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[{"type":"text","text":"When the spiked eggnog kicks in......"}]

Herald 12 29 24

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

<title>Hark The Herald: Sunday, December 29, 2024 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

When the spiked eggnog kicks in......

Hark The Herald: Sunday, December 29, 2024

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

Clair McFarland

Government & Politics

Politics

In a Thursday meeting of the State Board of Land Commissioners, Secretary of State Chuck Gray nearly voted against giving Tri-State Generation and Transmission permission to use a 298-foot access road in rural central Wyoming after voicing concerns about whether the company would use the road to advance any wind, solar or data center projects. 

Tri-State is a wholesale power supplier serving eight electric cooperatives in Wyoming including High Plains Power, Carbon Power and Light and Big Horn Rural Electric Company.

Tri-State applied for a five-year, temporary-use permit for a 288-foot access road in remote Natrona County for $250 a year.

The elected officials on the State Board of Land Commissioners and the public have access to these applications at least a week before each meeting.

Gray announced at the Thursday meeting in Cheyenne that he would vote no on the permit because he didn’t know if the access road involved any data centers, wind or solar projects.

After a lively debate about supplying irrigation power to farmers, Gray reversed course and voted yes to approve the permit.

Tri-State told Cowboy State Daily after the meeting that its application isn't tied to any potential projects. 

It was for access renewal into an existing Western Area Power Administration (WAPA) substation, where Tri-State keeps equipment for operational and grid reliability purposes, "that from time to time requires routine maintenance," the company said.

That substation also abuts one of Tri-State's own substations, serving High Plains Power, the company said. 

[{"type":"text","text":"'Futile Call To Essentially Stifle Capitalism'"}]

Conversation at the Thursday meeting turned to Tri-State’s request for access via a 288-foot route.

Gray had asked administrative staff if applicants were associated with data centers, wind energy or solar projects. He told Cowboy State Daily on Thursday that that “blanket” inquiry was due to his concerns that board members don’t have enough information.

Office of State Lands and Investments Director Stacia Berry said she’d reviewed the list for temporary-use permits. None appeared to be associated in any way with those projects, except for one unknown, she said.

“The only one I’d note is (the Tri-State application),” said Berry. “This is an access road. I can’t guarantee what all is associated with that access road.”

Berry said the office tried to contact Tri-State, but the company had no notice its access road application would come up as a standalone topic at the meeting.

[{"type":"text","text":"Gray asked to remove that application from the list."}]

State Auditor Krisi Racines granted his wish by moving the whole list without it.

“I’m going to vote no on this,” said Gray. “It might be fine. They (the office) reached out. They (Tri-State) didn’t respond. We don’t know.”

Gray said the board should “tighten things up here. I think it’s gotten too loose, and I’m going to be a no here.”

Gov. Mark Gordon noted that Tri-State is a significant power generator for multiple cooperatives that distribute power to Wyomingites.

Gray again said the board’s administrative office hadn’t heard back from Tri-State.

“I would just supplement that with, they’ve had about 35 minutes,” said Berry. “They didn’t anticipate needing to be present today.”

[{"type":"text","text":"Treasurer Curt Meier issued a warning."}]

“Impeding, you know, generation and power to me seems like a futile call to essentially stifle capitalism,” said Meier. “We need power in this state for economic development. Tri-State supplies power to practically every irrigator and farmer in the state.”

Meier warned of denying Tri-State access to power facilities “in this extreme drought area.”

[{"type":"text","text":"He shook his head. "}]

“I’m really grasping the utility of continuing this dialogue,” he said.

[{"type":"text","text":"Gray changed course, saying he would probably vote for the access route."}]

“But I just asked a simple question: is this tied to wind or solar. And we can’t get an answer,” he said. “I just think it’s really disturbing, to me.”

[{"type":"text","text":"Meier countered."}]

“At no time I think in the last decade or even in the last 10 minutes have I heard that wind and solar is illegal,” said Meier. “And I think trying to manage our economy on political ideology instead of law is troubling to me.”

[{"type":"text","text":"Gordon said he wanted to get back on track."}]

Superintendent of Public Instruction Megan Degenfelder called for the vote. When the other board members voted aye, Gordon turned to Gray and asked if he was choosing to abstain from the vote.

Gray gestured and said something the livestream audio didn’t capture clearly.  

