Wyoming News | New West Network

News of Note

Wyoming's oil and gas industry is responsible for one in five jobs in the state and about one-third of the state's total economic output, according to a report detailed in today's Casper Star-Tribune

Business editor Tom Mast rounds up the highlights of the report, most of which confirm that while the direct economics of the industry are predictable, the "downstream" effects are even more staggering than one might expect.

As one investigator says, "It shows vulnerabilities associated with oil and gas in that it's such a large portion of Wyoming's economy."  [more]

Sheridan - Think of Wyoming as the giant ocean that it once was, with vast stretches of water between islands and atolls. Imagine traveling by boat. The more time and money it costs to reach each island, the more isolated it becomes – unless it has something singular to offer. The plain jane atolls affording nothing but tidal pools and coconuts eventually are ignored all together.

The high cost of fuel, circa 2008, has the same isolating factors on Wyoming as the oceans of yore.

Never mind the irony about how much fuel we produce. Wyoming communities, especially the small ones, depend on cheap oil. Wyoming relies on the outside world for practically everything. The more it costs to deliver those goods, the more they're going to cost the populace.  [more]

New West Book Review

Still: Cowboys at the Start of the Twenty-First Century
By Robb Kendrick
University of Texas Press
232 pages, $50

The West's open range cowboy era that has been so romanticized in American myth, film, and books endured only for a short period during the 19th century, before fenced land became the norm, but photographer Robb Kendrick has devoted his career to capturing contemporary cowboys who look as though they've stepped right out of those legendary times. Kendrick doesn't costume his subjects to fit a role, unlike famous frontier photographer Edward S. Curtis (as Marianne Wiggins notes in her astute introduction), but he does have a great eye for men and women whose dress, faces, and demeanor make for an iconic look when he captures their image in a tintype, a photographic process that reigned in America from after the Civil War to the beginning of the 20th century.  [more]

energy

New regulations intended to steer the removal of vast resources of oil shale in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming have drawn praise from supporters and fierce criticism from opponents, underscoring the controversy that hangs over an energy source that gets more and more attention as fuel prices climb.

Environmentalists blasted the proposed regulations as an attempt by the Bush administration to ramp up energy development in its waning days. In Colorado, where the oil shale is in less supply but is considered easier to reach, Sen. Ken Salazar has accused the administration of trying to “set the stage for a last minute fire sale” of oil shale leases. He has joined his brother Rep. John Salazar and Rep. Mark Udall, a fellow Democrat, in calling for a year-long moratorium before allowing any oil shale development. Gov. Bill Ritter, also a Democrat, has also opposed the new regulations.

Supporters say the new rules are necessary if development of oil shale, believed to be years away from being commercially viable, is ever going to happen.

“I think it’s going to be a while for all of these (alternative fuel sources) to be significant players,” said Jerry Boak, director of the Colorado Energy Research Institute at the Colorado School of Mines. “That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be pursuing them.”  [more]

Western Book Roundup

Idealistic optimism in the book world is not dead: David Jasper of the Bend Bulletin reported that Kilns Bookstore, a nonprofit enterprise, opened in Bend over the holiday weekend. (Via Shelf Awareness.) Jasper writes, "The opening comes just more than a month after The Book Barn, a 35-year-old shop in nearby downtown, closed due to declining sales and stiff competition from online retailers such as Amazon."

Rick Bass recently reviewed Stephen Trimble's new book, Bargaining for Eden: The Fight for the Last Open Spaces in America for the Boston Globe.

Denise Hill at the NewPages blog noted the arrival of the premier issue of a new literary magazine called The Oval, published by University of Montana undergraduates.

Also in the Roundup: the Virginia Quarterly Review publishes a new story by a Casper author, the Colorado Book Award finalists are announced, and Denver's David Sirota tours.  [more]

New West Book Review

Wifeshopping
By Steven Wingate
Houghton Mifflin, 208 pages, $12.95

The men in Steven Wingate's engrossing, entertaining debut story collection Wifeshopping are looking not just for love, but for marriage. They're not adverse to commitment, but they are particular, seeking the ideal woman for whom to forsake their days of youthful flings. This ultimate woman never quite materializes for Wingate's protagonists, who reject their girlfriends and fiancées because they don't like used clothes or don't agree that they should get rid of a stranger's mementos found buried in the backyard. But more often, their women reject them for being too pompous, for proposing marriage too early or for trying to rush them out of their rituals of mourning for past loves. Wingate, who lives in Lafayette, Colo. and teaches at the University of Colorado, sets his stories across the country, from Denver to Thermopolis, Wyo., to Rockport, Mass., to Miami (and vividly evokes each of these varied settings), but the problems that plague his characters are the same everywhere—they're not-quite-perfect guys trying to create something lasting and meaningful with not-quite-perfect women.

Steven Wingate will discuss his book at the Tattered Cover (LoDo) on July 30 at 7:30 p.m., and at Poor Richard's Bookstore in Colorado Springs on August 7 at 5 p.m.
[more]

From WyoFile.Com

Wyoming is getting younger and richer.

Rarely do these two demographics merge and create happy endings. Wyoming is trying to be the exception.

The money part is pretty straightforward. Wyoming's real earnings in 2006 reached their highest level in 36 years. Our job growth in 2007 was the second highest in the nation.

The aging part isn't too difficult to figure out, either. Young wayfarers seeking fortune have long been a part of Wyoming’s economic history. What's surprising is how long this latest batch is staying on. [more]

Oral Arguments Heard Thursday

U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy in Missoula heard oral arguments Thursday in a case brought by environmental groups to return gray wolves in the Northern Rockies.

Molloy did not rule, but his decision is expected in the next several days on whether to grant a preliminary injunction and return wolf management to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service while a lawsuit challenging the federal decision to delist the wolf proceeds.

The plaintiffs, a coalition of 12 environmental and animal rights groups represented by the environmental legal firm Earthjustice, asked for the injunction to immediately stop the killing of wolves under state management and prevent wolf hunts proposed for the fall. [more]

Western Writers

In the second part of my interview with Alexandra Fuller, we discuss her passion for Wyoming, her concern for the state's welfare in the wake of the oil boom, her thoughts on other Wyoming writers, her run-in with Wyoming State Senator Kit Jennings, and how Jackson Hole "feels a whole lot smaller" when both she and Dick Cheney are in town.

New West: How has Wyoming changed in the years you've lived there?

AF: Well, between a quarter and a fifth of the land is now under oil and gas lease. The place where Colton fell used to be critical winter wildlife range in the greater Yellowstone ecosystem for the animals coming down from Grand Teton National Park. And if you got caught trespassing out there in the winter, you got into severe trouble. And in the summer if you were caught off road, they considered that range so critical that you would get in trouble. There used to be this kind of reverence for the open spaces. It absolutely was sacred ground. There was a deep understanding that this was a difficult place to make a living for man and for beast. It did feel wild—it felt African to me. You could walk all day and not see another human being. [more]