It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming, for Tuesday, January 14th. I’m Wendy Corr, bringing you headlines from the Cowboy State Daily newsroom - brought to you by Visit Casper. Visit Casper invites you to come enjoy the Casper International Film Festival, January 31 through February 2. A broad range of films from local and international filmmakers will be shown. Learn more and get your tickets at visitcasper.com.
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The 68th Wyoming Legislature will forever be known as the session that the Wyoming Freedom Caucus took over the state House. What the group does with its majority during the 37-day legislative session that begins Tuesday remains to be seen.
Politics reporter Leo Wolfson will be reporting from the state capitol throughout the term, which he said promises to be a session to remember.
“One thing that's really notable, though, is some of the legislation that has already been proposed is pretty controversial and pretty out there, as far as what we've seen compared in the past, a lot of bills will probably be given the time of day and passed the law that didn't have a chance in the past, and that's what House Speaker Chip Neiman has said is one of his priorities… During a press conference last week, the Freedom Caucus did stress that they want unity and they want to listen to every voice in the legislature, so we'll see. Tomorrow it all begins.”
The Freedom Caucus holds around 36 seats in the House as a result of the 2024 Republican primary election, whereas nearly a dozen members of the opposing Wyoming Caucus either lost their seats or didn’t run for reelection.
Read the full story HERE.
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An innovative plan to use old wind turbine blades as filler for coal mine reclamation has gotten a thumbs up from the Biden administration after an almost four-year wait.
Wyoming filed its innovative idea for disposing of retired blades and wind towers with the federal government in 2021 - but Cowboy State Daily’s Renee Jean reports that no one she talked to had any answers as to why the approval took four years.
“One wind turbine is like an entire semi truck load all by itself. Each tower’s got three of them, so 79,000 of these. That's a lot, and there's really a lot of landfills don't want to take them unless they are crushed and shredded. They're hard to crush and shred because they're made to be durable… So they're sitting around with nowhere to put them. Well, Wyoming came up with a really innovative idea on how to handle that, and their idea was to, hey, let's use them for fill clean fill in coal mines… We've got enough space there to hold all of the nation's wind turbines… we passed that in 2020, so four years later, finally, the federal government said, Okay, you can do that. I don't know why it took so long… based on the record, it looks like it just kind of sat there for three years with nothing happening.”
Wyoming’s Director of the Department of Environmental Quality called the new rule “very forward thinking” and said it will help solve a nationwide problem.
Read the full story HERE.
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A cold wave from Canada will descend on the United States this weekend and bring some serious subzero temperatures - and plunge Wyoming firmly into the winter season.
At this time last year, Wyoming was grappling with the widespread impacts of a polar vortex. However, Cowboy State Daily’s Andrew Rossi reports that the incoming surge of polar air won’t be a vortex, even though it will be extremely cold.
“It's a cold wave. That's the best way to describe it, is a surge of polar air coming out of Canada that's going to descend across Wyoming as we get into the weekend. But the big takeaway is that this is going to be the first real deep Sub Zero cold spell of the winter so far. So we're looking at temperatures in the teens and single digits on Friday and Saturday, and well below zero overnight… we're going to see more of these waves as we get further into the winter. So prepare yourselves now, because this is the first of many more to come, and the other ones could have heavy snow and stronger winds at their back.”
This cold surge has a definite eastward trajectory and will primarily impact the Great Plains region. Wyoming is on the fringe of the coldest section of the surge, which means eastern Wyoming will shiver the most.
Read the full story HERE.
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Travelers no longer need to bring cash to park at Denver International Airport. The region’s largest airport announced this year that the garages and parking lots at DIA no longer take physical currency.
Cowboy State Daily’s Justin George reports that the airport is the latest business or service to go cashless, as electronic transactions continue to become people’s preferred method of payment.
“Everybody's going cashless these days. It's just more convenient… I mean, University of Wyoming's all their vending machines only take credit cards or school ID cards, and then National Park Service even to go to devil Tower National Monument, that's a cashless entrance as well… Now, people who are against this are people who obviously don't have banks, don't have credit, people released from prison recently, and a lot of you know, day laborers and things like that, who people like that, who work paycheck to paycheck. So that's the biggest issue. But others say that that's going to change. You know, obviously, as society advances.”