[{"type":"text","text":"“He’s voting aye,” said Gordon."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"'It Became Clearer'"}]

Gray told Cowboy State Daily in his Thursday email that he changed course because Berry indicated the project was probably not linked to wind, solar or data center projects. He also said Gordon has a tendency to hide the nature of board matters, and that's an ongoing problem. 

he lack of information provided to Board members about these proposed projects has been deeply disturbing to me," said Gray. "That is why today I just asked in a blanket fashion whether any of the dozens of proposed Temporary Use permits for road access had any nexus to a wind, solar, or data center project.

"It was very concerning to me when the Director and the Governor appeared to not even know if any of the Temporary Use permits had anything to do with wind, solar, or data centers."

He said he ultimately voted for the access permit because Berry indicated it probably wasn't connected to wind, solar, or data center projects. 

"Because it became clearer the easement had nothing to do with wind, solar, or data center with the Director’s modified comments, I decided to support it," he said. 

The board's administrative arm, the Office of State Lands and Investments, noted Thursday that board members have a week to review materials before the meetings, and are given opportunities to ask questions of OSLI personnel. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Gordon emphasized that also. "}]

, the governor added that Gray appeared unprepared and distracted by his phone in Thursday's meeting, falling short of what's expected of Wyoming elected officials. 

"Mr. Gray continues to show his inability to understand the issues before him and to work well with his colleagues," said Gordon. "The Secretary is sounding like a jackass in a tin barn."

Earlier in that meeting, the discussion turned to a 2.46-acre, 39-year easement request for which Enbridge Solar offered to pay a $56,235 one-time fee.

Gray asked the board to remove Enbridge’s application from a bigger list of easement applications by various companies.

Gordon asked the board three times if anyone would support Gray’s amendment. Silence followed.

[{"type":"text","text":"“Mr. Secretary, I’m sorry, that motion fails,” said Gordon."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Degenfelder urged thoughtfulness."}]

“I know discussion is on this Enbridge Solar, but I think we should be cognizant we’re talking about access only,” said Degenfelder. “So when we start prohibiting access, we get ourselves into trouble.”

[{"type":"text","text":"Gray said he’d be voting no on the easements consent list."}]

“It’s just really unfortunate we weren’t able to have a discussion on the Enbridge Solar piece separately,” said Gray. “It’s linked to the data center south of town.”

Chuck Gray Curt Meier and substation 8 6 26

<title>Gray Changes Mind On Power Station Access After Spat With Curt Meier | Cowboy State Daily</title>

After Curt Meier said of State Chuck Gray's announced vote to block Tri-State Generation's access to a power substation would “essentially stifle capitalism,” Gray changed his mind. They supply "power to practically every irrigator and farmer in the state," Meier said.

Gray Changes Mind On Power Station Access After Spat With Curt Meier

Heinz mark

Mark Heinz

Wildlife

A Yellowstone bull bison with a gigantic abscess on its right rear quarter probably isn’t suffering much pain and will likely survive, one of the county’s top bison ranchers says.

But the recovery process is going to be good, said Ken Klemm, past president and a lifelong member of the National Bison Association.

After seeing a photo of the bison, taken early Wednesday in Yellowstone National Park’s Lamar Valley, Klemm said a gushing rupture of the abscess is imminent.

“It looks like a 5-gallon bucketful of stuff will come out of that one,” Klemm, who has managed some of the world’s largest bison ranches, told Cowboy State Daily.

The abscess probably formed around a wound, he said.

The bison rut, or mating season, is on in Yellowstone. The bull might have suffered a puncture during a fight with another bull, Klemm said.

Lauri Foster lives just outside of New York City and loves coming to Wyoming to visit Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks.

Early Wednesday, she was on a wildlife-viewing drive through the Lamar Valley when she spotted the bull sporting a huge, bulbous mass near its backside.

Foster works with horses and is familiar with injuries to large animals, so she knew what she saw on the bison must be something serious.

“I thought it had to be a hematoma or an abscess,” she told Cowboy State Daily.

Foster couldn’t see any visible cuts or sores that might indicate exactly where it was wounded, she said.

To keep safe, Foster stayed in her vehicle to photograph that bull and other bison.

The bulls were raising a ruckus as they competed for mating rights.

“They were headbutting each other and chasing each other down,” Foster said.

The bull with the abscess was taking a break, though she surmised he had probably been recently wounded in a fight.

She added that despite how hideous that abscess looked, the bull didn’t seem sick or weak.

“He was walking along normally,” she said.

The rut has made bull bison extra agitated lately. In the most dramatic incident, a bison flipped and seriously injured Washington state resident Carl Isom-McDaniel, 65, in July.

