Join us as we explore and celebrate the open spaces and wild places that make us proud to call Wyoming our home. Here are the outdoor and indoor major events planned for 2011.

Explore the Wild Fifteenmile Basin
Saturday, June 4, Bighorn Basin

Celebrate National Trails Day with an outing into the remote and often overlooked center of the Bighorn Basin. The Fifteenmile Basin is a scenic and delicate area of vast sagebrush, salt desert, and badlands. We’ll explore the Bobcat Draw Badlands, a portion of rugged and uniquely eroded formations within the Fifteenmile drainage. Local geology and native plant gurus Claire and Rick Dunne will lead us on a three-mile hike.

Space is limited so please RSVP as soon as possible.
RSVP deadline: Friday, May 20.

Red Desert Rendezvous
Saturday, June 18, Rock Springs

While the Outdoor Council is not hosting this outing, we are providing support for the event as part of our efforts to heighten awareness and conservation protections for Wyoming’s spectacular Red Desert.

This weekend rendezvous will offer at least three phenomenal guided tours: (1) A plein air painters campout (Friday night) near the Honeycomb Buttes. (2) A journey into colorful Adobe Town. (3) And an iconic landscapes loop with stops at Boar’s Tusk, the Killpecker Sand Dunes, and the White Mountain Petroglyphs.

Upon return from the tours, there will be a catered dinner during a keynote presentation, followed by a panel discussion.

Rock Springs Party
Friday, June 24, Rock Springs

Meet and mingle with the Wyoming Outdoor Council staff, board of directors, members, and friends at an informal gathering. Food and drink are on us.

Ride the Red
Saturday, August 27, northwestern Red Desert

Keep the tradition alive and come along for our annual mountain bike ride in the Red Desert. Enjoy the opportunity to experience one of the last intact high-desert ecosystems in North America, and tour the iconic Jack Morrow Hills.

Join us as a participant and/or a volunteer!
RSVP deadline: Monday, August 8.

Volunteer Day: Laramie River Restoration Project Saturday, September 10, Laramie

Last year we yielded record results working on willows, so we look forward to volunteering again with the Laramie Rivers Conservation District. This will be the final year of a three-year plan to restore river habitat.

RSVP deadline: Monday, August 29

Jackson Party
Friday, September 17

Join us for a party in Jackson, where we will celebrate our successes and rejuvenate for our ongoing and upcoming challenges.

Laramie Open House
Friday, November 11, Laramie

Come out for a casual evening of conversation and good food and drink with Wyoming Outdoor Council staff, board of directors, members, and friends.

Lander Holiday Party
Friday, December 9, Lander

join us to celebrate with our members and friends!

FOR UPDATES:

Watch your mailboxes and check our website: wyomingoutdoorcouncil.org/html/act/events

OR Contact:
Jamie Wolf, outreach coordinator jamie@wyomingoutdoorcouncil.org, 307-721-7610

By Jamie Wolf

The Wyoming Outdoor Council is co-hosting a FREE showing of the 2011 Oscar-nominated documentary Gasland and we invite you to attend.

When: Wednesday, April 6, at 6 p.m. Followed by questions and discussion with Gasland’s featured Pavillion, Wyoming landowners John and Catherine Fenton. Doors open at 5:30 p.m.

Where: University of Wyoming Business Auditorium, 1000 E. University Ave., Laramie (between 14th and 15th on Ivinson.)

AND

When: Thursday, April 7th, at 7 p.m. Followed by questions and discussion with Gasland’s featured Pavillion, Wyoming landowners John and Catherine Fenton. Doors open at 6:45 p.m.

Where: Cheyenne, Kiwanis Community House, Lions Park, 4603 Lions Park Drive, Cheyenne

Light refreshments will be provided.

About the film:

Gasland filmmaker Josh Fox was asked to lease his land for natural gas drilling by an energy company that wanted to use a chemical-injection technique called hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” to release the gas. Fox’s reaction was to embark on a cross-country journey to discover more about the on-the-ground social, environmental, and economic repercussions of the widespread use of this technology. He made a film about that trip.

Fox’s quest led him to, among other stops, the small agricultural town of Pavillion, Wyoming. There he met local famers John and Catherine Fenton, who share, in the film, the story of their family’s challenges with fracking on and around their land.

Mr. Fenton and Mrs. Fenton will join us for both presentations of the film and will be available for questions and discussion afterward. This is a rare opportunity not to be missed!

For more information about Gasland visit the Gasland website.

This event is hosted by the Wyoming Outdoor Council, the Powder River Basin Resource Council, and the University of Wyoming student group the Good Mule Project.

Jamie Wolf, the Wyoming Outdoor Council’s outreach coordinator, can be reached at jamie@wyomingoutdoorcouncil.org or 307.721.7610.

Read the full story here.

CHEYENNE — The U.S. Bureau of Land Management says it has nearly cleared a backlog of more than 1,500 unissued oil and gas leases in Wyoming dating back more than two years.

Since last summer, the BLM has issued 1,109 leases and decided to hold off on 222 others.

It plans to decide on the final 170 within a couple weeks . . . .

