News

Three people accused of defrauding investors of more than $4 million by falsely claiming to be developing wind farms in Wyoming and South Dakota are set to stand trial in June.

U.S. District Judge Scott Skavdahl of Casper has scheduled a three-week trial starting June 3.
 

Defendants Robert Arthur Reed and Lauren Elizabeth Scott of Utah and Gregory Lee Doss of California are charged with conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and conspiracy to launder money. Reed faces additional charges of mail fraud, wire fraud and money laundering.
 

The U-S Energy Information Administration says coal-fired electric power plants are generating more energy this year than last , but Wyoming coal production numbers are still below last year’s.

Wyoming Mining Association President Marion Loomis says that while interest in coal is up right now, the outlook for 2013 is still not good for Wyoming’s coal industry.

“We’re certainly not back to what we’ve seen in prior years, and our production is still down. It’s looking like it will still be a tough year.” 

The state engineer’s office says in parts of Laramie and Goshen Counties, demand for water appears to exceed supply.

State Engineer Pat Tyrrell says groundwater and surface water are connected in that area, so people who draw down the water in their wells are affecting water in streams, which means less water flows into the Hawk Spring Reservoir. He says there hasn’t been enough water to go around for quite some time.

The Wyoming Supreme Court has agreed to hear the lawsuit filed by state schools Superintendent Cindy Hill.
 
 Hill is suing the state and Gov. Matt Mead over a new law that took away many of her powers and duties.
 
Laramie County District Judge Thomas Campbell last month asked the Supreme Court to take up the lawsuit because it raises constitutional questions.
 

A University of Wyoming wind study shows that combining the wind resources of Wyoming and Colorado would benefit the Colorado energy grid. 

U-W Wind Energy Research Center Director Jonathan Naughton said that’s because wind in Colorado and Wyoming blows differently.  He said that if the resources are combined, it would make wind power more consistent.            

“It easier to integrate into the grid, saves in money that you don’t have to use for purchasing backup power that would likely come from gas turbine engines fired by natural gas.” 

The Sierra Club says it plans to sue railroad and coal companies in 60 days for spilled coal in the Northwest, and sent out letters of intent to the parties. The environmental group has been testing land and water around railroad tracks, and claims to have found pieces of coal and coal dust that, they say, blows off the train cars from mines in Wyoming and Montana.

A University of Wyoming Department of Agriculture project in Sheridan hopes to share knowledge between current and future grape growers in the state about what works and what doesn’t at Wyoming vineyards.

Dying for Joe McCarthy’s Sins: The Suicide of Wyoming Senator Lester Hunt, is a book about former Wyoming U-S Senator Lester Hunt who killed himself after his son was arrested and convicted for soliciting a same sex relationship with an undercover police officer. 

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released a report that’s meant to help states figure out how to protect sage grouse and keep them off the endangered species list. 

Bob Budd with the Wyoming Wildlife Natural Resource Trust helped put the report together. He says the document provides information about the key threats to sage grouse, but leaves it up to states to develop or revise their conservation plans.

Oil development in the state is bringing up natural gas along with the oil, but some of the gas is getting burned off in flares and the state is missing out on taxes and royalty payments. The reason the gas is getting flared is that there are not enough pipelines in place to connect new wells to markets.

The President of the Wyoming Petroleum Association, Bruce Hinchey, says it doesn’t always make sense to build new pipelines for the relatively small quantities of gas coming up.

We recently reported that the federal government – and consequently Wyoming – might be getting shortchanged when it comes to royalty payments on coal going overseas. Turns out, the government is missing out on royalties in other ways, too. Wyoming Public Radio’s Irina Zhorov reports that right here in Wyoming, companies are quite literally burning up both federal and state royalty money when they flare natural gas.

Wyoming Republican lawmakers are up in arms over efforts by the Obama Administration to regulate carbon emissions through the Executive Branch. Matt Laslo reports from Washington on the energy debate that’s boiling on Capitol Hill.

When we think about the Bureau of Land Management, dinosaurs and other ancient creatures aren’t necessarily the first things that come to mind. But the agency has a small team of paleontologists whose job it is to manage fossils on public land. Brent Breithaupt is one of those paleontologists. He’s based here in Wyoming, and he says public land in the west is full of fossils – many of which haven’t been discovered yet.

In our occasional series “Upstarts,” we profile Wyoming entrepreneurs. Today we take you to Teton County where we meet an entrepreneur who has invented a way to improve your water bottle. Wyoming Public Radio's Rebecca Huntington has more…

REBECCA HUNTINGTON: Like lots of inventions, Steve Kitto's started with a problem that needed fixing.

A long time Wyoming Public official has written a new book about the suicide of former Wyoming U-S Senator and Governor Lester Hunt.  Hunt was a democrat who was Wyoming’s Governor for six years, before getting elected to the U-S Senate, where he served from 1949 until his death in 1954.  In his book called Dying for Joe McCarthy’s sins, Rodger McDaniel says that Hunt was well thought of in Wyoming…

Every year, the Bureau of Land Management removes thousands of horses from public land in Wyoming. They ship most of the horses to long-term holding facilities in the Midwest. But that’s expensive … and they’re running out of space. So now the BLM has partnered with ranchers to create a so-called horse “ecosanctuary” right here in the Cowboy State. It’s the first of its kind in the nation. Wyoming Public Radio’s Willow Belden reports.

