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Cowboy State Daily is Wyoming’s largest newspaper with Wyoming’s most experienced journalists. 

<title>Daily Cartoon: Sunday, February 18, 2024 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Daily Cartoon: Sunday, February 18, 2024

Heinz mark

Mark Heinz

Around Wyoming

Lake Powell, a key reservoir on the Colorado River, is shrinking toward "dead pool," which means water won't flow downriver anymore — and that could in turn pinch Wyoming’s municipal and industrial water supplies with more demand from Flaming Gorge Reservoir.

Lake Powell, on the Utah-Arizona state line, is in dire condition, 

By next spring, it’s expected to fall into “minimum power pool,” meaning having barely just enough water to generate hydroelectric power at Glen Canyon Dam.

If it falls even farther, that could put the reservoir at “dead pool,” or unable to generate hydroelectric power, according to reports.

That's despite roughly 1 million acre-feet expected to be 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"‘Paper Water Rights’"}]

Dead pool is considered only a worst-case scenario among water managers.

But if it happens, it could lead to some stark choices, said Wyoming state Sen. Larry Hicks, who served on the Legislature’s Select Water Committee.

In such a scenario, “power generation is subservient” to irrigation water rights, he told Cowboy State Daily.

“Power Generation is important, but it’s not as important as maintaining peoples’ livelihood,” Hicks said. 

The looming dilemmas over Colorado River water rest in the fact that water management is rooted in “paper water rights,” he said.

Many of those are tied to the 1922 Colorado River Compact, which includes seven states, Mexico and numerous Native American Tribes.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Just Not Enough Water"}]

In Wyoming, many farmers’ and ranchers’ water rights predate the 1922 Compact, going as far back as the 1880s.

That means if spats break out over Compact water rights as the river’s supply dwindles, farms and ranches along the Green and Little Snake rivers would be largely unaffected, Hicks said.

The Compact designates roughly 15 million acre-feet per year, supposedly evenly split at 7.5 million acre-feet between the Upper Basin and Lower Basin.

The Upper Basin states are Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and New Mexico. Arizona, Nevada and California comprise the Lower Basin.

River flows in recent years have been as low as about 10 million acre-feet, Hicks said.

If the Lower Basin states made an emergency “call on the river” for more access to the Upper Basin allocation, Wyoming’s farmers and ranchers wouldn't catch the brunt of it, he said.

“The Trona industry and big municipalities in Wyoming” would be most at risk of losing vital water, he said.

For instance, even though Cheyenne isn’t physically connected to the Colorado River system, it still depends upon of it because of water-exchange agreements on the North Platte River.

“Arizona is the state that’s most likely to litigate and say, ‘We’re entitled to this water; you need to send it to us’,” Hicks said.

The growing crisis on the Colorado River “is a concern for Cheyenne and our board of public utility,” Mayor Patrick Collins told Cowboy State Daily.

The city gets about “two-thirds of our water” from sources tied to the Colorado River water contract exchange agreements, he said.

Cheyenne has been preparing for potential water shortages, Collins said.

“If they make a call on the river, it’s going to take a while to take effect,” he said, adding that Cheyenne has a roughly four-year backup storage supply.

Cheyenne has been frugal with its water, typically using about half of its full allocation, Collins added.

Despite growth, the city is using about the same amount of water it was 10 years ago, he said.

In the long term, Cheyenne also hopes to break away from Colorado River dependency.

“We have good leads on replacement water from other areas,” he said, without going into detail.

“There is an irrigation district that we’ve been working with, and some industrial users on the Platte River,” Collins said.

Rock Springs mayor Max Mickelson said the city has some water rights dating to 1871, and is therefore immune to any effects tied to the 1922 Colorado River Compact.

“Our system has never overdrawn its allocation the way the Lower Basin has. The current diversion data our Joint Powers Water Board presented to council shows zero deficit under today's conditions. 11,011 acre-feet of annual demand against roughly 2,413 acre-feet available on average, showing no shortfall in any month,” he stated in an email to Cowboy State Daily.

