Tell the EPA that you want clean Wyoming air

Cheyenne writer Edith Cook writes thoughtful op-ed pieces for our local paper, the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle. Her favorite subject is the environment, mostly how Wyoming stacks up against the rest of the world when it comes to environmental protections, renewable energy, recycling, etc.

In Friday's WTE, she issued a call for the implementation of new Environmental Protection Agency clean air standards for outdated Wyoming power plants. These standards are opposed by our Governor and legislature and our entire Congressional delegation.

One of the themes running through Edith's piece is the traditional tug-of-war between the state's two major industries: Energy extraction and tourism. Tourists prefer pretty landscapes and clean air. Energy companies tend to dig up landscapes and pollute the air. When writers or musicians or artists bring up these uncomfortable facts, all heck breaks loose. 

But the EPA wants to hear from Wyomingites on these new clean air standards. You can bypass the middleman and write an e-mail or a letter to the following (thanks to Edith for this info). Be sure to comment by tomorrow (Aug. 26) and reference Docket ID No. EPA–R08–OAR–2012–0026:

visit http://www.regulations.gov and follow the simple instructions for submitting comments;

email comments to: r8airrulemakings@epa.gov;

fax comments to: (303) 312–6064;

snail-mail comments to: Carl Daly, Director, Air Program, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Region 8, Mailcode 8P– AR, 1595 Wynkoop Street, Denver, Colorado 80202–1129.

Wyoming Outdoor Council's Frontline investigates smog problems in the oil and gas fields

From the WOC Frontline:

Clean air in Wyoming has perhaps been taken for granted over the years. But, as unbelievable as it may seem, in the second decade of the 21st century, Wyoming is facing a smog problem. Click here to read the Wyoming Outdoor Council’s winter issue of Frontline.

Laramie River station one of the nation's dirtiest power plants

The EPA may not be working very effectively when it comes to protecting our air and water. But it will be totally toothless if the all-Republican Wyoming Congressional delegation gets its way.

From WPR:

Wyoming is home to one of the nation’s dirtiest power plants, according to a new study by the Environmental Integrity Project. The report examined emissions reports from power plants around the country and found that Basin Electric’s Laramie River station is one of the top 10 emitters of arsenic, chromium, nickel and selenium. Those are all toxic heavy metals.

FMI: http://wyomingpublicmedia.org/post/wyoming-home-one-one-countrys-filthiest-power-plants#.TuJLpe5c63Y.email

Julene Bair in New York Times: Biggest threat to Ogallala Aquifer is corn farming, not XL pipeline

Julene Bair

Essayist Julene Bair moved away from southeast Wyoming a few years back. We still miss you, Julene!

Her words resonate, no matter where she plants herself. She grew up a farmer’s daughter in Kansas. She’s spent most of her writing life exploring that legacy, most notably in “One Degree West: Confessions of a Plainsdaughter,” which won the Willa Award from Women Writing the West. She’s won creative writing fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Wyoming Arts Council.

Julene, now living in Longmont, Colo., penned an essay for yesterday’s New York Times. The topic is a timely one – the Keystone XL pipeline. Opponents contended that any leak from the pipeline would permanently contaminate the land and water in the sensitive Nebraska Sand Hills. The Ogallala Aquifer rests beneath the sand hills and 174,000 square miles of crop and range land from South Dakota to Texas. Problem is, chemicals used for corn growing have already polluted the aquifer. In the essay, “Running Dry on the Great Plains,” Julene makes a plea for a saner dry-land farming policy:

Why haven’t viable environmental groups formed to protect the Ogallala? Because corn contributes so much to the economy that its reign is seldom questioned. Federal subsidy payments to corn growers and the federal mandate to produce ethanol underwrite the waste and pollution.

These subsidies should end. When the farm bill comes up for reauthorization next year, Congress should instead pay farmers to reduce their dependence on irrigation and chemicals. The eastern Nebraska climate is moist enough to grow corn without irrigation. That is how the University of Nebraska football team came to be the Cornhuskers. And the more arid High Plains to the west are known as the nation’s breadbasket because wheat, a drought-tolerant crop, thrives there.

