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Guest Opinion

Last fall news broke that the University of Montana was planning to construct a $16 million wood-burning biomass plant on campus next to the Aber Hall dormitory. UM officials claimed the biomass plant would save UM $1 million annually and protect Missoula’s air quality by reducing emissions over the existing natural gas heating system.

As interested citizens, we attended the university’s biomass “poster presentation” last December, which, unfortunately, raised more serious questions than it answered. So we continued to ask questions and research the proposal. In March, we even conducted an “open records” search of UM’s biomass project file, pouring over hundreds of documents and emails between UM officials and representatives of Nexterra, a Canadian biomass boiler manufacturer, and McKinstry, a Seattle energy services company. Suffice to say, our records search turned up even more troubling questions, especially related to costs, maintenance and emissions.

As the Missoulian reported last month (April 20), information in UM’s air quality permit application to the Missoula City-County Health Department showed that “Contrary to previous claims by UM administrators, the university’s proposed biomass boiler will not reduce emissions to levels below that of natural gas. In fact, UM’s proposed state-of-the-art biomass gasification plant will produce nearly twice as much nitrogen dioxide as its existing natural gas boilers - and in some cases, will release three times as much particulate matter.” The emissions are higher than what McKinstry’s feasibility study predicte

NEW WEST FEATURE

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced on Tuesday a plan to handle a backlog of 251 threatened plants and animals that might merit Endangered Species Act protections, including some species that have languished in conservation limbo for more than three decades.

The schedule is part of a proposed settlement with the environmental group WildEarth Guardians to dismiss a dozen cases in which the group claimed the federal government failed to move fast enough to protect disappearing species. The agency agreed to make a decision on all those cases within six years, and to set up a timetable to weigh other species that have been petitioned for the list by WildEarth Guardians and other conservation groups. The agreement is awaiting approval by a federal judge.

New West Column

Nobel winning economist Joseph Stiglitz is trying to change the national debate about the deficit, the role of government and the impact of those policies on the day-to-day economy.

“There are principled ways of cutting the deficit ...  putting Americans back to work,” the Columbia University professor recently said in a speech, as quoted in the Nieman Watchdog. He said this is essential in a country where economic inequality is growing and where one percent of the population controls 40 percent of the wealth and takes one-fourth of the nation’s income every year.

He adds:  “The deficit didn’t cause the downturn. The downturn caused the deficit.”

I wish this was the official line from the Obama Administration. Instead, both Republicans and too many Democrats are proposing policies of contraction. We should be shouting: Invest in people! Invest in infrastructure! Invest in ourselves!

NEW WEST FEATURE

To boosters, it’s almost a magical elixir for the world’s energy woes. To opponents, it’s more akin to snake oil. Even more than most other fossil fuels, oil shale meets with a sharply divided reaction, and after two weeks of public hearings across Utah, Wyoming and Colorado, federal officials have received an earful from both sides.

But beyond the bluster, those in the middle feel left in a vacuum of straight talk.

“I would like to see some sort of document that includes the facts, from a source that doesn’t have an agenda,” Jim Yellico told Bureau of Land Management officials at a meeting in Rifle. Colo., on Tuesday.

Getting straight facts, though, is a challenge.

New West Feature

Roadless areas are not quite wilderness, but they’re not quite freely open to development either.

They’re somewhere in between, particularly in Colorado, where the fate of roadway-free, undeveloped national forest land has been rancorously contested for a decade and could soon end up with a management scheme entirely unique to the state.

On April 14, the U.S. Forest Service and the state of Colorado unveiled a final draft of a federal rule that will govern how more than 4 million acres of roadless land in Colorado’s national forests are managed. The Forest Service is asking for public feedback on the draft rule through July 14, with the feds’ final blessing expected sometime late this year or in early 2012.

If the Forest Service finalizes the rule, it would mean roadless areas in Colorado will probably get different treatment than similar roadless areas elsewhere in the country. The Colorado rule involves two different levels of roadless area protection, one keeping the land more wild than the other, while allowing some logging of trees killed by mountain pine beetles and some rights-of-way for oil, natural gas, coal and ski area development.

