Most national forests in the Rockies these days have a “Green Team”—part of the fed’s “Greening the government” initiative. Each forest’s green team is working to limit that unit’s environmental footprint by reducing energy consumption, increasing materials recycling, etc., etc.
One of the most active and successful Forest Service green team that I’ve run into is on the Medicine Bow-Routt National Forest headquartered in Laramie, Wyoming. They dramatically reduced energy consumption with innovations like a video conferencing system that allows live meetings between far-flung ranger districts without long drives and an E85 compatible fleet. They’ve recently installed a wind turbine on the Yampa Ranger Station compound that produces at least as much clean electricity as the buildings consume.
Ironically, the Medicine Bow-Routt also manages the Thunder Basin National Grassland, which is a huge producer of coal, one of the leading contributors to global warming. The Thunder Basin NG has five coal mines, including the Black Thuder coal mine, which produces more coal than the other 23 coal producing states in the country.
Ironically, the Medicine Bow-Routt have very high potential for development of clean wind-generated power. “That’s going to be a huge issue,” the Executive Director of the Laramie-based Biodiversity Conservation Alliance told me of wind development. “It’s a matter of doing it right, where to put ‘em and where not to.” Among other things, he’s worried about several species of bats that reside on the Medicine Bow and Routt forests and are vulnerable to the giant wind turbine blades as they hunt for insects at night.
Two of the most common sights driving the windy, wide-open highways of eastern Wyoming are wind farms and 100-car trains loaded with coal from the Thunder Basin.
I took a lot of photos of wind farms—a lot of tourists do. But when I stopped to take a photo of the Jim Bridger coal fired power plant Zella and I were immediately cornered by security guards. It was pretty easy to convince them we weren’t a threat to national security.
“Do you ever have anyone trying to break in?” I asked.
“Oh, all the time,” one of the guards told me. “All guys from FERC. The FERC guys are always trying to bust through our security.”
“Ever had a dog try and break in?” I asked as she snapped a photo of Zella (now the first dog with an FBI file).
(The fuzz calling in my plates.)
P.S. If you haven’t noticed, this blog has been subject to an extraordinary amount of spam lately. I’ve been forced to change the commenting options so that only messages from readers that have already had a message approved can be posted. So, the first time you post a message, I will have to approve it (and I approve everything, unless it’s completely idiotic). After that first approval, anything you post will be online immediately.
Coming soon: Bison, black ferrets and the Black Hills NF.
WordPress database error: [Table './fseeeblog_fseee_org/wp_comments' is marked as crashed and should be repaired]
SELECT * FROM wp_comments WHERE comment_post_ID = '55' AND comment_approved = '1' ORDER BY comment_date