,” said NKM owner Mike Naake. The 35^th Annual October Classic will attract the top seasoned Super Late Model drivers from the West Coast.

Advertisement

Hinds is known for her fearless driving style and remarkable skill behind the wheel in what is a predominantly male-dominated sport. Cassidy has made a significant impact on the Colorado racing community both on and off the track and is definitely a fan favorite at her home track of Colorado National Speedway. Her passion for racing and unyielding determination have been evident as she has been able to maintain a balance between racing and school. Cassidy is a Junior at Metropolitan State University of Denver where she is majoring in Sports Nutrition.

“I’m so excited to be racing a Super Late Model at Kern Country Raceway in the Southwest Tour. This will be a new experience for me. I’ve raced pro late models at Kern for three years but haven’t gotten a chance to run a Super Late Model for Naake-Klauer Motorsports until now which will be super exciting! I can’t wait to see what we can do with both the Pro Late Model and Super Late Model this weekend,” said Cassidy.

Cassidy's supporters, fellow racers, and fans eagerly anticipate her performance on the West Coast, where she will undoubtedly bring her trademark enthusiasm, determination, and competitive spirit to the track.

Image courtesy Cassidy Hinds

Advertisement

The company charged with keeping uranium-tainted water out of Denver and Arvada’s drinking supply is walking away from cleaning up Jefferson County’s shuttered Schwartzwalder mine, and state officials are taking over a $7.3 million surety bond they say will continue to fund treatment.

Without water treatment and other uranium reclamation, the Schwartzwalder mine above Ralston Creek and Ralston Reservoir has leaked tainted water into key city supplies, state reclamation officials said in their stipulated agreement with Colorado Legacy Land. The company’s water treatment plant at the mine has been running May to October in recent years, and the state said Friday the previously posted bond will allow work to continue in 2024.

Colorado officials won’t know until the end of next year’s treatment season how many years the surety bond will last in running the plant, said Michael Cunningham, acting division director for Reclamation, Mining and Safety. Colorado could invest the surety bond and use proceeds to continue treatment, but the state may also have recourse to seek more funding from Colorado Legacy Land, Cunningham said.

The state revoked Colorado Legacy Land’s permit to run mine or cleanup operations at Schwartzwalder as part of the stipulation agreement. The stipulation agreement says no civil fines will be issued as part of the revocation and transition to state control. The latest surety bond agreement was for $7.6 million, but the state is moving to take over about $7.3 million left in the fund.

Community activists who have tried to track the uranium cleanups in both Jefferson County and Cañon City said they were not surprised about CLL’s surrender of the Golden efforts.

The promises were “never going to be enough for the best cleanup possible,” said Carol Dunn, co-chair of Colorado Citizens Against Toxic Waste. “I could not guess where CLL got the highly optimistic idea that there was ‘easy money’ to be made.”

Reporters in the past have not received responses to inquiries at Colorado Legacy Land. A message left with Colorado Legacy Land representative Jim Harrington on Friday was not returned.

?? READ MORE

3:37 AM MST on Jan 30, 2024

3:30 AM MST on Jan 30, 2024

3:17 AM MST on Jan 30, 2024

The walkaway agreement signed last week is the latest in a series of failed cleanup sagas for two major Colorado uranium sites once controlled by Colorado Legacy Land, which in turn had taken over the two sites from Cotter Corp.

Schwartzwalder, about 7 miles northwest of Golden, has not produced uranium since 2000, state officials said, and is in the final stages of rock and dirt reclamation. Water treatment at the Jeffco site must go on for years, according to regulators at the reclamation division and the state health department.

Colorado Legacy Land had also taken over and later walked away from the Cotter Mill cleanup, an Environmental Protection Agency Superfund site at Cañon City. Colorado Legacy Land surprised Cañon City residents in February with an insolvency and news it was giving up its share of cleanups at both Cotter Mill and Schwartzwalder.

State action at Schwartzwalder dates at least to 2010, when reclamation officials demanded action from then-owner Cotter Corp. over discharges into surface water. The state’s stipulation agreement last week says that without proper summer water treatment, tainted mine water builds up and then overflows into Ralston Creek, which feeds Ralston Reservoir.

