Botanist Trevor Bloom doesn't like what he sees in Wyoming's early wildflower blooms

This April 6 WyoFile post brings us more good news about global warming:

Wyoming botanist Trevor Bloom spotted his first springtime blooms of the year on March 28. Bloom, while tracing the footsteps of famed ecologist Frank Craighead at Blacktail Butte in Grand Teton National Park, saw the orogenia linearifolia, or snowdrop, wildflower. 

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a wildflower, besides a dandelion, flowering in March,” Bloom said. The snowdrop bloom was nearly a month earlier than Craighead had recorded in the 1970s. “It means we’re probably going to have a very early spring this year. It probably means that we’re going to have very low water levels, and we’re probably going to have an increased risk of wildfire this year.”

So, early spring, lack of snow, low water levels, and more fires. Ah, summer in the Rockies, 2022.

Seems as if we are ahead of schedule as far as bulb plants. Some of mine already are flowering. The Cheyenne Botanic Gardens show some early blooms in its “Hero Garden” of native plants. Not sure what effects the wild winds have had. Most plants seem to be deciding if it’s safe to raise their heads or if we will have our usual spring of snow and wind and cold punctuated by 60-degree calm and sunny days.

My home gardening will be limited this year. During The Covid Year, I commandeered the kitchen table to sprout my seeds. When June arrived, the containers on the porch were filled, absorbing the sun and hiding from hail. It felt normal, as if a plague wasn’t decimating the globe. We all had our survival; tactics. Some gardened, some baked sourdough loaves, others watched endless video loops on YouTube and TikTok. I gardened and read and wrote. Also, Netflix and Hulu.

I will buy some seedlings and plant seeds. I need to grow something. Call it a celebration of summer’s arrival. It may bring drought and fire. But I’m going to grow flowers and cherry tomatoes beneath my rooftop solar array. The pensive William Wordsworth, wanderer of England’s Lake Country, loved to conjure daffodils when resting on his couch.

They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

Dear Florida: Sorry we burned all of that coal but it couldn't be helped

The February issue of National Geographic features an excellent -- and scary -- article about the effects of global warming on south Florida. As the planet warms and sea levels rise, Miami is destined to be either 1. A floating city; 2. nonexistent. Some are planning for the inevitable. Many are not.

National Geographic maps show one of the worst-case scenarios for sea level rise. In 2100, a five-foot rise is expected, which would inundate most coastal areas.

If sea levels rise five feet, nearly one million of the current homes near the coast will be below the average day’s high tide.

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In total, some $390 billion worth of property could be damaged or lost—a sum fives times as great as Florida’s state budget.

I grew up in one of those sea-level homes a half block from "The World's Most Famous Beach." It's possible I learned my love of hyperbole from Daytona Beach boosters. I did learn to surf and love the ocean. At one time, I was thinking of becoming a marine biologist. My brothers and I arose every morning with dreams of good surf. Often we were disappointed. But we usually spent a part of every day in salt water -- or on it. I wasn't big on fishing but some of my brothers were. We were water people.  

I now live on an ancient seabed in Wyoming. Sometimes, when the wind blows from the southeast, I smell salt water. Sometimes I also smell the refinery, but that's another story. Parts of Wyoming's ancient seabed contain seams of coal produced by flora and fauna from those ancient seas and seashores. For a hundred years or so, we've been digging up the coal to burn in power plants that add pollutants to the air and warm the climate. In this way. we contribute to the sea gobbling up my old Florida home and, one day in the far future, providing some bitchin' surfing in Cheyenne, Wyoming.

In Gov. Mead's State of the State speech this week, he received applause and enthusiastic huzzahs from legislators when he said this:

“In coming years, I will continue to work with bulldog determination on coal initiatives, port expansion, new technology, and value-added products. And in coming years, we don’t need to let up, we need to double down. We must assure coal’s continuity.”

Surf's up!

