Men's Journal writer Mark Binelli explores Wyoming and finds it "droughty"

Men's Journal writer Mark Binelli dropped into The Big Square States of Colorado and Wyoming this past summer. He wanted to see what the heck was going on with all this drought and record-breaking heat and cataclysmic fires and dying cattle. He's another in a long procession of coasters who have ventured West to bring reports of the frontier back to the settled multitudes. Nothing wrong with that. Mark Twain did it. He wasn't from any coast, unless you consider him a denizen of the Mississippi River coast, and he did end up living in Connecticut. But writers dropping into Wyoming to explore the curious ways of its populace has a long tradition.

So what did Binelli find? We're in the shit, climate-change-wise. Wyoming cattlemen are worried about the drought and the heat but they also pooh-pooh talk of global warming and hate the federal gubment. Nothing new about that. But Binelli does actually interview real people, as a any good reporter would. He attends a cattle auction in ultra-conservative Torrington (Freedom!) and sits down to breakfast with rancher Bob Cress of La Grange. At the auction, he overhears a couple of cowboys making small talk. One asked another how he's doing. "Droughty," says the other. Droughty -- I like that. It's funny, too, a little poke in the eye to Old Man Drought. That might tell you more about rural Wyoming than a slew of magazine stories. Read the entire Men's Journal article at http://www.mensjournal.com/magazine/will-the-west-survive-20121123?

More scary talk about global warming, water, Wyoming and the West

Batches of thoughtful people in the West are tackling the issue of climate change (see previous post). In Wyoming, the UW Ruckelshaus Institute of Environment and Natural Resources (ENR) just issued a 28-page report, "Assessing the Future of Wyoming's Water Resources: Adding Climate Change to the Equation."

First of all, the title says "Climate Change." That's pretty good for our very conservative state. Climatechangeclimatechangeclimatechange.

The report itself mentions "global warming," even saying that man has played a role in it. The report stops short of labeling the situation as man-made global warming or, as befitting the Equality State, human-caused global warming.

It's an easy read, chock full of facts, charts, graphs, pretty color photos and scary text. Here's an example of the latter:

"This report covers what we know and what we wish we knew about Wyoming and the West's changing climate and the various impacts on water resources," says Wyoming State Climatologist Steve Gray, the lead author and director of the Water Resources Data System at UW. "What we do know is that Wyoming's water resources are highly sensitive to climate change. This is because Wyoming is a relatively dry state, a headwaters state, and because we are so reliant on mountain snow, the main source of surface water for the entire year."

Gray explains that downstream states are somewhat buffered from the types of drought seen in the historical record: Dryness in one area can often be offset by wet conditions in another. In many cases, through compacts and decrees, water is stored upstream for these states.

Will there come a time when we throw these moldy old 19th-century water pacts out the window and just decide to keep our snowmelt? In the West, that would be tantamount to a declaration of war. I can see the headline now:

Wyomingites dam North Platte; Cornhuskers steamed

CHEYENNE -- Activists from Protect Our Wyoming Water (POWW) finished damming the North Platte on Tuesday where the river crosses into Nebraska southeast of Torrington.

"We threw all the Democrats we could find into the narrows," said POWW leader Bob Huntley. "Some water was still getting through, so we had to round up some Independents and even a few Libertarians. We got 'er done."

Speaking at a press conference in Lincoln, Nebraska Governor Jim Johnson fired a warning shot over Wyoming's bow. He actually fired a warning shot from his deer
rifle. It fell a few hundred miles short of the border.

He went on: "This will not stand. Tear down this dam, Mr. Huntley. Tear it down. And don't forget to administer CPR to the Libertarians."

Then all hell breaks loose. Imagine the chaos. The big question is: would Cheyenne use its nukes?

Perhaps it will never come to this.

But it looks grim.

The UW report concludes that "there is mounting evidence that the Earth is experiencing a warming trend," and, as a result, "any increase in temperature will increase the impact of drought just as population growth and other factors have greatly increased the West's vulnerability to water shortages."

Graphs and figures in the report illustrate datasets on past climates, including tree-ring studies in which scientists look at the widths of annual growth rings in trees to reconstruct a detailed history of ancient droughts. Based on these and other data, scientists can then create scenarios that enable them to examine how future climate change might influence water resources.

"If the dry periods of the 1700s were to return, there would be substantial consequences, and this makes climate change of any type a key factor to consider
as we plan for the future of Wyoming's water resources," Gray says.

"When it comes to our western water resources, there is no slack in the system," says Gray. "Managing for the combined effects of drought and warmer temperatures will be a key challenge in the future."

We're screwed. More severe drought, less snow, shrinking mountain glaciers, hordes of hungry pine beetles, and the traditional Republican-controlled legislature and the all-Republican Congressional delegation.

We're really screwed.

How the West Was Warmed --in lurid detail

Haven't read this book yet, but was drawn to the cover, which shows the devastation caused by the pine bark beetle. Scene on the cover looks like Colorado's Lake Granby. Also, one of the contributors is the very fine writer Laura Pritchett from Fort Collins.

