Wyoming
Wyoming Utility Rates to Increase Over 20%
Utility rates in Wyoming are expected to climb over 20% by January.
Rocky Mountain Power (RMP), the largest utility company in the state, has applied for two rate increases in the last year with the Wyoming Public Service Commission. It’s the largest rate increase the company has applied for in over a decade.
The first rate hike application on Mach 1, 2023 asked the Commission “to increase its retail electric service rates by approximately $140.2 million per year or 21.6 percent and to revise the energy cost adjustment mechanism.”
The second and more recent rate hike application was on April 17, 2023, and asks for “Rocky Mountain Power to increase current rates by $50.3 million (7.6 percent) to recover deferred net power costs.”
The most recent rate hike is scheduled to begin this month, and customers will see their bill increase by approximately $3.52. The other 21.6 percent increase will take effect in January.
Average electricity bills are expected to increase to over $16 a month for average households.
In a press release, RMP said “extreme weather events and drought conditions” in the west continue to have “significant impacts on wholesale power prices.”
Any rate increases have to be justified by the company. The Energy Cost Adjustment Mechanism is a formula designed to negotiate the difference between forecasted energy costs and actual costs for utility companies. Cost-sharing has been implemented in the past, with RMP paying 20% of cost overruns and Wyoming residents footing the other 80%. RMP seeks to eliminate cost-sharing and charge Wyoming customers 100% of any cost overruns.
“Rocky Mountain Power provides approximately 95% of the power it supplies to customers from power plants it owns…and the remaining 5% from other utilities. These prices fluctuate in the competitive wholesale market. Additionally, any revenues the company makes from power sales to wholesale buyers are credited back to customers as part of the annual cost adjustment,” the release said.
A public comment hearing was held in Rock Springs on July 17m 2023. Public comment for the rate adjustment can be made through the Wyoming Public Service Commission, visit their website here.
Rocky Mountain Power services Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming. RMP’s parent company, PacifiCorp, is owned by Berkshire Hathaway.
Brutal Laramie Spring Break Blizzards
Spring break usually means vacations, trips to beaches or fun cities, or maybe a little time off work. In March 2019, though, folks in Southwest Wyoming weren’t catching any flights out of town during spring break. We experienced a “Bomb Cyclone Blizzard” on March 13-14, 2019. A year later, the world shut down due to Covid, and Wyoming was further shut in by another historic blizzard the week of March 13, 2020.
Wyoming
Opinion | Encampment River decision highlights the impact of climate change on Wyoming water law
Climate change has Wyoming industry maneuvering to guarantee access to water during dry years. An order issued by Wyoming’s state engineer, and challenged by Encampment River irrigators in a recent appeal, foreshadows how water law will respond as the planet gets hotter and drier.
The decision directly impacts the North Platte River basin but has statewide implications, particularly for the Green River and Little Snake River basins.
On Oct. 14, State Engineer Brandon Gephart approved the proposal of the Sinclair refinery near Rawlins to get water in very dry years from ranchland on the Grand Encampment River near the Colorado state line.
That new proposal is a response to climate change, which has had more drastic effects further west in the Colorado River Basin. Wyoming may have to reduce water consumption on the Green and Little Snake rivers to meet obligations to downstream Colorado River states. A trona company near Rock Springs has sent Gephart six requests like the proposal made by Sinclair.
The trona requests are on hold while awaiting Gephart’s decision in Carbon County. His decision there, with results on appeal, will set the guidelines for action on the trona proposals.
Sinclair bought an old ranch on the Encampment a couple of years ago and in 2023 filed its request to quit the ranch irrigation in very dry years and use the water at the refinery instead.
In June 2024 a crowd assembled at a public meeting with Gephart. Irrigators on the Encampment vehemently opposed the plan. Carbon County and Rawlins officials backed Sinclair, championing the economic value of the refinery and its need for a secure water supply.