Homegrown tomatoes a hard row to hoe in Wyoming

Only two things that money can't buy
That's true love & homegrown tomatoes

So sings Guy Clark in "Homegrown Tomatoes." He'll be in Wyoming next weekend, playing at the Targhee Bluegrass Festival at the Grand Targhee Resort at 7,850 feet on the west slope of the Tetons. Not many maters grown at that altitude. Not many grown anywhere in Wyoming.

One two things guaranteed in WYO
High altitude and a short growing season

And, sometimes, hail in July.

So I'm no Guy Clark. But you know what I'm talking about. Homegrown tomatoes are a tough chore here, even if you live in a Banana Belt community such as Lander or Buffalo.

This urban gardener has six plants this year. Plenty of fruit on the vine. Barring a hailstorm or Biblical plague, I expect a fair crop this year. Best not to get too optimistic. Not exactly sure how farmers deal with the vagaries of growing things on a large scale. I was reading yesterday about a hailstorm that decimated the barley crop in Wyoming's Big Horn Basin. The barley plant is at its peak and ready to harvest just when hail season is at its peak. That doesn't seem fair, does it? The blooming barley is delicate and ripe for destruction. Mother Nature is a cruel mistress. Barley, of course, is one of beer's main ingredients. The barley crop in the Basin is bound for big brewers, craft brewers, and home brewers. Whiskey distillers, too, such as Wyoming Whiskey in Kirby.

No barley, no beer. I weep.

Hailstorms tend to be localized so it's likely that some plants survived when the wind tore through the barley. We send our best wishes to the Basin barley growers.

And now, for this gardener, there are tomatoes to tend.

WYO wingnuts to stage "Impeach Obama" protests

Some people are hot under the collar and will stage an anti-Obama protest tomorrow from highway overpasses in Casper. This news comes from the Billings Gazette:

Jacqueline Judd, Wyoming leader of Overpasses for Obama’s Impeachment, said participants in the national movement want the president of the United States to answer for his “tyrannical, treasonous, unconstitutional actions.”

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Judd... said there’s proof Obama forged his birth certificate, declared war on Libya and funded the Muslim Brotherhood and al-Qaida. They want Obama impeached now because they fear he will revoke the right to vote by next fall and seek a third presidential term.

“Many of us believe that if we wait until election time for senators and representatives, we the people will be no more,” Judd said. “We will be under a socialist, communist country, no doubt in my mind.”

Lest you think that Casper will be the only place in Wyoming with wingnuts waving signs from highway overpasses, Judd says that Cheyenne will also hold an overpass protest. Plan on being there from noon-7 p.m. And remember to stay hydrated, people.

You all are a big late with the overpass idea. The innovative Overpass Light Brigade has been stringing lighted protest signs over highways for years. Here's a neat one from Madison, Wisc.:

Thanks to Meg Lanker-Simons at Cognitive Dissonance who tipped me off on the Casper protest. I'm going to miss you, Meg. Give 'em hell in law school.

Seeing new West Coast coal terminals as a red-state, blue-state issue

On Wyofile, San Juan Islands' resident Charlie West offers a tongue-in-cheek modest proposal: You send us your coal, we'll send you our trash.

West notes that the wide open spaces of Wyoming and Montana have plenty of big holes for the trash of the 48 million residents of Washington, Oregon and California. It's only a fair trade, right? You send us your dirty coal and we send you our dirty trash.

A batch of inland Republicans, including our very own Cynthia Lummis, is trying to browbeat Washington's coastal residents in permitting a new coal shipping facility. West reports a lively conversation at the local tavern which goes something like this:

“We’re selling taxpayer-owned coal for next to nothing, so it can be sent somewhere else, to run someone else’s factories, and employ someone else’s people while we don’t have enough jobs in this country?”

“It makes no sense, pollute the air with trains and ships to get the coal there, then they burn it and their pollution drifts back here!”