“That's not luck. That's a century of municipal water management that lived within its means. While states downstream built entire metro economies on water that was never really there in average years.” 

The local economy has felt the effects of increasing pressure on Flaming Gorge from the Lower Basin, Mickelson said. The city doesn’t draw from it directly, but is tied to the recreation economy.

“Our recreation, fishing, and marinas economies will all take a hit,” he said. "Our exposure so far has been to the regional environment and economy, not to the water coming out of our faucets.” 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"‘It’s A Concern’"}]

If Lake Powell hits dead pool, that would be a concern for Rock Springs, Mickelson said, noting the federal response to the crisis at Lake Powell is to pull from Flaming Gorge.  

“The Bureau of Reclamation's own modeling, presented to council this May, shows a projected shortfall of 2.0 to 2.3 million acre-feet by March 2027,” Mickelson wrote.

“So, yes, it's a concern, but it is fundamentally about fairness. The Flaming Gorge Reservoir is filled by our river and is treated as insurance for a 1922 compact built on flow numbers that were too generous from the start. We watch Powell's elevation because every foot drop is another argument for draining more from our basin,” he said.

Rock Springs, and Wyoming in general, has been proactive, passing voluntary conservation legislation while keeping underlying water rights protected, Mickelson said.

The Upper Basin should continue in that vein, he added.

“Wyoming has a seat at the table and needs to demand a storage agreement that lets Upper Basin states bank conserved water. We need an explicit federally acknowledged agreement that Wyoming, Utah, and Colorado hold unused apportionment under the original compact. We did not overbuild its claim,” Mickelson wrote.  

Lake Powell Weather Channel 3 7 1 26

<title>Lake Powell Water Critically Low; Wyoming Expects More Demand On Flaming Gorge | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Already at critically low levels, Lake Powell is close to being "dead pool," which means water won't flow downriver anymore. That has Wyoming cities and industries worried that will mean more demand for water from Flaming Gorge Reservoir.

Lake Powell Water Critically Low; Wyoming Expects More Demand On Flaming Gorge

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's general assignment reporter, Clair McFarland.

Clair McFarland

Government & Politics

Politics

Some Democrats nationally are calling for a “schism,” 

 growing socialist movement in the party.

Wyoming Democrats told Cowboy State Daily on Tuesday that there’s no similar call within the Cowboy State’s blue party.

They gave different reasons as to why - ranging from their party's low numbers, to Wyoming's unique culture, to the need for pragmatism in the state and the West. 

“No (we’re not divorcing). There’s like three of us,” said former Wyoming Attorney General Pat Crank, who served under Democratic Gov. Dave Freudenthal and is a moderate Democrat himself.

“It’s hard to fight when there’s only three of you. It’s such a non-factor,” he said.

[{"type":"text","text":"But First, The Divorce …"}]

Former President Bill Clinton’s campaign strategist James Carville last 

week lamented the intense media attention

 on the New York Democratic primary election where, as The Associated Press put it, “New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s slate of fiery progressives swept establishment-backed Democrats.”  

Carville in a video interview said, “The idea — the idea that we must neglect … all the huge, phenomenal success we’ve had and declare that the party is now under the control of a Democratic Socialist of New York City is insane.”

[{"type":"text","text":"The Mamdani wing of the party is too extreme for Carville, he indicated."}]

“Not only are they not Democrats, they wish Democrats poorly,” said Carville. “Let’s negotiate the terms of a schism here.”

He said he’s “enthusiastic” about questioning the policies of Israeli leadership, but isn’t comfortable being in a party that denies the Israeli state’s right to exist.

Conservative USA Today columnist Nicole Russell 

 at how readily Democratic congressional leaders are welcoming the far-left candidates who still have a general election ahead of them.  

[{"type":"text","text":"What Kinda Tent Y'all In? "}]

The Wyoming Democratic Party is a big collaborative tent, the party’s communications Mandy Weaver said in a Tuesday phone interview.