The Encampment River is a tributary to the North Platte River, on which the refinery sits some 100 miles north. As on many streams in the Little Snake and Green River basins, Encampment irrigators’ water use is interdependent. Neighbors have developed a pattern of water use that largely works for them all, and they don’t welcome the change or new state supervision.
Neighboring ranchers on the Encampment complained to Gephart that under Sinclair’s plan they could no longer rely every year on using water that replenished the river in late summer. That water has returned slowly to the stream late in summer from the irrigated fields of the upstream ranch Sinclair now owns. The lost timing of that “return flow” is what the neighbors lamented.
Gephart’s decision makes it possible for that timing loss to occur only occasionally — in certain very dry years. If the oil company had simply sought to move the ranch water permanently to the refinery, the loss of “return flow” timing in late summer would have been permanent.
Starting 50 years ago, Wyoming water law has allowed permanent changes. An even older provision of state water law, encouraging “exchanges,” allows the refinery to use the Encampment ranch water in very dry years, Gephart ruled. That law requires the state engineer to avoid adverse effects on water users, harm to the public interest and exchanges too difficult to administer.
Gephart found the Sinclair exchange creates none of those problems. Yet three irrigators on the Encampment and North Platte claimed in their appeal that adverse effects and tough administration abound .
In an unusual move, Gephart wrote a public letter to accompany his official order, to explain the considerations that underlie his decision.
The very dry years he has defined as triggers for the Sinclair exchange have occurred in 20 percent of the years since 2002, he noted. In Wyoming’s “first in time, first in right” water right priority system, the refinery couldn’t use its own water rights in spring of those dry years and had to find older rights. The old water rights on the Encampment ranch that Sinclair bought now solve that problem and can serve the refinery in the very dry years under Gephart’s ruling, making refinery operations more secure.
Now, in the key dry years the refinery can still take water from the North Platte. In return the company would not irrigate its Encampment ranch at all in spring or summer. Encampment River water unused at the ranch would flow down the North Platte as “makeup” water, as required by Wyoming’s water exchange law.
An important factor Gephart cites is the company’s calculation of how much irrigation water the ranch has genuinely used — how much it has consumed — in the past. That dictates how much water must flow unused downstream from the Encampment in exchange years. It also allows an estimate of how much water the ranch has not consumed annually out of all the water it typically diverted from the river. In exchange years, Gephart ordered, that amount of water must be left in the Encampment River to mimic return flow for neighbors to use.
That does not fully address the neighbors’ complaints about losing the kind of return flows they have relied on. The water Gephart requires to remain in the Encampment River for neighbors approximates the amount of return flow water received in the past but does nothing for its timing. Most likely the volume he requires will be in the river in the early months of the irrigation season — but not late in the season.
The neighboring irrigators challenged the calculation of the amount of water that must remain in the river, and the failure to consider return flow timing. But the timing of return flows, and reliance on them, could be difficult to document, and Wyoming’s water statutes explicitly protect only the volume of return flows when water rights are changed. Nothing in water law says one neighbor can force another to continue irrigating.
Elsewhere in his order, Gephart required Sinclair to build specific infrastructure to ensure neighbors can get their water, regardless of activity on the Sinclair ranch. One neighbor (who has not joined the appeal) had complained that the company refused to commit to new infrastructure.
The appeal argues the Sinclair plan, analyzed as an unwelcome permanent change rather than an exchange, should go to the Board of Control. The board consists of the state engineer and the superintendents of Wyoming’s four geographic water divisions, people with considerable experience inspecting and assessing irrigation use. (The state engineer is recused from sitting on the board when a state engineer order is appealed, as in this case.)
Gephart earlier required Sinclair to file water right “cleanup” proposals with the Board of Control. Cleanup includes proof of past water consumption on the ranch — including proof of adequate past consumption to serve the new exchange. Cleanups are standard in places like the Encampment River, since actual use of old water rights in Wyoming often changes over decades, as streams move a little and ditches fall into disuse. Old water rights often require some work to be properly identified and nailed down to the current use, before new plans can be implemented.