We all pay for dirty coal. Global warming is real, no matter what the Know Nothings say in my Deep Red State of Wyoming. And while Wyoming rakes in taxes from its oil and gas and coal, including almost a billion federal dollars from energy resources extracted on public land (see previous post), coastal residents pay the price with rising sea levels and whopper storms.

Forward-thinking blue states such as WA, OR and CA invest heavily in alternative energy while WY continues burning and shipping coal. The coal is shipped to China and India where it is burned, creating more CO2 in the atmosphere -- this speeds global warming. The ice sheets melt, forcing a rise in ocean levels which swamps blue-state cities, drowning Liberal, latte-drinking, mountain-bike-riding voters by the millions. Wyoming builds a big wall at its borders to keep out the riff raff. We keep mining and burning and shipping coal, secure in the knowledge that sea levels have to get pretty darn high before bitchin' waves begin to break on the beaches of Cheyenne. Besides, the wall will keep the water out. We'll call them dikes. And we can open our own ports to ship our own coal to China and India, those parts that aren't at the bottom of Davy Jones Locker.

The future's so bright, I gotta wear shades. I better wear shades, what with the dissolving ozone layer and blinding sun and all.

Precious Wyoming water leaves the state with every trainload of coal

Did you know that Wyoming ships its water out of state with each shipment of coal? Maybe I'd heard that before, but sometimes I have to hear it anew for the facts sink in.

One of the speakers at the Wyoming Business Alliance's annual meeting in Cheyenne yesterday was Wanda Burget, director of sustainable development for Peabody Energy, a major coal producer in Wyoming.

Energy producers are notorious water hogs. The fracking process uses notorious amounts of water, polluting it in the process. Energy production is crucial to the state's economy, but we can't drink or eat coal, and our water resources --- lakes, streams, reservoirs -- are at the center of Wyoming's tourist industry.

Casper Star-Tribune business editor Jeremy Fugleberg wrote about the WBA conference in today's edition. Here's an interesting snippet:

Coal from the Powder River Basin is full of water. Burget recognized the Wyoming Research Institute’s work to establish a way to procure the large amount of water shipped out of the state in the coal — about 720 gallons per 1,000 tons of coal, she [Wanda Burget] said.

Let's hope the Wyoming Energy Institute gets busy on finding ways to suck that water out of the coal before it leaves our borders. That's a lot of H2O. According to UW's Coalweb, Wyoming ships 25,882 coal trains out of state each year. Each train has 100-120 hopper cars, each loaded with 100-115 tons of coal. That means that at least 19 trillion gallons of water leave the state annually locked inside lumps of coal. That would slake the thirst of a lot of people and irrigate a lot of crops and absorb the attention of thousands of fishing enthusiasts and boaters. So why isn't Wyoming pouring even more revenue into research on ways to coax the water out of coal?

A trio of Wyoming businesspeople say the future of the state depends on diversifying its economy, developing a statewide water policy, and investing in new technology and infrastructure.

Two of the speakers, members of a panel on Wyoming’s future at the Wyoming Business Alliance’s annual meeting in Cheyenne, said they were troubled by Wyoming’s commodity-dependent economy.

What's to be done? Don't expect much help from our Republican-dominated legislature. The energy industry calls the shots. If the past gives us any clues to activities during the 2013 session, we can anticipate an embarrassing amount of time and energy spent on social issues. Some Republicans seem obsessed with women's reproductive equipment. Others want to stop married LGBT people at the border. Still others openly call state workers "bums" and are intent in taking away our pensions. Others demonize teachers and will again try to strip them of any collective bargaining rights. Who has time to focus on diversifying our economy?

Interested Party blog: Bakken pipeline could mean the end for Wyoming sage grouse

Our blogging pals at Interested Party out of South Dakota had a post this morning about the Bakken Pipeline.

If completed, it would transport raw natural gas liquids (NGLs) south through easternmost Montana and Wyoming into northern Colorado, where it will connect to the existing Overland Pass Pipeline.

It may also spell the end of the threatened Wyoming sage grouse, and endanger equally tenuous (and drought-plagued) water supplies. The pipeline's projected path through Laramie County takes it west of Burns and Carpenter and east of Cheyenne. Did you know that? I didn't.

