A new school year is nearly upon us and families are racing to complete their back-to-school to-do lists. But how many will get the required vaccines with COVID-19 skepticism still so high?

Initial data suggests the vast majority will. 

Schools in Wyoming don’t require COVID-19 vaccines, but the inoculations are encouraged by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Instead, years-old requirements range from vaccines against hepatitis B to measles to polio.

At Fremont County School District 25, K-12 students last year averaged a 97% vaccination rate, according to special services director Dallas Myers. While some practice their right to get a waiver, he said they are in the minority.

Head nurse Janet Farmer with Laramie County School District 1 heard from a Wyoming Department of Health employee that the use of vaccination waivers was down, she said. The health department has not confirmed that yet. Families in Farmer’s district have until Sept. 22 to submit health-officer-approved waivers, she added.  

Some school kids are particularly vulnerable to illnesses because of health conditions like recovering from cancer, Farmer added, and others getting vaccines helps keep them healthy.

“If we have that herd immunity that’s strong, we’re in a much better position for all those students.”

Head nurse Janet Farmer

“We always have people who are very immune compromised,” she said. “If we have that herd immunity that’s strong, we’re in a much better position for all those students.”

The latest data from the 2021-22 school year shows that more than 92% of Wyoming kindergarteners had gotten the required vaccinations.

“The big takeaway is that the vast majority of Wyoming’s school children continue to receive the required vaccines by the time they enter school,” Wyoming Department of Health spokesperson Kim Deti stated in an email.

“At the same time, there have been small dips in the coverage percentages and some increases in exemption numbers,” she added, referring to the data ending in 2022. “That was starting to be a concern across the country about decreasing rates before the pandemic, and then the pandemic likely had some additional effects.”

Vaccine skepticism is “not unexpected,” Deti stated, but the health department urges families to utilize both the required and suggested vaccines at this time. 

Federal funds also bolstered a Wyoming-specific campaign urging residents to consider vaccination. Based on an archival news clip about a Basin man who died from tetanus after shaving, Deti said, the commercial “takes a lighter approach to reminding residents of the successes vaccines have had over time.”

“One reason affecting vaccination rates is likely that younger generations are not familiar with many of the diseases vaccines can prevent,” Deti stated. “These diseases may not seem like real threats today.”

The mandatory vaccine with the lowest uptake in Wyoming, according to kindergartener records, was one for tetanus and diphtheria. About 92.5% of the schoolkids had that vaccine versus 94.6% who were vaccinated against hepatitis B.

Students can be exempted from vaccine requirements for religious and medical reasons. The latter is “very rare,” Deti stated. 

The health department website cites state code allowing for the exceptions, but adds with emphasis, “The law does not allow parents/guardians to request a waiver simply because of inconvenience … Wyoming statute does NOT allow for the authorization of waiver requests based on philosophical beliefs. Schools should maintain an up-to-date list of students with waiver, so they may be excluded during a vaccine-preventable disease outbreak as determined by the State Health Officer o[r] a County Health Officer.”

Statewide vaccine information from last year and this coming year’s school kids is not yet available, and Deti said she doesn’t know when it will be. It is required by the state for anyone attending school to provide “documentary proof of immunization” within the first 30 days of the school year.

The post Vast majority of Wyoming kids get vaccinated appeared first on WyoFile.

A panel of appellate judges has rejected a suite of claims brought by environmental advocates trying to halt a 220-square-mile gas field planned for a sagebrush expanse housing a famous pronghorn migration path and Wyoming’s largest-known sage grouse winter concentration area. 

The developer, Jonah Energy, now has more clarity about whether to commence drilling 3,500 gas wells in the Normally Pressured Lance field, which was approved via a Bureau of Land Management environmental review seven years ago. 

In its ruling, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed what U.S. District Judge Scott Skavdahl decided a year ago: That the National Environmental Policy Act prohibits uninformed decisions, but allows for environmentally harmful decisions. In the 10th Circuit, judges Timothy Tymkovich, Nancy Moritz and Veronica Rossman quoted precedent from a 1989 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in their 31-page decision, writing that NEPA, “merely prohibits uninformed—rather than unwise—agency action.”

The statute, Tymkovich, Moritz and Rossman wrote, “does not even require agencies to promulgate environmentally friendly rules.”

That was the takeaway from a decision that denied all four claims brought by the plaintiffs: Western Watersheds Project, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Upper Green River Alliance. 

“We’re disappointed in the ruling,” Western Watersheds Project Executive Director Erik Molvar said. “The judges ruled that the Bureau of Land Management was justified in not considering in great detail the impacts to the Path of the Pronghorn migration, the herd of pronghorn that summer in Grand Teton National Park. And [they ruled] it was perfectly permissible to consider impacts to pronghorn only at the broadest possible scale, the scale of the Sublette Herd.” 

The dispute over pronghorn — which took center stage during oral arguments — comes at a time when the famous migration treading through the Green and Snake River basins is under siege from a host of pressures, ranging from a deadly winter that shrunk the herd by 75%, to housing developments infringing on the herd’s habitat. 

The state of Wyoming recently offered a section of land in a bottleneck portion of the migration for oil and gas leasing, and it went to the high bidder, Kirkwood Oil and Gas, for $19 an acre — though that sale has been stalled. Meanwhile, the state has dragged its feet at designating the migration path, which could buffer the Path of the Pronghorn from intense drilling in places like the NPL field. 

Arguments shot down

In their appeal, the environmental groups argued that the BLM violated federal environmental law by failing to take a “hard look” at how the gas field would impact the Path of the Pronghorn. 

Tymkovich, Moritz and Rossman weren’t persuaded. 

“The [g]roups misunderstand the regulations,” the appellate justices wrote. “They do not require the Bureau to pay special attention to special resources.” 

The 10th Circuit panel found that analyzing the larger Sublette Herd was adequate. And the harm the gas field, which sits 25 miles south of Pindale, would cause was properly detailed, they wrote.

“The [environmental review] squarely confronted the ‘displacement’ and ‘disrupt[ion]’ of pronghorn ‘migration patterns’ and discussed the ‘[d]egradation’ of ‘migratory routes’ that ‘connect crucial winter range and other pronghorn habitats in the analysis area and the region,’” the opinion reads.

Other arguments brought by the plaintiffs concerned the phasing of development within the 140,000-acre gas field, and alleged NEPA violations for inadequate data gathered about impacts to Grand Teton National Park and sage grouse winter concentration areas. 

The NPL gas field overlaps about half of a complex of sage grouse wintering ground that housed an estimated 2,000 birds in 2015. Highly protected sage grouse “core” habitat has also been kept out of the gas field — and it isn’t being added through an ongoing revision process, leaving birds in the project area vulnerable. 

In denying the plaintiffs’ argument, the appellate judges found the BLM vetted grouse impacts adequately: “The Bureau clearly possessed enough information to anticipate how development would affect the sage grouse and [winter concentration areas] under the selected action.” 

The agency’s proclamation that the gas field would cause sage grouse “various adverse effects” was enough, they wrote. 

Likewise, the panel of judges didn’t buy the argument that the BLM failed to take a hard look at how the project would indirectly impact Grand Teton National Park by harming pronghorn. The judges faulted the plaintiffs for not raising those concerns when the environmental impact statement for the NPL field was being reviewed, and they pointed out the agency did acknowledge indirect interference with “recreation experiences outside the Project Area.”

What’s next? 

Paul Ulrich, vice president of government and regulatory affairs for Jonah Energy, declined an interview for this story. It’s Jonah’s policy to not comment on litigation, he said, and there’s not a “clear picture” for the gas field moving forward. 

Some activity, however, is underway — and road building and even some drilling was taking place while the project was tied up in the courts.   

