News from Neighbors

Perkins County Canal project moves forward amid questions about final cost

GRANT TRIBUNE-SENTINEL, March 16 — After an afternoon-long debate, Nebraska lawmakers advanced a controversial proposal to begin designing a $500 million canal to divert water from the South Platte River. Legislative Bill 1015, introduced on behalf of Gov. Pete Ricketts, advanced from first-round debate March 9 on a 36-3 vote.

But there were questions about why the long-forgotten Perkins County Canal, which was abandoned in the 1920s, had now become a state priority.

“This thing’s 100 years old. All of a sudden, we have this urgency,” said state Sen. Steve Lathrop of Omaha, Nebraska.

Ricketts and other supporters have resurrected the canal project, saying that unless it is built, Colorado will suck up the flows of the South Platte River for development on the Front Range. That would reduce flows for irrigation and wildlife in Nebraska.

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America’s first statewide prison radio station launches in Colorado

DENVER POST, March 3 — The audio producers and on-air talent crammed into the makeshift studio Tuesday, adjusting levels and donning headphones as they prepared to kick off Colorado’s newest radio station.

“Launch day!” a producer yelled as staff huddled by the microphones, a palpable buzz permeating the windowless room. This isn’t Colorado Public Radio or Hits 95.7. It’s the Limon Correctional Facility, a sprawling Level IV prison on Colorado’s Eastern Plains that holds more than 700 inmates behind a 4,000-foot-long double-perimeter fence.

Inside the plexiglass walls, surrounded by soundproof foam, a collection of giddy men in green jumpsuits on Tuesday introduced Inside Wire: Colorado Prison Radio, the first statewide radio station in U.S. history to be recorded and produced inside prison walls and beamed to anyone with an internet connection around the globe.

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