Read the rest at interested party.

Thanks IP!

While stalking the family tree, I ponder dust storms in the high mountains

Family with trophy tree, Snowy Range, Wyoming

Warm December days, still nights and lunar eclipses probably presage a cold, windy snowy Christmas. But for now, I'm enjoying the weather.

I as thinking of the weather yesterday when hiking up a snow-packed trail near Corner Mountain in the Snowy Range. Our family was in search of our Christmas tree. We don't need snowshoes because we stay on the cross-country ski trail which has been packed down by cross-country skiers and no new snow has been added the past five days.

There's good snowpack this year, thus far, despite the recent warm spell. But if it's to equal last year's record, it will have to start snowing again and keep it coming through May. Last spring and early summer flood warnings were in effect all over Wyoming. This was the second year for that after a decade of drought. That's how it goes in the West.

The snow-melt cycle may be changing, according to an article in the New York Times. Dust that originates in the Four Corners region may be increasing and that may affect what happens in the Rockies each spring. There is an entity invesitating this and you can check out some of their finding at a web site. The Colorado Dust-on-Snow (CODOS) project is part of the Center for Snow and Avalanche Studies based in Silverton, Colo. There may not be a better place for snow and avalanche research than Silverton.

The NYT article was fascinating. Here's an excerpt:

In the last few years, winter dust storms on the high peaks of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado have sharply increased in number, affecting the rate of melting snows into the Colorado River, a main source of water for agriculture and for the drinking supply for more than 20 million people. Of 65 so-called dust-on-snow events since 2003, when tracking began, 32 have struck in just the last three years, according to the Center for Snow and Avalanche Studies, a nonprofit research group based in Silverton, Colo. Dust can accelerate how fast snow melts because it absorbs heat.

“It’s not a mysterious process,” said Chris Landry, the organization’s executive director. “Anybody who has thrown coal dust on their driveway or sidewalk to melt it down knows the theory.”

Much of the dust carries a distinct chemical signature, too, heavy in iron oxides. The same rust-colored mineral that makes red-rock canyon country of Utah and Arizona can also absorb solar energy, again potentially accelerating the rate and timing of snow melt in crucial watersheds.

Looking at the CODOS study map, I notice that two of the research areas are in northern Colorado at the headwaters of the North Platte. I'm going to look into those stats to see how it affects the river that flows through half of Wyoming.

So, at the same time we're getting more snow, it's melting faster. The land dries out and we get more dust storms in Utah, Arizona and California. Visibility suffers. Asthma cases increase. Read Kirk Johnson's Dec. 10 NYT article about changing air quality in the West. 

All of this, of course, is tied in with global climate change.

As I hike the winter Rockies, I think about that all that. We're on a family outing. We have a U.S. Forest Service permit in hand that allows us to thin the tree herd. There will be a line of cars and trucks all day shuttling in and out of the Snowies with trophy trees on their roof racks. The USDA says that this tree-trimming helps to maintain a healthy forest. There are environmentalists who say it is a waste of time and energy. That may also be true. Our forests are in trouble, which is definitely true. On Sunday, we walked among beetle-killed trees. This area is not so bad compared to other parts of the Snowies, especially the west slope where campground have been closed for the culling of beetle-killed trees. 

We bagged out tree and had a great time. Dust, meanwhile, was all around us but hard to see. Hard to see, but taking its toll.  

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

WY Outdoor Council: House Reps Attempting to Dismantle the EPA

From the Wyoming Outdoor Council:

House Reps Attempting to Dismantle the EPA

And Rep. Cynthia Lummis, Wyoming's lone U.S. House member, is leading the charge to dismantle environmental regs that keep our water safe to drink and our air safe to breathe.

President Obama declares a "major disaster" in Wyoming due to flooding

File under "That Darn Federal Gubment:"

President Barack Obama has declared a major disaster in Wyoming because of spring and summer flooding.

