Black Hills Energy partnered with around 50 firefighters on Thursday night to train them how to respond to natural gas fires. The training was held at Colwich Memorial Park. In addition to pipeline safety presentations, Black Hills Energy helped conduct live-fire, hands-on training exercises to allow firefighters to practice containing and extinguishing natural gas fires under controlled circumstances. Black Hills Energy said the Colwich training is one of a series of fire safety seminars the company is offering to fire departments in Kansas. The company also educates firefighters about the various characteristics of natural gas so they can safely and effectively [...]

School building consolidations are being considered across Kansas this year. The Wichita and Garden City school districts are considering merging and closing some school buildings. One much smaller community, Healy, plans to dissolve its district altogether. The Garden City Public Schools Board of Education met Thursday night to consider whether to approve a plan to close three elementary school buildings. Following our 6 p.m. broadcast, Garden City Public Schools announced that the board rejected the recommendation in a 4-3 vote. They are not the only ones who have thought of building consolidation this year. Across Kansas, Wichita Public School’s Board of [...]

A federal judge has ordered the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to further regulate fluoride in drinking water because high levels could pose a risk to the intellectual development of children. U.S. District Judge Edward Chen cautioned that it’s not certain that the amount of fluoride typically added to water is causing lower IQ in kids, but he concluded that mounting research points to an unreasonable risk that it could be. He ordered the EPA to take steps to lower that risk, but didn’t say what those measures should be. It’s the first time a federal judge has made a determination about [...]