Dec 7, 2021

Wither winter

Wither winter

By Mountain West News • Issue #261 • View online

Glimpsing the West's low-snow future

Western U.S. could become nearly snowless due to climate change

A new study provides a glimpse into the future of Western U.S. snow and the picture is far from rosy: In about 35 to 60 years, mountainous states are projected to be nearly snowless for years at a time if greenhouse gas emissions continue unchecked and climate change does not slow.

www.washingtonpost.com • Share

A future with little to no snow? What that means for the West

A new study hopes to inspire water managers—and the rest of us—to begin planning for how climate change will dramatically reduce snowpack.

therevelator.org • Share

Where's the snow? Rockies winter starts with a whimper

“Every day that goes by that we don’t see precipitation show up and we see this year-to-year persistence of drought conditions, it just adds to a deficit. And we continue to add to this deficit year after year, particularly in the Colorado River Basin,” said Keith Musselman, a hydrologist at the University of Colorado-Boulder.

apnews.com • Share

Colorado wildfires in December may become more common, expert says

“It’s important to recognize that this is a year-end threat now, that wildfires can happen in Colorado any time of year,” wildfire expert Michael Kodas said Monday.

www.thedenverchannel.com • Share

Prairies on fire in Montana amid a record December heat wave

Cathy Whitlock, a paleoclimatologist at Montana State University, said the late-season fires and other extremes were a product of the global climate crisis. She said the current drought in Montana had exceeded all previous measurements and took the state into “uncharted territory” as the end of the year approaches. “We’re looking at conditions we haven’t seen for a thousand years in Montana and probably longer in terms of the drought,” she said. “Temperatures are exceeding what we have seen for the last 11,000 years.”

www.nytimes.com • Share

How Denton firefighters saved the town from a catastrophic blaze

Grass fires are common in central Montana, but gale force winds and severe drought combined to make Montana’s West Wind Fire an unstoppable monster.

www.greatfallstribune.com • Share

This is the year we all become climate reporters

Climate now is just as much a business and foreign policy story as it is a science topic. Local reporters need to be adept at spotting climate impacts in their communities and telling stories about the people affected by them. Business reporters need to understand the risks to the economy of potential stranded assets as oil and gas companies have to shift—perhaps suddenly—to renewables, leaving many of their proven, valuable reserves in the ground.

www.niemanlab.org • Share

Tribes at the table

Historically excluded from Colorado River policy, tribes want a say in how the dwindling resource is used. Access to clean water is a start.

State water managers and the federal government say they will include tribes in upcoming Colorado River policymaking negotiations for the first time. Collectively, tribes own rights to about a quarter of the water that flows through the Colorado River—a share that exceeds what some states have and includes legally superior senior water claims. The tribes’ slice of the river is only expected to grow as climate change and demand reduce the amount of water available to states whose newer water rights have less legal authority.

www.cpr.org • Share

Biden tribal policy would shake up energy law on public lands

New initiatives from the Biden administration to expand the influence of Indigenous tribes could bolster legal opposition to energy projects on public lands.

www.eenews.net • Share

Native agricultural group takes up priorities for next farm bill

Tribal agricultural leaders say they would like to see more lending to agricultural producers and more autonomous control over federal funds.

www.marketplace.org • Share

Political animals

Wyoming approves tri-state grizzly hunting pact in delisting push

Wyoming, Idaho and Montana have forged a pact aimed at moving Yellowstone Ecosystem grizzly bears off the federal threatened species list and allowing hunting—by addressing flaws a court found in an earlier delisting effort.

wyofile.com • Share

Montana petitions U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to delist NCDE grizzlies

Gov. Greg Gianforte’s office announced on Monday that the state is petitioning the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to remove Endangered Species Act protections for grizzly bears in the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem, citing robust population counts and touting the state’s ability to independently manage Montana’s grizzly bears, which have been federally protected since 1975.

montanafreepress.org • Share

Montana governor, AG try to stop American Prairie's bison through political pressure

Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte and Attorney General Austin Knudsen both oppose the Bureau of Land Management’s plan to stop grazing on federal land by the American Prairie Reserve, but the law doesn’t appear to be on state leaders’ side.

dailymontanan.com • Share

In restoring gray wolves to Colorado, big decisions lie ahead for wildlife planners

State officials are in the midst of navigating intense disagreements among ranchers, sportspeople, wolf advocates and outdoor enthusiasts.

coloradonewsline.com • Share

Dispatches from the energy transition

Job gains and losses from coal shutdowns land in different places

More jobs are expected to be created in the green-energy economy than lost from giving up fossil fuels. The problem is many of the jobs will be in different places. That dynamic is playing out in rural Utah, where a coal mine is losing two top domestic customers because their power plants are switching to cleaner fuels

www.wsj.com • Share

The U.S. wants more clean energy projects on public lands. One Wyoming wind farm shows it’s not that easy.

