Tracy Ross
Reporter
The site in question spans city blocks in Rocky Ford, a town in need of a facelift.
The city council and Mayor Duane Gurulé knew this, which is why they sent a letter to U.S. Sens. John Hickenlooper and Michael Bennet and U.S. Rep. Jeff Hurd on April 22, following a wave of executive orders from President Donald Trump.
Rocky Ford, in Otero County, was a finalist for a $166,000 grant from the Environmental Protection Agency’s Thriving Communities Grantmaking Program to assess and clean up asbestos-laden buildings in the city that had been damaged by fires. The grant was in danger due to funding freezes, they wrote in the letter.
If they received the money administered through the Mountains and Plains Environmental Grants Hub, it would start planning of the much-needed cleanup and begin the revitalization of 20-plus acres of land for essential commercial space and housing, they added.
That fit perfectly with the goal of the program, which was to fund solutions to serious environmental challenges in underserved communities, including clean drinking water, food access and climate readiness. The program fell under the Biden Administration’s Inflation Reduction Act Environmental and Climate Justice Program, through which Congress had appropriated $2.8 billion for community groups to provide block grants to address pollution that takes a disproportionately heavy toll on communities of color and low-income and rural areas.
The Brewer Construction burn site in Rocky Ford is shown in this June 20, 2025 photo. The property, between 10th and 12th streets, was completely destroyed in a 2024 fire. (Mike Sweeney, Special to The Colorado Sun)But during the first few months of 2025, the EPA teamed up with the Department of Government Efficiency to cut at least $67 million in grant money earmarked for such programs.
On May 2, Rocky Ford learned its grant was included in the slashing. About 550 applications with requests for $137 million were submitted to the program — “a clear sign of both the urgency and the local energy behind this work,” according to Mountains and Plains administrators.
And now every time Gurulé travels U.S. 50 between the Rocky Ford City Hall and the Sonic Drive-In, he’s reminded of the time his town came this close to getting the funding it needed to start addressing its hulking, blackened problems, including the unavoidable eyesore visible down 10th street if he’s driving east, which some Rocky Ford locals have to look at it every day whether they want to or not.
It’s the Brewer Construction burn site, which went up in flames in April 2024.
What’s left — thousands of pounds of contaminated rubble — looks like it could live in a “Mad Max” film. But even worse than how it looks is how toxic it is, Gurulé said. It’s full of asbestos that breaks free when the wind blows. Pieces of tin and shingles fly through the community. And there’s a good chance the patients walking into the doctor’s office nearby are breathing in toxic chemicals, he said.
Spoiler alert: This story has no happy ending.
But that’s why Gurulé wants it told “loudly and clearly,” starting with the fire.
Or fires.
Two blazes in one year and no cleanup
The second fire, in December, burned a hole through the middle of Liberty Elementary School, built in 1950 to accommodate the post-World War II baby boom, by then in grades 1 through 6, according to the Kiowa County Independent. It bustled for a while, but as schools in some rural towns sometimes do, enrollment dwindled until it was forced to close in 2011.
The fire inside it was bad, but two wings remained after it was extinguished. The town council had big plans for it in part because of its location: “It’s more or less connected to the fairgrounds,” which each August hosts the Arkansas Valley Fair, the “oldest continuous in Colorado,” and Crystal Lake, which along with the fairgrounds is undergoing an ambitious transformation with planned parking, a nature trail, a mountain bike park and playgrounds, thanks to a grant from Great Outdoors Colorado.
Rocky Ford will continue to develop this project, for which they received $150,000 in 2022 to begin community engagement and assessment, and another $400,000 in 2024 for planning and design, Gurulé said. They’re applying for $21 million from GOCO and numerous other funders to bring the project to life.
Earl Brewer, left, is the property owner of the former Brewer Construction company in Rocky Ford. He’s shown here speaking with Mayor Duane Gurulé about the circumstances surrounding the fire which destroyed his business in 2024. (Mike Sweeney, Special to The Colorado Sun)While the Brewer burn site, if demolished, decontaminated and cleaned up, would be perfect for mixed residential and commercial use, the Liberty School site could house a hotel or other lodging, something the city desperately needs, Gurulé said.
But without funding from the federal government, Rocky Ford isn’t getting so much as an assessment of the environmental and health issues the building damage brings as well as the economic impacts. That means the eyesore stays, the asbestos particles float and the sorely needed facelift for the commercial district and north side of Rocky Ford won’t likely happen in the near future. “It’s hurting us in several different ways,” Gurulé said.