Records from the BLM’s Pinedale Field Office show that drilling was occurring within the project area as early as 1994. Although the agency’s record of decision for the 3,500-well project was approved in 2018 and litigated shortly thereafter, judges never put a stop to activity in the disputed field. 

From the BLM, WyoFile obtained Jonah Energy’s application-to-drill documents for well pads within the field last winter. At that time, there had been 18 total submitted applications since the decision was published, 11 of which had been approved. Visits to coordinates of several of those approved pads show that, in places, the sagebrush has been scraped and ground leveled to accommodate Jonah Energy’s industrial operations.  

“Where are we now with NPL?” BLM-Wyoming Deputy Director Brad Purdy said. “We are doing site-specific NEPA, which basically is going to be [applications to drill].” 

Through that process, he said, stipulations are imposed that are intended to protect wildlife like sage grouse and big game and other natural resources. 

If natural gas market conditions ripen, Jonah Energy has the latitude to greatly increase the pace. Wells can be constructed at a rate of up to 350 per year, with an average of 10 drill rigs working at any one time, according to the gas field’s final environmental impact statement. At the time of its approval, the gas field was expected to generate an estimated $17.8 billion over 40 years. 

Although they’ve sustained successive losses in court, the project’s opponents haven’t abandoned the fight. 

“There’s always the option to request an en banc review, which would involve additional judges and not just the three we happened to draw,” Western Watersheds Project’s Molvar said. “There are other options for appealing a 10th Circuit ruling, but that’s the one that I would think that would be most likely.” 

Meantime, Upper Green River Alliance Director Linda Baker bemoaned what she sees as more blows to the “internationally significant gem” of the Path of the Pronghorn and the valley’s “iconic sage grouse.” 

“It’s really sad,” Baker said. “And it’s tragic that the federal Bureau of Land Management and the state of Wyoming governor’s office fails to recognize what an incredibly priceless gem we have here.” 

The post Court OKs 3,500 gas wells amid ‘Path of the Pronghorn,’ sage grouse winter habitat appeared first on WyoFile.

Nate Shoutis produced a rap last August ahead of freshman library orientation. 

The Lander Valley High School librarian wrote verses showcasing the technology available to students. He sang about the inclusive spirit of the library he’d worked in for nearly a decade.

The song ended with a medley of genres and books. 

Performing live during the first weeks of language arts classes, Shoutis and his assistant broadcast a message that all students were welcome in the Lander Valley High School Library.

Shoutis wanted students to find the books that interested them the most, whether that be a C.J. Box crime novel or riveting war tale, a colorful graphic novel or a book with LGBTQ+ characters.

Whatever a student’s interests, the library had one main rule, rapped by Shoutis: 

“No put downs.”

Shoutis stressed the rule in response to what he saw as growing animosity toward the school’s LGBTQ+ community. He detailed this climate in a May letter sent to the teaching community of Fremont County School District No. 1, which operates Lander schools. 

The letter argued that school board policy failed to address a rising climate of hate towards LGBTQ+ students and instead tacitly fomented a climate of harassment and discrimination against these students, as well as the censorship of librarians and educators. 

Those concerns have been raised in school districts across the nation. School libraries have become home to a polarizing debate over the books that should be available to students. Spaces once known as quiet places to study have become clouded in suspicion and rancor.

That climate cost Lander an educator that, according to his students, was deeply caring and universally accepting. At the end of the school year, Shoutis walked away from the library and what he’d once called his “dream job.”

Making of a librarian 

Libraries run in the Shoutis family. His mother Cady Shoutis served as a librarian at both South Elementary and Gannett Peak. 

He shares her curious eyes. His fit frame is evidence of his love for canyoneering, packrafting, and generally adventuring outdoors. Like many Landerites, he worked as a National Outdoor Leadership School field instructor.

But by his late 20s, he had reached a juncture, deciding whether to take his outdoor educator skills into a more conventional school setting or go back to school himself and study film. 

Both of these callings were kindled in the Lander Valley High School library, where Paula Hunker served as his librarian and videography teacher. She and his mother demonstrated how meaningful a role in the library could be, he said. 

To sort out his decision, he volunteered in Portland, Oregon, shadowing librarians and helping with collection upkeep. 

His mother wasn’t surprised when he decided to join the district as Lander Valley High School’s library media specialist in 2014. 

“I just came to understand the position as one that was really well suited for my skill set, both with technology and media, as well as literacy and reading,” he said. “And just the love of reading.” 

Heart of the job

Shoutis ran the library space and also taught technology classes, where his students learned software and production skills for film, music and audio and 3D printing.

But he viewed the essence of his job more simply: inspiring a love of reading in his students. 

That required tuning into student needs and interests by building relationships. 

“I’m always asking students, ‘Hey, what are you reading? What’s on your radar? What are you looking for?’” Shoutis said. 

A master’s in education, a certification in language arts and library media and the diverse student body informed his book ordering process.The most important thing, he said, is to foster a collection that facilitates free choice reading, the principle of letting students select their own materials. If someone cared enough to recommend a book, Shoutis said, he’d almost always try to order it, as long as it passed his professional research and review process. 

This professional process did not involve his personal values, he said. When cycling in new books, he would remove volumes that were falling apart, were out of date or hadn’t been checked out in years. 

“But it is never about, ‘oh, our value systems have changed, and we’re updating our value system or our moral systems at all.’ It has nothing to do with that,” he said. “What it has to do with is trying to make sure we have a balance of everything in the library.”

Book controversy 

American history is littered with examples of book bans. Volumes considered classics — “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “Of Mice and Men” — have been repeatedly challenged nationally by critics who contend they aren’t suitable for young people.

But the recent wave of book challenges stands out. In 2022, the American Library Association reported a record number of demands to censor library books and materials. The increase came as right-wing groups such as Moms For Liberty spurred regional efforts to curb “woke indoctrination” within schools and public libraries.

The culture wars have raged for decades in the U.S. But in the recent past, a new battleground emerged: the school board. 

Shoutis’ professional work — which he says had not been questioned in his nearly a decade tenure — became the subject of scrutiny in December. Concerns over the books available in Lander school libraries, as well as the policy for challenging them, reached the board governing Fremont County School District No.1. 

Board member Scott Jensen said he raised the issue after being approached by community members who were concerned about the process of challenging reading materials. Under the system that existed at the time, the district superintendent settled book complaints, but that decision could be appealed to the school board.

National concerns about reading resources and the ability to challenge them raised local unease over the school district’s policy, according to Jensen. 

Jensen advocated for reconsidering the process “to address the tenor of the adversarial nature of the old policy and the complexity of it, to make it more simple,” he explained in an interview with WyoFile. 

“I wanted to implement something that was more transparent,” he said. “So that people could see that, in fact, what is happening in other parts of the country really isn’t happening here.”

On this point, Shoutis agrees. During his time as librarian, only one parent had approached him with a concern over a library book. 

“The whole issue is completely fabricated. Utterly, a non-issue,” he said. 

Shoutis believes the national issue escalated in Wyoming after interim Superintendent of Public Instruction Brian Schroeder organized the Stop the Sexualization of Our Children press conference. The conference, held in October at Little America in Cheyenne, provided a map of Wyoming school districts that offered books of concern, as identified by conference organizers.

Shoutis’ believes that the anti-sexualization movement is aimed at eliminating LGBTQ+ voices and material — both in and out of libraries. 

“I think the whole maneuvering is to silence LGBTQ and Black perspectives in schools completely. So it’s not just about censoring books. It’s about censoring everything.” 

Board members Aileen Brew and Jensen offered two competing policy drafts. In his letter, Shoutis endorsed Brew’s policy, which would have left appeals in the hands of a committee of stakeholders rather than the board. 

However, the board adopted Jensen’s approach in a 4-3 vote at a June board meeting. 

The updated policy places the final consideration of materials in the hands of the school board, which is supposed to render a decision based on “community values.” 