Foster said at one point the bull walked up the middle of the road and stopped directly in front of her vehicle, giving her the stink-eye.

“I was thinking, ‘this is a little intimidating,’” she said.

Bull elk are known for getting into epic battles once their rut starts, usually in September.

Bison take it to another level, Klemm said.

“They’re worse than elk. If the loser doesn’t get away, the other bull will kill him,” he said.

The National Park Service has a general policy of letting nature take its course with animals’ injuries.

Klemm said the bull with the super-sized abscess has a good chance of making it.

“The infection is just raging in there,” he said. "The immune system is keeping that bison from dying, just from walking around with that much infectious material in its body.

“I suspect it will burst fairly soon and he’ll get over it. Bison have unbelievably good immune systems for things like this.” 

Bison abcess 8 6 26

<title>Bison Rancher: Yellowstone Bull With Gigantic Abscess Will Be OK Once It Gushes | Cowboy State Daily</title>

A massive abscess on a Yellowstone bull bison’s right rear quarter likely is the result of an infected wound from a rut battle. When it ruptures, “a 5-gallon bucketful of stuff” will gush out, a top bison rancher says, adding the bison should be fine.

Bison Rancher: Yellowstone Bull With Gigantic Abscess Will Be OK Once It Gushes

Daily Smile

[{"type":"text","text":"Prime example of all bark no bite and he never looked back...."}]

Smile 8 6 26

<title>Daily Smile: Thursday, August 6, 2026 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Prime example of all bark no bite and he never looked back....

Daily Smile: Thursday, August 6, 2026

[{"type":"text","text":"Your doctor recommends installing a bar in your shower for safety....."}]

You still here 8 6 26

<title>You Still Here? Thursday, August 6, 2026 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Your doctor recommends installing a bar in your shower for safety.....

You Still Here? Thursday, August 6, 2026

A super-sized male grizzly called Bruno for years has been one of Grand Teton National Park’s most famous bears, but age is catching up with him.

Big, dominant male grizzlies might hit their peak sometime in their early to mid-teens, bear biologist Cecily Costello told Cowboy State Daily.

Bruno, dubbed Grizzly 679 by researchers, is thought to be around 22. Grizzlies rarely live past 30 in the wild.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Observers say Bruno is over the hill."}]

Wildlife photographer Jorn Vangoidtsenhoven has watched Bruno for years and said another bear fan recently told him the beloved behemoth bear isn’t looking so great this summer.

“I just spoke with someone who saw Bruno in the last few days. Per his report, Bruno looks a bit thin and is starting to look old,” Vangoidtsenhoven texted to Cowboy State Daily.

One of Bruno’s biggest claims to fame was being a regular mate of Wyoming’s most renowned bear, Grizzly 399. She was struck and killed by a vehicle in October 2024.

In 2025, Bruno appeared with a nasty, oozing gash on his face. Bear managers usually let nature take its course with bear wounds.

But when Bruno was captured last fall for research by the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team (IGBST), he was treated for facial injuries out of an abundance of caution.

He emerged this spring showing no visible signs of that wound.

An IGBST biologist surmised he suffered the wound in a fight with another bear, perhaps a male, but wouldn’t speculate as to which bear it might have been.

Grizzly watchers and photographers said he might have also been clawed by another famous bear, Grizzly 610, while trying to mate with her.

Wildlife photographer Dominic Westkamp told Cowboy State Daily many think Bruno was slashed by another well-known female, Grizzly 1063.

Regardless of the origin of the healed wound, Bruno has other battle scars and is still a sight to behold, even in his senior years, Westkamp said.

“He’s got that rugged look. He’s been through many battles,” said Westkamp, who took video and photos of Bruno last week.

Bruno was busy in a roadside field, digging up roots, and wasn’t paying any mind to spectators, he said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Bruno was looking thin, Westkamp added."}]

However, Westkamp noted it’s still a little early for bears to go into hyperphagia, essentially a pig-out period during which they gorge on as many calories as they can to fatten up before winter hibernation.

“I expect Bruno to be 80 to 100 pounds heavier the next time I see him, during hyperphagia,” Westkamp said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Past His Prime"}]

A male grizzly in his 20s is past his prime, said Costello, the statewide grizzly research biologist with Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks.

“When they get to their late teens, that is when I expect them to be going into decline,” she said.

“He (Bruno) is definitely on the downhill side,” she added.

There’s no “direct data” she’s aware of on the prime age of grizzlies. However, research on black bears suggests the peak years are about 12 to 15, Costello said.