Now what?
Despite it all, Rocky Ford tries to remain hopeful.
“We’re waiting to see what new programs the EPA will release and we’re working with the Colorado Department of Local Affairs and Colorado Department of Public Heath and Environment to identify funding we can use,” said Gurulé.
In an ideal scenario, Rocky Ford “receives technical assistance to apply for funding from the EPA to address this cleanup, is able to support and attract new business expansion or growth, and has development of homes that meet the needs of our region across all housing types and all income levels,” he added. “We nurture the growth of a Rocky Ford for the next generations.”
But hope becomes challenging when Gurulé thinks about Trump terminating the program that could have helped them, with the grant that “was more than just dollars, it was a rare opportunity for a small city with limited staff and resources to finally address long-standing environmental hazards.
Fencing intended to keep trespassers out of the razed Brewer Construction company property in Rocky Ford has been rendered useless by people scavenging for copper and other materials says property owner Earl Brewer. The business was completely destroyed in a 2024 fire. (Mike Sweeney, Special to The Colorado Sun)“It didn’t just cancel a funding stream. It sent a message that rural communities like Rocky Ford — where people pay federal taxes just like folks in big cities, but don’t have full-time grant writers or million-dollar budgets to chase federal funds – don’t matter. That our health, our environment and our future are not a priority.”
So Gurulé keeps telling the story. “Because when policies are made without rural voices at the table, we are the ones left cleaning up the mess, sometimes literally, like with asbestos in our neighborhoods. And if we don’t speak up, these decisions will keep happening in D.C., while our communities are left to ‘make do’ with less and less.”
On Tuesday, a tiny stroke of luck may have arrived, when a federal judge ruled that $600 million in environmental justice grants, including those administered through the Thriving Communities Grantmaking Program, was illegal.
Section by Tracy Ross | Reporter
More Colorado Safeway stores go on strike
A shopper heads into a Safeway store, which is part of the Albertson’s grocery chain, Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2024, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)Safeway stores in Boulder, Brighton and Lone Tree joined the ongoing labor strike on Thursday, even as negotiations between the union and Safeway management resumed this week.
But in a note to members of United Food and Commercial Workers International Union Local 7 late Thursday, President Kim Cordova said, “the company remains unwilling to offer an agreement that meets the needs of workers.”
Negotiations have ended for the week and more stores are expected to join the strike in a staggered rollout to keep the company guessing which store will need temporary workers next.
Stores in Pueblo, Fountain and Estes Park first hit the picket lines on Sunday. And nearly every day since, more stores joined, including locations in Grand Junction, Littleton and Castle Rock.
Union workers are asking for management to address the issue of understaffed stores. They’re also concerned about reduced benefits, especially to retired workers.
Safeway spokesperson Heather Halpape said in an email that the company is trying to “achieve a balanced agreement that rewards our associates, benefits our customers, and is sustainable for our company in the competitive grocery industry.”
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George Lopez secures a hand railing on a backyard patio for a senior homeowner June 12 in Thornton. Working through Colorado Housing Connects, Lopez performs mostly handyman work for homeowners. (Kathryn Scott, Special to The Colorado Sun)> Read story
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➔ April hiring in Colorado saw largest one-month drop in the U.S. Local employers eased up on hiring in April, compared with March, more so than any other state nationwide, according to the latest Job Openings and Labor Turnover summary from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But that may be due to a hiring spree in March, when the state had the highest one-month increase in the U.S.
In April, Colorado employers hired an estimated 113,000 people, down from the 146,000 in March. On the other hand, the number of layoffs saw a sharp decline, dropping to 23,000, from 39,000 in March. The change was the second-largest decline in layoffs.
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➔ Denver Auditor recognizes employee union. A little over 30 employees who work at Denver Labor, which is part of the city auditor’s office, received the blessing of their employer this week to unionize. Denver Auditor Timothy M. O’Brien threw his “full support for employees” to start collective bargaining, a process that could begin in the near future, said Brian Winkler, with Communication Workers of America Local 7777, which is helping the Denver Labor employees in the process of unionizing.
The employees apparently love their jobs and their boss but, Winkler said, there’s concern that O’Brien is on his third and final term and “this glaring fact had been noticed by the workers and they wanted to form a Union to maintain the conditions and culture they are currently in, knowing that that could change through leadership in the future.”
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Section by Tamara Chuang | Business/Technology Reporter
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