Jensen says that community values are an incredibly difficult thing to define, but are ultimately up to the acting school board to determine via open debate and public discussion. The ultimate “check and balance on that is the democratically elected board,” he said. “So if the board gets out of tune with the community, and then whichever members are out of tune will get voted out, and there’ll be a new board.” 

Shoutis argues that the resulting community values will not be a measure of the entire district but rather reflective of the seven-member school board. “Make no mistake — he is very much describing classic book banning and censorship,” Shoutis wrote in his May letter. 

Rising violence and school board policy 

Shoutis did not pull any punches in his letter. 

A series of new school board policies over the last two years, he argued, have not only failed to address rising harassment and discrimination against LGBTQ+ students, but removed protections for them as well. He was in a position to know. Shoutis was advisor for the SPEAK club, the high school’s Genders and Sexualities Alliance organization. 

In the letter, he describes a dangerous disconnect over what is directly harming students and the school board’s recent policies. While officials fret over library books, real harm against LGBTQ+ students gets overlooked, he argued. 

The main problem, Shoutis contends in his letter, is the rising climate of harassment and discrimination against LGBTQ+ students and the inability to counter it due to an inadequate reporting system. 

Jensen, for his part, agrees that the reporting system is ineffective, describing it as opaque. It operates as a one-way reporting loop, where students and educators report episodes of bullying, but do not receive follow-up on if or how the situation has been resolved. 

It is the administration’s, rather than the board’s, job to manage that issue, Jensen says. He said the administration has been collecting data on the problem before they change the reporting system, Jensen said. 

But Shoutis argues that student needs are being neglected. 

In spring of 2022, he and the SPEAK club members spent a month’s worth of lunchtime meetings logging student experiences with bullying and what they see as a broken reporting policy to share with the counselors, administration and later the board. The policy remains the same. 

Instead, Shoutis argues recent policy changes — regulating the teaching of controversial issues and dissolving explicit non-discrimination protections for the LGBTQ+ community — have made it harder to report instances of harassment and discrimination.

Further, the teaching controversial issues policy adopted by the board in spring 2021 — compounded by the push to ease book-challenge policy — prompted teachers like him to censor themselves, which Shoutis said limited his ability to be an effective educator and librarian. 

But that’s a feature, not a bug, Jensen countered.

“That is, in fact, the purpose of that policy, is to have teachers to self censor themselves so that they do not use their platform to proselytize to kids,” Jensen said.

In April, Shoutis was reprimanded via the policy over a student-designed banned book display that featured queer-themed books. But by then, he’d already made the decision to leave. 

As an educator trying to mend what he saw as a disconnect between students who felt harmed and the higher ups, and as a librarian trying to uphold the American Library Association’s standard — “freedom to read” — he was depleted. 

He gave notice to resign in February. It was time to step down for his own health and to give the school time to find a strong replacement. 

His last day was May 26.

A few weeks later, at his home framed by the brick-red canyon rocks of the Wind River uplift, Shoutis had to look away when remembering his time at Lander Valley High. 

He was crying. 

“I guess the only thing I would say is that the heroes in the story are just the students themselves, these queer students because they are so resilient, ” he said.

A loss for students 

With Shoutis’ departure, former students feel they’ve not only lost a deeply welcoming librarian, but a generous tech wizard and fierce advocate. 

“I don’t want to think about whether the new librarian will do a good job,” said Finn Gebhart, a rising Lander Valley High junior. 

“I think it’s a loss that our school and our school district will never get back.” 

Gebhart was in Shoutis’ emerging technology class, where students had the chance to learn animation, music production and video editing software. 

“It feels like very rarely do teachers genuinely care about what is going on in their students’ lives, and to some extent, even the education that their students are receiving,” Gebhart said. 

SPEAK club member Felanie Kelson recalled when Shoutis worked to find a coach for the speech and debate club so that forum remained available for students. 

They also remembered when Shoutis chaperoned the annual SPEAK club field trip to the University of Wyoming’s Shepard Symposium on Social Justice. The students had the chance to thrift for outfits for a queer dance party hosted on the last day. 

The Lander Valley High motto is “every student every day.”

“[It is] definitely not met, but [Shoutis] made sure that every student he interacted with, like that the goal was every student every day,” Kelson said. 

Shari Haskins, who manages Riverton’s public library, said Shoutis is “kind and generous to his profession and to his students.”  

“He so embraced the profession and what he could do with it for the students. It was a break from mediocrity. [Mediocrity] has its place because it’s easy. But when you want to excel, you’ll get a lot of criticism, and he was excelling.”

To students like Gebhart and Kelson, it felt like the school board pushed out Shoutis. 

“I just think it’s important to remember him as who he was, and as what he did for our school system,” Kelson said. “But I also think it’s important to note that he would still be here, if it weren’t for our school system, if they hadn’t pushed him out and pushed him to his limit. He’s not the only one that they’re pushing.” 

Board chair Jared Kail said the district cannot comment on Shoutis’ resignation as it is a personnel issue. Brew also said she could not comment as a board member. But speaking as a parent, she said Shoutis had a major impact on her daughter, who met him as a freshman.

“She gained a much greater awareness of social justice issues and the importance of standing up for your beliefs and for the rights of yourself and others,” Brew wrote in an email to WyoFile. 

“Mr. Shoutis encouraged student creativity, intellectual curiosity and involvement, whether students were interested in gaming, or videography or photography, or books,” she added. “He was a strong supporter of LGBTQ+ students in our high school and worked to create a learning and social environment that supported all students.”

Shoutis, for his part, is taking a break from not only teaching, but Lander. During a recent phone conversation, he paused when asked what was next. His response was interrupted by the public address system at the airport in Anchorage, Alaska.

He was headed out for a long trip.

“Lander’s home,” Shoutis said. “I need a break from it, though.” 

“It’s been hard to take that the small town that I grew up in has shown such overt hatred toward a group of people,” he said. “But I haven’t given up on it, even though I’m really, really, really disappointed in a lot of people there right now.” 

The post How Lander lost a librarian appeared first on WyoFile.

Improved pricing for coal and oil, and a rollercoaster of highs and lows in the natural gas market, contributed to a stronger-than-expected revenue picture for the state budget, according to a July “pacing report” by the Consensus Revenue Estimating Group. 

As of April, revenue to the state’s primary budget accounts — the General Fund and the Budget Reserve Account — was on track to exceed a January forecast by $176.1 million, or 11%, according to the report. 

“It’s almost entirely due to the natural gas price environment” in December and January, CREG co-chair Don Richards said.

The CREG, made up of representatives from several state offices and the University of Wyoming “is responsible for formulating projections for the main sources of income to the major accounts in the State.”

Extremely frigid temperatures across the nation forced homes and businesses to crank the heat during those two months, which sent the price of natural gas soaring. The average spot price for natural gas at the Opal Hub in western Wyoming surpassed $26 per thousand cubic feet for more than a month, Richards said. Since, the average spot price at Opal has settled to more normal levels — $3.98 per thousand cubic feet this week.

“Natural gas isn’t just a story,” Richards said. “It’s the whole story, at least when it comes to the actual revenue in excess of CREG’s forecast. 

“To put an even finer point on that,” Richards continued, “the excess revenue [$176.1 million] was generated in December 2022 and January 2023 from higher-than-anticipated prices, primarily on natural gas production on the western side of the state.”

However, pricing for natural gas, oil and coal is expected to soften, resulting in calls for a cautious approach to spending in the upcoming legislative budget session. 

While the report “may appear favorable on the surface,” Gov. Mark Gordon said in a prepared statement, “this examination of recent revenues also shows gathering storm clouds on the horizon that could signal a change in Wyoming’s future revenues.”