See more at http://www.howthewestwaswarmed.com

"Chinatown" on Grist's "green" list

Besides offering comprehensive coverage of environmental issues, Grist magazine periodically offers up "green lists" of movies, cities, politicians, colleges, etc. The mag's list of 15 green movies includes the expected documentaries, such as "An Inconvenient Truth" and "Who Killed the Electric Car," but also some surprises such as "Chinatown." This is my favorite movie because of the acting of Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway, plus the twisted, intriguing plot that keeps its secret until the end. Grist likes it for the subplot that runs underneath the action: L.A.'s insatiable thirst and its history of water grabs. Nicholson's character, private eye Jake Gittes, asks rich-guy bad-guy John Huston how much money he needs. But this aqua-tycoon not only wants more money, but all the water in California and, the creepy heart of the matter: his daughter's (and her daughter's) sexual favors. The movie's title could have been "Greed" but it was already taken. Those Seven Deadly Sins just keep on giving.

See Grist's green movie list at http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2007/06/29/movies/

Cheyenne wins award for water recycling

You have to take water seriously when living in the semi-arid West. We get about 15 inches of moisture annually in southeastern Wyoming, although at times this summer it’s felt as if 15 inches were falling in each storm. But we’re about average now, after a so-so snow year and a dry spring.

That’s why it was great news to hear about the City of Cheyenne winning an award for its innovative water recycling project, which saves the city a million gallons of water per day. The Environmental Protection Agency, a federal office that’s almost as beloved in WYO at the Bureau of Land Management, gave Cheyenne is PISCES award. It recognizes the creative use of federal funds to "improve wastewater restructure."

Cheyenne cleanses its waste water with "beneficial bacteria" and untraviolet light to turn it into "Class A" recycled water which is then used to water city parks. Clint Bassett, water conservation specialist with the Board of Public Utilities, says that this water would have been clean enough to meet drinking water standards 30 years ago. It also saves the city money.

I’ll think about this when I pay my next BOPU bill. I have to use regular city water on my lawn, which costs $3.59 per thousand gallons. Recycled water costs $2.70 per thousand gallons. But how would I get access to it? I’d need separate pipes, which would be an investment for me and for the city. I guess I’ll just have to look forward to the day that all city water is purified recycled water. And that day may not be too far off.

Rock Springs and Green River are two other Wyoming towns with recycling projects. More to come, I’m sure, in this land of little rain but lots of wind.

Speaking of wind, when will each of our houses be equipped with energy-producing windmills? I have seen some of these smaller units in back of rural homes. There’s a guy on the road from Laramie to Centennial who uses solar panels and a windmill for his prairie home’s energy needs. He undoubtedly has a well for water.

These are the innovative people that will give us energy sufficiency in the future. A great time to be a power innovator, or an engineer in environmentally friendly energy production. Writers, notoriously worthless in these areas, can at least spread the word.

Something there is that doesn't love a lawn

My friend John in Cheyenne has a lawn full of weeds. And he doesn’t mind. Deep down, he has some suburban guilt, I’m sure, a yearning for a yard full of lush bluegrass. But he seldom voices it. He’s single, recently retired, and travels often, leaving his cats in my care. I shake my head at his weed patch, underfed and under-watered, and then I go into his house and feed and water his two cats. He loves his pets, but he’s given up on lawns. He mows every couple weeks, just so he won’t get ticketed by the weed police. That’s the extent of his lawn maintenance regimen.

I spend too much time on my lawn. When my wife and I bought this house in 2005, we loved the big backyard. It was November but we could tell that the present owner took care of his place. Mature trimmed trees, thick weed-free grass, and flower beds bedded down for winter. The house was 45 years old but fully renovated with a big kitchen. I loved the new stove, my wife loved the polished wood floors, my daughter loved the basement and its huge bedroom and private entrance and cable-ready TV and big closet.

This is our second summer in the house. We spend as much time in the backyard as we can, since summer is fleeting. We play fetch with the dogs and play bocce ball on weekends. As I cook over my 15-year-old gas grill, I sip my beer, look out on the lawn, and admire my handiwork. I prepped the lawn last September and fertilized it in spring. I enjoyed mowing the first few times but now it’s turned old hat and I’m thinking of drafting my daughter to the task. But it looks great, my patch of green.

The city lets me water my greensward on Sundays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays, before 9 a.m. and after 5 p.m. I water the old-fashioned way, dragging the house up one side and down the other. My neighbor urges me to get a sprinkler system but I’m cool to the idea. A sprinkler system would take me out of the picture. I might forget the fact that grass takes water and we live in a semi-arid climate. My liberal self takes me to task. "Christ on a crutch, man, don’t you know there’s a drought on?" I do. We’re ten years into a seven-year drought. No end in sight.

And still I water the lawn. I love my patch of grass. It's not really cool to say so, but there you have it.

I have a secret long-range plan. Not so secret, really, because last weekend I pressed my family into service as rock gatherers. We traveled up to southern Wyoming's Laramie Range and collected skull-sized red granite chunks along the roadside. We brought them down to Cheyenne and loaded them into the backyard and made a rock garden. First we had to dig out the weeds and place the big rocks on the bare ground in an artistic way. Then we sprinkled river rocks amongst those and now we have 50 square feet of decorative rock. Add that to the 100 square feet or so already dressed in rock, and I guess that five percent of the yard is now xeriscaped. I plan to add another 50-100 feet before the first snow. Give me five more summers, and half of the yard will not need watering. We’ll keep a swatch of grass big enough for bocce ball, fetch, and dog poop. But that’s it.

As I labor, John and his cats watch me from the picture window. "Poor sucker," they say (and purr). "Doesn’t he know that weeds are the best cure for a big yard?"