Rebecca Martinez

Concerns about possible water shortages have lead the Riverton City Council to adopt a drought plan and implement mild restrictions. Under the plan’s level green, there are no restrictions. The current yellow level asks residents to conserve water voluntarily. Voluntary water conservation measures include fixing leaks and avoiding watering lawns during the hottest parts of the day.

The Bureau of Land Management will auction off wild horses at the Wyoming Honor Farm in Riverton Saturday morning. Wild horses have no natural predators in Wyoming, so the BLM captures the horses and hosts adoptions to control the population and prevent forage scarcity. BLM Wild Horse Specialist Steve Fluer says buyers adopt wild horses for pleasure, novelty, ranch work, and a variety of other reasons. "They’re very agile. They’re very sure footed. They come in a variety of colors. Kinda the mystique to the American public… they’re sort of a legend in the sense. You know, some people just wanna have a wild horse."  Honor Farm inmates have gentled the horses, which means teaching them to be caught, enter a trailer and accept a saddle.

Wyoming strives to curb ozone levels to meet federal mandate

Casper has begun banning grass clippings and other yard waste from the trash that goes into their landfill. Officials expect it to save the city tens of thousands of dollars, but people who are into living green are pretty excited, too. Wyoming Public Radio’s Rebecca Martinez reports.

(sound of mulch mower cutting grass)

REBECCA MARTINEZ: Hear that? That’s the sound of Casper saving money… Okay, it’s the sound of a mulch mower. Casper parks department employee Ryan Prior is cutting the grass in Mike Sedar Park on a sunny afternoon. The mower looks like a typical ride-on, but it doesn’t have a bag collecting clippings. The mulch mower chops the clippings into tiny particles and deposits them back into the grass, fertilizing the lawn.

(sound of a mulch mower)

The Buffalo Bill Historic Center in Cody will host a “First Look” at the museum’s reinstallation. The Buffalo Bill Museum recently wrapped up a two-year campaign, during which it raised 2-point-7-5 million dollars to cover renovations and update technology.

Executive Director Bruce Eldredge says the museum will offer updated website components, videos and smart phone apps that share additional information about objects in exhibit.

“This is the way the most museums are moving now, because audiences under the age of 40 or 45 require and expect to learn using that technology," Eldredge said. "Our exhibition that we had before the renovation was done 25 years ago. And it certainly did not meet any of the modern technological needs that our current visitors have.”

It’s American Craft Beer Week, and Wyoming microbrewers are unveiling their collaborative effort on tap.
This spring, the state’s 13 microbreweries gathered at Wind River Brewing Company in Pinedale to make the country’s first 100-percent participation collaboration brew.

Steve Simpson is the head brewmaster at Snowy Mountain Brewery, and came up with the idea for the project.

“It’s a IPA and it’s really hopped. Heavy. We all used the hops everybody brung. We all brung about 5 pounds of hops. So for 12 breweries, so it’s about between 50 and 60 pounds of hops we put into it.”

Simpson says their collaboration, called “WY-P-A” will be available at microbrewery’s across the state this week.

Election year politics are derailing efforts to improve Wyoming’s economy.
President Obama is chiding Congress for not acting on his slimmed down plan to spur economic growth in Wyoming and elsewhere. Matt Laslo reports from Washington that election year politicking is expected to derail this latest effort to get the economy moving.

Wyoming Highway 130 between Saratoga and Centennial could open two weeks early this year because of mind winter weather.

The Wyoming Department of Transportation is working to remove remaining ice and snow. Tim McGary is WYDOT’s district maintenance engineer for Southeast Wyoming.

“We’ve had significantly less snow up there – in a lot of places less than 50 percent of the normal snowpack – so we have had to use a lot less equipment and we started earlier because a lot of the road was already bare.”

McGary says the goal is usually to open the road by Memorial Day, but Wyoming-130 could open as soon as Monday. McGary cautions motorists that late spring storms could still compromise the roadway.

Authorities are investigating a factory pork farm in Wheatland after the Humane Society filed a complaint about harsh treatment of pigs there.

The Humane Society sent an undercover investigator to work at Wyoming Premium Farmsfor an unknown period of time, where she filmed workers kicking piglets and punching sows. The group sent complaints and videos to the Platte County Sheriff’s Office and the Wyoming Livestock Board.
The sheriff was unavailable for comment, but Jim Siler of the Livestock Board says they’ve begun investigating conditions at the farm.

Gov. Matt Mead says he opposes a federal proposal to reduce the amount of public land in Wyoming available for possible oil shale development.

Last week, Mead sent a letter to the Bureau of Land Management to disagree with their plan that would exclude oil shale development in places with wilderness characteristics and in areas of critical environmental concern.

Oil shale development involves extracting a petroleum-substance called kerogen that can be cooked and potentially turned into a liquid fuel. The process is known to use a lot of water.

Meadsays he believes decisions about mineral development restrictions should include local input.

A group of Pavillion residents says Wyoming officials betrayed them by delaying the release of information tentatively connecting hydraulic fracturing with groundwater pollution in the area.

An Associated Press investigation shows that Gov. Matt Mead convinced the Environmental Protection Agency to delay its draft report on the contamination by a full month. Mead and other state officials used the extra time to try and debunk the findings before they could harm the oil and gas industries.

The EPA has since agreed to conduct more testing and submit to further scientific review before compiling a final report.

Wyoming has hired seven new Occupational Safety and Health Administration safety consultants to improve workplace safety in the state.

Workplace safety has been a real problem in Wyoming. The state ranked among the top two in the nation in workplace fatalities in eight of the last nine years. 

John Ysebaert of Workforce Services will oversee the program. He says that, instead of doling out fines for workplace safety violations, the OSHA consultants willhelp small businesses to develop and comply with safety requirements on a voluntary basis.

“Most employers have a great interest in keeping their workers safe. And, yes, there are some bad actors, but they are few in number,” Ysebaert says.

Casper residents should think twice before tossing yard clippings in the garbage. In May, the city will begin implementing its ban on putting yard waste in dumpsters to be landfilledas a cost cutting measure.

Casper has a composting program that turns yard waste into wood chips and compost for soil, but branches, grass, leaves and other organic matter still make up about 18-percent of what the city pays to put in the landfill.

Municipal Solid Waste Director Cindie Langston says the yard waste ban will take five years to go into full effect, but it will be a cost-effective move for the city.

“In eight years, it saves about half-a-million dollars, which is significant. That’s a whole year’s worth of lined landfill space.”

Analysts are making conflicting predictions about where gas prices will go this summer. Some are forecasting record highs, while others say prices at the pump have already peaked. Businesses in Wyoming’s service industry hope for the latter, as they depend on an injection of tourism dollars each summer. Wyoming Public Radio’s Rebecca Martinez spoke with several businesses near Yellowstone about what might happen if gas prices climb with the temperature.

REBECCA MARTINEZ: Every summer, a healthy stream of tourists passes through Cody into Yellowstone National Park. They stop to eat, shop and pay homage to Buffalo Bill on their way into the wilderness. Scott Balyo, who directs the Cody Chamber of Commerce, says this year should be no different.