New York is “far removed from the things that happen in our state, and as Wyoming Democrats, we’ve always been very different from a lot of the other states,” said Weaver. “Because we are so small

[{"type":"text","text":"Disagreements surface, said Weaver, and “we hammer them out.”"}]

She couldn’t imagine anyone calling for a divorce of the Wyoming Democratic Party, she added. She pointed to the 

, which she said comprises “Wyoming values” and nothing extreme.

Weaver called Wyoming’s Democratic elected officials “very solution oriented.”

State Rep. Ken Chestek, D-Laramie, echoed those notions in his own Tuesday interview. He also said he and the Democrats he knows “respect the cowboy way and the code of the West.”

Chestek said he also believes the term “socialism” has been weaponized, and he voiced a desire for more nuanced discussions of public benefits.

Sen. Chris Rothfuss, also of Laramie, is one of two Democrats in the state Legislature’s 31-member upper chamber.

He said that because Democratic policy-makers prefer to focus on people and their specific needs, the party’s policy goals in Wyoming are bound to be distinct from elsewhere.

“Wyoming is not New York City, so what the people need in New York City is going to be very different from what the people need in the state of Wyoming,” he said, adding with a chuckle, “Our people want access to public lands. I don’t know that that’s necessarily a top issue in New York City, as an example.”

[{"type":"text","text":"Whether Purists Are Good For Everyone Else"}]

Foraying into some analysis, Rothfuss said the Democratic Party nationally is searching for identity and leadership.

 The lack of identity “leads to challenges for identifying that leadership,” said Rothfuss.

Each major party contains factions of purists, he said, “And they have a philosophy, and they think everyone should have that philosophy.”

On the one hand, said Rothfuss, purism pushes the party toward a “small tent” mindset. On the other hand, watching the purity faction in play helps the left pinpoint its aspirations and how well they might function in real life.

“And that’s also, unfortunately, where all the advocacy is. And I say unfortunately because I don’t think it’s health that we don’t have anyone advocating for moderation,” said Rothfuss. “There’s no passion for moderation.”

Crank voiced a darker view of the purist, or what he called the “extreme” faction in the Democratic Party, saying extremism divides and alienates people.

As an example, “The far left says fracking is bad, we should all ban fracking,” said Crank. “That’s (Sen.) Bernie Sanders’ position. That’s ridiculous.”

People can address potential environmental problems with the practice, he said, “but that’s very effective to produce oil and gas. We need to do that in Wyoming.”

Crank pointed to other extreme stances, such as some pro-choice groups’ support of partial-birth abortions, and some extreme left-versus-right clashes on whether people should have guns at all.

“Those rabid positions drive people apart, lead to conflict in our society and, I think, give us shitty candidates,” said Crank. 

While Wyoming Democrats aren’t filing for divorce, the Republicans are about to do so, said Crank.

He referenced a Monday story by Cowboy State Daily in which a new political action committee, Common Sense Republicans for Wyoming, has 

 on the populist-leaning Republican faction the Wyoming Freedom Caucus.

The notion that extremism divides people, while collaboration and pragmatism unite people, manifests through Wyoming’s Republican divide, said Crank.

“There’s a divorce going on. They just haven’t filed the paperwork quite yet,” he added.

Mandami rothfuss chestek

<title>Wyoming Democrats Say They’re Not Divorcing Party Over Mamdani, Socialism Movement | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Prominent Wyoming Democrats say they are not calling for a split in their party due to the growing socialist movement nationally. “Wyoming is not New York City,” so the issues are different, said state Sen. Chris Rothfuss.

Wyoming Democrats Say They’re Not Divorcing Party Over Mamdani, Socialism Movement

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's Feature Reporter, Andrew Rossi.

Andrew Rossi

Libby Lane of Red Lodge, Montana, was going about her usual business Monday at the Top of the World Resort on the Beartooth Highway. As of 1:30 p.m., it was still snowing up there.

“We’ve got about three inches of snow, and it's still snowing,” Lane told Cowboy State Daily. “It's blowing and melting off the road, but the road looks slick, icy, and slushy.”

The only vehicle Lane had seen was a snowplow that drove past in its effort to clear the highway, heading for Cooke City.