Moreover, Bruno is entering his twilight years during a time when competition among males for mates is getting tougher, she said.

Grizzlies by the thousands once roamed a huge swath of territory west of the Mississippi. However, by the early 1970s, they’d been pushed back to a tiny remnant population in or near Yellowstone National Park.

They were placed under federal Endangered Species Act protection in 1975 and have since expanded in range and numbers.

The early years of recovery would have been great for a big male grizzly, Costello said.

“When there’s only a few dominant males, they really dominate,” she said.

“In the early years of grizzly recovery, you would have seen one male doing all of the reproduction in an area. Now, it’s harder to compete for mates,” she said.

Bruno old 8 4 26

<title>End Of An Era: Grand Teton's Favorite Mighty Grizzly, Bruno, Is Getting Old | Cowboy State Daily</title>

For years, a huge male grizzly called Bruno was one of the brawniest bears in Grand Teton National Park. But at roughly age 22, Bruno is past his prime and those who routinely watch him are saying he's gotten thinner and "is on the downhill side."

End Of An Era: Grand Teton's Favorite Mighty Grizzly, Bruno, Is Getting Old

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's business and tourism reporter, Renée Jean

Renée Jean

CHEYENNE — Why can a project as massive as Microsoft’s planned 3,500-acre expansion avoid Wyoming’s Industrial Siting Council while wind farms and other major industrial facilities usually cannot?

The short answer is that Wyoming law exempts certain non-mineral processing facilities built in existing industrial or business parks designated by local governments from the state’s full siting review. 

That question, in one form or another, hung over more than five hours of testimony Monday night as the Cheyenne City Council considered a package of annexation and zoning ordinances tied to Microsoft’s next wave of data center growth on the city’s south side.

The biggest piece in the package was a 3,500-acre annexation called the Highlands, the largest annexation in Cheyenne history. 

Before Monday's vote, the property represented roughly 20% of the city’s existing footprint. The council approved the annexation on a 6-3 vote, with Councilmen Larry Wolfe, Mark Moody, and Pete Laybourn all opposed.

The approval hands control to Cheyenne over land-use, water, and sewer decisions for thousands of acres tied to Microsoft’s future plans.

Opponents argued the city was moving too quickly and surrendering leverage before the public had a fuller accounting of long-term impacts, while supporters said the annexation was necessary to secure investment and shape the city’s future.

Regulatory Workaround Or Just Business As Usual?

At the center of the dispute is a legal distinction that’s become increasingly important as Wyoming recruits hyperscale data centers. 

Under Wyoming statues, non-mineral processing facilities built in existing industrial parks designated by local governments are exempt from the Industrial Siting Act’s fee and certification procedures, though they must still furnish certain information to the state.

That means data centers in qualifying business park or industrial park settings can avoid the lengthy Industrial Siting Council Process that applies to many other large industrial developments. 

For critics of data centers, that’s a regulatory blind spot, while supporters see it as a system working as designed to avoid duplicative efforts when there’s already planned land for industrial use.

The distinction matters because it’s not a newly invented loophole or a data-center-specific workaround. 

It’s a standing feature of state law — even if that state law was crafted long before the huge data centers now being built.

Siting Council Wouldn’t Block Data Centers

Skipping the Industrial Siting Council review shaves as much as a year off construction timelines, as well as hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional regulatory costs.

If critics of data centers believe pushing those projects to the Industrial Siting Council will stop or block the projects, they’ll be disappointed, Rep. Cale Case, R-Lander, told Cowboy State Daily.

“The Industrial Siting Council doesn’t do what people think it (does),” he said. “You don’t have 10 projects and five get through and five don’t. All 10 are going to get through.”

What it will do is force additional accommodations to ensure they are “better neighbors.”

“Our laws are designed to let things happen, but try and minimize the impacts to other people,” Case said. “But there’s nothing that says you can’t do this if they follow the law and make the accommodations.”

One issue with that is that Wyoming’s Industrial Siting Act was created long before there were such massive data centers and is not really set up to handle data centers.

“Remember, data centers started off small. They were innocuous,” he said. "Now it’s suddenly a different animal. So they would undoubtedly meet the economic threshold, but they’re not considered an industrial facility.”

Another shortcoming, Case added, is that the law also doesn’t really have a mechanism for considering cumulative impacts.

“One area where the Industrial Siting law has clearly failed in my mind is the cumulative impacts problem,” he said. “Because it can do its analysis of each project piecemeal and the marginal impacts … are not deal breakers. 

