Willow Belden

A new report says that businesses owned by women are doing better in Wyoming than in any other state.

The study by the group Womenable considered the growth in the number of women-owned firms, how many people those firms employ, and the revenue they generate. CEO Julie Weeks says Wyoming’s ranking makes sense, despite the dominance of the energy industry.

A new study has determined which areas within the Atlantic Rim oil and gas field near Rawlins are most important for sage grouse.

The study’s author, Chris Kirol, was a grad student in the University of Wyoming’s Department of Ecosystems Science and Management. He says they put radio collars on sage grouse to track which areas they liked and which areas they avoided.

Officials in Mills say they don’t want a proposed drilling-mud recycling facility to be built just outside of the town’s borders.

The plant would take oil-soaked mud from oil and gas wells, and remove impurities before sending it to the landfill.

Mills Mayor Elsie Herbort says she’s concerned that the plant could give off bad odors and use dangerous chemicals.

“Why don’t they put it out closer to the rigs where the drilling is taking place, rather than in a residential and commercial area?” Mills said.

Wyoming’s state parks are getting fewer visitors than usual, and park officials say it’s probably because of the ban on campfires.

State Parks Chief of Operations Bill Westerfield says the decline in visitors will mean less money will be available for future improvements at parks and historic sites.

“The user fees – camping and day use fees – go into an enterprise account, and we use that money to build new facilities and to conduct major maintenance on the facilities we have,” Westerfield said.

A federal district court judge in Washington, D.C. ruled against several conservation groups, who had challenged the BLM over new coal leases in the Powder River Basin.

The leases would let Cloud Peak Energy mine more than 400-million tons of coal. Shannon Anderson with the Powder River Basin Resource Council says her group opposes the plan because they feel coal companies haven’t been doing adequate reclamation of mines.

A study by the National Institute of Occupational Safety found that workers involved with hydraulic fracturing are often exposed to dangerously high levels of silica.

Silica sand is used in fracking fluid, and breathing dust from the material can cause lung diseases and cancer.

The sites that were monitored for the study were all outside Wyoming, but John Robitaille with the Petroleum Association of Wyoming says companies here still need to take the matter seriously.

A new report by the U.S. Geological Survey finds that coal-bed natural gas production can affect water quality in nearby streams.

The study monitored water quality over a ten-year period in Wyoming and Montana, and found that in places like the Powder River, sodium levels increased. Other test sites showed little or no change in water quality.

Report author Melanie Clark says the changes occur because water that’s extracted during gas production sometimes flows into the streams and rivers.

But she says the additional sodium in the water isn’t particularly worrisome.

BAER Teams Check Extent of Damage After Wild-land Fires

The fire season came early to Wyoming this year. Usually, Wyoming doesn’t see its biggest fires until late July but already there have been 10 fires that have burned over 265-thousand acres of land. Wet weather and the efforts of thousands of firefighters have contained the larger blazes …So what happens after a fire? Wyoming Public Radio’s Irina Zhorov reports.

The U-S Geological Survey released a study examining how coalbed natural gas production affects water quality in nearby streams and rivers. Wyoming Public Radio’s Willow Belden spoke with Melanie Clark, the author of the report.

Dan Alon was a fencer on the Israeli team in the 1972 Olympics. That year, terrorists broke into the Olympic Village and attacked the Israeli team members, killing 11 of them. Alon was one of the few who escaped. He’ll be speaking in Jackson on August 9, and he talks with Wyoming Public Radio’s Willow Belden now.

The Game and Fish Department has found a new invasive species in Wyoming. It’s an alligator snapping turtle, which is native to southeastern states and can grow to be more than 200 pounds.

Lucy Diggins with the Game and Fish office in Green River says a fisherman caught the turtle on a lake near Pinedale over the weekend.

“He snagged what he thought was a turtle, using a lure, and quickly realized that this huge, armored turtle, with huge jaws and a long tail, probably was not a Wyoming native species,” Diggins said.

Wyoming kids are better off economically than the average American child, according the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s latest Kids Count report, which tracks child well-being. The study found that only 14-percent of Wyoming children live in poverty, compared to 22-percent nationally.

But Marc Homer with the Wyoming Children’s Action Alliance says those numbers can be misleading.

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The Arapaho fire near Wheatland is the second highest priority fire in the Rocky Mountain Region as of today. It’s burned nearly 88,000 acres and has forced 300 homes to be evacuated.

Public Information Officer Jim Whittington says erratic winds have pushed the fire in multiple directions, and he says it spread fast.

