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Week of August 4, 2022
ADAMS & JEFFERSON COUNTY, COLORADO
A publication of
WestminsterWindow.com
VOLUME 77 | ISSUE 41
Where Colorado jobs would be if pandemic hadn’t happened Even with setback, state is at one of its highest levels ever BY TAMARA CHUANG THE COLORADO SUN
Thanks to a gain of 4,500 nonfarm payroll jobs in June, Colorado has now
recovered 110.1% of jobs lost in the first two months of the COVID-19 pandemic. That helped push down Colorado’s unemployment rate to 3.4% in June, the lowest since February 2020’s very low 2.8%. The U.S. unemployment rate didn’t change for the fourth straight month, at 3.6% in June. But if the pandemic hadn’t
happened, Colorado would have added another 100,000 more jobs by now, according to data compiled by the state Department of Labor and Employment. Before the pandemic, the state’s job growth trajectory was at 4,900 per month. However, getting to 2,857,400, as the state did in June, still puts the state at one of its highest levels of
Thornton’s water PFA levels exceed EPA’s new health advisory BY LUKE ZARZECKI LZARZECKI@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM
A new health advisory from the Environmental Protection Agency lowered the standards for PFAS composition – commonly known as “forever chemicals” – in drinking water and that puts Thornton and their water customers in a tough spot. The EPA set the new advisory on June 15 at 0.0004 parts per trillion for PFOA and 0.02 parts per trillion for PFOS. In May 2022, the Thornton Water Treatment Plant measured 7.1 parts per trillion for PFOA and 3.5 parts per trillion for PFOS. The Wes Brown Water Treatment Plant saw 5.4 parts per trillion for PFOA and 2.0 parts per trillion for PFOS. Although the levels are over 1,000 times higher than the health advisories, City Spokesperson Todd Barnes said residents should not worry and should not stop drinking the water. “This is a concern, not a crisis. People do not need to
there might have been a recession anyway, or at least a slowdown in new job creation. It was already challenging to hire enough workers before the pandemic. “Remember, at the end of 2019, the nation, the state, we were still at a historically long economic expansion,” he said. “Was 4,900
jobs ever. Colorado had a fast recovery, said Ryan Gedney, senior economist with the labor department. But that job growth is starting to slow. “I think we’ve gotten out of that recovery mode. The state has regained what jobs that were lost (after) February 2020,” Gedney said. But he added that had the pandemic not happened,
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Cities settle federal block grant budgets
Thornton, Westminster targeting federal funds to affordable housing BY LUKE ZARZECKI LZARZECKI@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM
to Martin Kimmes, Thornton’s Water Treatment and Quality Manager. He knew the EPA was going to lower levels, but not by how much. “They pretty much went down to as close to zero as they could,” Kimmes said. He said the amount of PFAS in the new guideline is as diffuse as one drop of detergent in enough dishwater to fill a 10-miles-long train of railroad cars.
Westminster and Thornton city councils approved their annual action plans for the Community Development Block Grants on July 25 and 26 respectively. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development designates funds to municipalities every year to be used for programs and projects that benefit low- and moderate-income residents and areas. Those are defined as areas where at least half of the residents have annual incomes of less than
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stop drinking their water,” a letter sent to residents reads. However, even though Thornton’s levels are low, Metropolitan State University Professor Shamim Ahsan said people should still be attentive because it’s not the current amount of PFAs, but the buildup in the body. All Thornton water customers will receive the letter, as required by the EPA. Barnes noted that the
INSIDE: VOICES: PAGE 12 | LIFE: PAGE 14 | CALENDAR: PAGE 17 | SPORTS: PAGE 22
advisory will not only affect Thornton but other municipalities around Colorado and the U.S. Updating and upgrading water treatment plants to detect the new levels – should the health advisory turns into regulations – will be costly. He noted that most scientific equipment can’t detect levels that low. Suprise change The new levels took the water quality community by surprise, according
ART IN THE OPEN
There’s plenty of sculpture to see in parks and public places
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