The action means the federal government will help the state pay for costs incurred from damaged roads, highways and other infrastructure.

Seven people have died in Wyoming this spring and summer in waters running high from heavy rain and melting record snowpack.

The state's response included deploying Wyoming National Guard members and low-risk prison inmates to several areas around the state to help fight flooding.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has estimated damage to public infrastructure at $4.2 million. The number is expected to go higher. Agriculture losses are being assessed separately.

Rivers and streams continue to run high throughout most of the state.

Read more: http://trib.com/news/state-and-regional/article_9dd67751-8c60-5aaf-9028-c4454b042d93.html#ixzz1Su4f2KDg

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/

Oil making big "play" in Laramie County

Niobrara Shale -- the blob that ate Laramie County. Map from the Unconventional Gas Center web site.

Cheyenne is not a Wyoming “energy boom town” like Gillette, Rock Springs or Pinedale.

That’s about to change. The oil rush is on in Laramie County. This past spring and summer, I’d read in the paper that leases for the Niobrara Formation were selling like hotcakes. A couple million here, a few million there. Serious money was changing hands – around $90 million -- some of it (and I hope it’s a lot) going into state coffers.

The drilling has begun. Near Carpenter, new high-tech pumping stations stick their straws into the earth, drilling down and then under and over to taste some of that sweet, sweet crude. The oil is sucked out of the ground and put it into storage tanks. You can see them if you drive south on Campstool Road. We’re used to industrial-looking stuff sticking out of the prairie – nuclear missile sites, old-fashioned oil wells, windmills (the new huge wind power kind and the old-fashioned kind), cell towers, etc. But soon, 21st century oil wells will be everywhere.

Last night at the Laramie County Democrats’ meeting at the IBEW Hall, County Commissioner Jeff Ketcham was handing out flyers for the “Southeast Wyoming Oil Shale Seminar.” The first meeting is Tuesday, Aug. 31 (tonight!), 6-8 p.m., at the Laramie County School District No. 1 Administration Building Auditorium in Cheyenne.

“Learn and converse about the Niobrara Oil Play and how it may affect us.”

I meant to ask Jeff to define “oil play” but didn’t get the chance. I was too busy listening to some of the impacts already happening in the county. But here’s what I found out at the Unconventional Gas Center site at http://www.ugcenter.com/:

The Niobrara has the potential to be the industry’s next large oil-shale resource play. Niobrara shales are prevalent throughout the Rocky Mountain region. A thick and continuous Cretaceous source rock, the Niobrara is rich in organics and thermally mature.

I hate to brag, but this sounds like me: “rich in organics and thermally mature.” Maybe I should change my name to Michael Shale.

I still don’t know what a “play” is. More research needed.

Jeff said that there were four voice messages calls waiting for him when he got to work the other day. All were complaining and dust and traffic on the county’s rural roads. And this is just after a few wells. Imagine what it will be like in a few years.

Gary Roadifer, running for the seat in House District 10, said that his town of Pine Bluffs already is home to seven man camps. Man camps, in case you don’t know, are barracks or RV campgrounds that house the people working at the sites. I tried to imagine seven man camps in a small town such as Pine (as the locals call it). That really has to impact a place. Gary quipped that the town’s only café has gone from $3 meals to $16 meals. That’s a whopping increase – you could buy three BK Whopper meals for this price. If there was a BK in PB.

“Discussion highlights” for tonight’s meeting:

• Technical background: geology, technology, and process/time line
• Industry needs: physical and employment
• Environmental concerns
• Planning for socio-economic impact

Big topics all. I’m looking forward to soaking up all the info, including the meaning of “oil play.”

 Q: Can Oil come out and play?
 A: Not today, son – he’s slick in bed.

Get it? Better not tell that one on the Gulf Coast.