“The first day it was at 5,000 acres and then a couple days later it was at 75,000 acres. You’re talking 25, 30 thousand acres a day,” Whittington said. “This fire still has a lot of potential, and it obviously grew very fast, very quickly.”

A fire near Woods Landing in southeast Wyoming has burned 7,000 acres, and hundreds of residents are being asked to evacuate.

The fire has more than tripled in size since this morning. Albany County Sheriff Dave O’Malley says fire officials tell him they’ve never seen fires spread this fast.

“The moisture level is such that it’s low enough that even green grass burns like dry grass," O'Malley said. "In some situations, the fire has moved as fast as five miles in one hour.”

Susan G. Komen for the Cure and GE are sending a mobile mammography van around Wyoming to provide breast cancer screening to women in rural areas.

Komen’s Vice President of Community Health Lynn Erdman says Wyoming women are less likely to get mammograms than women in almost any other state. She says the mammography van is meant to provide screening to women who lack access to healthcare facilities, or who can’t afford screening.

A new 7 million dollar project is aimed at improving heart attack care in Wyoming.

The effort is being funded by the American Heart Association and the Leona and Harry Helmsley Charitable Trust. The goal is to better equipWyoming ambulances to diagnose the most deadly heart attacks. It will also provide training for EMS and hospital personnel.

Gordon Tommaselli is the national president of the American Heart Association. He says time is of the essence with heart attack patients.

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Sage grouse have been dying out in Wyoming and across the west for years, and the bird is being considered for endangered species listing. As a result, Wyoming has made a major push to preserve prime sage grouse habitat. But recently, scientists have been warning that conservation may not be enough. Studies have recommended that in addition to protecting habitat that’s still intact, the state needs to restore areas that have been disturbed. So now, a variety of agencies are working to come up with a plan for large-scale restoration. Wyoming Public Radio’s Willow Belden reports.

As we’ve just heard, there’s a lot of concern over declining sage grouse numbers. And a lot of effort is going into keeping the birds from being included on the endangered species list. Part of that effort involves studying which aspects of human activity are most problematic. A new study published in the journal Conservation Biology examines how human-made noise – particularly the noise associated with gas development – affects sage grouse. We’re joined now by Jessica Blickley, one of the authors of the report.

Laramie resident Mark Jenkins recently returned to Wyoming after climbing Mount Everest. Jenkins is a travel writer for Outside Magazine and a contributor to National Geographic … and he joins us now to discuss his experience. He says Everest expeditions are long -- typically two months or even longer.

Fire managers in the Jackson area have raised the fire danger rating to “high” for Teton County, the Bridger-Teton National Forest and Grand Teton National Park.

National Park spokesperson Jackie Skaggs says the rating is based on a combination of high temperatures, high winds, low humidity and low moisture content in plants. She says campers need to be exceptionally careful with cigarettes, camp stoves and camp fires.

The Wyoming Department of Transportation would lose money for airports, under the governor’s proposed eight-percent budget cuts.

WYDOT Budget Officer Kevin Hibbard says they would have to cut funding for airport improvements and airline service.

“There would probably be a reduction in some commercial air service in local Wyoming communities,” Hibbard said. “And also I think that a backlog of projects would take place for the airport improvements.”

A group called Protection and Advocacy, which advocates for people with disabilities, has sent a letter to Wyoming, expressing concern over potential budget cuts for developmental disabilities.

Gov. Matt Mead has called for all agencies to prepare for 8 percent budget cuts. The Department of Health has not yet specified what it would cut, but Protection and Advocacy CEO Jeanne Thobro says she’s concerned that Wyomingites with developmental disabilities could lose vital services.

Many are optimistic that Wyoming’s Uranium Industry will grow

Crews have made big progress in fighting a wildfire at Guernsey State Park in southeast Wyoming.  Saturday at Guernsey State Park. Residents who evacuated from Hartville and Guernsey are now allowed to return to their homes. Guernsey State Park remains closed to visitors, though park officials will be escorting interested parties to their cabins or private property. Community members interested in hearing more about the fire operations are invited to attend a meeting at 7 p.m. tonight at Guernsey Sunrise School.

Crews battling the wildfire near Wheatland are bracing for high winds tomorrow/Saturday.

Fire information officer Beth Hermanson says yesterday’s storms dumped rain on parts of the fire, but that didn’t help much overall. And she says the weather forecast for tomorrow doesn’t look promising.

“The National Weather Service has told us that we will more than likely see high winds on our fire – possibly up to seventy miles an hour,” Hermanson said. “So fire fighters today are strengthening the lines in preparation for that event.”

Wyoming’s delegation opposes increasing the debt limit