Gephart provided that the Encampment cleanup must be done by fall 2029, and the exchange could be conditioned or revoked if past ranch water consumption is inadequate for the exchange.
Sinclair’s purchase of the old Encampment ranch and its exchange plan will, clearly, disturb familiar patterns of water use on the Encampment River. But it appears to avoid complete disruption of irrigation on the Encampment. Gephart apparently aimed to strike the right chord in the complicated balance between water users’ need for stable water access, and circumstances that demand change for the sake of all Wyoming’s society.
The irrigator appeal cast the exchange as major disruption and argued vehemently against the choice Gephart has made.
Wyoming water law has accommodated change over its 135 years as small cities and a significant minerals industry grew where irrigation once dominated water use. Refinery operations on the North Platte and irrigation on the tributary Encampment River have co-existed for some 100 years. Workers at the refinery include some from Encampment-area families.
Now, the climate is changing, and the old accommodation is challenged. The problem of balancing water rights stability and changing circumstances has come home to people on the Encampment. Gephart’s decision sought to set some guidelines for proposals made to handle climate change. Once the appeal is addressed, whatever balance is ultimately struck on Sinclair will next ripple into the Green and the Little Snake.
Wyoming
Cal State Fullerton’s comeback bid falls short against Wyoming
FULLERTON — The Cal State Fullerton men’s basketball team erased most of a 19-point second half deficit but could not complete the comeback in a 73-69 loss to Wyoming on Sunday afternoon at Titan Gym.
Fullerton (4-9 overall, 0-2 Big West) trailed 50-31 early in the second half before going on a 16-4 run to get back into the game. The Titans held Wyoming (7-5) without a field goal for nearly eight minutes during that stretch, and Zion Richardson capped the run with a 3-pointer to get Fullerton within eight points with 10:33 left.
The Titans chipped away from there.
A Richardson 3-pointer cut the visitors’ lead to 69-63 with 1:55 remaining, then followed a Wyoming 3-point miss with a layup to cut the margin to four with 1:16 left. After another Wyoming miss from behind the arc, Fullerton cut the margin to two points on a pair of Donovan Oday free throws with 37 seconds left.
Wyoming’s Obi Agbim was fouled driving to the rim and made a pair of free throws with 10 seconds left for a 71-67 lead, then Oday made two more free throws with 7.3 seconds left to make it a two-point game again.
Kobe Newton, a Portland, Oregon product who helped Fullerton College win a CCCAA state championship during his two seasons there, then made two free throws with 4.3 seconds left to help Wyoming hold on.
Oday led Fullerton with 18 points on 4-of-8 shooting while grabbing five rebounds. Kaleb Brown had 11 points, five rebounds and three assists, while Zachary Visentin added a career-high 11 points on 5-for-5 shooting and Richardson also scored 11.
Fullerton’s bench was a key factor all night, out-scoring Wyoming’s reserves 29-18.
Newton scored 20 points to pace the Cowboys. The senior shooting guard made his first six shots of the game and finished 6 for 9 from the field (5 for 8 from 3-point range) while making all three of his free throws. Agbim scored 16 points, and Touko Tainamo added 13 points on 5-for-6 shooting.
Fullerton led 22-20 with seven minutes left in the first half, but Wyoming finished the half on a 12-2 run for a 39-29 advantage at the intermission. The Cowboys then used an 8-0 run to open their 50-31 lead with 17:07 left in the second half.
Fullerton finished with a 34-22 advantage in points in the paint and a 13-5 advantage in fast-break points.
UP NEXT
Fullerton will host NCCAA program Nobel (of Los Angeles) on Saturday at 2 p.m. in its final nonconference matchup.
Originally Published:
Wyoming
Inside The Making Of Wyoming Whiskey’s Tribute To Yellowstone National Park
Each year since 2021, Wyoming Whiskey has released a special edition bottle to highlight America’s national parks, and naturally, particularly those in the state of Wyoming.