Read the rest at http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/01/opinion/polluting-the-ogallala-aquifer.html

Julene’s bog: www.julenebair.com or find her work on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Julene-Bair-Author-Essays-Memoirs/309113472445879

Tests of Pavillion groundwater show levels of carcinogen benzene at 50 times the EPA limit

From the Billings Gazette:

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said it has found high levels of benzene and other chemicals in the latest groundwater samples from a community within a gas field.

A variety of chemicals and high levels of methane turned up in two wells drilled specifically to test for pollution in the central Wyoming community of Pavillion.

The carcinogen benzene measured as high as 50 times the EPA limit, according to a report released at an EPA public meeting Wednesday night in Pavillion.

Elevated levels of diesel- and gasoline-grade organic compounds also were found.

Meanwhile, the EPA has sampled 42 domestic water wells to date, finding methane in 10 wells and a chemical called 2-butoxyethanol phosphate in nine.

The EPA told the 50 or so attendees at the meeting that people with polluted water should not use it for cooking and drinking and should ventilate their bathrooms while bathing or showering.

The warning also was issued in Pavillion last year.

Read more: http://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/wyoming/article_06f19c56-0bea-11e1-85f1-001cc4c002e0.html#ixzz1dSfeGd44

That Was The Week That Was In Wyoming

Oregon Buttes: Not worth protecting

Rough week for forward-thinking people here in Wyoming. Let me see if I can sum it up:

No "crown jewels" protection for our natural treasures

Check.

FMI: Wyoming fails to identify lands worth saving (KGWN) and BLM: No "crown jewels" worth saving (CST)

Drill, baby, drill -- and feel free to poison the air with ozone

Check.

Lungs of Sublette County residents: Not worth protecting

FMI: http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9PGLI3G0.htm (thanks to Mead Gruver at AP article via Business Week) and this media release from the Wyoming Outdoor Council.

Superintendent of Public Instruction Cindy Hill attempts to make up her own personnel rules. On the "good news" side, the WY AG rules that she can't do that. More bad news: the fight isn't over

Check.

FMI: http://trib.com/news/state-and-regional/article_fc22d342-a26c-5071-ab10-f0385ae6d876.html (Casper Star-Tribune)

Put all juvenile offenders into adult prisons and throw away the key

Check.

FMI: http://blowinginthewyomingwind.blogspot.com/2011/08/wyomings-tradtion-of-selling-out.html

(thanks to Rev. Rodger McDaniel, who's always on the case when it comes to healthcare and youth issues)

WY juvenile offenders: Not worth protecting (Getty Images)

Shoot all wolves on sight!

Check.

FMI: http://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/wyoming/article_d17eccac-d641-11e0-af80-001cc4c002e0.html

Koch Brothers-sponsored Tea Party Express rolls into Cheyenne. WY Dr. Sen. John Barrasso is one of the speakers. He thanks Tea Partiers "for all that you're doing to reclaim America."

Check (and please stop laughing at our esteemed senator).

Get the lowdown (with many fine comments) at "Tea Party members attempt to clarify what they stand for" (neat header, WY Tribune-Eagle)

More fun next week...

Montana bloggers get jump on Yellowstone River spill

It took a few days for the Exxon-Mobil oil pipeline spill to show up in mainstream media.

But Montana bloggers were on the story from the get-go. Start by dialing in jhwygirl's July 2 post at 4&20blackbirds and keep reading. On July 2, we all were sitting along the shores of at least one pristine Wyoming stream while jhwygirl was sharing posts and photos of a huge spill into the Yellowstone that eventually went to the Missouri and now, according to this morning's NPR interview with Mont. Gov. Brian Schweitzer, is all the way to North Dakota.

Here's one July 2 photo from the owner of the Blue Creek Farms ranch:

The State of Montana as slow to respond and Exxon-Mobil even tardier. But the outrage was clear on the blogs (Twitter, too but I haven't checked it out).

Rob Kailey's been posting from Left in the West. Yesterday's post is particularly poignant. While he points out a report about the spill from crooks & liars, he also notes that comments to the post are particularly mean-spirited when it comes to Red-State Westerners. Go see Rob's comments to the commenters, as he says it much better than I can.

Reminder to me and my readers: "Be Kind." That was Kurt Vonnegut's favorite advice. My mother's, too. Probably your mom's too. It's so easy to say things online that you wish you could take back. I've done it. Next time disaster strikes, remember that those are people under that tornado or in the path of the wildfire or along a polluted river in Montana. People, not statistics, not "those people" who may have voted against you.