Two more of these meetings are scheduled for Torrington and Wheatland, both on Wednesday. More info available from Anja Bendel, High Plains Economic Development District, 307-331-0012; anja.bendel@gmail.com

Big weather pounds high plains -- big hailstone travels to Boulder

Sean R. Heavey/For The Billings Gazette

From the Billings Gazette: Sean Heavey of Glasgow tracked a storm that hit Valley County and Phillips County on Wednesday evening. A pickup truck pulling a trailer drives in the storm on Highway 2 between Hinsdale and Glasgow at about 8 p.m. Wednesday. Victor Proton, lead forecaster for the National Weather Service office in Glasgow, said reports indicated the tornado touched down for a brief time near Hinsdale at about 7:30 p.m.
 

Twenty-five tornadoes have been reported in Montana so far this year. That compares to seven last year. An EF3 tornado that hit Reserve on Monday killed two people and injured several others. Another big storm in Vivian, S.D., spawned hail the size of cantaloupe. One of those hailstones was 11 inches in diameter and may be the largest ever recovered. It was transported to the National Weather Service office in Cheyenne last week. On Friday, it was shipped off to NOAA in Boulder.

 

There's some bad news: When the NWS measured the hailstone, it had shrunk to only eight inches in diameter. This may endanger its chance for a weather record. 

 

At first, I thought the impressive chunk of ice was coming to town for Cheyenne Frontier Days. I would like to see a huge hailstone. Others would too. The CFD committee should have found a place in the parade for it. "Record-setting hailstone from Vivian, S.D. See it before it melts!" The stone, of course, would have to be transported in a refrigerated plexiglass case. Probably impractical. Hail is transitory, as are the storms that birth them.

High plains storms are bitchin' to watch from a distance but hell when they strike your community. On Sunday, Cheyenne marks the 25th anniversary of its deadly 1985 flood. Twelve people were killed, including the mayor's daughter.


Here's how the NWS describes it on its site "Historic flood events in the Missouri River Basin:"

By late afternoon on August 1, 1985, a stationary thunderstorm developed over Cheyenne, Wyoming, producing record amounts of rainfall. In approximately a 3-hour time span, six plus inches of rainfall occurred. The storm produced at least one tornado, heavy rains, and hail. In some parts of town, hail piled up to depths of 4-6 feet. The severe flooding resulted in 12 deaths, 70 people were injured, and total damages exceeded $61 million.

Strangely enough, another historic flash flood happened on the same day nine years earlier just 60 miles south of Cheyenne. It was the Big Thompson Canyon Flood that killed 135 people.

It takes a talented photographer to capture one of these summer storms (see above). For another impressive shot, go to www.billingsgazette.com

Food is the key to being Green

Watched "Food Inc." last night on PBS.

There were the usual villains, corporate ag monsters such as Monsanto and Monfort.

Unexpected heroes in small farmers and ranchers.

It was entertaining and disgusting. Empowering, too. Three years ago I resumed my intermittent gardening career. A few container tomatoes became a backyard garden plot and then two plots and an expanded area this year. I enjoy growing things and eating them. So, my motives in the beginning were entirely selfish.

Well, not entirely. I caught on to the "Victory Garden" idea. The garden had a political sense, a way to stick it in the eye of George W. Bush and his overseas wars and rapacious oil companies and the energy inefficiency of corporate ag. My three tomato plants against the world.

I didn't discover the local food movement until I was well into the process. I live in Wyoming where food is trucked in from temperate climes. No way to be a locavore in this cold and windy place.

Or so I thought. I had to expand my idea of "local" to encompass a 100-mile radius. That brings in the many local and organic farms on undeveloped acreage along Colorado's Front Range. I had to do my homework, get out and meet people at farmers' markets and research local food producers online. I've been sharing asome of my research here. I also have sidebar links on this blog to Wolf Moon Farms and Grant Farms. There are resources in Wyoming and western Nebraska.

So, on Earth Day, there's no reason to look to the skies -- unless you're watching out for hail and snow and tornadoes. Look to the dirt. Plant something. Grow it. Eat it.

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.

