It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming, for Friday, November 15th. I’m Wendy Corr, bringing you headlines from the Cowboy State Daily newsroom - brought to you by the Cowboy State Daily Morning Show with Jake. From 6 a.m. to 10 a.m., Monday through Friday, Cowboy State Daily’s Jake Nichols takes you deeper into the stories that matter - and keeps up with the news, weather and sports in your part of Wyoming. Just tune into Cowboy State Daily Dot Com and join the conversation.
Engineers say there’s no choice but to breach the failing, 115-year-old LaPrele Dam near Douglas. But farmers who rely on the dam for irrigation and runoff control say that leaves them with no good options.
Breaching the dam could leave downstream landowners wide open to catastrophic spring runoff, according to Cowboy State Daily’s Mark Heinz.
“There's a lot of people downstream from that that rely on that for agricultural irrigation and other water uses. And of course, they're not particularly thrilled to see that dam go, because that puts them in a really tough position, not only for the fact that they could be losing their irrigation water for up to five years, but also because that dam is really important to controlling spring runoff and the floods that they can get from that.”
The 130-foot-high dam was built in 1909 and was originally intended to have a 50-year lifespan.
Read the full story HERE.
Usually when there’s a feud in politics, a long backstory is involved as to what started it all.
Appearing on Cowboy State Daily’s Morning Show With Jake on Thursday, Secretary of State Chuck Gray said his ongoing feud with Gov. Mark Gordon isn’t personal, but about policy. Cowboy State Daily’s Leo Wolfson reports that the animosity stems from a bill that Gray proposed while in the Wyoming Legislature that garnered one of Gordon’s first vetoes while in office.
“It all kind of stems back to a veto Gordon made of Gray's bill… in 2019 that would have allowed the state to have money dedicated to funding an effort the state of Washington made to not open a coal export terminal that Wyoming was going to use. This would have been really critical for Wyoming to export its coal out of the country… Gordon did make some efforts addressing this, but people like Gray have said that those efforts were too little and too late.”
Gray also sparred with Gordon earlier this year on tighter voter residency rules. And on Thursday, Gray criticized Gordon’s negotiating skills, saying the governor lacks toughness and timing.
Read the full story HERE.
A proposed 2,010-acre solar farm and battery storage facility on private ranch land has a green light from the Natrona County Planning Commission.
EG Haystack Solar LLC, a subsidiary of Enfinity Global, plans to build a 199-megawatt utility-scale solar power generation system along with 100 MW of battery storage on site. Cowboy State Daily’s Dale Killingbeck reports that at the commission meeting this week, two people spoke in favor of the plan, while several residents spoke against it.
“People that are going to live around the proposed area are concerned about the view… And another big concern that residents had was fire… and there was also environmental concerns… the people that are proposing a project said it's going to be made, basically, a lot of it's going to be silicone and or silica, basically sand, it sounds like glass is the most, the majority of it.”
A representative of Enfinity Global said the solar farm, which will be located just south of U.S. Highway 20/26, would produce a net benefit to the county of at least $40 million dollars over the estimated 30-year life of the project.
Read the full story HERE.
Gov. Mark Gordon unveiled his $692 million proposed supplemental budget for the 2025 legislative session on Thursday, one of the most important topics the Legislature will consider when it convenes in January.
Cowboy State Daily’s Leo Wolfson reports that nearly one-third of the proposed supplemental budget is dedicated to rebuilding resources for fighting wildfires that were depleted this summer.
“2024 was a terrible year for wildfires around Wyoming, a historic year, the second and third worst wildfires in state history occurred this year, and the state completely decimated its reserves when it comes to fighting wildfires, $56 million to be exact. Gordon wants to replenish the account and add more to it to help mitigate some of the damage that was caused to some of the land and infrastructure because of these wildfires.”
Wyoming suffered one of its worst fire seasons in its history this summer, with wildfire devastating 850,000 acres across the state. The state’s two-year budget for fighting fires was exhausted in a matter of months.
Read the full story HERE.
A dispute over a U.S. Forest Service land exchange involving a remote parcel of land that some call “a hunter’s paradise” in the Laramie Range mountains was settled — until it wasn’t.