Unless the treatment equipment is turned on again in spring of 2024, the pool of tainted water would begin overflowing in June, state officials said in the stipulation agreement approved by the mining reclamation board on Wednesday.

The land portion of the reclamation has a finite end and will be completed under the surety bond, the state’s Cunningham said. Rock waste is being moved above any water contact on the valley floor, and will be capped with soil to be covered in vegetation, he said.

“The division is going to have a much clearer idea of how long that water can be treated utilizing the financial warranty once we get to the end of the 2024 season,” he said

“The system that’s in place there will ensure that the water that is discharged into Ralston Creek meets water quality standards,” Cunningham said. “This is what Colorado Legacy Land has been doing themselves since taking over this permit. And they’ve been successful in meeting water quality standards up there.”

Arvada water officials said they have been monitoring the discussions about Schwartzwalder and have been advocating “for the protection of Ralston Creek.”

“At this time, we have no concerns about risk to water supply or water quality in Arvada,” said Arvada infrastructure communications manager Katie Patterson. “We are confident that the state and the Mined Land Reclamation Board are committed to continuing to run the water treatment plant in the year ahead and to determining a path for long term management of the site. The city will continue to monitor, support, and engage with the state in the future management of the site to ensure the protection of Ralston Creek.”

Denver Water officials have said in the past that their own water treatment systems for Ralston Reservoir water also keep uranium or other contaminants out of city supplies.

Friday, Denver Water officials said they are “monitoring the situation at the mine and appreciate the leadership of the Division of Reclamation, Mining and Safety in its work to ensure water treatment continues at the site.”

Cunningham said the state has known since early this year that Colorado Legacy Land would be leaving the site. “CLL stated and confirmed it does not presently have the financial capacity to perform its obligations under the permit,” the stipulation says, in part.

“We feel well positioned to take the site over,” Cunningham said.

Type of Story: News

Based on facts, either observed and verified directly by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.

The company charged with keeping uranium-tainted water out of Denver and Arvada’s drinking supply is walking away from cleaning up Jefferson County’s shuttered Schwartzwalder mine, and state officials are taking over a $7.3 million surety bond they say will continue to fund treatment.

Without water treatment and other uranium reclamation, the Schwartzwalder mine above Ralston Creek and Ralston Reservoir has leaked tainted water into key city supplies, state reclamation officials said in their stipulated agreement with Colorado Legacy Land. The company’s water treatment plant at the mine has been running May to October in recent years, and the state said Friday the previously posted bond will allow work to continue in 2024.

Colorado officials won’t know until the end of next year’s treatment season how many years the surety bond will last in running the plant, said Michael Cunningham, acting division director for Reclamation, Mining and Safety. Colorado could invest the surety bond and use proceeds to continue treatment, but the state may also have recourse to seek more funding from Colorado Legacy Land, Cunningham said.

The state revoked Colorado Legacy Land’s permit to run mine or cleanup operations at Schwartzwalder as part of the stipulation agreement. The stipulation agreement says no civil fines will be issued as part of the revocation and transition to state control. The latest surety bond agreement was for $7.6 million, but the state is moving to take over about $7.3 million left in the fund.

Community activists who have tried to track the uranium cleanups in both Jefferson County and Cañon City said they were not surprised about CLL’s surrender of the Golden efforts.

The promises were “never going to be enough for the best cleanup possible,” said Carol Dunn, co-chair of Colorado Citizens Against Toxic Waste. “I could not guess where CLL got the highly optimistic idea that there was ‘easy money’ to be made.”

Reporters in the past have not received responses to inquiries at Colorado Legacy Land. A message left with Colorado Legacy Land representative Jim Harrington on Friday was not returned.

?? READ MORE

3:37 AM MST on Jan 30, 2024

3:30 AM MST on Jan 30, 2024

3:17 AM MST on Jan 30, 2024

The walkaway agreement signed last week is the latest in a series of failed cleanup sagas for two major Colorado uranium sites once controlled by Colorado Legacy Land, which in turn had taken over the two sites from Cotter Corp.

Schwartzwalder, about 7 miles northwest of Golden, has not produced uranium since 2000, state officials said, and is in the final stages of rock and dirt reclamation. Water treatment at the Jeffco site must go on for years, according to regulators at the reclamation division and the state health department.