In addition to softening fossil fuel markets, Wyoming’s mineral extraction industries face an onslaught of “anti-fossil fuel policies” from the Biden administration, Gordon said. Plus, he added, the state must come up with $330 million to maintain existing government services initiated under the American Rescue Plan Act, a stimulus package passed by Congress during the pandemic.

“We should appreciate that Wyoming has been conservative with the windfalls that have come our way in recent years,” Gordon said. “We must continue to be vigilant in our ongoing spending.”

Gordon will present his proposed budget to the Wyoming Legislature in November.

Energy industry performance

Although the volume of coal extraction is in line with last year, a 4.3% bump in pricing so far this year has helped contribute to an overall rosier revenue picture, according to the CREG report. 

The same was true for oil. Production increased 6.5% over fiscal year 2022 and averaged $80.79 per barrel — a 1.4% year-over-year average price increase. However, forecasters expect oil prices to weaken in coming months due to larger-than-average stockpiles and uncertainties in the global market.

While cold weather and extremely volatile natural gas prices inflated monthly utility bills for ratepayers, they were lucrative for producers and for state revenue, which funds a variety of public services, including K-12 education. 

Overall natural gas volumes fell slightly compared to last year. However, the market-disrupting cold spells last winter resulted in temporary price spikes that ultimately boosted the average natural gas price by 58.1%.

“The actual revenue in excess of our [January] forecast is due to something that occurred seven months ago,” Richards said. “We’re no longer in that environment. We might be [this winter]. Who knows?”

Higher than average utility prices — for natural gas and electrical generation — also bumped sales and use taxes from the utility sector by 32.7%. Wind power construction and upgrade projects also boosted sales and use taxes, according to the report.

The post A cold snap boosted state revenue by $175M appeared first on WyoFile.

Addressing several of Wyoming’s sage grouse decision makers, Rep. Albert Sommers (R-Pinedale) was blunt. 

The rancher and influential state politician has grown tired of dealing with the “bobbing ball” of the Endangered Species Act, based on his experience with federal government employees who oversee the landmark, yet controversial environmental law in his dealings with grizzly bears. 

“You’re never going to catch them,” Sommers said, referring to keeping up with changes made by the feds. “I hate to see you go down that same path, whether it’s wolves, grizzly bears or whatever. You just can’t catch them.” 

Sommers was speaking July 21 at the Sublette County Library. He was sharing his skepticism with three state officials who are in the middle of revising Wyoming’s sage grouse protection map in the hopes of keeping the bird off the ESA list, which could boost grouse protections and curtail industry activity within much of the state’s sagebrush country.

Bob Budd, who chairs Wyoming’s Sage Grouse Implementation Team, told Sommers — the Legislature’s Speaker of the House — that he wished he was in Gillette for a meeting the other day to tell attendees about what it’s like dealing with a federally threatened species. 

“What we’re trying to do is do everything we can not to get there,” Budd said, referring to a sage grouse listing. “And I share your pessimism.” 

Budd contended the federal government’s sage grouse maps “black the state out,” meaning more expansive land use regulations to protect the bird. 

“And I don’t want to go there,” he said. 

The team’s overarching goal of its effort to revise its grouse “core areas” — the backbone of the state’s policy — is to convince the federal government that Wyoming is a responsible steward of the sagebrush-obligate species that has collapsed on its watch. To that end, the panel has proposed a series of changes — and they’re mostly expansions — to its sage grouse core area map. The effect, essentially, is that a higher percentage of occupied sage grouse habitat would be protected. Currently, some 84% to 85% of the estimated grouse in the Equality State dwell within the core areas.

“That may not be enough,” Budd told attendees in Pinedale. “That’s part of what we’re looking at today.” 

Later, he made an accounting analogy out of sage grouse. 

“If our assets are 90%, our liabilities are minor — they’re 10% and they’re scattered all over the place,” Budd said. “That’s a very strong balance sheet.”

Catalyst 

Wyoming last revised its sage grouse core areas in 2015 and 2019. The policy requires state agencies to limit disturbance of grouse habitat while allowing for mineral and oil and gas development, livestock grazing and other human activities. It can also require developers to make up for unavoidable habitat loss.

Comparatively, the ongoing revision process has been truncated. The reason is the Bureau of Land Management, under court order, is revising sage grouse protections in its West-wide resource management plans via an environmental impact statement. Concurrently, the states are scrambling to update their protections so that they can be included in the federal government’s planning process. 

“It’s not a friendly timeframe,” Randall Luthi, the governor’s chief energy advisor, said in Pinedale. “We’re doing the best we can.” 

Wyoming’s deadline for comment on the map revisions, which was already extended once, lapsed on Friday.

“Previous changes have all been made with a very public process up front,” said Tom Christiansen, a retired sage grouse coordinator for the Wyoming Game and Fish Department. 

This time, Christiansen told WyoFile, biologists were asked, “In a perfect world for sage grouse, what would you add?” Their recommendations were then tweaked, rolled out to the public as draft changes — and they caught some landowners off guard, he said. 

“I think that’s very unfortunate, because it created a lot of controversy,” Christiansen said. “Unfortunately, I think this process has pitted some people against sage grouse. I hear some of the landowners in Northeast Wyoming’s concerns, some of which I think are legitimate.” 

At the Pinedale meeting, Budd and Wyoming Game and Fish Department Deputy Director Angi Bruce walked landowners and other attendees through a series of expansions to core area proposed in the Upper Green River Basin, seven in all. She touted the on-the-ground sage grouse census data underlying the additions there, and beyond. 

“In Wyoming we have a lot of really good science, we probably had the best data available on sage grouse in the world,” Bruce said. “We need to use that — and show we’re using it — in a constructive manner in order to retain control of the bird.” 

While the sage grouse team’s fast-tracked revision to the state’s sage grouse map has raised some hackles, other parties stand firmly in support. Daly Edmunds, director of policy and outreach for Audubon Rockies, pointed to the proposed additions in the state’s northeast corner, where there are the lowest densities of grouse and the smallest percentage of birds protected by core areas. 

“I think it’s time for the core areas to be reviewed,” Edmunds said.

A stand of support

Edmunds was around when Wyoming was first starting to craft a plan to protect sage grouse in the early 2000s. At the time on staff at the Wyoming Wildlife Federation, she thought back to former Gov. Dave Freudenthal’s very first public meeting about the state’s grouse policy.

“I remember [Freudenthal] saying in front of everybody, ‘If you thought the spotted owl issue was bad, if you thought the wolf issue was bad, you haven’t seen anything,’” she recalled. “He really energized Wyoming to be very forward thinking and pulled a lot of people together.” 

Wyoming’s sage grouse safeguards have helped keep an Endangered Species Act listing at bay, Edmunds said. The state’s plans were “incredibly influential” when the U.S. Department of the Interior decided not to list the bird in 2015, she said. 

The federal government’s “12-month finding” from that time backs it up. “The conservation efforts by federal, state, and private partners have greatly changed the likely trajectory of the species from our 2010 projections when we determined that the species warranted listing,” the document says. 

Arguably, Wyoming plays an outsized role in the fate of the sage grouse. There are more than 1,700 known breeding areas, or leks, in the state, which houses an estimated 38% of the world’s remaining grouse, according to the Wyoming Game and Fish Department. 

Potentially, the state’s current map revision could again move the needle. Whatever Wyoming and other western states send forward to the BLM will help shape an “alternative” that will be included in the agency’s draft environmental impact statement, said Brad Purdy, BLM-Wyoming’s deputy state director for communications. 

Purdy described Wyoming as a collaborator to the BLM’s process and he echoed what he sees as a common goal: preventing a sage grouse listing. 

“I think listing would be very, very rough on western economies,” he said, “and we’ve got to get these plans right and implemented.” 