AMBI: Ecosanctuary

Study after study says that children are not as active as they used to be and many groups and organizations are promoting various ways for children to develop a healthy lifestyle.  In Laramie, a young woman is trying to do this with yoga…for kids.  Wyoming Public Radio’s Bob Beck has more.        

The University of Wyoming’s Fay Whitney School of Nursing has been chosen to participate in a $3 million initiative aimed at transforming nursing education.  The initiative is called the Future of Nursing State Implementation Program.  UW School of Nursing Dean Mary Burman says the effort is intended to address issues that include health care access, quality and cost.  Burman says in Wyoming, they will look at three key issues.

The Interstate Mining Compact Commission is recognizing two Wyoming mines for their reclamation efforts. The IMCC represents environmental protection interests and awards one non-coal and one coal project each year. The M-I SWACO Bentonite Mine in Big Horn County won the non-coal award and the Bridger Coal Mine received honorable mention in the coal category.

Department of Environmental Quality spokesman, Keith Guille, says the IMCC only gives two awards each year and it’s significant that Wyoming was recognized for both.

A proposed wind power transmission line wants feedback on its proposed route.  The Zephyr Power Transmission Project is an approximately 850-mile transmission line that would deliver wind energy generated in eastern Wyoming to population centers in the southwestern U.S. As proposed, the project will begin at the Pathfinder Wind Energy Development near Chugwater, cross portions of Colorado and Utah, and end up near the Eldorado Valley, just south of Las Vegas.  

Activists, educators and politicians from a number of North American Indian tribes will speak at the University of Wyoming in April.

UW’s American Indian Studies Program is hosting the Building Tribal Nations Symposium, where speakers will present about energy, the environment, legal and social issues.

Program Director Judith Antell says presenters come from different backgrounds, but many tribes have common needs and goals.

Senator Mike Enzi is part of an effort to allow states to collect sales taxes from out of state on-line merchants.  The Wyoming Administrator of the Excise Tax Division Dan Noble says the state supports this.  Noble says some companies voluntarily collect the tax, but many do not.

“But there are a lot of vendors that do not have a physical presence in the state that are not collecting our tax and I think one of the biggest ones is Amazon.”

He says changing that would put Wyoming merchants on a level playing field with out of state businesses. 

A new report by the Environmental Protection Agency shows that streams in Wyoming are in better condition than the national average. The study collected about two thousand samples from streams nationwide to determine the quality of the water.  Denise Keehner is Director of the EPA’s  Office of Wetlands, Oceans, and Watersheds.  She says Wyoming is divided into four eco-regions – in those eco-regions water quality is poor in 26% to 43% of streams, while the national average is 55%.

The National Association of Basketball Coaches has named The University of Wyoming’s Leonard Washington to the All-District 17 Second Team.

This is the second year in a row that Washington was named to the squad.  The senior helped lead the Pokes to a 20-14 record and a berth in the College Basketball Invitational. He averaged of 12 and a half points and just over eight rebounds a game.  Washington’s 12 double-doubles ranked second in the Mountain West during the regular season.

Wyoming Public Media is looking for a natural resources/energy reporter to join its award winning news team.   We are looking for a multi-media reporter who is a self starter and who has experience covering energy issues.  You must apply for the job via the University of Wyoming Human Resources website. 

The job closes April 30th.  

https://hrteller.uwyo.edu/psp/HRSLF/UWSELFSERV/HRMS/c/HRS_HRAM_EMP.HRS_CE.GBL

Tens of thousands of acres of land in the Bridger-Teton National Forest have been retired, protecting the land from energy development. But the conservation group leading the effort, Trust for Public Lands, still has some work to do to protect a tract of land in the Upper Hoback Basin.

The group raised $8.75 dollars last year to buy oil and gas leases on 58,000 acres of land from Plains Exploration and Production Company.

The federal government has told the state of Wyoming that it will deduct 53 million dollars from the state’s share of federal mineral royalties between now and July as part of the federal sequester.  The government says it may remove more money at a later date.              

Wyoming is guaranteed 50 percent of the revenues from mineral leasing on federal lands in the state and state officials believe that the money cannot be tampered with.  State Treasurer Mark Gordon says the state is pursuing all avenues to get the money back.     

A former Colorado Municipal Judge who’s a member of the group Law Enforcement against prohibition wants Wyoming to change its drug laws. 

Lenny Freiling says that Wyoming spent more than 12 million dollars enforcing laws against marijuana in 2008.  He says a better approach is to legalize marijuana like Colorado has.  Freiling says one huge downside concerning the war on drugs is the long term impact it can have on someone who takes drugs.

The season is over for the Wyoming Cowboys basketball team.  Western Michigan defeated Wyoming 75-67 in the College Basketball Invitational. 

The Cowboys had a chance to ice the game, but Wyoming’s Josh Adams made only one of two free throws, allowing the Broncos’ David Brown to tie the game with a three-point shot in the closing seconds and send the game into overtime.

In overtime, the Broncos pulled away.

After the game, Wyoming Sophomore Larry Nance Junior gave Brown credit for making a tough shot.