Travelers will have to think ahead to make sure to not max out a credit card while on vacation, thinking you still have cash in your wallet.
Read the full story HERE.
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When it comes to fighting wildfires around the country, Wyoming’s wildland responders don’t pick and choose when and where to offer help. They go when and where duty calls.
And as Cowboy State Daily’s Leo Wolfson reports, right now, that’s to southern California to battle devastating wildfires in the greater Los Angeles area. As of Monday morning, 24 Wyoming firefighters were actively fighting the devastating wildfires there, made up of crews from Albany County, Yoder, Fremont County, Mills and Casper Mountain.
“They haven't been too close to any super serious fire situations down there, kind of doing more structural protection and mitigation type efforts. But it's really almost important that it's kind of a payback of sorts, that these firefighter units are always working on all these states are always helping each other out with fires… They pointed out that California responders could help that with the pack trail fire in Wyoming this summer. So it's just a matter of kind of helping out fellow Americans.”
The fires in the Los Angeles area have burned more than 40,000 acres and forced some 150,000 people to evacuate, in addition to killing at least 24 people. The causes of the fires remain under investigation.
Read the full story HERE.
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A Wyoming college student who unintentionally killed his friend while duck hunting last January has pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter.
But Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that 20-year-old Gage Zook has a chance to receive a sentence that could give him probation and keep him from being a convicted felon. She spoke to the county prosecutor, who said he doesn’t often give defendants a chance such as this.
“Eric Boyer said that it's unique for him for a plea agreement where the defendant can withdraw his guilty plea if the judge rejects the recommended sentence. And so this, in this case, the recommended sentences is pretty much as light as they come a 301, deferral, you get probation, and your conviction ultimately falls off your record… he didn't explain why he offered the good deal, but he, you know, throughout this case, there's been just argument about the fine line between reckless and accidental, and I think both sides are still committed to their position on that, but that's been just a an intense argument throughout.”
Goshen County District Court Judge Edward Buchanan set Zook’s sentencing hearing for April 9.
Read the full story HERE.
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By fall of 2026, swimmers at the University of Wyoming hope to have their home meets on campus rather than a nearby high school in Laramie. That’s when construction on a new $65.3 million dollar, 50-meter pool facility on campus is hoped to be finished by.
Cowboy State Daily’s Dale Killingbeck reports that while $65 million for a pool facility sounds expensive, it’s actually about middle-of-the-road for UW’s large capital projects over the last decade.
“That brings the total of capital projects on campus for the past 10 years to close to $900 million not all of that is is from the state budget, but a lot of it is… I talked to a couple of legislators, and both of them were kind of worried about… where that money has gone. And both of them were concerned more about… money for capital projects going to actually academics rather than athletics.”
The pool is one of nearly a dozen other projects done or started over the past 10 years at Wyoming’s only public university. They include big-ticket items like $295 million for new residence dormitories, $103 million for a new science building, and a $91 million dollar major renovation of War Memorial Stadium.
Read the full story HERE.
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Wolves from British Columbia, Canada, were flown into Colorado, but officials aren’t saying where they’ll be released, stirring up renewed criticism that the state’s wolf reintroduction program is too secretive.
Outdoors reporter Mark Heinz spoke with Colorado officials about the release, finding that while some are frustrated with the process, others say it’s necessary for the protection of the animals - and the people involved in the release.
“Colorado Parks and Wildlife is being extremely tight lipped about it. All they're confirming is, yeah, we're starting to fly them in from British Columbia. They're not saying anything else. Apparently, there's three counties that are on the list for where they might be released. I talked to officials in all three of those counties… They said CPW has been in contact with them and is letting them know that the wolves are coming in. But they're not saying exactly this county, that county where, where are they going to go?... From cpws point of view, what little they did tell me. They say, Look, we're doing this basically for the integrity of the operation and the safety of the people and the wolves involved.”
The agency plans to host a press conference giving more details about the location and number of wolves released. A date and time for the press conference hadn’t been set as of Monday.
Read the full story HERE.
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And that’s today’s news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on Cowboy State Daily Dot Com - and you can watch this newscast every day by clicking Subscribe on our YouTube channel! Thanks for tuning in - I’m Wendy Corr, for Cowboy State Daily.
