News

Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead is asking the White House to not evaluate the effects of greenhouse gases that would be emitted by exporting U.S. coal and burning it overseas.

Wyoming is the nation's leading coal-producing state and state officials are concerned about falling domestic demand for coal as a result of global warming concerns. State officials are pushing to secure ports in the Northwest to allow coal exports to Asia.

Page administers have removed UW Crushes from Facebook.  This follows a public backlash to a post that directed violent sexual language at a University of Wyoming student.

UW Crushes was not affiliated with the university.

The page allowed users to anonymously submit messages about other UW students. Many were vague compliments, but some were sexually explicit or use real names.

More than 90 people gathered this week at the Teton County Library in Jackson to hear St. John's Medical Center CEO Dr. Lou Hochheiser explain health care reform.

Hochheiser told the crowd that as part of health care reform the federal government would be cutting what it pays hospitals to treat Medicaid and Medicare patients by five-to-25 percent. He said the goal is to use some of those savings to pay for expanding Medicaid coverage... essentially, paying less per patient in order to cover more people.

Researchers with the University of Wyoming’s Carbon Management Institute have discovered a vast underground deposit of lithium in Southwest Wyoming. Researchers were taking deep samples in the Rock Springs Uplift to study how the state might store its oil and gas emissions when they discovered the reserve. They say it could hold up to 150 times more lithium than the nation’s current largest producer in Silver Peak, Nevada.

University of Wyoming police are investigating an anonymous message posted to a public Facebook page. The message directed sexually violent language toward a UW student.

UW Crushes is a page on Facebook where users can anonymously submit messages about other UW students. They’re usually vague compliments, but some are sexually explicit or use real names.

A report by the Western Organization of Resource Councils says the oil and gas industry is using at least seven billion gallons of water per year in just four states: Colorado, Montana, Wyoming and North Dakota. The report says after industry is done with that water, it turns into a hazardous material, and in some cases cannot be reused for other purposes.

Powder River Basin Resource Council member Robert LeResche says he’s also worried about states’ lack of regulations regarding the quantity of water used.

The housing market in Jackson Hole is booming, and it’s getting even more expensive to live there.

Last week, the Jackson Town Council decided to buy an apartment building to house town employees, so they could afford to live in the area. That makes it 15 housing properties the town will own.

Protesters are gathering in Gillette this week to demonstrate against the Patriot Coal Company during Arch and Peabody Coal’s annual shareholder meetings. Patriot was formed in 2007 when Peabody unloaded its operations east of the Mississippi, along with its long-term health care obligations to some of its retirees. Arch formed a similar company, called Magnum, which was later acquired by Patriot along with another set of benefited retirees.  However, Patriot filed bankruptcy last summer, citing “substantial and unsustainable legacy costs.”

Protesters are gathering in Gillette this week to demonstrate against the Patriot Coal Company during Arch and Peabody Coal’s annual shareholder meetings. Patriot was formed in 2007 when Peabody unloaded its operations east of the Mississippi, along with its long-term health care obligations to some of its retirees. Arch formed a similar company, called Magnum, which was later acquired by Patriot along with another set of benefited retirees.  However, Patriot filed bankruptcy last summer, citing “substantial and unsustainable legacy costs.”

For the fourth straight month, Wyoming’s unemployment rate remains at four point nine percent.  University of Wyoming Economist Anne Alexander says the news is surprising when you consider low natural gas prices and concerns about the coal industry. 

“Things having to do with regulations coming on-line about coal, things having to do with the price of natural gas, I think what’s interesting is that either people are just kind of waiting and not sort of laying off a lot of people, a lot of people aren’t leaving and a lot of people aren’t rushing in either.”

Top Wyoming lawmakers have agreed to put off talks of budget cuts.

This year, state agencies cut an average of 6.5 percent from their budgets to meet a shortfall. Then lawmakers announced plans to require agencies to propose another round of 6-percent cuts during summer committee hearings.

But Governor Matt Mead said he would not encourage agencies to cooperate. He says with almost $800 million coming in from capital gains and interest on investments, cuts should be unnecessary.

Wyoming is continuing to try and find ways to reduce child abuse in the state.  A new report shows that in 2012 there were 705 child abuse victims. 

Governor Matt Mead signed a proclamation Monday calling it Child Abuse Prevention month and added that the state can do a better job in preventing abuse.  Child Advocacy Centers of Wyoming Board President Lynn Huylar says awareness is a key.

Gov. Matt Mead says it appears likely that state agencies won't face more spending cuts in the two-year budget cycle that begins next year.
 
 Mead says he's informed state lawmakers that state agencies won't honor lawmakers' request to present proposed spending cuts of up to 6 percent at legislative committee hearings this summer.
 
Most state agencies saw budget cuts averaging 6.5 percent in the supplemental budget that state government approved early this year. Mead says state revenues are improving and that more cuts probably won't be necessary.
 