Colorado Legacy Land had also taken over and later walked away from the Cotter Mill cleanup, an Environmental Protection Agency Superfund site at Cañon City. Colorado Legacy Land surprised Cañon City residents in February with an insolvency and news it was giving up its share of cleanups at both Cotter Mill and Schwartzwalder.

State action at Schwartzwalder dates at least to 2010, when reclamation officials demanded action from then-owner Cotter Corp. over discharges into surface water. The state’s stipulation agreement last week says that without proper summer water treatment, tainted mine water builds up and then overflows into Ralston Creek, which feeds Ralston Reservoir.

Unless the treatment equipment is turned on again in spring of 2024, the pool of tainted water would begin overflowing in June, state officials said in the stipulation agreement approved by the mining reclamation board on Wednesday.

The land portion of the reclamation has a finite end and will be completed under the surety bond, the state’s Cunningham said. Rock waste is being moved above any water contact on the valley floor, and will be capped with soil to be covered in vegetation, he said.

“The division is going to have a much clearer idea of how long that water can be treated utilizing the financial warranty once we get to the end of the 2024 season,” he said

“The system that’s in place there will ensure that the water that is discharged into Ralston Creek meets water quality standards,” Cunningham said. “This is what Colorado Legacy Land has been doing themselves since taking over this permit. And they’ve been successful in meeting water quality standards up there.”

Arvada water officials said they have been monitoring the discussions about Schwartzwalder and have been advocating “for the protection of Ralston Creek.”

“At this time, we have no concerns about risk to water supply or water quality in Arvada,” said Arvada infrastructure communications manager Katie Patterson. “We are confident that the state and the Mined Land Reclamation Board are committed to continuing to run the water treatment plant in the year ahead and to determining a path for long term management of the site. The city will continue to monitor, support, and engage with the state in the future management of the site to ensure the protection of Ralston Creek.”

Denver Water officials have said in the past that their own water treatment systems for Ralston Reservoir water also keep uranium or other contaminants out of city supplies.

Friday, Denver Water officials said they are “monitoring the situation at the mine and appreciate the leadership of the Division of Reclamation, Mining and Safety in its work to ensure water treatment continues at the site.”

Cunningham said the state has known since early this year that Colorado Legacy Land would be leaving the site. “CLL stated and confirmed it does not presently have the financial capacity to perform its obligations under the permit,” the stipulation says, in part.

“We feel well positioned to take the site over,” Cunningham said.

Type of Story: News

Based on facts, either observed and verified directly by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.

The first production of the Arvada Center’s 2023-2024 theatre season traces the story of an American music icon.

Carole King wrote the music for an entire generation — Including such classics as "I Feel the Earth Move," "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman" and "Beautiful." That last one provides the title track to “Beautiful: The Carole King Musical,” which tells the story of the singer/songwriter’s incredible rise to fame through the songs she’s become known for.

Emily Van Fleet, who plays Carole King in the production, remembers hearing these songs during family road trips.

“I learned about Carole King, I think like a lot of people of my generation, from my parents who grew up with ‘Tapestry’ and kind of came into their own as adults with this soundtrack of Carole King music,” Van Fleet said.

She adds that she loves how the show focuses on King’s earlier years, and the songs she and her husband, Gerry Goffin, wrote for other, more popular artists when they were still “kind of nobodies.”

MADE FOR YOU: Our free, daily newsletter cuts through the noise to get you the Colorado information you need — and moments of joy.

Ty-Gabriel Jones returns to the Arvada Center for this show, after appearing in its production of “Damn Yankees” earlier this year. In Beautiful, they play one of The Drifters. The group had a hit with King’s song, “Up on the Roof,” in 1963.

“I think it would be really easy for me to say, this is a nostalgic show, but I think that's really hollow today,” Jones said. “People are writing music that is written to go viral via TikTok. People are writing things for a very specific generation. They know that that's the vehicle that's going to send it where they want it to go. And I think this is tapping back into storytelling outside of the musical theater genre of music.”

Beautiful looks at the music business during a time when hits were coming out of music factories, in King’s case, the storied Brill Building in New York. The central story is a joyous celebration of female empowerment, but it still manages to include the songs that everyone couldn’t stop dancing to.