“I was hoping they’d open it today,” she said. “I haven't heard anything from anybody. Sometimes we're the last to know. Unfortunately, we have to look for the cars coming over the pass to know when it’s open.”

The Beartooth Highway was temporarily closed at 4:53 p.m. Sunday in anticipation of incoming snow. Monday’s snow vindicated the precautionary closure.

This is Lane's fourth season living and working at the Top of the World on the Wyoming side of the pass. When the Beartooth Highway closes, she and her coworkers are stranded at the summit until the road is deemed safe enough to traffic to resume. 

However, this wasn’t unusual from Lane’s perspective. Snow-related closures, even in late June, are “not a surprise at all.” 

“It’s very common,” she said. “We got our boots out this morning and just kept working.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Yellowstone’s Dunraven Pass Closes"}]

Dunraven Pass in Yellowstone National Park also closed Monday morning due to “winter weather conditions.”

“We’re looking at an inch of snow in Cooke City, Montana,” said Tessa Stetzr, with the National Weather Service office in Billings. “We were forecasting around 1 to 2 inches along the Beartooth Pass and 6 inches in the higher elevations.”

[{"type":"text","text":"Snow also fell farther south in Wyoming."}]

Stuart Pierson of Centennial was heading over the Snowy Range toward Saratoga when he encountered “a pleasant surprise.”

“I left my house around 10:30 a.m., and there was light snow as I went over the top near Barbara Lake Road,” he said. “Nothing was sticking yet, but there was a lot of snow in the air.”

None of this winter weather was expected to escape the mountains, and a cooler-than-average Monday will give way to temperatures in the 80s and low 90s by July 4.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Where’s That Coming From?"}]

The snow in northwest Wyoming came from a cold front moving across Montana, originating in the Pacific Northwest.

“There’s an upper-level low over Montana,” Stetzr said. “That's allowing cooler temperatures to make their way into the state and lowering the snow levels to around 7,000 feet.”

Lance VandenBoogart with the National Weather Service office in Riverton said that’s not unusual for northwest Wyoming or Yellowstone, even in the last days of June.

“Yellowstone and any high-elevation spot in northwest Wyoming can see snow any time of the year,” he said. “The high at Old Faithful was 44 degrees, and that’s not even record-breaking cold for this time of year.”

Still, there were cooler-than-average temperatures across Wyoming on Monday. Daytime highs were in the low 70s in central Wyoming and only in the mid-50s to mid-60s in the Bighorn Basin.

Many spots in Wyoming would welcome an inch or two of moisture. VandenBoogart said they’ll be going without.

“It’ll fizzle out by this evening,” he said. “This weather system will be weakening as it pushes through the mountains. The Bighorn Basin might see a couple of rain showers, but we’re not looking for much notable precipitation from this.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Heat Of The Moment"}]

If it’s cool and wet on June 29, what does that mean for the upcoming celebrations of the United States 250th anniversary on July 4?

VandenBoogart and Stetzr agreed that Monday’s high-elevation snow was an anomaly. By Friday, it’ll look and feel like summer again.

“We'll continue to have daily chances for afternoon showers and thunderstorms, but we're expecting temperatures to return to the upper 70s and low 80s for the second half of the week,” Stetzr said.

[{"type":"text","text":"Central and southern Wyoming could get even warmer."}]

“We’re looking at the low to mid 80s through the middle of the week,” VandenBoogart said. “By the time we get to Friday, through the Independence Day holiday, we're going to be probably upper 80s to around 90, closer to mid-summer normals.”

As for the Beartooth Highway, the National Park Service said the road would be opened “when conditions improve.” Based on the amount of snow seen on webcams in Cooke City, that probably won’t be until Tuesday.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Don’t Read Into It"}]

After a record-breaking dry winter and spring, some might be inclined to see June snow on the Beartooth Highway as a promising sign. After all, El Niño’s on the way and promises to disrupt global weather patterns in a way that could, possibly, benefit Wyoming.

The latest outlook from the NWS’s Climate Prediction Center still favors above-average moisture for Wyoming this summer. VandenBoogart doesn’t think anyone should read into it too much.