The company recently announced the release of its fourth limited edition whiskey in the brand’s annual National Parks Series: the National Parks No. 4 Straight Bourbon Whiskey—Mammoth Hot Springs. This bourbon honors Yellowstone National Park and aims to support its preservation efforts through a collaboration with the official nonprofit partner, Yellowstone Forever.
“The straight bourbon whiskey celebrates Yellowstone, a place of natural wonder boasting half of the world’s known hydrothermal features, including Mammoth Hot Springs,” says David DeFazio, Wyoming Whiskey’s co-founder and National Brand Ambassador in a Zoom interview. “This ever-changing system of travertine terraces has been formed over thousands of years, and the National Parks No. 4 release is a tribute to the park’s unique and evolving landscape.”
Whitney Brunner, partnerships manager at Yellowstone Forever Partnerships Manager, emphasizes the importance of this collaboration, which has so far resulted in $150,000 in donations to support conservation initiatives within the park.
“The work is multi-faceted, scientific and dependent on philanthropic funding,” says Brunner.
Climate change presents serious challenges for the American whiskey industry, impacting weather patterns and the availability of raw materials. Rising temperatures and unpredictable rainfall affect the growth of essential grains like corn and barley, potentially leading to shortages and higher costs. Additionally, warmer conditions can speed up the aging process in barrels, altering flavor profiles and reducing the ideal maturation time. As these environmental changes affect the landscape and local wildlife, whiskey producers may need to adapt by sourcing grains from new regions or adjusting aging techniques to maintain product consistency.
The already extreme climate of Wyoming plays a crucial role in the maturation process of Wyoming Whiskey’s products. During the summer, temperature swings of over 55 degrees within a single day influence the maturation of each cask. The barrels breathe in and out dramatically during these temperature fluctuations, allowing the whiskey to interact more intensely with the wood. This process shapes the final character of the spirit, making it uniquely reflective of Wyoming’s climate.
“Wyoming’s environment is tough on the people, but good for the whiskey,” DeFazio says.
One of the key projects funded through this partnership is the restoration of Yellowstone’s native fish species, such as the Yellowstone Cutthroat Trout. Brunner explains that native fish are vital to the park’s ecosystem, serving as a crucial food source for many species, including bears, otters and birds of prey.
Brendan Cook, Wyoming Whiskey’s master blender, draws a parallel between the formation of the park’s natural terraces and the bourbon aging process.
“Mammoth Hot Springs, with its tiered formations and layers of mineral deposits, mirrors the aging process of bourbon, where time and nature intricately shape the final character,” Cook says.
The complex interaction between spirit, wood and the surrounding environment during the aging process contributes to the bourbon’s distinct flavor profile. Like the hot springs, the bourbon evolves over time, developing layers of flavor as it matures. Aged for a minimum of five years, the National Parks No. 4 whiskey offers a blend of flavors such as vanilla, candied ginger, crème caramel and honeysuckle.
Over 70 barrels were carefully selected for the National Parks No. 4 release, with each barrel chosen from specific areas within the warehouse to create layers of flavor. The team’s attention to detail in the blending process ensures that each bottle of National Parks No. 4 bourbon captures the essence of Wyoming’s natural landscape and the park it honors.
In addition to the Mammoth Hot Springs release, Wyoming Whiskey has also launched a new expression called Old Faithful. This marks the first-ever release of a 10-year wheated bourbon from Wyoming Whiskey. DeFazio explains that while previous 10-year editions included rye bourbon, this release pays homage to the vision of the founders and the original master distiller, who aimed to create “the next great wheated bourbon.”
Looking ahead, Wyoming Whiskey intends to continue its focus on conservation efforts through future projects in the National Parks Series. DeFazio emphasizes the importance of these releases in shaping the brand’s legacy.
“National Parks No. 4 reflects Wyoming Whiskey’s commitment to the people, efforts and foundations that help protect and maintain our national parks,” he says.
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