Jonathan Ratner to speak tomorrow, Sept. 10 in Jackson, Wy

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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