“Climatology isn’t going to be your best forecast,” he said. “The latest update is a slight lean toward above-normal precipitation for the western half of Wyoming in July, August, and September. It's not a sure thing, just that the odds are a little better than normal.”

Meanwhile, the snow on the Beartooth Highway isn’t indicative of anything other than the fact that anything can happen at a 10,000-foot elevation.

“If Casper got snow right now, that would be impressive,” VandenBoogart said. “When you're getting it up in the mountains and Yellowstone, snow happens when these cold systems ride through.”

Libby lane snow 6 29 26

<title>Ho, Ho, Ho! Rare June Snow Closes Beartooth Highway, Parts Of Yellowstone | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Winter is back in Wyoming as a late June snowstorm closed the Beartooth Highway and Yellowstone's Dunraven Pass. At 9,400 feet, the Top of the World store recorded three inches of snow. “We got our boots out and just kept working," said Libby Lane.

Ho, Ho, Ho! Rare June Snow Closes Beartooth Highway, Parts Of Yellowstone

Many relics from the age of the steam engine in Wyoming remain. Some are grandiose, like 

One of these relics is the Lusk Water Tower, a point of pride in eastern Wyoming. It’s one of the few structures of its kind remaining in the United States, still standing strong 140 years after it was built.

“It's pretty important and iconic to the community,” said Leslie Stewart, a volunteer at 

. “I think there would be a drive to save it again if we needed to.”

It's also significant as one of only six surviving redwood water towers in the United States, according to the Niobrara County Historical Society.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Built Better"}]

In 1886, the Fremont, Elkhorn and Missouri Railway was establishing a line to connect Douglas and Chadron, South Dakota. This necessitated new depots and water towers along the route to ensure the steam engines kept running.

Lusk was chosen because it had, at the time, the only post office along the intended route.

Stewart, who’s also a commissioner for Wyoming State Parks and Cultural Resources, said the establishment of this railway was an important development for the newly incorporated town.

“The railroads were coming this way to transport livestock, grain, mining equipment, and coal, but they also provided ready access for ranchers, farmers, and homesteaders coming to settle this area,” he said.

Water towers were essential for steam engines, but the Lusk Water Tower was built to be better. That’s reflected in the specifics of its design.

“It’s mostly made of Douglas fir, but the tank is four-inch planks of redwood,” Stewart said. “It wasn’t an aesthetic choice. They wanted something that would expand with water and hold the thing together tightly when it was wet.”

According to Stewart, adjustability was essential. The circular tank is 25 feet in diameter and equally as tall, but the redwood allowed it to expand and contract as needed.

“It was built like a barrel with metal bands around the outside,” she said. “When the tank was empty, they could tighten the bands. When it was full, they could loosen them up and expand the tank while keeping a tight fit.”

A windmill was used to move water 25 feet up into the tank. At full capacity, it could hold around 44,000 gallons of water.

In a certain sense, the Lusk Water Tower was ahead of its time in design and construction.

The tower and the railway were built by the Wyoming Central Railway, a subsidiary of the Fremont, Elkhorn and Missouri Railway. The director of the subsidiary was Frank Lusk, for whom the town is named.

The Wyoming Central Railway was established specifically to ensure that a Wyoming company would build the line and all its infrastructure.

“That was one of the requirements for the railway,” Stewart said. “They had to have a Wyoming company do the construction.”

There’s another way the Lusk Water Tower happened to be ahead of its time: It was deemed worth saving before it was too late.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Standing Strong"}]

When the original Lusk train depot was destroyed by fire, the water tower was moved from the center of town to the eastern edge, where it stands today. The tower continued to service steam locomotives until diesels took over.

The railway, which is still in service, changed hands multiple times over the next several decades. However, there were concerns that the Lusk Water Tower might be destroyed by the very railway it had been built to service.

“The Chicago and North Western Transportation Company was moving a lot of heavy coal traffic past the tower,” Stewart said. “The Niobrara County Historical Society was concerned that the vibrations from the trains would destroy the tower.”