The BLM’s environmental document will outline changes to 70 resource management plans guiding sage grouse conservation on 67 million acres of 10 western states. Purdy said it’s tough to put a target on when the draft will come out, but guessed this coming spring. 

Meantime, the state of Wyoming will continue to fine tune its sage grouse core areas. 

The current revision is a “really worthy effort,” said Brian Rutledge, a recently retired Audubon employee who was a longtime member of the Sage Grouse Implementation Team. 

“It was the best conservation effort I was ever involved in,” Rutledge said of the team. “The state of Wyoming and all the members of the SGIT have worked so hard toward the largest terrestrial landscape conservation effort in the history of planet Earth. That’s a big deal.”  

Sommers told WyoFile he remains skeptical. 

After hearing from constituents who weren’t pleased with core area expansions that overlapped their private land, he requested the Pinedale meeting. Personally, he was happy with the effectiveness of the state’s sage grouse policy the way it was. 

“By and large, we created a plan that was working,” Sommers said. “What was wrong with the plan that we had? Is the only reason we were making this jump to expand the maps because the feds have a worse map? 

“I don’t know the answer to that,” he said, “but it appears to me that’s the case.”

The post Wyoming is expanding its sage grouse protections. Will it work? appeared first on WyoFile.

Judith and Matthew Thompson have watched countless pronghorn hoof it over the frozen New Fork River on the parcel of state land adjacent to their home. 

“The best migration that you could watch comes through that section,” Matthew Thompson said. “It does bottleneck them, and they’ve probably been doing it for 10,000 years right there.” 

Sometimes they’re inspired to record photos and videos of the trails left by massive herds on the go. Last winter, Judith Thompson pulled out her phone to call the Wyoming Game and Fish Department and inquire what to do about a doe pronghorn dying in view of her home. 

On Monday, she pulled out her phone once more, this time to text WyoFile her thoughts about the potential oil and gas development that might be going in one lot over, on the section of Wyoming-owned land right where the pronghorn tend to push through.

“It really sucks,” Judith Thompson wrote. “I’m floored that the state would deem this particular piece of land as to be so vital to the state coffers that they would sacrifice a national treasure for what would be a pittance of their budget.” 

Unbeknownst to the Thompsons until Monday, the rights to drill for oil and gas on the 640-acre parcel abutting their property — part of Wyoming’s school trust land system — had been auctioned off 12 days prior at a Wyoming Office of State Lands and Investments lease sale. The winning bid came in at $19/acre, for a total cost of $13,170 including fees. The company that placed the winning bid has not yet been identified and will remain unnamed until auction documents are published online Thursday, according to Diana Wolvin, an OSLI employee. 

Environmental groups aren’t waiting to learn the lease holder’s name before lambasting the state for greenlighting oil and gas leases in a particularly vulnerable segment of the Path of the Pronghorn, right where migratory herds come off the Pinedale Mesa and cross the New Fork River. 

“This winter was devastating on the Sublette pronghorn herd [and] the last thing these remaining animals need is another obstacle in their way during their seasonal migrations,” Nick Dobric, the Wilderness Society’s Wyoming conservation manager, wrote to WyoFile in an email. “We’ve had good data on this migration for well over a decade, so the state’s continuing inaction to recognize and manage the Path of the Pronghorn is careless.”

Meghan Riley, a public lands and wildlife advocate for the Wyoming Outdoor Council, called Wyoming’s lack of a system to “catch these conflicts” where migration routes haven’t yet been designated “disappointing.”

“Everybody knows these guys got hammered,” Riley said, “and it’s sad to see threats and pressure coming from so many different directions.”  

Four-year delay

Wyoming does have a migration policy that is designed to avert such conflicts, but it hasn’t been used in years.

The celebrated Path of the Pronghorn — AKA, the Sublette Pronghorn Herd migration — includes animals that migrate all the way to Grand Teton National Park and right by Thompson’s backdoor. Although it’s the next migration corridor in the queue to be designated, according to the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, the Path of the Pronghorn has stayed in that on-deck space for more than four years. Proposed protection of the route was paused in 2019, when an alliance of industry groups successfully pressured the state to overhaul how it nominates and designates migration corridors. 

No migration corridor has been designated, or received protections since, though the four-year delay may be nearing its end. 

Coming soon is a Wyoming Game and Fish Department “threat analysis” that will recommend whether the Sublette Pronghorn Herd migration needs to be designated or not, according to deputy director Angi Bruce. 

“I think we’re a few months out,” Bruce said. “Once we review [the threat analysis], we’ll decide where we go. That’ll be taken to our commission at a future commission meeting for their direction and guidance.” 

Wyoming’s migration policy stems from a gubernatorial executive order that lets the governor call the shots. The state’s current chief executive, Gov. Mark Gordon, has downplayed designating the Path of the Pronghorn. At a Pinedale meeting about severe wildlife winterkill in March, he heard calls to make the designation.

“Our pronghorn cannot wait another minute,” Upper Green River Alliance Director Linda Baker told Gordon. “Please do it now.” 

In response, the governor called for a “durable” solution that transcends political swings and changes in federal land management policy. 

“Drawing a line on a map is not going to fix that,” Gordon said. Instead, he said, a “committed” coalition of private landowners, local agencies and the public is needed to make the “migration corridor work.”

Bitter winter, encroaching development

The Sublette Pronghorn Herd has had a rough couple years. 

Based on GPS collar data being amassed to guide a prospective designation, roughly 75% of the formerly 43,000-animal herd died last winter, casualties of an unusual, inverted low-elevation snowpack and a mycoplasma bovis outbreak. Every collared animal that trekked all the way from the Green River Basin to Grand Teton National Park perished, though the Jackson Hole News&Guide has since reported that park biologists have anecdotally observed “at least 25” pronghorn that made the journey.

Meanwhile, the herd’s habitat is being slashed. Encroachments on the migration include private land subdivisions exempted from the state’s policy and a Lower Valley Energy gas pipeline that’s going in. 

Immediately south of the state parcel just leased, Sotheby’s real estate has listed 80 acres for those “looking for serenity, solace and a sense of wide open spaces” to build their “dream home getaway” — price tag $700,000. 

At a July 7 forum on conserving ungulate migration, University of California-Berkeley researcher Arthur Middleton spoke to the confluence of development forces that are coming to places like the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. (Disclosure: Middleton is married to WyoFile board member Anna Sale.)

“These parks attract development,” Middleton said. “They attract development that undermines their own selves. Remote work, COVID, TV shows like Yellowstone — seriously — these are driving a wave of development pressure that’s hitting this place, and it’s going to be very severe, I think.”  

Yet other threats to the Sublette Pronghorn Herd’s travel paths loom. 

Jonah Energy’s $17 billion Normally Pressured Lance gas field carves through the southern reaches of the yet-to-be designated Path of the Pronghorn. An attorney for Wyoming contended the gas field and migration corridor didn’t overlap during oral arguments this spring in a case about pronghorn impacts before the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, but was criticized by one biologist for “doing a deliberate mislead.”

Research found the decades-old Pinedale Anticline field caused Sublette pronghorn to avoid and even abandon altered parts of the landscape after collaborative efforts to create a pronghorn-friendly gas field fell apart. 

Pronghorn protections precluded

Wyoming’s migration policy calls for state agencies to “maintain habitat and limit future disturbance.” Infrastructure like gas pads are to be located  within already disturbed or biologically unsuitable areas if they must occur within a designated corridor, the policy states. 

Even without a designation, Wyoming Game and Fish could have recommended pronghorn protections when it vetted the state’s lease sale, said Bruce, the agency’s deputy director. 

“A lot of people think we need a designation to use our data — if that were the case, we would have spent the last 50 years not using our data,” she said. “The data is the data, and we use it all the time in our operations, our commenting and our reviews.” 

