Local News

  Waterton Canyon will soon be intermittently closed for more than a year as Denver Water workers dredge 625,000 cubic yards of sediment that has accumulated in the wake of forest fires and heavy rain.

The popular trail and canal, well known as an entrance to the Colorado Trail, will be closed beginning Aug. 2, will open again Dec. 4, then will close again from Feb. 28, 2011, through Dec. 31, 2011. The temporary reopening in the coming winter is possible because freezing temperatures would make dredging nearly impossible.

The Foothills Park & Recreation District hired an extermination company to kill hundreds of prairie dogs Wednesday at Clement Park. Workers placed toxic fumigation pellets into virtually every den in the native-grass area south of the Columbine Memorial, stuffing the burrows with newspaper and covering them with dirt.

Complaints from the bordering neighborhood prompted the move, said Foothills spokeswoman Kate Dragoo.

“We had neighborhood complaints, because (prairie dogs) had been intruding onto neighborhood property,” Dragoo said.

Proposals to shrink the popular off-leash dog park at Chatfield State Park are drawing criticism from canine enthusiasts, who say their groups’ views have not been fairly considered. Those groups say proposed changes don’t reflect their interests and that the modifications won’t decrease conflicts among park visitors.

Users of the off-leash area object to a proposal to halve the size of the dog park, to fence the area, and to discontinue access to the South Platte River.

The arraignment for suspected Deer Creek Middle School gunman Bruco Eastwood was rescheduled Monday following a request from a defense lawyer. Discovery documents in the case have burgeoned to about 5,000 pages, and the defense has yet to fully review all of them.

“With regard to the expansive discovery, I would like to have gone through that,” public defender Thea Reiff said about reviewing the documents before Eastwood enters a plea.