 

Recent snow storms have brought Wyoming’s level of precipitation back to normal for the month.  That’s compared with April of last year– preceding the largest drought in history–when Wyoming was at 66% of average.

The Belle Fourche River Basin has the highest level of precipitation in the state at 300% of average.  And the Sweetwater Basin has the statewide low at 81%.

Ken Von Buettner is a hydrologic technician for the Natural Resources Conservation Council. Von Buettner is optimistic about having a summer with normal levels of precipitation.

Water resources are scarce in Wyoming.  

How should Wyoming conserve its water resources? 

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A new study conducted by the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University reports that as more EPA regulations go into effect, natural gas is likely to become even more attractive to utilities than coal.

Co-author of the study, Professor Lincoln Pratson, says that one reason coal will become less desired is the expensive emission controls the coal plants will have to install.

The only pollutant that natural gas plants produce that the EPA regulates are NOx emissions.  NOx stands for pollutants which contain NO and NO2, gases formed during combustion.

‘Gasland 2’, a sequel to the 2010 documentary ‘Gasland,’ premiers this weekend in New York City. The original film focused on land owners alleging that oil and gas development on their land contaminated their water sources. The movie is thought to have brought the terms ‘fracking’ into the mainstream. The films’ director, Josh Fox, says the sequel investigates how government and regulatory agencies have dealt with what affected land owners say is contamination by industry.

After weeks of intense lobbying on Capitol Hill gun control advocates suffered a stinging defeat this week…in part because of opposition from Wyoming’s two Republican senators. Matt Laslo reports from Washington.  

MATT LASLO: After the amendment to put in place near universal background checks failed… families from Newton, Connecticut huddled together…hugging each other as tears streamed down their faces. Erica Lafferty’s mom is Dawn Hochsprung (Hock-sprung) - the principal who was gunned down protecting her students at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

Wyoming has one of the highest rates of suicide in the country … nearly twice the national average. Until recently, efforts at preventing suicide were left up to individual counties. But now, the state is trying a new tactic which they hope will save more lives. Wyoming Public Radio’s Willow Belden reports.

We’re joined now by BJ Ayers. Not one, but two of her sons killed themselves … and since then, she’s dedicated her life to trying to prevent suicide. She started the Grace for Two Brothers foundation and is now the suicide prevention coordinator for southeast Wyoming. Her son Brett was 19 when he died in 2005.

The Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission recently okayed an aquifer exemption that would permit Encana Oil and Gas to pump waste water from their oil and gas projects in the Moneta Divide into the Madison Aquifer, about 60 miles outside of Casper. Wyoming Public Radio’s Irina Zhorov reports that the exemption isn’t exactly a rarity, but it does bring up some big questions.

The Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality has been running an Engine Emissions Study for almost two years now. For the most part, Wyoming oil and gas fields are not connected to the grid and so they end up running on engines, which emit pollutants into the air. The study set out to evaluate emissions from these generators around the state. Results from the study show that a large percentage of the engines fail the tests. Wyoming Public Radio’s Irina Zhorov spoke with the DEQ Air Quality Engineer in charge of the study, Jon Walker, about why that is.

‘Gasland’ is a documentary about the negative effects of natural gas drilling. The narrator in the movie is seeking answers about natural gas development in light of a growing play around his own home in the Delaware River Basin, and his inquiries take him on a road trip to communities around the U.S. that have already been drilled into and have something to say about it. When the movie came out, it made big waves, and ‘Gasland-2’ premiers this weekend. Wyoming Public Radio’s Irina Zhorov reports on what’s changed since the first movie came out in 2010.

Author and historian David McCullough is a two time winner of the Pulitzer prize, he has twice won the National Book Award, and has been awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his books on American History. He spoke about history, education and a number of topics at the University of Wyoming this week. I was able to catch up with him following his talk.

Wyoming Public Radio News reported earlier this month that the Two Elk Energy Park received its seventh permit-extension. The billion-dollar project was approved 16 years ago – intended to generate power from low-grade coal in the Powder River Basin – but it has never been built. The Two Elk project is a subsidiary of the Colorado-based North American Power Group, which cited the recession and legal challenges for the delays.

A judge has dismissed a lawsuit that contested how the University of Wyoming and Colorado State University managed and planned to sell a ranch jointly owned by the universities' foundations.
 
 The attorney for the Denver woman who donated the ranch to the two universities said Thursday that Amy Davis would appeal to the Wyoming Supreme Court.
 
 The Y Cross Ranch covers 50,000 acres between Cheyenne and Laramie.
 

The Wyoming Department of Education has granted a waiver to a number of school districts in the state who cannot meet a classroom size mandate. 

The state legislature passed a law in 2011 to require Kindergarten through 3rd grade classes to have an average student-teacher ratio of 16 to one.  Interim Education Director Jim Rose says it’s been a challenge for districts to comply with the law.             

“Some districts have hired additional staff, they are requisitioning space that wasn’t used for independent classrooms, K-3 classrooms before.”