Read the full story here.

by Environment & Energy Daily on March 29, 2011

Read the full story here.

By Phil Taylor, E&E reporter

Excerpt:

The oil and gas industry has nearly 7,200 permits to drill on public lands that it has yet to use, according to Bureau of Land Management data obtained by Greenwire.

The unused, but still valid, drilling permits paint a starkly different picture from what industry and some in Congress have argued is a concerted effort by the Obama administration to lock up federal lands to energy production, said Dave Alberswerth, senior policy adviser on energy issues for the Wilderness Society and a former Interior Department official in the Clinton administration.

“I don’t see how the industry and their allies can maintain with a straight face this fiction that somehow the Obama administration is unduly restricting their access to public lands for drilling when they’re sitting on literally thousands of unused drilling permits,” he said.

But the number of unused permits only tells part of a regulatory picture that includes the need to also obtain air and water permits, seasonal restrictions, and economic factors, said an energy attorney and former official with Devon Energy, one of the country’s largest onshore oil and gas producers . . . .

Read the full story on WyoFile here.

Photo by Daveeza

Applying the lessons to Wyoming

By Steve Jones

THE EARTHQUAKE AND NUCLEAR DISASTER IN JAPAN may have its repercussions here in Wyoming.

Whether a dampened enthusiasm for nuclear power will ultimately decrease the demand for and the price of uranium remains to be seen. But we can all learn some important lessons from the nuclear power plant failures.

One lesson underscored by the ongoing crisis in Japan is the need for a truly robust system of backup power supplies in potentially dangerous industrial operations.

It seems that much of the radioactive releases from the Fukushima Daiichi plant might have been avoided if, when the primary and initial backup power sources failed, there had been an emergency source of electricity to power the pumps that are used to cool the nuclear fuel rods.

The need for effective and readily available backup power is not unique to nuclear plants. The Japan disaster is a disquieting reminder that it should be a basic requirement for any industrial operation that could become dangerous to people and the environment should its primary power sources fail.

We have no nuclear power plants in Wyoming—perhaps a fact that should make us all happy, given the tectonically sensitive region in which we live.

But we have plenty of uranium, as well as other ongoing natural resource extraction and refining activities that can threaten us all with dangerous chemicals and radioactivity—if the operators are not careful, and the regulators are not diligent.

Sinclair Refinery near Rawlins, Wyoming. Photo by Scott Kane.

Oil refineries and in-situ uranium mining

While nuclear power plant failure can be catastrophic, other energy sources can and do cause fatalities, as well as harm to the environment.

Oil refineries can have so-called upsets that threaten an entire town, as in the case of the Sinclair Refinery in recent years. Uranium extraction and milling can have radioactive spills and leaks that threaten workers and local groundwater.

In-situ uranium mining involves maintaining a draw-down, or “cone of depression,” within the mineral zone where the uranium is being extracted.

This requires the use of pumps (powered by electricity) to draw the groundwater into the center of the mineral zone in order to prevent the contaminated water and the associated uranium and lixivient (the fluid used to liquify the uranium) from escaping.

Without maintaining the cone of depression, groundwater being used for other purposes, such as livestock watering or for drinking water, could be rendered harmful or just plain useless if contaminated by the radioactive waste.

So it is paramount that uranium mining companies take steps to anticipate a shutdown of electrical power that runs those pumps that keep the contamination under control.

In the same way that nuclear reactors need robust backup systems in case of power outages and system failures, uranium mines and processing plants also have a need for backup power. Power to run the pumps that will keep the underground contamination in place must be available at all times, or excursions could occur.

Therefore, a backup generator of sufficient power to run the pumps during a power outage should always be maintained and on-site, to prevent plumes of groundwater contamination from leaving the mine project site.

Oil refineries should also have robust backup power readily available.

There have been all too many incidents in Wyoming of “upsets” at refineries due to a power failure of some type—either because the equipment at a refinery failed to operate, or the electricity powering that equipment went off-line.

The Sinclair refinery is a prime example. The company has two external power sources—but both of which are sourced from the same provider: Rocky Mountain Power. There has been no independent power source at the refinery to kick in when its primary source has failed.

What is needed is a commitment at oil refineries to what engineers call “redundancy” in power supplies.

Systems may fail, but backup systems should be in place that will “carry the load” of critical operations in a refinery, or allow it to shut down safely until power can be restored, or the system repaired.

Greater regulation is also required. Too often in the past—when power outages have resulted in emissions of dangerous gases at refineries—the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality has greeted such news with a shrug, and usually condones such occurrences as unavoidable.

Many of these occurrences, however, are indeed avoidable with appropriate systems in place.

As I write this thousands, and perhaps millions, of human beings are facing potentially serious health risks in Japan as radiation escapes from its failing nuclear power plant. Some of these risks might have been avoided if a more robust backup power system had been in place prior to the earthquake and tsunami.

It is incumbent on us learn from this disaster so we can do a better job of protecting people from industrial disasters in the future.

Steve Jones, the Wyoming Outdoor Council’s watershed protection program attorney, can be contacted at steve@wyomingoutdoorcouncil.org or 307-332-7031 x12.

