Luke Runyon

As coal power plants close, the water they used will be freed up for other purposes. It can make a huge difference in the arid West. Who'll reap the potential windfalls of both water and money?

"Water is the oil of the 21st century. People don't quite understand how difficult it is to run a water system so you have clean drinking water," the town administrator said.

A Colorado trail runner was attacked by a mountain lion earlier this month. Travis Kauffman managed to defend himself by killing the juvenile lion with his bare hands.

After years of sustained drought, water managers along the Colorado River system are renegotiating water cutbacks to seven Western states, hoping to avoid more drastic shortages in the future.

Sheriff's Deputy Dave Huhn's job has become more important after a series of hot, dry summers have made farmers more desperate for water, and more willing to steal it or go to battle over it.

Despite the growth of population in the western U.S., water use in cities such as Denver, Las Vegas, San Diego and Phoenix is going down. The reason? High-tech, low-flow toilets.

Hundreds of millions of beavers used to populate the West but were hunted to near extinction. Turns out, beavers are critical to healthy water ecosystems, so now there are efforts to bring them back.

Dust in the Rocky Mountain snow can cause elevated water runoff, and greater opportunities for forest fires.

The recent drought in the West forced people to take a hard look at how they use water. In Colorado, some farmers tried an experiment: make their water more expensive without hurting business.

Campfires, singalongs, and ... zombies? Summer camps can impart all kinds of new skills. One camp in suburban Denver is teaching kids how to survive an uprising of the undead.

The livelihoods of farmers and ranchers are intimately tied to weather and the environment. But they may no longer be able to depend on government research to help them adapt to climate change.

Many immigrants come to Morgan County, Colo., for its plentiful, if grueling, jobs in agriculture. Now, fears about changes to immigration policy under Trump are prompting many to act.

Nearly a century ago, Dearfield, Colo., was a thriving African-American farm community, admired by many of its white neighbors. There were even early signs of integration. Then came the Dust Bowl.

Opioid abuse is rising fast among those who live in rural areas. Research suggests the drugs' illicit use there spreads rapidly via social networks, which could be part of the solution, too.

Instead of letting food rot, some entrepreneurs want to use it to feed insects, which can then nourish livestock. But federal regulations have been slow to catch up to the growth of insect farms.

They're known by many names: lamb fries, bull fries, huevos de toro. There's a rich tapestry of Western lore built around this food, which is, well, fried testicles. Our reporter bites into this tale.

Becky Ravenkamp is a farmer who's taken on many roles to keep her Colorado farm town afloat. She thinks candidates this election year have largely overlooked rural America.

The U.S. Forest Service says the growing popularity of the Conundrum Hot Springs near Aspen, Colo., is threatening the fragile ecosystem, and they're starting to crack down.

Slaughterhouses, while safer than decades ago, are some of the country's most hazardous workplaces. They are fined by the government for safety violations, but those fines may not be big enough.

Hundreds of thousands of people go to work each day preparing the beef, pork and poultry that ends up on our dinner tables. Their workplace is among the most hazardous in the country. Slaughterhouses — while safer than they were decades ago — can exact a steep price from workers. As it tries to enforce safety rules, the government fines the businesses for violations, but one former official calls those fines ineffective and "embarrassingly low."