"A roundup of wild horses began Monday in northwestern Colorado over the objections of animal advocacy groups."

"Across the northern Rocky Mountains, bighorn sheep are dying by the hundreds from pneumonia and alarmed wildlife officials are hunting and killing the majestic animals to halt the spread of the disease."

"A proposal to designate more than 300,000 acres of wilderness in central Idaho appears to be in a political tailspin, dashing hopes among wilderness advocates that the Gem State could soon resolve a decades-long debate over management of its public lands."

The wildfire near Boulder, Colo., is still burning, with some 135 homes destroyed, making it the worst in Colorado history. Four people are missing. Meanwhile, as the reverse-911 phone system meant to notify people of evacuation failed to work properly, social media like Twitter emerged as the connection-of-choice in the tech-savvy community.

Thousands of people have been ordered to evacuate as a wildfire near Boulder, Colorado, rages on.

"SMELTERVILLE, Idaho -- They call themselves 'the leaded.' They grew up in the shadow of a giant lead smelter here, and were contaminated with some of the biggest lead releases in the nation's history."

"A federal judge on Thursday reinstated protections for wolves in Montana and Idaho, saying the government made a political decision in removing the protections from just two of the states where Northern Rocky Mountain wolves roam."

"The front-runner for the Republican nomination in the Colorado governor’s race is causing a stir with claims that his likely Democratic opponent, Mayor John Hickenlooper of Denver, is bringing the city under United Nations control by promoting bike riding and other sustainability measures."

"Each year, around a half a million people go whitewater rafting in Colorado, and the industry is a key economic driver in many rural towns. But in recent months, the issue of rafting and who can float through stretches of private property has divided the state."

"Oil and gas companies have reported almost 1,000 spills to Colorado regulators over the past 2-1/2 years, totaling 5.2 million gallons of drilling liquids and oil."

Residents of Salt Lake City neighborhoods peppered Chevron VP Bryan Tucker with questions and complaints at a community meeting following an oil spill there.

"The owners of a closed uranium mine near Golden have been ordered by the state health department to stop discharging polluted water into a creek that flows into a Denver-area reservoir."

"CHEYENNE, Wyo. — A state agency that oversees oil and gas development voted Tuesday to require energy companies to disclose what chemicals they're pumping underground to improve the flow of oil and gas into well bores."

The roundup of bison that have strayed from their refuge in Yellowstone National Park, part of a Quixotic plan to protect domestic cattle from the disease brucellosis, is an example of Western environmental gridlock.

"Gayla Benefield and Eva Thomson are sisters who have grown used to death. For two decades, they have watched asbestos from a nearby vermiculite mine strangle their parents, Thomson's husband, an aunt, several in-laws and numerous neighbors and friends."