In 1971, the Niobrara County Historical Society purchased the Lusk Water Tower. A campaign was immediately started to raise money to restore and repair it.

By 1982, enough was raised for Gillette LNT Fabrication and Construction to do a thorough restoration.

“A lot of different organizations helped fund that restoration, including the Wyoming Legislature and the Chicago and North Western Transportation Company,” Stewart said. “I don't think the railroad had any interest in saving it, although they did help in the end.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Lusk’s Own"}]

In 1991, the Lusk Water Tower was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. Rheba Massey, the historian who submitted the form for its consideration, said the tower was “one small part of that great expansion” that had “a major effect on the settlement history of the area.”

“The Lusk Water Tower represents this early development of rail transportation, including steam locomotion from the period of 1886 to World War II,” she wrote. “Massive water towers and windmills were regular features of station sites during the age of steam, (and) the Lusk Water Tower is Wyoming's only surviving railroad structure of its type.”

The railway is currently owned by Union Pacific, which still sends plenty of freight past the iconic tower.

As of 2026, the only other tower of its type that’s easy to track down is the Gerlach Water Tower, built in 1909 in Gerlach, Nevada.

Stewart wasn’t sure how many redwood water towers were built or how many remain. She’s content that the Lusk Water Tower isn’t going anywhere.

“We still get people asking about the tower,” she said. “Alumni come home and say they had to swing by the tower to make sure it was still there.”

She also applauded everyone who recognized the tower’s historic significance and organized the successful effort to save it, at a time when historical preservation wasn’t as popular as it would become.

“If those historically astute people hadn’t recognized that, I’m not sure it would have been saved,” she said.

Lusk Redwood water tower 6 28 26

<title>Lusk's Redwood Water Tower, One Of 6 Left In US, Still Standing After 140 Years | Cowboy State Daily</title>

The redwood water tower in Lusk was built in 1886 to keep steam engines running between Wyoming and South Dakota. While the engines are gone, the tower endures 140 years after it was built and is one of six such relics still standing in the United States.

Lusk's Redwood Water Tower, One Of 6 Left In US, Still Standing After 140 Years

Julie Mankin

Native American Tribes

When the Indian relay races return to the Sheridan WYO Rodeo next month, it will be without the event's longtime announcer of the past 30 years, who quit over an interaction with local law enforcement he claims had "racist overtones."

Kennard Real Bird said he will not return as announcer after the rodeo's directors declined to stand behind him and call out the Sheridan County Sheriff's Office for what Real Bird claims was inappropriate treatment of him after a 2025 arrest.

“I just had an issue with local law enforcement,” said Real Bird, an artist whose 2011 painting "Crow War Pony" hangs in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian. “I live on an island, so to speak, here on the reservation, and we don’t encounter racism here on a daily basis.”

"As a result of this incident with racist overtones, I decided to not go back for any further humiliation by the Sheridan community," he adds in a June 19 Facebook post about the interactions.

Real Bird, 76, of the Crow Reservation in southeastern Montana, began calling Sheridan’s Indian relay races with his own brand of politically incorrect but engaging humor when the races were added to the rodeo in 1997. 

Real Bird told Cowboy State Daily he isn't retiring. He plans to call Indian relay races this summer at Cheyenne Frontier Days — which just added the event on both weekends — and at Wyoming Downs, plus rodeos in North Dakota, Montana and Alberta. 

In September, Real Bird will announce the 10th annual Championship of Champions, a three-day event held for the first time at Cheyenne’s Frontier Park.

[{"type":"text","text":"But he won't be in Sheridan."}]

“I’ve been in a grieving period knowing I’m not going back to Sheridan,” Real Bird said. “I love that audience — their love for the sport and the respect they give the Indian kids.”

[{"type":"text","text":"'Insulted An Humilitated'"}]

The longtime voice of the Sheridan Indian Relay Races has quit over an interaction with law enforcement he claims had "racist overtones." He said the decision to not return was because the rodeo's board didn't stand behind him and condemn his treatment.

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