Via a letter and spreadsheet, Game and Fish did ask that some wildlife stipulations be attached to parcel 194, the New Fork River tract leased for $19 an acre. 

Because of the state agency’s recommendation, there’s a stipulation for “big game crucial winter range” instructing developers to avoid human activity from Nov. 15 to April 30. Another stipulation will require that the winning bidder provides a 300-foot buffer from the New Fork River, while another is geared toward preventing the spread of aquatic invasive species. A stipulation that made it through subjects exploration and development activities to Wyoming’s sage grouse core area policy, which is in the process of being revised. 

But a stipulation for pronghorn migration didn’t make the cut for the parcel along the New Fork River. 

Will Schultz, Game and Fish’s habitat protection supervisor, said there are still opportunities via “micro-siting” techniques to diminish the impact of development that’s coming. It’s not like it’s an undisturbed parcel, he pointed out.

“If it can be sited in close proximity to current development, it might not have any more impact than the development that’s already there,” Schultz said. “Hopefully there can be some collocation.” 

Paradise Road, the New Fork River’s Remmick boat ramp and even a battery of Ultra Resources tanks from an earlier era of energy development are among existing developments on the school trust parcel. 

The potential for micro-siting near these disturbances isn’t enough to fully placate Dobric, the Wilderness Society staffer. 

“It’s irresponsible to lease or permit without adequate protections, like the state is proposing now, with what we know about this migration,” he said. “If Wyoming wants to continue to be a leader in big-game migration conservation and ensure our herds are able to rebound then the state needs to take decisive action formally recognizing these migrations.”

Based on publicly available pronghorn location data, the development rights just auctioned off almost assuredly would impact the landscape within the Sublette Pronghorn Herd’s migration corridor, Dobric said.

“There’s additional collar data out there that shows even more routes,” he said. “We’ve heard that the New Fork parcel is even more used than what’s shown already.”  

The Thompsons have seen it firsthand. Matthew Thompson thought back to fall of 2018, when the Roosevelt Fire raged in the Bondurant area to the north, seeming to facilitate an early migration.

“My painter and I watched thousands come through there,” Matthew Thompson said, “and it just blew his mind.”

Thompson on Monday seemed resigned about the fate of the state parcel next door. 

“We aren’t going to be able to stop it,” he said. 

But the Wyoming Outdoor Council’s Riley hasn’t given up the fight. She sent a protest letter to the State Board of Land Commissioners, which meets to review and finalize the sale on Aug. 3. 

“Biologists at the Wyoming Game and Fish Department have drawn on a massive dataset and put tremendous effort into understanding where these animals move on the landscape in preparation for a long-awaited process to officially identify this corridor, with a potential designation in the future,” Riley wrote. “We ask that parcel 194 be withdrawn until that can happen.”

Other neighbors along Paradise Road reached by WyoFile were less convinced that another gas pad or two would further harm the pronghorn migration coming off the Pinedale Mesa and crossing over New Fork River on the way to more southern sweeps of sagebrush. 

“I don’t want it to have an impact, but what’s the most important?” cattle rancher Vera Roberts said. 

Both pronghorn and oil and gas, she added, are “very important.” 

“So I don’t know,” Roberts said. 

The post ‘Path of the Pronghorn’ bottleneck leased for development at $19/acre appeared first on WyoFile.

A legislative task force is considering ways to improve a law designed to keep Indigenous children connected to their families, communities and cultures amid custody disputes.

The Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978, which set federal standards for custody proceedings involving children from federally recognized tribes, was recently upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Haaland v. Brackeen.

Uncertain how the high court would rule, the Wyoming Legislature enacted a mirror version of the federal law during the 2023 session in the event federal protections dissolved.

That state law is set to sunset in 2027, so the Legislature formed a task force to consider more permanent solutions. The panel met publicly for the first time on July 12. With the federal law now on sure footing, the committee focused instead on closing legal gaps that still lead to kids entering state or other non-tribal custody. The panel also considered enhancements that have been successful in other states.

Juvenile delinquency and other instances of state custody 

Before Congress passed the Indian Child Welfare Act, more than a third of Indigenous children had been removed from their homes and placed in non-Indian homes or institutional settings. Seeking to end this systematic disruption of Native American families, the law gave preference to tribes when an Indigenous child is involved in a custody proceeding pertaining to child-welfare issues such as adoption, abuse and neglect.

In simple terms, it established a priority for placing children with, first, a member of an Indigenous child’s extended family. If that’s not an option, the child would next go to another member of their tribe, or if that’s not possible, a different tribe.

To achieve that end, the law requires the agency handling proceedings for an issue such as neglect to notify the relevant tribe so its members can either participate or transfer the case to their tribal court.

As it stands, the federal law only applies in cases involving adoption, abuse or neglect. For most of the meeting, the panel debated a provision in state law that also subjects juvenile delinquency cases to the family- and Indigenous-first priority.

That provision requires tribes be notified of court proceedings in delinquency cases involving their children, in the event they want to transfer the issue to their tribal courts or have a say in the proceedings. Federal law makes no such requirements.

This inconsistency resulted from an oversight while drafting the legislation and should be removed, said Korin Schmidt, director for the Wyoming Department of Family Services and a member of the panel.

“We think it was just a matter of how quickly this all came about,” Schmidt said.

But other task force members believe its inclusion can strengthen tribal say in any question of state custody.

Delinquency resulting in juvenile incarceration is no small consideration in Wyoming, as the state has one of the highest youth incarceration rates in the country.

A census in 2019 revealed that Indigenous children were incarcerated at a greater rate in Wyoming than any kids of any other ethnic or racial groups — and at a rate four times higher than their white peers.

Some of the juvenile placements can last for years, so the desire for tribal oversight makes sense, said task force co-chairman Rep. LLoyd Larsen (R-Lander).

There is already a blueprint for tribal involvement in delinquency cases in Fremont County and Hot Springs counties, home to the Wind River Reservation, where special contracts allow for close interaction between tribal governments and district courts.

In both counties, all child welfare cases are directly transferred to the Northern Arapaho or Eastern Shoshone family services departments rather than the state agency.

Further, juvenile delinquency cases can also then be transferred to internal tribal courts if the tribe requests to do so.

That policy does not, however, apply statewide.

“We have a great working relationship with Fremont County and Hot Springs County, however, we need to expand that,” said Karen Returns to War, the co-chair of the Northern Arapaho Business Council.

“Hopefully, the rest of the counties in the state of Wyoming are going to abide by the same qualifications, and the tribes will have more say regarding the placement of our children,” Returns to War said.

The question of state custody over child placement also emerges in the case of the safe haven law, applied when a child is relinquished after birth, said Jennifer Neely, the state ICWA coordinator and tribal liaison from the Department of Family Services.

“The hope is, perhaps while we’re evaluating the ICWA statute and potential that maybe we could also use this opportunity to enhance some of our existing [laws] to support it,” Neely said.

The task force did not reach any conclusions at the July 12 meeting, but plans to bring amendment proposals to the panel’s next gathering.

Other states

Since Congress passed the law more than four decades ago, other states have made their own changes. Wyoming is considering incorporating some of them.

Clare Johnson, attorney for the Northern Arapaho Business Council, proposed adopting two changes made by the state of Washington. Both would strengthen the abilities of tribal attorneys during proceedings tied to the law.

One proposed amendment would allow tribes to define terms for custody placement beyond the federally applied standards, said Johnson, citing the consideration of geography as one example.

She also raised the issue of allowing tribal attorneys to practice across state lines, even where they are not licensed, for the purpose of cases involving the law.

“It saves the tribe a lot of money,” Johnson said. “Instead of having to find local counsel, pay pro hoc fees, I can be admitted solely to represent the tribe for the purpose of an ICWA case.”

This provision in Washington and Nebraska has permitted Johnson to litigate such cases there.