Choreographer Kelly Van Oosbree took some of her cues from other shows covering this time period, like The Jersey Boys and Ain't Too Proud. Van Oosbree said it was fun to create movement for the Great American Songbook, calling it “some of the best music — best dance music — that's ever been written.”

“So it was super, super fun, not only to research the time period and the types of popular dances that were happening in the late ‘50s, early ‘60s, mid-’70s,” she said, “but (also) these particular artists — the Drifters, the Shirelles, and little Eva for ‘The Locomotion.’ And this particular group of actors (and) dancers are really super talented.”

Though it’s easy to call Beautiful a jukebox musical, Van Fleet thinks that label isn’t big enough for this show. Instead, she sees it as staying true to the essence of King’s life and her journey to discover her own voice, “culminating in this beautiful album of Tapestry that we all know and love.”

“This feels like a play where I get to sing Carole King songs,” Van Fleet said. “For me, personally, it's such a journey that we go on and it's very true to her life and her memoir.”

Jones says they are grateful to be who they are in this time in the theater.

“Because all these stories that we tell in theater, this one very much included, tells another layer of that enchilada,” they said. “What were the things that the advocates and the pioneers in the past did and worked through and schlepped through so that I could be who I am and I could tell their story as a more free individual.”

“Beautiful: The Carole King Musical” launches the Arvada Center's theatre season on Friday, Sept. 8 and runs through Sunday, Oct. 15.

Editor's Note: The Arvada Center is a financial supporter of CPR, but has no editorial influence.

You want to know what is really going on these days, especially in Colorado. We can help you keep up. The Lookout is a free, daily email newsletter with news and happenings from all over Colorado. Sign up here and we will see you in the morning!

The first production of the Arvada Center’s 2023-2024 theatre season traces the story of an American music icon.

Carole King wrote the music for an entire generation — Including such classics as "I Feel the Earth Move," "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman" and "Beautiful." That last one provides the title track to “Beautiful: The Carole King Musical,” which tells the story of the singer/songwriter’s incredible rise to fame through the songs she’s become known for.

Emily Van Fleet, who plays Carole King in the production, remembers hearing these songs during family road trips.

“I learned about Carole King, I think like a lot of people of my generation, from my parents who grew up with ‘Tapestry’ and kind of came into their own as adults with this soundtrack of Carole King music,” Van Fleet said.

She adds that she loves how the show focuses on King’s earlier years, and the songs she and her husband, Gerry Goffin, wrote for other, more popular artists when they were still “kind of nobodies.”

MADE FOR YOU: Our free, daily newsletter cuts through the noise to get you the Colorado information you need — and moments of joy.

Ty-Gabriel Jones returns to the Arvada Center for this show, after appearing in its production of “Damn Yankees” earlier this year. In Beautiful, they play one of The Drifters. The group had a hit with King’s song, “Up on the Roof,” in 1963.

“I think it would be really easy for me to say, this is a nostalgic show, but I think that's really hollow today,” Jones said. “People are writing music that is written to go viral via TikTok. People are writing things for a very specific generation. They know that that's the vehicle that's going to send it where they want it to go. And I think this is tapping back into storytelling outside of the musical theater genre of music.”

Beautiful looks at the music business during a time when hits were coming out of music factories, in King’s case, the storied Brill Building in New York. The central story is a joyous celebration of female empowerment, but it still manages to include the songs that everyone couldn’t stop dancing to.

Choreographer Kelly Van Oosbree took some of her cues from other shows covering this time period, like The Jersey Boys and Ain't Too Proud. Van Oosbree said it was fun to create movement for the Great American Songbook, calling it “some of the best music — best dance music — that's ever been written.”

“So it was super, super fun, not only to research the time period and the types of popular dances that were happening in the late ‘50s, early ‘60s, mid-’70s,” she said, “but (also) these particular artists — the Drifters, the Shirelles, and little Eva for ‘The Locomotion.’ And this particular group of actors (and) dancers are really super talented.”

Though it’s easy to call Beautiful a jukebox musical, Van Fleet thinks that label isn’t big enough for this show. Instead, she sees it as staying true to the essence of King’s life and her journey to discover her own voice, “culminating in this beautiful album of Tapestry that we all know and love.”