Construction started in south-central Wyoming back in 2016 on what will be the country’s largest wind farm. The project is unusual because of its size and also because it’s located on federal land. But a federal agency is also stalling a key aspect of its development.

www.ksjd.org • Share

Cheney bill would pay states for oil and gas leasing, even when sales aren't held

Half of the money generated from federal lease sales and production royalties is returned to the states where that drilling took place. The Payment in Lieu of Lost Revenues, or PILLR, ACT would compensate states for the rentals, bonuses, royalties and severance taxes lost as a result of “an order, moratorium, pause or other action” instituted by “the President, the Secretary of the Interior, Secretary of Agriculture, or other designated official.”

trib.com • Share

Opinion: State budgets tied to fossil fuels are slowing the energy transition and leaving workers and communities behind

Oil and gas lobbyists have spent decades working to entrench dependence on fossil fuels. Solutions require a new model that builds wealth and empowers rural communities.

www.americanprogress.org • Share

How Dems' climate plan may transform coal in rural America

The $1.7 trillion “Build Back Better Act” tackles challenges facing the nation’s rural electric cooperatives, which generally have been slower to transition away from coal than other utilities. The bill—which is expected to undergo significant changes during ongoing negotiations with the Senate—includes nearly $12.6 billion to help rural co-ops retire coal plants and invest in carbon-free and low-carbon energy.

www.eenews.net • Share

Geothermal energy could mean a renewable future for Colorado's oil fields

Emerging advances in renewable technologies could help extend the operating life of aging oil wells and help address Colorado’s orphan well problem.

www.kunc.org • Share

Proposed gold and copper mine near Cheyenne advances to final exploratory phase

“The rise in wind turbines and electric cars and modernizing the grid, that some say is leading to sort of a downturn of our traditional coal industry, it’s really causing a huge jump in demand for copper and gold and those metals that go into these new energy technologies,” said Jason Begger, the project spokesperson. “The price of copper and gold has just really spiked here in the last couple of years. So it’s kind of a perfect storm.”

trib.com • Share

Price of Wyoming coal jumps to unprecedented high

The stunningly high price of coal is largely the consequence of a supply and demand mismatch in the natural gas market, where demand has continued to exceed supply in the wake of COVID-19 lockdowns, propelling natural gas to its highest sustained price since 2014.

trib.com • Share

What else we're reading today

Inside the quest for independent journalism on tribal lands across the country

More than 300 print and digital publications serve the federally recognized Indigenous nations in the United States. Most of the tribal news organizations—an estimated 72% of newspapers, news sites and radio stations—are owned or funded to some degree by tribal governments. That gives those governments unusual control over local news media.

www.editorandpublisher.com • Share

Utah will ask Supreme Court to consider monuments challenge

A national law firm that touts its repeated appearances before the Supreme Court will advise Utah officials as the state looks to upend President Biden’s recent restoration of two national monuments, the state’s attorney general said.

www.eenews.net • Share

Will EPA help fund Utah Lake island-building project?

A controversial proposal to dredge Utah Lake is on a wait list it apply for nearly $1 billion in federal water infrastructure funding.

www.sltrib.com • Share

A Colorado family tried to save their cattle ranch by betting big on rare birds. It’s paying off.

From getting the folks at Audubon to certify the ranch as bird-friendly, to selling carbon sequestration credits for the tall grass, the May Ranch near Lamar is modernizing stewardship.

coloradosun.com • Share

A battle between pedaling and peace heats up over plans for mountain bike park in Conifer, Colorado

A titanic battle of Colorado values and priorities is brewing over a proposed mountain bike park on a 9,000-foot mountain overlooking this quiet foothills community 40 minutes from Denver.

www.denverpost.com • Share

Advocates hope Caribou, now absent from the Lower 48, make a comeback

“The caribou going away, you know the tribe’s going to remain without the caribou, but the mountains they’re a little different, they lost some of their magic losing a charismatic species like that.“

www.spokesman.com • Share

Nighttime's not quieting wildfires like it used to, study shows

Wildfire activity generally slows at night as winds die down, temperatures drop and humidity rises. But a new study suggests that’s changing.

www.wyomingpublicmedia.org • Share

Meet B.C.'s new wildfire crew: cows

Ranchers and researchers have teamed up to use targeted grazing to reduce one source of forest fire fuel: grass.

thenarwhal.ca • Share

How to solve the rural-urban digital divide

The author of “Farm Fresh Broadband” draws on history to chart a better future for rural internet access.

www.hcn.org • Share

The vicious 150-year rivalry between Utah’s two biggest newspapers

The early battles between the Salt Lake Tribune and the Latter-day Saints church-affiliated Deseret News sometimes turned violent.

www.washingtonpost.com • Share

Rockies Today is edited by Matthew Frank, fellow in regional journalism at the O’Connor Center for the Rocky Mountain West at the University of Montana.

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The big stories up and down the Rocky Mountains

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O'Connor Center for the Rocky Mountain West, University of Montana, Missoula, Montana, 59812