News

The public-comment period for a Trump administration review of 27 national monuments ended Monday. The fate of those monuments now rests with Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke.

The local monsoon season is approaching, but how much relief it may provide to rain-starved Montezuma County is still up in the air. Weather observer James Andrus told the county commissioners Monday that he is not optimistic about strong monsoons, but conditions may change. Andrus said two daily high-temperature records were set in June and there was a period of 53 days without rain before a meager three-hundredths of an inch fell on Cortez Friday.

A majority of respondents to a recent questionnaire say they would support a county sales tax to expand high-speed internet services in Montezuma County. On Monday, Greg Kemp, a board member of the Montezuma Community Economic Development Association, told the county commissioners that 1700 people had responded to the survey, which was distributed for MCEDA by Empire Electric. Of those, nearly 60 percent said they would support a sales tax to boost a public-private partnership to bring broadband to the entire area.

The East Rim Fire on public lands 10 miles northeast of Dove Creek had grown to 689 acres as of Monday and was about 25 percent contained. Officials with the Bureau of Land Management report efforts to battle the lightning-sparked blaze have been scaled back because fire weather has moderated. While 77 people were assigned to the fire on a single day previously, on Monday there were only 28.