THE WIND RIVER BASIN BOUNDS the southeastern edge of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem and is one of the richest wildlife areas remaining in the Northern Rockies.

Its public lands contain some of America’s finest wildlife habitats, intact historic trails, dramatic open spaces, and wildlands.

These priceless values remain because development here has been relatively minimal compared to many other important wildlife regions in the West.

With thoughtful management we can ensure that open spaces survive and wildlife will continue to thrive here.

Click here or on the image of the newsletter to read the Wyoming Outdoor Council’s spring 2011 Frontline.

Calling all facebook users

By Jamie Wolf

YOU CAN HELP US ADVANCE our reputation and achieve our mission by increasing our presence in the social networking world of facebook.

As I write this, 346 people on facebook currently “like” the Wyoming Outdoor Council.

Considering that we have 1,400 members, and many of them are on facebook, we have an opportunity to grow that number and spread the word even wider about the environment and public lands in Wyoming.

You can help us grow that number to better re?ect our in?uence on environmental issues in Wyoming.

I have three simple requests of you:

1. If you haven’t already, ?nd and “Like” us on facebook. To do this, click here or type in Wyoming Outdoor Council in your facebook search browser. Like us by clicking “like” with the thumbs-up icon. It’s easy and free! You can do it right now.
2. Get the most current conservation news from around the state by visiting the Outdoor Council’s facebook page. Help bring our page to your friends by “liking” and “commenting” on the posts that appeal to you. This helps us engage with members and friends and it fosters feedback and discussion. Furthermore, these “Likes” and “Comments” help raise our pro?le on facebook.
3. Check back regularly to see if there are any new posts you can “like” and “comment” on to keep our page alive and talkin’ in the facebook social world. (Each time you come back, you can also see how much our “likes” have grown.)

Facebook is a great networking tool that can be used to demonstrate, share, and ultimately multiply support for our work.

Let’s take advantage of this tool. It can help us achieve lasting protections for the places we all love.

Thanks for your help. Now go get on facebook!

See excerpts below. Click here or on the image for the full story.

by Dustin Bleizeffer on March 15, 2011

Excerpt 1:

Earlier this week, the call for keeping a cool head over the still unfolding nuclear crisis in Japan seemed equally as loud as the call for alarm. For good reason, nations are not — with the exception of Germany — scrambling to power-down their nuclear power fleets. Health care professionals in the U.S. were not recommending that everyone along the West Coast ingest a potassium iodide tablet.

However, there is such a thing as playing it too cool — especially a month or two from now. If a major radiation release is avoided, there will be a temptation to write off the Fukushima Daiichi accident as an inevitable part of doing business, and to regard calls for increased regulatory scrutiny as reactionary and a ploy for the anti-nuclear agenda. Call it reverse-reactionary syndrome.

Last spring the offshore oil and gas community declared their very future was in jeopardy when President Obama imposed a moratorium in response to the BP oil spill. The Deepwater Horizon disaster killed 11 workers and ultimately dumped about 200 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. Yet the moratorium, lifted in October, affected 36 exploratory rigs, and oil production was mostly unchanged during the moratorium, according to U.S. Energy Information Administration data.

The oil and gas industry can make a case that increased regulatory scrutiny can slow new discoveries, but it’s unreasonable to insist the BP disaster did not justify a temporary moratorium to assess the situation. [. . . ]

Excerpt 2:

It’s important to be realistic about our reliance on energy, and the difficult choices made in the cost-benefit analysis that goes into every energy source. In this debate there’s always somebody tempted to declare ‘isn’t all of society to blame for the Gulf oil spill and Japanese nuclear crisis?’

No, somebody should be accountable.

“There’s a reason we have these strong laws for environmental protection. They are not a plot to have government intervene in our lives. … The fundamental, underlying question is how to protect public health, and the public welfare,” said Bruce Pendery, staff attorney for the Wyoming Outdoor Council.

Environmental violations are serious, and they should have serious consequences. Whether the public response to Japan’s nuclear crisis will be a measured level of scrutiny, an emotional punishment or an overconfident rejection of industry reforms remains to be seen. [. . .]

Read the full story on WyoFile here.

From the New York Times. Read the story here.

By JOHN M. BRODER and JOHN COLLINS RUDOLF
Published: March 16, 2011

WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency proposed the first national standard for emissions of mercury and other toxins from coal-burning power plants on Wednesday, a rule that could lead to the early closing of dozens of generating stations and is certain to be challenged by the utility industry and Republicans in Congress.

Read the full story here.

by Environment & Energy Daily on March 15, 2011

Reprinted in full here with permission from Environment & Energy Publishing, LLC. www.eenews.net.

By Scott Streater, E&E reporter

A voluntary agreement by a Houston-based energy company to scale back a drilling project in the Bridger-Teton National Forest and win public support for the proposal appears to have galvanized opposition to it.

The U.S. Forest Service has received nearly 40,000 written comments since it released a draft environmental impact statement (EIS) in December of Plains Exploration & Production Co.’s (PXP) proposal to drill as many as 136 natural gas wells on 17 well pads across a roughly 20,000-acre section of the southwest Wyoming national forest. The public comment period ended on Friday.

Read the full story here.