WyoFile Feature

Many residents across Wyoming were no doubt rejoicing along with the rest of the country late Sunday night, as news spread of the successful effort by U.S. forces to kill Osama bin Laden, who approved the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

But Wyoming and other Mountain West states with a high percentage of rural communities are perhaps cheering a little louder, and not without good reason.

According to U.S. Census data and studies conducted by numerous groups with wide-ranging political leanings, rural America has provided a disproportionate number of military recruits since the attacks of 9/11.

In the nation’s least populous state, that outsize contribution may be felt even more acutely, as almost any resident in one of Wyoming’s close-knit, small communities is likely to personally know someone who has served. Therrel “Shane” Childers, a 30-year-old U.S. Marine from Powell, was the first American killed in the war in Iraq.

New West Feature

In 1989, energy activist Amory Lovins noticed a simple typo — “negawatt” for “megawatt” — in a report. That simple mistake, thought Lovins, co-founder of the Rocky Mountain Institute, captured the essence of what he believed should be done. Instead of building new power plants, he advocated using existing electrical generation more efficiently.

That idea of negawatts continues to gain purchase in the West as investor-owned utilities, which are overseen by state utility commissions, begin to bend down the growth in electrical demand even while earning profits.

Last week, for example, the Colorado Public Utilities Commission set energy-saving goals for Xcel Energy, the state’s largest provider of electricity and gas. The PUC specified that Xcel should aim to institute electrical savings equivalent to 1.14 percent of sales beginning in 2012, escalating to 1.68 percent of sales in 2020. The PUC, in its written opinion, called these targets “properly ambitious yet realistically achievable.”

The Southwest Energy Efficiency Project, an activist group, estimates that if Xcel succeeds, the savings in Colorado will shave electrical use by four billion kilowatt hours per year in 2020. That’s unlikely to close power plants, but it’s could eliminate the need to build a 575-megawatt power plant for base-load generation, says Howard Geller, the group’s founder.

New West Column

Sometimes it’s easy for Indian Country to ignore the huge challenges facing the United States. After all, there are so many immediate and intense issues on reservations and in tribal communities that the idea of adding another layer of concerns just seems too much.

But there is a connection.  The current federal policy of contraction—spending less on government programs and people—will have huge implications for Indian Country in the years ahead.

The debate to increase the federal debt limit, the amount of money the United States is authorized by law to borrow, is a good example. Some Republicans have vowed to oppose a debt limit increase unless federal budget cutting ramps up significantly. If that happens, money will be cut from all federal programs, including those that benefit Indian Country.

News Briefs

Senators, congressmen and other leaders from throughout the Rockies took to Twitter, Facebook and email last night as President Obama announced that Osama bin Laden had been killed in Pakistan. Here’s a sample of their reactions to the conclusion of a manhunt that continued for nearly 10 years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Utah Congressman Jason Chaffetz on Twitter: “The USA is about justice. This is justice. Thanks to the ongoing and tenacious pursuit by the US military and intelligence services!”

Colorado Senator Mark Udall on Twitter: “Remembering the 1000s of US men and women who fought and died to defeat terrorists led by bin Laden who attacked us 9/11/2001. ... Bin Laden’s death is a major milestone in U.S. fight against terror. I salute our brave service members and our president.”

New West Feature

Riding the Rail Runner Express commuter train between Albuquerque and Santa Fe is a distinctly New Mexican experience.

As soon as the train doors close with a “Looney Toons”-style Road Runner “meep meep” chime, the crew warns passengers not to snap photos out of the windows because the train will soon cross the Tewa Pueblo and other sacred Native American lands in the Rio Grande Valley.

With a wave of GOP hostility toward commuter rail projects across the country, that experience is uncertain following the election last fall of Republican Gov. Susana Martinez, who has long questioned the need and cost of the Rail Runner Express, the first inter-city commuter rail project in the Rocky Mountain region.

One of Democratic former Gov. Bill Richardson’s most visible legacies, the Rail Runner Express connects cities in New Mexico’s most populous region, ushering commuters from the state’s largest city to the state capital.