“This feels like a play where I get to sing Carole King songs,” Van Fleet said. “For me, personally, it's such a journey that we go on and it's very true to her life and her memoir.”

Jones says they are grateful to be who they are in this time in the theater.

“Because all these stories that we tell in theater, this one very much included, tells another layer of that enchilada,” they said. “What were the things that the advocates and the pioneers in the past did and worked through and schlepped through so that I could be who I am and I could tell their story as a more free individual.”

“Beautiful: The Carole King Musical” launches the Arvada Center's theatre season on Friday, Sept. 8 and runs through Sunday, Oct. 15.

Editor's Note: The Arvada Center is a financial supporter of CPR, but has no editorial influence.

You want to know what is really going on these days, especially in Colorado. We can help you keep up. The Lookout is a free, daily email newsletter with news and happenings from all over Colorado. Sign up here and we will see you in the morning!

El Pollo Loco previously operated one restaurant in Denver that closed during the Great Recession of the late 2000s.

ARVADA, Colo. — El Pollo Loco is continuing its expansion into Colorado with a second location.

The fire-grilled chicken chain has opened a new restaurant at 5480 Wadsworth Bypass in Arvada. That's near Interstate 70 and Wadsworth Boulevard.

The 3,800-square-foot store is the second El Pollo Loco in Colorado. The first Colorado restaurant at 4698 Peoria St. in Denver opened in November 2022.

“When our team discovered this vibrant spot in the heart of Arvada, we instantly recognized the location as the ideal home for our newest El Pollo Loco,” said Brian Carmichall, Chief Development Officer for El Pollo Loco.

“With a spacious dining room designed to reflect the warm, community-focused spirit of Arvada, we're excited to offer a place where locals can gather and savor their El Pollo Loco favorites as we continue to expand in the Colorado market.”

El Pollo Loco previously operated one restaurant in Denver that closed during the Great Recession of the late 2000s.

The restaurant chain is known for its L.A. Mex food, "an innovative blend of traditional Mexican cuisine and better-for-you eating, that Los Angeles is known for."

El Pollo Loco: Arvada

1 / 5

El Pollo Loco

After first announcing plans to enter the Colorado market in March 2021, El Pollo Loco has signed two separate development agreements for eight initial restaurants in the Denver area.

The deals include four restaurants each on the east and west sides of the Denver metro area, according to El Pollo Loco.

El Pollo Loco said the franchise partners are experienced operators:

El Pollo Loco told 9NEWS it plans on opening 10 to 15 restaurants in the Denver metro area and as many as five others in the Colorado Springs area over the next five years. Each Colorado restaurant would employ as many as 50 people.

The restaurant chain said the Colorado expansion is part of a plan to open 140 new locations throughout the western United States by 2026. El Pollo Loco currently operates 478 locations in Arizona, California, Nevada, Texas, Utah, and Louisiana.

The nearly 50-year-old El Pollo Loco said its expansion will be driven by two recently-unveiled prototype designs.

One version has no indoor dining room, instead catering to off-premise sales with a take-out window, a dual drive-thru, parking for curbside pick-up, and patio seating. The second prototype will have a smaller-than-typical dining room that opens up to an expansive patio. This format will also feature a dual drive-thru and curbside pick-up parking spaces.

El Pollo Loco said each of its new prototypes share an enhanced digitized experience – including "Pollo To Go" cubbies for mobile to-go and delivery orders, digital menu boards and GPS-enabled curbside pick-up, all integrated with the company’s dynamic and versatile mobile app.

"This exciting franchise development is a reflection of our Acceleration Agenda, our strategic plan for ongoing national expansion through franchising," said Carmichall. "The success of our better-for-you menu combined with our new L.A. Mex restaurant design has continued to attract experienced multi-unit operators interested in our growing brand."

Of El Pollo Loco's 478 restaurants, 282 are owned and operated by franchisees.

The chain said it is seeking operators to help with its western expansion. The initial investment to own and operate a single unit is estimated between $770,000 and $2,097,000, which includes a franchise fee of $40,000, according to El Pollo Loco.

RELATED: Whataburger plans first Colorado location not in Colorado Springs

RELATED: Northern Colorado getting its first In-N-Out Burger

SUGGESTED VIDEOS: Colorado Guide

Watch more from 9NEWS on the free 9NEWS+ app for Roku and Fire TV.