Wyoming locavores strive to be creative

This comes from the Northern Colorado Food Incubator:

Cheyenne will host two winter farmers' markets this fall, patterned after the Fort Collins Winter Market model. One was held Nov. 7; the next one will be held indoors on Saturday, December 5, 10 a.m.-2 p.m., at the Cheyenne Depot Museum in downtown Cheyenne. Please note, due to careful planning, the Cheyenne and Fort Collins market dates do not conflict so that vendors may attend all markets. FMI: click here

The flyer for the event advertised "local foods grown, raised or created within 150 miles of Cheyenne, Wyoming." Often, you hear locavores talking about food grown, raised or created within 50 miles of home. But in high, dry and cold Cheyenne, you have to boost the radius 100 miles in all directions. Mainy south, toward the Front Range breadbaskets of Wellington, Fort Collins, Denver and almost all the way to Colorado Springs. It also includes the northeastern Colorado wheat and corn fields of Sterling and Fort Morgan into cornhusker territory in western Nebraska. Food crops are grown in some of eastern Wyoming's lower elevations around Torrington and Lusk and Wheatland.

You get the picture -- Cheyenne locavores have to forage far and wide for our food. I've written before about some of Laramie County's food producers (see http://hummingbirdminds.blogspot.com/2009/08/stiory-to-go-with-every-zucchini-and.html). We do better in the meat department than we do in fruits and veggies. At our summer and fall farmers markets, fruit comes in from northwestern Colorado and Utah. That's way beyond the locavore radius, but it's hard to dwell on semantics when you have the juice of a Wasatch Front peach dribbling down your chin.

Vegetarian locavores have one hell of a time in Cheyenne. It's a different story for meat-eaters, especially if you're a locavore and a hunter. Several hunters I know stick close to home, hunting elk and deer and antelope in the Medicine Bows and Snowy Range and down into Colorado's Roosevelt National Forest. When they "harvest" an animal, its edible parts go into to freezer for locavoring throughout the winter. I know that many people who actually use the term "locavore" don't approve of hunting. In fact, I've heard that it's on the list of the NRA's forbidden words list, along with "vegetarian," "liberal" and "Obama." But some hunters may be a lot more "The L Word" that I am. That's "L" as in locavore. What did you think I meant?

I like the fact that the Cheyenne and Fort Collins farmers market dates do not conflict. That's an encouraging sign and shows that the Northern Colorado Food Incubator includes southeast Wyoming in its planning. I also like the fact that the CWFM lists a bundle of sponsors, including the Wyoming Farmers Market Association (I didn't know there was such a thing) and several individual sponsors "who believe in the local food movement."

Get down to the Depot tomorrow for some bison and salsa and local honey and pumpkins and eggs from free range hens and baked goods from organic Wyoming wheat.

Reuters lands in Wyoming to report on natural gas polluting water wells

Jon Hurdle reported this in an Oct. 1 Reuters story:

PAVILLION, Wyoming - Louis Meeks, a burly 59-year-old alfalfa farmer, fills a metal trough with water from his well and watches an oily sheen form on the surface which gives off a faint odor of paint.

He points to small bubbles that appear in the water, and a thin ring of foam around the edge. Meeks is convinced that energy companies drilling for natural gas in this central Wyoming farming community have poisoned his water and ruined his health.

A recent report by the Environmental Protection Agency suggests he just might have a case -- and that the multi-billion dollar industry may have a problem on its hands. EPA tests found his well contained what it termed 14 "contaminants of concern."

It tested 39 wells in the Pavillion area this year, and said in August that 11 were contaminated. The agency did not identify the cause but said gas drilling was a
possibility.

What's happened to the water supply in Pavillion could have repercussions for the nation's energy policies. As a clean-burning fuel with giant reserves in the United States, natural gas is central to plans for reducing U.S. dependence on foreign oil.

Entire article reprinted from Reuters at http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/10/01-8

Sunday afternoon at the river

Daughter and dog on the Poudre