Tristan Ahtone

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If you haven't noticed, it's election season, and Republican voters will soon be choosing a GOP nominee to challenge President Obama. The process may seem straight forward. The process may seem straight forward -- in November voters will choose whether the president gets a second term or is replaced by a republican challenger -- it can actually be very complicated. Right now precinct caucuses are being held around the state, and Wyoming Public Radio's Tristan Ahtone brings us this explanation of what happens before voters head to the polls.

Registered Republicans will be able to vote in precinct caucuses tomorrow/Thursday in both Sublette and Goshen counties.

Bob Rule is state committeeman for Sublette County. He says precinct caucuses are important because they serve as the entry point for political participation.

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Company proposes boosting Wyoming’s energy economy with coal-to-oil plant
The town of Medicine Bow is currently planning for a DKRW proposed coal to liquids conversion facility. The plant would be a financial boom for the state and bring jobs to the county. But this isn’t the first time Wyoming is looking into a project that would add value to its coal so it’s undergoing close scrutiny.

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DKRW’s proposal to build a coal-to-liquids plant in Medicine Bow may provide jobs and tax revenue to the state… and could be a major boost to the energy industry. But with DKRW requesting a 1.7 billion dollar loan from the Department of Energy, one big question comes up: should the federal government make decisions about investing in questionable technology that the market has never wanted to invest in. Wyoming Public Radio’s Tristan Ahtone reports.

Crook County Republicans will be the first in the state to weigh in on the presidential election this weekend when precincts caucus at the courthouse in Sundance.

Crook County Committeeman Bruce Brown says registered Republican voters will meet to talk about platforms and resolutions that will be forwarded to the County and State Conventions in March.

At a meeting with Pavillion residents this morning, Governor Mead said he wants to continue providing people with safe water.

Pavillion is at the center of an EPA investigation about whether hydraulic fracturing has contaminated the town’s drinking water supply. The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease recommended that residents refrain from drinking the water AND shower with their windows open, and as a result, area oil and gas producer EnCana, and the state of Wyoming, are now paying to have bottled water delivered to residents.

Mead says he’s hopeful that residents of Pavillion and the Wind River Tribes can come to a solution for safe drinking water.

In the wake of a congressional hearing over a draft report by the Environmental Protection Agency that links hydraulic fracturing with water contamination in the town of Pavillion, the Wind River Tribes are pushing to take a bigger role in the investigation.

“It’s critically important that we really get into the center of these discussions, that we make sure that our sovereignty and our jurisdiction is not infringed upon in any way and that we make sure that our Wind River Environmental Quality Department and our unique legal and political relationship with the United States government is upheld in a manner that supports and upholds our jurisdiction and our authority,” says Eastern Shoshone Business Council Wes Martel.

Members of the U.S. House Energy and Environment Subcommittee slammed the Environmental Protection Agency during a hearing about the agency’s ground water research in the town of Pavillion.

The Energy and Environment Subcommittee hearing got off to a late start after “Gasland” filmmaker Josh Fox was arrested for trying to film the proceedings. Fox has spent considerable time in Pavillion documenting water contamination that may be associated with hydraulic fracturing. An ABC News crew was denied entrance to the hearing.

From there, Chairman Republican Congressman Andy Harris charged the EPA with a “remarkable display of arrogance and disregard for the plain facts” concerning fracking practices through “scientific innuendo and regulatory straight-jacketing.”

Tomorrow, the U-S House of Representatives’ Energy and Environment Subcommittee will hear about the Environmental Protection Agency’s ongoing investigation of groundwater contamination in the town of Pavillion. However, Pavillion residents say they were not invited to testify.

In December the EPA released a draft report on its three-year water contamination investigation. It indicated that ground water in Pavillion’s aquifer contains compounds that are “likely associated with gas production practices, including hydraulic fracturing.”

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It’s been said that dead men tell no tales, but in the forensic anthropology lab at the University of Wyoming, researchers are proving otherwise. Over the winter, Wyoming Public Radio’s Tristan Ahtone paid a visit to the lab, and he brings us this report on what happens when you find a body in the state, and the process on how scientists identify those remains.

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New numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau show that people in Wyoming reporting to be American Indian in combination with one or more races grew 24%.

In 2010 over 13-thousand people in Wyoming reported American Indian as their only race. However, those who chose multiple races - American Indian in combination with something else – was nearly 19-thousand. That’s up from 15-thousand a decade ago.

Amy Bittner is a senior economist for the state’s economic analysis division, which serves as the lead agency for Wyoming’s state data center program. She says new figures show that the American Indian population is growing.

The American Indian Studies program at the University of Wyoming says that they have contracted architect Johnpaul Jones to develop a proposed American Indian center at U-W.

Jones has worked as lead-consultant for the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, as well as numerous other cultural centers, museums and parks.

Judith Antell is Director of American Indian Studies at UW.

"Johnpaul Jones has been asked to come to campus to begin an initial conversation, a first step in this long process. And so the vision at this point is that the center would likely provide many services and house programs certainly beyond American Indian studies."

Some Native American farmers and ranchers in Wyoming could be receiving checks and debt forgiveness in the coming year in the wake of a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
 
It’s estimated that Native American farmers and ranchers lost over 770-million-dollars in revenue between 1981 and 1999, because the USDA denied them loans and services based on their race. Many Native Americans also lost their land in the process.