Beyond Wyoming

If the task force elects to clarify and strengthen the application of the Indian Child Welfare Act, its decision extends beyond the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho tribes to affect all federal tribes represented in the state.

For example, if the state law’s delinquency inclusion holds, Wyoming will be required to notify a tribe — whether, say, in Arizona or North Carolina – whose child is brought before a Wyoming court.

It will be important to streamline the process of notifying tribes in states where the law applies differently, Neely said.

The task force is next expected to meet in late August or early September.

The post Tribes, state look to improve Wyoming’s Indigenous child custody laws appeared first on WyoFile.

WIND RIVER RANGE FOOTHILLS—Kristy Wardell dawned rain gear though the skies were clear.

The lifelong rancher was dressed in protective garb to guard against manure and urine that 366 ewes and 442 lambs had discharged along the wheeled journey around the Winds. On her hands and knees, the 59-year-old crawled into the bowels of a big rig she’d driven to flush out the animals, which will summer on Jim Magagna’s pastureland along the banks of Lander Creek.

Not used to being trucked, the band “had an attitude” and were tough to budge. “These sheep I have trouble with every spring,” Wardell said. 

For the better part of an hour she stayed at it, a shepherd on all fours in tight quarters pulling legs, prodding and doing whatever it took to guide gobs of damp sheep toward the exit ramp. Simultaneously, somehow, it was dusty, with enough sheep dander and dirt in the air to cause at least one onlooker’s eyes to clam up. 

Wardell, though, was unfazed. Her dirty trucking task is essentially a side hustle. She’s a sheep rancher, heading the Thoman Ranch’s livestock operations in the Green River basin. 

“The profitability is not there, you fall behind and you can’t pay your bills,” she said. “On our ranch I hardly even draw a wage. That’s why I drive my truck.” 

At one time the Thoman Ranch ran 8,000 to 9,000 head of sheep. Then it was 5,000 or 6,000. Then 4,000. 

“Now we’re down to 1,200,” Wardell said, “because you can’t get good help.” 

In the modern domestic sheep world, such tales come pretty easy. It’s an industry in Wyoming that’s fallen off more than 90% since its heyday almost a century ago. In the old days, the Wyoming Wool Growers Association would hold a festive annual get-together, with a big supper and dance and other activities. That went away. This summer, however, the organization aimed for a resurgence, hosting the inaugural Wyoming Wool and Sheep Festival in Kemmerer. 

“We’re just trying to get back to that, and celebrate the industry,” said Mike Curuchet, president of the Wool Growers board. 

During a sheepherder panel on the opening night, however, talk of the tough times remained.

“It’s a struggle,” Cokeville sheep rancher Jon Child told the crowd. “We had to drop our market on our lambs last year, and it just makes you wonder whether to stay in it? We’re either crazy or we love it, and I think it’s probably we love it.”

Goal? Survive

Asked of their desired legacy, the panelists were on the same page: They just want to maintain. 

“I want a legacy to pass on to the next generation,” Kemmerer sheep rancher Dave Julian said, “that’s my biggest goal.” 

The same long-lasting inverted low-elevation snowpack that delivered mass death to mule deer and pronghorn also did a number on western Wyoming’s sheep ranchers. It was a “gut punch” to the industry, University of Wyoming sheep specialist Whit Stewart said. 

More than one woolgrower called Stewart and ran through their numbers — the ewes they lost, expected lambing rates — trying to determine if they could break even. 

“They said, ‘Can I do this?’” Stewart said. “It’s not often that I have to say, ‘If you can’t get to this production or reduce predation by this much, you’ve just gotta get out.’” 

For the Thoman Ranch, this winter was costly. In a mild year, Wardell said, the family’s flock can survive just by browsing forage growing off their ranchland, supplemented with a little bit of corn. This year they also fed 3.5 pounds of hay per head daily from the onset of January clear through the month of April.

“Never ever have we had to feed that long,” Wardell said. 

On the plus side, Curuchet said, lambs are looking quite a bit better this spring than they did a year ago. There are other silver linings within the long-suppressed industry that have the Wool Growers board president upbeat. 

“I think there’s a lot of optimism,” he said. “There’s some really good people working on some really important issues right now that could hopefully make things a little better.” 

Stewart, the UW professor, ran over some of the more encouraging industry trends. 

“We’ve almost doubled our [domestic] lamb consumption,” he said. “That’s a statistic that you just don’t hear cited.” 

We’ve almost doubled our lamb consumption.That’s a statistic that you just don’t hear cited.” 

University of wyoming sheep specialist whit stewart

There are also some increases in the aggregate number of sheep-growing operations, Stewart said. Because of the decline of large operations like the Thomans, total sheep numbers in Wyoming were still on the downswing as of 2018, the last time the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service completed its census. But smaller “farm flocks” are on the upswing: Nationally, one-to-100 head sheep operations have grown 40% since 2002, Stewart said. 

“You can look at it and say, ‘Well, it’s an industry in decline,’” he said. “I look at it as an industry in transition. From the ‘50s to the early 2000s, you could say it was declining, but we’ve really stabilized.”

Chance for growth

Some Wyoming sheep ranchers new to the game are also accessing novel markets. Rancher Sage Askin, who grows non-woolbearing “hair sheep”  — used only for their meat — added a flock to his Lusk-area operation a decade ago to supplement his cattle.

“We felt that we had browse and additional forage that our cattle were not utilizing on the ranches where we operate,” Askin said. “Very quickly it became apparent that the sheep were roughly twice as profitable, over a 10-year timespan, as cattle.” 

Now Askin runs 4,000 sheep, plus keeps a herd of 1,000 goats. 

Askin achieved profitability with his sheep partly by bucking industry norms and trying new tactics. He doesn’t send his animals ready for market to Colorado’s big processing plants. 

“I see a lot of clients buying sheep for solar-panel grazing,” he said, “I see them buying for targeted grazing projects, and [I see] a lot of smaller producers [buying who] raise farm flocks of sheep.” 

Askin’s male lambs and rams “almost exclusively” get sold to smaller-scale “ethnic buyers” for meat. 

“What we’re doing, I would say, is very unorthodox and very unconventional,” he said. 

Other sheep ranchers more dependent on conventional markets, like the Thomans, are holding out hope that the weather, pricing and other wool-growing variables take a turn in their favor. 

“Mom and dad, they went through a lot of ups and downs, and they held on,” Wardell said. 

The family, she said, has discussed selling their flock, but for now she’ll do what it takes to hold on — even if it’s trucking sheep and “getting 4 hours of sleep a night.” 

“I don’t want to sell them, I want to keep the legacy going,” Wardell said. “I’ll do whatever it is to stay in it.” 

During the sheepherders panel, her sister, Mary Thoman, threw out another idea for supplementary income that could keep the family on their land: “We may have to become fishing guides.” 

Her niece, Taylor Thoman — part of the fifth generation of Thomans to run sheep — sat alongside her. The teenaged Thoman had a quick retort to her aunt.

“Well, if I become a fishing guide,” she joked, “we’ve already lost the whole ranch.” 

The post Shorn down, growing back: Woolgrowers eye opportunity appeared first on WyoFile.

Wyoming’s largest electric utility, Rocky Mountain Power, wants to hike prices by nearly 22%, a request that’s primarily driven by volatile natural gas and coal markets, according to the company. 

It’s the largest rate increase request the regulated-monopoly utility has made in more than a decade, and it would result in an additional $16.42 per month for the average household customer, according to the company.

A hearing on the matter, including an opportunity for public comment, will take place from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. Monday at the City Council Chambers in Rock Springs. The hearing will also be live streamed.

The proposed rate hike faces scrutiny from the Sierra Club Wyoming Chapter, Walmart, the Wyoming Office of Consumer Advocate and an industry group — all intervenors in RMP’s rate request. Though it hasn’t filed as an intervenor, AARP Wyoming requested the public hearing scheduled for next week.