The controversial Britania Land Exchange got the final green light from the Forest Service last month. But Cowboy State Daily’s Mark Heinz reports that some adjacent landowners and other interested parties filed a petition in the U.S. District Court for the District of Wyoming to stop the exchange.
“The Forest Service wants to take, I think, roughly 1200 acres and exchange it for three parcels that add up to 800 acres in a slightly different part of the Laramie range. That, on the surface, doesn't sound like that big of a deal, but the land that's up to be or exchanged over or handed over to a private landowner, a lot of people are saying that they really like that as a great, rugged, remote hunting area. So there has been some pushback.”
The Forest Service claims the proposed exchange would increase public access on the parcels that the Forest Service would get, as well as access on adjoining federal land.
Read the full story HERE.
A rash of vandalism at the Cheyenne Frontier Days grounds has caused an estimated $15,000 to $20,000 worth of damage and prompted the organization to close the area to the public.
A group of what on surveillance video appear to be teenagers have targeted Frontier Park and Old West Town with spray paint tagging them with vulgarities. That’s what Frontier Days CEO Tom Hirsig told Cowboy State Daily’s Greg Johnson.
“The CEO of Cheyenne Frontier Days told me that he estimates it could be anywhere from $15 to $20,000 worth of damage from this graffiti, and a lot of that is because while the graffiti hit all over, they spray painted bleachers, they spray painted cement underneath the grandstands at Frontier Park. They also spray painted the front of a lot of buildings in old frontier town, which is a problem, because you spray paint on that natural wood, it doesn't come out, and you have to, like, replace it, to actually fix that stuff.”
During the off-season, the Cheyenne Frontier Days facilities have been a favorite for locals who stop by on bike rides or walking their dogs, despite “no trespassing” signs throughout the grounds. Until now, officials have been lax about enforcing that, but not anymore. Hirsig said the abuse of a few people have ruined that for everyone.
Read the full story HERE.
When Senate President Ogden Driskill of Devils Tower, and state Rep. John Bear of Gillette, met on stage at the Wyoming Business Alliance’s Governor Business Forum in Laramie on Thursday, it was a collision of outgoing and incoming visions about what Wyoming’s state government should look like.
Politics reporter Leo Wolfson attended the forum, and reports that while Bear and Driskill disagreed on many topics, they share a desire to do what they believe is right for Wyoming.
“Driskill is kind of the outgoing vision, in some ways. He will be coming to the end of his term as Senate president here very shortly, while Bear is going to be the likely next chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, which is the perennial committee in the legislature tasked with creating the budget each year. The two had some differences of opinion about how Wyoming should be spending its money.”
Gov. Mark Gordon also unveiled his $692 million supplemental budget Thursday during the forum, which he promoted as being both fiscally conservative and serving the public’s needs. It will be up to the Legislature to decide how much of this budget it wants to approve.
Read the full story HERE.
A contentious U.S. senate race with record spending and an onslaught of negative ads ended last week in Montana during the General Election, but the attack ads against lame duck Sen. Jon Tester have not stopped.
Cowboy State Daily’s David Madison reports that tracing where the ads are coming from has taken some work.
“Kind of like the villain who won't die in a horror movie, negative campaign ads have returned to Montana airwaves, and when you try to find out who's paying for these ads, it turns into a wild goose chase with very few answers… it appears that this group, Conservatives for Lower Healthcare Costs, is registered in Delaware through a subsidiary of a Dutch multinational company, Wolters Kluwer, and that's where the trail really goes cold… there seems to be no way to reach them.”
Whatever the cause, it’s not clear when the ads will stop – something many Montanans really want to know.
Read the full story HERE.
And that’s today’s news! For a deeper dive into the people and issues that affect Wyoming, check out The Roundup, conversations with the most interesting people in the Cowboy State. A new episode drops tomorrow, when I have a conversation with retired Game and Fish Director - and Brigadier General - Brian Nesvik. You can find the link on our website, on our YouTube channel, and wherever you get your podcasts. And of course, you'll find it in our FREE daily email newsletter! Thanks for tuning in - I’m Wendy Corr, for Cowboy State Daily.