"But yet, in the end, we have things like the wall of wind that people are talking about from Colorado to Converse County.”

Whether there’s any appetite to address such things isn’t yet clear. 

Case said he has not heard much talk about it himself, but expects that if such a measure is on the horizon, it will come up first in the Legislature’s Joint Revenue Committee.

That’s also where measures dealing with eliminating the manufacturing sales tax exemption would also come up.

“We should deal with this manufacturing sales tax exemption as it applies to them,” Case said. “Absolutely, we should deal with it. If they can afford to bring in fuel cells to produce electricity they can afford to pay sales tax on the servers.”

Concerns surfaced repeatedly during Cheyenne’s Monday night session, with opponents arguing the projects should receive broader, statewide scrutiny such as what the Industrial Siting Commission would provide. 

Among these voices was Laramie County Democratic Party Chair Ted Hanlon, who is a candidate for state Senate District 5. 

He told the council he does not believe the city is staffed, structured, or funded enough to act as an industrial regulatory body, which is how he sees the business park exemption functioning.

“I’m not opposed to data centers,” he added. “I’ve been trying to figure out how to get jobs in Cheyenne all my adult life.”

But allowing the exemption for such massive projects is creating a “regulatory blind spot.”

“Effectively, (it’s) allowing mega corporations to bypass the oversight of the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality’s Industrial Siting Council,” he said. “Under Wyoming state law, massive industrial projects that exceed specific cost and infrastructure threshold are required to go through the IASC. This is a vital regulatory safeguard that’s been in place since 1975.”

The Siting Council helps ensure the impacts of a project are clear, whether those impacts are socio-economic or environmental, and also ensures there are community benefits agreements in place up front, to protect both local governments and taxpayers. 

“By approving this annexation without a fully realized master plan, you’re abdicating your duty to protect the public,” he said. “You’re giving up all of our leverage. Councilman Wolfe was entirely correct. Push for a dramatic reset and demand a formal community benefits agreement.”

Wolfe had earlier in the process proposed a delay to negotiate a $50 million community benefits agreement with Microsoft ahead of the annexation, a measure that was defeated.

“If these corporations want to create a huge footprint in our backyard, they must play by our rules, provide binding transparency, and directly mitigate the strain they place on our town,” Hanlon said. “Voting yes tonight sets a dangerous precedent that Cheyenne will compromise its own regulatory integrity for the promise of unquantified future tax revenues. 

"I urge you to vote no or postpone this ordinance until a full joint review can be conducted alongside the DEQ Industrial Siting Council.”

In later questioning, Hanlon said he’d work with lawmakers like Rep. Ann Lucas, R-Cheyenne, to remove data centers from the state’s exemption.

Lucas had spoken to the council prior to Hanlon, urging caution in its decision.

“This shouldn’t be instant-coffee decisions,” she said. “The people who choose to build homes there, they chose these homes in the past, deserve confidence that their quality of life has been carefully considered — traffic noise, lighting, future expansion, utility infrastructure, and just overall the cumulative effect of continued industrial growth all deserve thoughtful discussion.”

Rep. Daniel Singh, R-Cheyenne, outright said he opposes the annexation and further questioned the idea that data centers will attract people under the age of 30 to stay in Wyoming.

“When you look at polling of young people under age 30, they’re actually the most vehemently opposed to data centers themselves,” he said. “Over 50% if you look at Gallop polling, over 50% of young people are strongly opposed to data centers. 

"So to sit here and say … that we need to build these data centers so we can provide for the next generation and have the next generation stay in Wyoming and thrive — I would actually venture to say that’s the opposite of what would actually happen.”

A data center in the backyard for that age demographic would more likely be seen as a reason not to stay or move to Cheyenne, he added.

“This is campaign season, as you all know, and I’m not here to advocate for anybody in particular,” he added. “But as I’ve been going door to door, one of the consistent themes I’m hearing from my neighbors is that they came to Cheyenne for a particular atmosphere.”

The new developments run counter to that atmosphere, Singh said, and it’s already prompting some of them to move on, younger and older. 

“Many of them have said they sold their properties and are leaving town,” Singh said. “So the projected intention of gaining a new population, a new workforce, if that’s really what we intend to do, we need to look at the unintended consequences of building these things.” 

Why can a project as massive as Microsoft’s planned 3,500-acre expansion avoid Wyoming’s Industrial Siting Council while wind farms and other major industrial facilities usually cannot? It’s not a loophole or a data-center-specific workaround. It's state law.

Hark The Herald: Sunday, December 29, 2024

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