Just what are those chemicals used in fracking?

I was watching the CBS 60 Minutes segment tonight ("Shaleionaires") about natural gas drilling and horizontal drilling and fracking in shale formations. Most of the episode was set in Louisiana and Texas and West Virginia. One guy demonstrated how he could light his water on fire.

This issue has come up in Pavillion, Wyoming, and has been well-documented. Wyoming is now the only state that requires companies to release the chemicals used in fracking. Kind of hard to believe that our oil-and-gas-and-coal state had the foresight to make a stand on fracking. Too bad CBS didn't talk about that.

Oil shale drilling is booming in Laramie, Platte and Goshen counties here in Wyoming. Lots of talk about danger to our water supplies but no hard data yet. Or maybe I should say -- no hard data that's been released to the public.

More later....

Feds to Pavillionites: Don't drink the water!

This post goes along with my earlier one about Laramie County Niobrara Shale drilling boom. At Tuesday's meeting, saw a nice film clip about horizontal drilling and fracking from Noble Energy, one of the boom's major players. It went into details about how drillers take pains to protect the water table. It rang with sincerity. But I wonder: Did Pavillion residents see a similar video before drilling and fracking started in their area?

See the PBS report at http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know/environment/feds-warn-residents-near-wyoming-gas-drilling-sites-not-to-drink-their-water/3338/

Wyoming Cold War residue could harm "our precious bodily fluids"

In "Dr. Strangelove," when Col. Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden) starts talking about commies poisoning "our precious bodily fluids," Group Captain Mandrake (Peter Sellers) realizes his commander is nuts. So nuts, in fact, that Ripper has launched World War III.

Col. Ripper says this: "Do you realize that fluoridation is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous communist plot we have ever had to face? On no account will a Commie ever drink water, and not without good reason."

Baby Boomers probably remember that the John Birch Society made hay with the conspiracy theory that commies somehow arranged to fluoridate our water to neuter God-fearing Americans in time of war, cold or hot.

But the Birchers should have been more concerned with the trichloroethylene (TCE) used to clean our own nukes, here in Wyoming and elsewhere. TCE has been poisoning our precious bodily fluids for 50 years, rendering us useless against attacks by commies, Saddam Hussein's WMDs, swine flu, feminists, wayward Yellowstone wolves, atheists and any other menace (real or imagined) wingnuts can devise.

A plume of TCE, maybe one of the largest in the country, is moving toward Cheyenne. One of these days, it may lurk right under our house near Yellowstone Blvd.

Actually, we already have contamination in our neighborhood from Cold War chemicals used on Wyoming Air National Guard's aircraft. TCE and carbon tetrachloride have been seeping from the sprawling Guard base south of us since the 1960s. To the Guard's credit, it has been on this issue since I moved to the neighborhood back in 2005. I receive frequent mailings on the clean-up status. There's a monitoring station in Mylar Park, just a 10-minute walk from our house. A trench 100 feet long and 35 feet deep is being dug in the park to try to contain the seeping solvents. Groundwater that flows into the trench will be treated and discharged into nearby Dry Creek. The goal, according to an Air Guard release from 2008, "is to prevent further underground contamination and keep the chemicals from getting into the creek."

But the TCE plume at F.E. Warren AFB is more problematical. Between 1960-64, USAF personnel used thousands of gallons of the chemical to clean Atlas rocket engines once the fuel had been removed. The used solvent went into unlined pits and eventually trickled down into the aquifer. For many years, the Air Force and the Army Corps of Engineers refused to acknowledge a problem. Then tests were conducted by the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality. The Corps still did nothing. And in 2007 Sen. John Barrasso got involved. Amazing the difference a U.S. Senator can make when he sets his mind to it. Studies were conducted on this substance that may cause cancer. The obstinate Corps chief was replaced by one more accountable to the citizenry. A a major report detailing clean-up solutions will be issued in September. You can hear the details at a public meeting July 28, 6 p.m., in the Cottonwood Room at the Laramie County Public Library in Cheyenne.

The reason I bring this up? Jared Miller wrote an excellent series of articles for today's Casper Star-Tribune about this threat from the bad old days of the Cold War. Read the series at http://www.casperstartribune.com/articles/2009/07/12/news/wyoming/813bd62b38077e9b872575f00020f944.txt