Tristan Ahtone

Wyoming strives to curb ozone levels to meet federal mandate

The Department of Energy announced Friday that water being provided to residents of the Wind River Reservation is safe to drink.

Last week, DOE officials confirmed that tap water in four households on the reservation showed elevated levels of uranium nearly twice the legal limit.

This week, the DOE’s April Gil said in a statement that the elevated levels were inaccurate, the tap water has been retested, and is safe for consumption.

Gil says residents have been notified that their water is safe to drink, and that uranium in the tap water is well below the legal limit.

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.

Last week, the Department of Energy announced that uranium at nearly twice the legal limit had been found in the tap water of four households on the Wind River Reservation. The event marks another incident in a long and troubled history in the area.  Wyoming Public Radio's Tristan Ahtone brings us this report on the find.

A steady decline in rain and snow may put farmers and ranchers in a bad spot this year. That’s ccording to the Natural Resources Conservation Service.Last year at this time, many places in the state had snow pack between 150- and 200-percent of average, but this year, it's 39 percetn of average.

After threatening the closure of over 40 post offices around the state, the U.S. Postal Service has pulled back and put a new proposal on the table: post offices will stay open, retail hours will be cut, and postmasters will be offered early retirement.

The USPS estimates that the move could save more than 500-milllion dollars a year while saving rural post offices, and Wyoming Postal spokesman David Rupert says offices will still be manned by postal employees.

“Many of them would be part-time basis, they wouldn’t have the full salary, nor would they have the full slate of benefits, so that’s where a lot of the savings would come from,” says Rupert.

On Friday, the Bureau of Land Management released new proposals to regulate hydraulic fracturing on public and tribal lands.

Proponents have seen the rules as base-line protection for residents in all states, opponents see them as redundant and bad for business.

Governor Mead says he’s troubled by the rules because Wyoming’s Fracking standards are already more stringent than what the federal government is proposing.

“The problem with it is we want to have initiatives in our states that step up and be proactive on these types of issues,” says Mead. “I think that it’s a bit of disincentive when the federal government steps in and says ‘hey, we’re going to have a cookie cutter approach’.”

Tribal officials on the Wind River Reservation continue to seek answers after the Department of Energy announced that uranium was found in some residents' tap water.

DOE officials announced last week that data collected in the fall indicated that four households near a former uranium waste site had levels of uranium nearly twice the legal limit.

The Bureau of Land Management has released a proposal to regulate hydraulic fracturing on public and tribal lands. Under the proposed rules, companies that use fracking would need to disclose chemicals used in the process after the job was finished, and would have to address issues related to waste water and drill holes.

Kathleen Sgamma is a spokesperson for Western Energy Alliance. She says the proposed regulations would be bad for business, which she says already faces excessive bureaucratic hurdles.

“It’s really not about a federal floor, it’s not just about setting standards, it’s really about a new regulatory regime which really BLM is ill-equipped to take on,” says Sgamma.

Tribal officials on the Wind River Reservation continue to seek answers after the Department of Energy announced that uranium was found in some residents' tap water.

DOE officials announced Wednesday evening that data collected last fall indicated that four households near a former uranium waste site had levels of uranium nearly twice the legal limit.

Dean Goggles is executive Director for the Wind River Environmental Quality Commission.

“I think we need to re-test again and look at the results and see what it shows us,” says Goggles. “But for the future for the site itself, we're still looking at it, we still have a lot of questions. I have to answer to the residents down there, so I have to ask those questions too.”

The Department of Energy says elevated levels of uranium have been found in drinking water on the Wind River Reservation. At a public meeting in Riverton, the DOE confirmed that four households on Wind River showed levels of uranium up to twice the legal limit set by the Environmental Protection Agency. 

Officials are warning that despite current wet weather, the risk of statewide fire danger will be high in the coming months.

Bill Crapser is Wyoming’s State Forester. He says, so far, this spring has seen a large amount of fires due to drier weather… and despite recent spates of rain and snow and a temporary reduction in fires, Crapser says he expects more in the near future.

"The National Weather Service and all of their forecasts are for a warmer, dryer than normal summer season. So given the fuels that were out there from last year, because of the amount of moisture we had, given the pine beetle situation in a lot of our forests, we’re, predicting a fairly active fire season. "

A Tuesday oil rig accident northeast of Douglas continues to spew gas into the atmosphere.

At last count, 50 of 67 residents volunteered to evacuate the surrounding area of the leak, staying in hotels paid for by the site’s natural gas operator Chesapeake Energy.

No injuries have been reported.

Oil and gas commissioner Tom Doll says it’s unclear how much gas has been lost.

“Most of these well after they’re completed in the Niobrara formation would be producing around one-million cubic feet per day,” says Doll. “Since this well has lost control, it was in the drilling phase and not in the completion phase, it’s hard to say if it reached those rates or not.”

A natural gas leak 10 miles northeast of Douglas has caused dozens of residents to evacuate their homes.

The natural gas site, operated by Cheasapeake Energy, began leaking gas around 4pm yesterday, and by last night, Chesapeake official John Dill says area residents were notified that they should evacuate.

"We contacted approximately 67 residents in homes in about a 2.5 mile radius of this location, and asked them to consider a voluntary evacuation to area hotels, which is going to be paid for by the company," says Dill.

Of the approximately 67 residents contacted, Dill says about 50 relocated temporarily.

Dill also says no injuries occurred when the well began leaking, and that according to the companies air sampling of the area, things appear normal.