9NEWS+ has multiple live daily shows including 9NEWS Mornings, Next with Kyle Clark and 9NEWS+ Daily, an original streaming program. 9NEWS+ is where you can watch live breaking news, weather updates, and press conferences. You can also replay recent newscasts and find videos on demand of our top stories, local politics, investigations and Colorado specific features.

El Pollo Loco previously operated one restaurant in Denver that closed during the Great Recession of the late 2000s.

ARVADA, Colo. — El Pollo Loco is continuing its expansion into Colorado with a second location.

The fire-grilled chicken chain has opened a new restaurant at 5480 Wadsworth Bypass in Arvada. That's near Interstate 70 and Wadsworth Boulevard.

The 3,800-square-foot store is the second El Pollo Loco in Colorado. The first Colorado restaurant at 4698 Peoria St. in Denver opened in November 2022.

“When our team discovered this vibrant spot in the heart of Arvada, we instantly recognized the location as the ideal home for our newest El Pollo Loco,” said Brian Carmichall, Chief Development Officer for El Pollo Loco.

“With a spacious dining room designed to reflect the warm, community-focused spirit of Arvada, we're excited to offer a place where locals can gather and savor their El Pollo Loco favorites as we continue to expand in the Colorado market.”

El Pollo Loco previously operated one restaurant in Denver that closed during the Great Recession of the late 2000s.

The restaurant chain is known for its L.A. Mex food, "an innovative blend of traditional Mexican cuisine and better-for-you eating, that Los Angeles is known for."

El Pollo Loco: Arvada

1 / 5

El Pollo Loco

After first announcing plans to enter the Colorado market in March 2021, El Pollo Loco has signed two separate development agreements for eight initial restaurants in the Denver area.

The deals include four restaurants each on the east and west sides of the Denver metro area, according to El Pollo Loco.

El Pollo Loco said the franchise partners are experienced operators:

El Pollo Loco told 9NEWS it plans on opening 10 to 15 restaurants in the Denver metro area and as many as five others in the Colorado Springs area over the next five years. Each Colorado restaurant would employ as many as 50 people.

The restaurant chain said the Colorado expansion is part of a plan to open 140 new locations throughout the western United States by 2026. El Pollo Loco currently operates 478 locations in Arizona, California, Nevada, Texas, Utah, and Louisiana.

The nearly 50-year-old El Pollo Loco said its expansion will be driven by two recently-unveiled prototype designs.

One version has no indoor dining room, instead catering to off-premise sales with a take-out window, a dual drive-thru, parking for curbside pick-up, and patio seating. The second prototype will have a smaller-than-typical dining room that opens up to an expansive patio. This format will also feature a dual drive-thru and curbside pick-up parking spaces.

El Pollo Loco said each of its new prototypes share an enhanced digitized experience – including "Pollo To Go" cubbies for mobile to-go and delivery orders, digital menu boards and GPS-enabled curbside pick-up, all integrated with the company’s dynamic and versatile mobile app.

"This exciting franchise development is a reflection of our Acceleration Agenda, our strategic plan for ongoing national expansion through franchising," said Carmichall. "The success of our better-for-you menu combined with our new L.A. Mex restaurant design has continued to attract experienced multi-unit operators interested in our growing brand."

Of El Pollo Loco's 478 restaurants, 282 are owned and operated by franchisees.

The chain said it is seeking operators to help with its western expansion. The initial investment to own and operate a single unit is estimated between $770,000 and $2,097,000, which includes a franchise fee of $40,000, according to El Pollo Loco.

RELATED: Whataburger plans first Colorado location not in Colorado Springs

RELATED: Northern Colorado getting its first In-N-Out Burger

SUGGESTED VIDEOS: Colorado Guide

Watch more from 9NEWS on the free 9NEWS+ app for Roku and Fire TV.

9NEWS+ has multiple live daily shows including 9NEWS Mornings, Next with Kyle Clark and 9NEWS+ Daily, an original streaming program. 9NEWS+ is where you can watch live breaking news, weather updates, and press conferences. You can also replay recent newscasts and find videos on demand of our top stories, local politics, investigations and Colorado specific features.