News

The Bureau of Land Management will auction off wild horses at the Wyoming Honor Farm in Riverton Saturday morning. Wild horses have no natural predators in Wyoming, so the BLM captures the horses and hosts adoptions to control the population and prevent forage scarcity. BLM Wild Horse Specialist Steve Fluer says buyers adopt wild horses for pleasure, novelty, ranch work, and a variety of other reasons. "They’re very agile. They’re very sure footed. They come in a variety of colors. Kinda the mystique to the American public… they’re sort of a legend in the sense. You know, some people just wanna have a wild horse."  Honor Farm inmates have gentled the horses, which means teaching them to be caught, enter a trailer and accept a saddle.

The Natural Resources Conservation Service is warning that the warm, dry weather this spring could drive up winter hay prices.

Wyoming’s snowpack is less than 30 percent of average, and Water Supply Specialist Lee Hackleman says farmers who get their water by diverting streams and rivers will be left high and dry.

“There’ll be a lot of people who will probably get their first cutting irrigated but won’t have any water for their second cutting,”
Hackleman said. “So there’s liable to be a hay shortage again this winter.”

Hackleman says people who get their water from reservoirs should be OK, since the reservoirs are still full from last year. But he says everyone else will have much less water than usual to work with.

      The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has denied a Colorado businessman’s application for a re-hearing on his proposal to build a pipeline to transfer water from southwestern Wyoming to Colorado’s Front Range.  It’s the second time Aaron Million’s proposal has been denied.  

It was also opposed by state and local governments in Wyoming and by environmental groups who feared the damage it would do to some endangered species in southwest Wyoming as well as recreation in the area.   Duane Short of the Biodiversity Conservation Alliance hopes this is the last gasp for the project.

     The Environmental Protection Agency will require pollution controls be improved at the Jim Bridger plant near Rock Springs and the Dave Johnson plant near Glenrock, but some don’t think the requirements go far enough.  The changes are part of the E-P-A’s regional haze plan for Wyoming. 

Conservation groups have complained that many of Wyoming’s Coal fire power plants are getting older and that major upgrades are needed to reduce pollution.  Shannon Anderson of the Powder River Basin Resource Council says the state is a leader in coal production, but should not be a leader in coal pollution.

The Buffalo Bill Historic Center in Cody will host a “First Look” at the museum’s reinstallation. The Buffalo Bill Museum recently wrapped up a two-year campaign, during which it raised 2-point-7-5 million dollars to cover renovations and update technology.

Executive Director Bruce Eldredge says the museum will offer updated website components, videos and smart phone apps that share additional information about objects in exhibit.

“This is the way the most museums are moving now, because audiences under the age of 40 or 45 require and expect to learn using that technology," Eldredge said. "Our exhibition that we had before the renovation was done 25 years ago. And it certainly did not meet any of the modern technological needs that our current visitors have.”

Despite opposition, the Wyoming Department of Health announced today that it will go ahead with its new plan to have one management organization handle and distribute substance abuse and suicide prevention money across the state. 

Currently, 52 different agencies distribute the prevention money, and State Health Officer
Dr. Wendy Braund said that leads to administrative costs of between eight- to 11-percent at each agency.  She says that is a problem, as fewer prevention dollars are available to states.

The Wyoming Community Development Authority is encouraging people to buy houses – especially if they’ve never owned a home before. Executive Director David Haney says conditions are favorable for buyers at the moment.

“Interest rates are as low as they have ever been,” Haney said. “Prices have pretty much stabilized throughout most of Wyoming. And so the combination of both those things makes for a really terrific time to buy.”

Still, he says, first-time buyers need to be aware of the risks they’re taking. To help them navigate the process, Haney’s group is offering online classes.

More than half of the public lands in the continental U.S. that have been leased to oil and gas companies are not actually being drilled, according to a report by the Department of the Interior.

Bruce Hinchey of the Petroleum Association of Wyoming says that’s because there are so many hoops that oil and gas companies have to jump through. He says it often takes over a year to get a permit to drill. And Environmental Impact Statements, which are required for large-scale energy development, take even longer.

“Those used to take about 18 to 24 months,” Hinchey said. “We’re up to eight years and counting right now. So until the BLM and the Department of the Interior decide to reduce the time frame on that, I’m sure there’s going to be lots of idle leases out there.”

The state of Wyoming is asking the U-S Supreme Court to consider the state’s challenge of the Clinton-era Roadless rule.

The rule makes road building, logging and development off limits in some areas of national forests.  Federal Judge Clarence Brimmer had previously agreed with the state that the U-S Forest Service exceeded its authority by creating the rule. 

Wyoming has contended that only Congress could take such action.  The Brimmer ruling has been overturned and Governor Matt Mead is hoping that the U-S Supreme Court will give it one last hearing.

It’s still not clear whether cloud seeding is an effective way to increase rainfall in arid parts of the country, but many in Wyoming hope that it works. 

University of Wyoming Atmospheric Science Professor Bart Geerts won the first-ever National Institutes for Water Resources Program IMPACT award , which recognizes the nation's best federal research projects.  He’s been conducting research on Cloud Seeding in Wyoming.                   

“A lot of research remains to be done to determine whether cloud seeding is effective and under what conditions it can be effective.  At this time little is known about that.”

Geerts says a lot has changed in cloud seeding research and he’s hoping that better technology will provide new answers on thetechnique’s success. 

Wyoming continues to have one of the worst rates of death on the job.
 New figures from the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics show
that Wyoming had the second-highest rate of deadly workplace
accidents of any state in 2010.
     Only West Virginia had a higher rate. Contributing to West
Virginia's rate in 2010 was a coal mine accident that killed 29
workers and was the nation's deadliest mine accident in 40 years.
     Wyoming's high workplace death rate reflects an energy industry
that employs a relatively large portion of the state's work force
compared to people who work at less dangerous jobs.
     Workplace accidents in Wyoming killed 33 people in 2010, up from

The Casper City Council will be taking public comments on a proposed ordinance that would ban smoking in all indoor places. 

The group Smoke Free Natrona County says the public and employees need to be protected from second hand smoke.   It would ban smoking within ten feet of a building, although it exempts clubs and smoke shops. 

Former Mayor Mike Reid, who owns a smoke free bar, says the city council is going too far.

    Wyoming Governor Matt Mead admits that interest in wind energy has cooled off for a bit,  but he hopes things will turn around soon. 

One issue is the failure of Congress to extend the wind energy tax credit, but the governor is also concerned about Wyoming’s wind tax policy.  He says he hoped the legislature would approve a tax on wind generation, but lawmakers cannot reach an agreement on that legislation.

“We are gonna take another run at it this session to try to have a tax policy that provides what it should to the counties to the locals and to the state.  But at the same time is not prohibitive.  And right now we have a huge up front tax for these wind companies which makes it very iffy for financing. ”

 Governor Matt Mead says he is continuing to pursue legal action over the federal roadless rule as he tries to work out a compromise in Wyoming.  Mead says the lawsuit is trying to delay making hundreds of acres off limits to development, while state officials work with the forest service to determine what should actually be off limits.

“I don’t think it will ultimately be resolved in the courts. I think hopefully it will be resolved with us working with the forest service and trying to figure out what we should do in the state.  Part of that is just an inventory.  What do we have and what does it mean?  Because the roadless rule means different things to different people including members of the forest service.”