Man with the data the ranchers fear, will speak at Teton County Library-
Jonathan Ratner, whose data gathering efforts to test for e. coli contamination in Wyoming creeks indirectly caused the Wyoming legislature to pass their draconian “data trespass law,” will speak tomorrow, Sept. 10 at the Teton County Library in Jackson, Wyoming at 6 pm. He will talk about water quality, which has become a raging issue in Wyoming as the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality moves to downgrade the standards for contamination by fecal coliform bacteria in creeks.
Ratner is the Wyoming director of the Western Watersheds Project.
There would be a change of status for 87,775 miles of creeks in Wyoming (those with an average flow of less than 6 cubic feet a second — 76% of the state’s waters). The rationale is that the waters of streams with this low a flow do not come in contact with people enough to be considered primary waters meriting a primary e. coli standard. Instead they are secondary and only have to meet a seccondary standard, which is 5 times weaker (dirtier). This is obviously false with all of the remote wilderness creeks in the state. A creek with less than 6 cps can be extremely important for recreation, not to mention fish and wildlife.
Meanwhile Angus M. Thuermer Jr. of WyoFile has written a lengthy article describing recent events in this controversy. The EPA has rejected Wyoming’s changes so far, though only because they have not held a proper public hearing where everyone has notice and records are kept. Read “Water hearing to be held under protest.” Wyoming DEQ is arrogantly claiming a public hearing does not need to be held, but the EPA is forcing them.
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Ralph Maughan
Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University with specialties in natural resource politics, public opinion, interest groups, political parties, voting and elections. Aside from academic publications, he is author or co-author of three hiking/backpacking guides, and he is President of the Western Watersheds Project.
Deny, deny, deny! What hope is there for a civilization that ignores reality and buries or ignores information that is essential to life?
How did the meeting go Jonathan?
Nancy,
This week’s issue of the Jackson Hole News and Guide has a sidebar article on Ratner’s talk.
See: Water-quality activist slams DEQ
Thanks for the update Ralph.
What are the procedures if one wants to check on the water quality in their local streams, creeks, say in Montana?
While walking through our national forest, A random step placed on a cow pie (in a minefield of pie)leads one to believe that the effort to clean the minefield is outnumbered. It has been said, nothing worthwhile happens in the brevity of a lifetime, “so we have hope”.