WEEK OF JULY 17, 2025
VOLUME 54 | ISSUE 6
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Colorado considers challenging ‘energy emergency’ January declaration invoked by BLM to fasttrack rain facility expansion BY DAVID O. WILLIAMS COLORADO NEWSLINE
10 feet tall and at least 24 feet across, the gym provided plenty of room to spread out. When the original reconstruction artist Shawn Cox was forced to step away from the project due to health issues, new Clear Creek County resident Keith Prossick was asked to step in and finish the project.
Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser’s office will consider joining a lawsuit challenging President Donald Trump’s declaration in January of a national energy emergency, he told Newsline in an exclusive interview. The Trump administration’s Bureau of Land Management invoked the emergency declaration to complete accelerated environmental review of a permit to expand a loading facility near Price, Utah for oil coming out of the nearby Uinta Basin. The expansion could increase oil capacity on the main rail line through Colorado by up to 80,000 barrels a day. It’s anticipated that the expansion of what’s known as the Wildcat Loadout facility — located on publicly owned federal lands — and other nearby facilities will allow the trucking and transfer to rail of up to 75% of the oil proposed for transport in the Uinta Basin Railway project. Eagle County and state officials have long opposed increased oil trains along the Colorado River. In a June 27 letter to Jerry Davis, acting Utah state director for the BLM, Weiser wrote that an expedited environmental assessment for the proposed Wildcat right-of-way expansion would be a “violation of applicable laws and regulations” that would block proper public input and “subject Colorado communities to significant economic, environmental, and health and safety risks.” Weiser argued there is no national energy emergency given the United States
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Clear Creek County resident Keith Prossick helps load up the Oh, My Gawd Road mural July 3.
CHRIS KOEBERL
‘Oh My Gawd’ mural is back After months of restoration work the mural is ready to be re-hung BY CHRISTOPHER KOEBERL CHRIS@COTLN.ORG
The restored mural titled “Oh My Gawd Road” was unveiled at its temporary home in Citizens Park in Idaho Springs in time for July 4th festivities. For decades, the mural depicting downtown Idaho Springs and the infamous ‘Oh My Gawd’ Road” hung on the outside of the “brown barn”
adjacent to the former Citywide bank and future headquarters of Idaho Springs Police at 1744 Miner St. The wooden mural is painted as an amalgamation of the city of Idaho Springs with people, cars, trucks and wooden structures. The original design was painted by a local artist Wendall Pugh, in the early ‘90s, according to Director of the
Historical Society of Idaho Springs, Jan Boland. However, years of weather, wind and sun took a toll on the mural’s paint as it faded into the past. Hearing about the idea to restore the mural, the Clear Creek School Board offered the gymnasium at the old Carlson Elementary School building as a workshop. Since the mural is approximately
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