“We just want to make sure it’s fair and reasonable and not a dime more than they need.”

Sam Shumway, AARP Wyoming

“We feel like [the proposed rate increase is] a little bit speculative,” AARP Wyoming Director Sam Shumway said. “We think this is higher than they actually need. The 21.6% is just astronomical.”

If approved as proposed, the new rates — which vary between residential, business, agricultural and industrial customers — would take effect January 1, 2024. The increase would generate an extra $140.2 million per year for RMP, which is part of the larger northwest power company PacifiCorp.

RMP’s rate case

Approximately 97% of the annual $140.2 million increase that RMP wants to capture from Wyoming customers is “related to resetting the new base for the Energy Cost Adjustment Mechanism,” according to written testimony by Joelle R. Steward, RMP’s senior vice president of Regulation and Customer/Community Solutions.

The ECAM is a formula to true-up the difference between forecasted fuel costs and actual costs for commodities such as natural gas and coal used to generate electricity.

Since 2020, “net power costs have been climbing annually at unprecedented levels,” Steward said, “driven by increases in regional market prices and fuel costs as well as new state and federal environmental compliance requirements.”

Historically, regulated utilities have split the risk of fuel cost adjustments with their customers in what’s referred to as a “cost sharing band.” In recent years, RMP was responsible for 20% of fuel-cost overruns while its Wyoming customers picked up 80%. In its current request, RMP wants to eliminate the cost sharing band to make Wyoming customers accountable for 100% of fuel cost overruns.

The company wants to ensure its profitability in Wyoming. Without the annual $140.2 million rate increase, RMP’s rate of return would be 1.32% — far below the maximum 9.5% currently allowed by the Wyoming Public Service Commission, the company said. RMP is currently proposing a maximum rate of return of 10.3%.

“[RMP] understands the impact that a rate increase has on its customers and the company is taking long-term actions that continue to position the company as a least-cost, least-risk utility through this changing energy landscape,” Steward said.

Separately, RMP has asked the Wyoming Public Service Commission for a limited-time rate increase to cover $50.3 million in unexpected fuel costs and wholesale power purchases as the result of heat waves, extreme weather and drought in 2022. That request is still pending.

Regulators granted the company a 3.8% energy cost adjustment totalling $23.6 million in 2022, citing extreme weather events in 2021.

Fossil fuel risk

Though PacifiCorp plans to gradually eliminate coal and add more sources of renewable and low-carbon energy to its power generation portfolio, the company is still exposed to wild commodity swings in fossil fuels. The company has known the risks of relying on fossil fuels for a long time, and it shouldn’t be allowed to completely shift that risk to its customers, Sierra Club Wyoming Chapter organizer Rob Joyce said.

“The company is basically saying they can no longer accurately predict these markets for things like coal and natural gas,” Joyce said. 

Equally worrisome, Joyce said, is the fact that the company plans to add more natural gas to its energy mix. Several of the coal units it plans to decommission will be converted to natural gas.

RMP essentially operates as a regulated monopoly. Wyoming customers don’t get to choose their electricity provider. It’s unfair, Joyce said, for that monopoly to saddle its customers with 100% of the fossil fuel market volatility risk when customers have little influence in how the company structures its energy portfolio.

“We feel it’s important to intervene and for folks to be engaged in these rate cases and the integrated resource planning that the company is going through currently,” Joyce said.

An extra $16.42 per month for the average household is a big deal for many residents in the state, AARP Wyoming’s Shumway said.

“The reality is, as many of our members live on fixed incomes, that’s a chunk of change,” Shumway said. “That’s an extra $200 a year that somebody is going to have to come up with in addition to what they’re already paying for their utilities.

“Whatever the rate increase is,” Shumway added, “we just want to make sure it’s fair and reasonable and not a dime more than they need.”

The post Electricity bills could climb 22% for Rocky Mountain Power customers appeared first on WyoFile.

Wyoming’s Powder River Basin, the largest coal-producing region in North America, suffered two major coal supply disruptions in the span of three weeks.

A loaded coal train derailed four miles southeast of Lusk on Monday morning, overturning 21 rail cars and temporarily closing two “main lines.” No injuries were reported, and both rail lines were back in operation by late Tuesday, according to Union Pacific Railway.

On June 23, a tornado struck the North Antelope Rochelle mine — the largest coal mine in the nation — causing severe structural damage, injuring eight workers and hobbling the mine’s ability to load coal trains for several days. 

Union Pacific hasn’t yet determined the cause of Monday’s derailment, and the tornado strike at the mine was a random severe weather event, but both incidents revealed the vulnerability of a coal-by-rail infrastructure that the nation still relies on for about 15% of its electrical power generation capacity, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Industry analysts doubt that either event seriously threatened coal-power electricity generation. But, any prolonged Powder River Basin coal supply disruption could quickly become a problem for the power sector. Especially considering that UP and Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway — the only two railroad companies serving the region — both have struggled to meet Powder River Basin coal demand in recent years.

“Any new delivery challenges are coming on top of problems with rail deliveries over the past year or so, and will only add to coal supply concerns in the power sector,” Seth Feaster told WyoFile in June.

Feaster, an energy data analyst for the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, said even delays of less than a week could impact the nation’s power sector, and would “not be welcome news for customers.

“Capacity constraints in the rail system may make it challenging to easily recover from missed shipments,” Feaster added.

The still lingering failure by the rail companies to meet demand — which both blame on workforce struggles after massive layoffs and the COVID-19 pandemic — resulted in an estimated loss of 50 million tons in Wyoming coal sales in 2022, according to the Wyoming Mining Association. That’s a loss of about $100 million in revenue to the state.

The issue has also resulted in millions of dollars in fuel replacement costs at some utilities, at least one Wyoming-related lawsuit, a closed-door meeting between BNSF and Wyoming lawmakers and a call for Union Pacific to appear before the Interim Minerals, Business and Economic Development Committee on July 18 in Rock Springs.

Wyoming efforts

Minerals committee co-chairman Rep. Donald Burkhart Jr. (R-Rawlins) — who convened the closed-door meeting with BNSF in February — said the committee merely wants to hear an update from UP when the body convenes next week.

“Any new delivery challenges are coming on top of problems with rail deliveries over the past year or so, and will only add to coal supply concerns in the power sector.”

Seth Feaster, Energy Economics and Financial Analysis

“At this time, I know of no legislation being proposed regarding the railroads,” Burkhart told WyoFile via email this week.

Railroad labor unions have suggested possible measures to help counter what they claim is a headlong determination among railroads to reduce crew sizes, increase train lengths, defer maintenance and demand “inhuman” scheduling policies for their employees. None of those lobbying efforts have resulted in successful bills in Wyoming — so far.

Most recently, House Bill 204 – Allowable train lengths introduced this year would have limited the length of trains in Wyoming to prevent congestion. The measure was voted down in the House Corporations, Elections and Political Subdivisions Committee. Efforts to impose a minimum two-person train crew have also failed in the Legislature.

Though railroads appear to be improving performance to meet the demand to ship Wyoming coal in recent months, the situation appears a precarious, potential threat to the state’s mining industries, said Wyoming Mining Association Executive Director Travis Deti.

“Things have improved,” Deti told WyoFile regarding meeting demand for Wyoming coal-by-rail deliveries. “It’s not where it needs to be yet. But it has improved significantly over the past year. The train issues are still there.”

The minerals committee is scheduled to hear testimony from Union Pacific — and hear public comment on the issue — beginning at 2:15 p.m. July 18 at Western Wyoming Community College in Rock Springs. Click here to join a livestream of the hearing.

The post A derailment and a tornado add to Wyoming’s coal-by-rail worries appeared first on WyoFile.