Guest post: keep US85 historic

Editor's note: After Missoula I returned to Deadwood in 1981 and was hired as a foodservice delivery truck driver by Paul Miller, a mad genius, who ran the transportation for Twin City Fruit. Paul's dad Dave told stories about beating checks back to Deadwood driving rickety old trucks on gravel roads and US85 since the 1940s from Deadwood to Denver's Denargo Market peddling produce from Scottsbluff, Nebraska back to the Gulch. They owned the Scottsbluff market back-hauling beet sugar and Rockyford melons from the area. 

Paul's brother David, Jr., now a local historian, ran the staff and warehouse until selling his share to Paul while their father, Dave, Sr. ran purchasing. David, Jr. also owned Pop's Grabit N Growl on Deadwood's Main Street until gambling came to the Gulch. Paul bought the Fish and Hunter warehouse then built a freezer that featured an impressive 40-foot roof-mounted ammonia refrigeration system to sustain the large-scale walk-ins that sustained Paul's $22 million market share. The property footprint sat directly along the US 85/Highway 14A and Whitewood Creek boundary, which serves as the primary gateway into Deadwood. 

Let me just say that you haven't lived until you've driven a refrigerated truck from Deadwood to Newcastle, Wyoming and back again twice a week for a year and a half on US85 sometimes over ice and snow covered roads.

Denver-based competitor Nobel also distributed in the Black Hills market then it was absorbed by Houston-based Sysco but was the division that ultimately bought Paul's client list. Following corporate transitions later in its history, local lore and historical employee forums note that operations abruptly ceased, with remaining inventory packed up overnight. Paul died in 2014 but not before giving the Fish and Hunter property back to the City.

Today, I can see US85 from my house in New Mexico, drive it nearly every day and my dreams still feature deadlines to meet.

From my inbox.

Hello Larry, 

My name is Mike Miller. I worked with you at TCF in Deadwood. I left in 1987 to work for American Airlines in Tulsa, retired in 2021, and moved to Olympia, WA. I’m sending you this in case you would be able to help my Dad out. He’s 85 and still fighting for the Black Hills at every opportunity. What we are trying to do is get as many people as we can to submit comments to Mark Malone of the SDDOT. Their plan is to widen and straighten highway 85 from Cheyenne Crossing to the Wyoming border. We know what that means. We recently got an extension on the comment period to September 4th. If you, or anyone you know could send a message to Mark, it would help a lot. A comment from you would carry a lot of weight. 

Thank you Larry. 

Sincerely, Mike Miller

Threatened dipper fighting back against LawCo

ip image: a Say's phoebe nested in the tractor in 2024.

In South Dakota over a hundred native species are at risk to the Earth hating Republican Party including the endangered pallid sturgeon, paddlefish, black footed ferret, northern long-eared bat, the black-backed woodpecker that feeds on bark beetles and a bird that actually walks underwater – the American dipper plus the occasional black bear, moose and wolf, just to name a few.

Work to replace a bridge on Elmore Road in Spearfish Canyon has been delayed again after an American dipper returned to nest on the existing structure despite the county’s best efforts to encourage the bird to move on. The Black Hills marks the eastern limit of their home range. Construction on the structure was scheduled to start in May, but after it was discovered that the dipper had come home to nest again, construction has been put off until Aug. 1. [American dipper strikes again on the Elmore Road bridge]

In a related story, a brand-new Ford F-250 at Olathe Ford Lincoln in Kansas was legally placed "on hold" from customer pickup because a mama robin built an active nest directly on top of one of its tires.

New foals!

She is a tiny filly from the critter we call the grumpy black mare. The stallion is probably a grey sired by Alph before he was gelded and a sorrel mare at least three years ago.

 

Nice big foal from the Appaloosa we call Blanket. In the first image the gelding with the blonde tail is a three year old from Blanket and Alph. 

Earth haters were granted categorical exclusion to drill near Pe'Sla

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Over twenty years ago Congress passed the Tribal Forest Protection Act when this columnist was still living in the Black Hills. It authorized tribal nations to enter agreements with the Departments of Interior and Agriculture to protect public resources bordering or adjacent to reservations and trust lands that have biological, archaeological, historical, or cultural connections. 

Then in 2012 the Sicangu Lakota Oyate or Rosebud Sioux Tribe raised some $10 million combined with contributions from the other members of the Oceti Sakowin the People of the Seven Council Fires purchased Pe'Sla, the property formerly called Reynold's Prairie by the descendants of white settlers. In 2014 the Nations acquired the final 437 acres of the Heart of Everything That Is and in 2015 the Oyates began moving bison to the meadow with hopes to add many more after winning federal trust status but in 2020 the herd of sixty five was removed after whining from welfare ranchers who lease Forest Service land for domestic cattle grazing for pennies per head.

But on Feb. 27, the U.S. Forest Service approved an exploratory drilling project directly adjacent to Pe’ Sla and on the Rapid Creek Watershed, putting the land’s ecosystem, water and Native ceremonial sites at risk. The plan approved by the U.S. Forest Service Mystic Ranger District in February says the company will drill up to 18 holes, 3 inches in diameter and 1,000 feet deep, vertically or at an angle up to 45 degrees. The project is estimated to last less than a year. On this condition, the Forest Service granted Pete Lien & Sons a categorical exclusion. This waived the requirement of an environmental assessment or environmental impact statement, which would identify any environmental effects the proposed project could have and extend the public and tribal consultation period. [Drilling project moves forward in the heart of the Black Hills]

Preservation is a weak spot in the Republican agenda and if enough people believe forest and rangeland resilience is a bankable position the South Dakota Democratic Party needs to exploit it by fielding candidates who can convince voters to reject politicians like John Thune, Marty Jackley, Mike Rounds and Dusty Johnson who work for the grazing, mining and logging profiteers at the expense of public lands.

Wildfires in the Black Hills continue to test local fire departments and the Central Hills are under a red flag warning for Thursday and Friday.

Wyoming Earth haters ignoring cheatgrass fix

Cheatgrass can produce more than 10,000 plants per square yard and is a major fire risk because it dries out more quickly than native vegetation. In 2021, the Forest Service, the US Department of Agriculture and the Wyoming Game & Fish Department sprayed the herbicide Rejuvra® with a helicopter on cheatgrass in a 9,200 acre area within the Mullen fire perimeter with the hopes of reducing, maybe even eradicating its presence. People recreating on the Medicine Bow-Routt National Forest were warned to avoid the kill zone and the compound is persistent in soil posing long-term risks to aquatic habitats through rain-induced runoff particularly on sloped or compacted earth.

In 2025 the Red Canyon Fire scorched 195 square miles of land plagued by a cheatgrass infestation so county weed and pest people argue that "without costly chemical intervention in the near future, the fire scar could convert to an unproductive monoculture of invasive grasses." But, those in the extreme white wing of Wyoming's party of Earth haters are pushing back on the cost of spraying Rejuvra®, at about $1,150 a gallon, on at least 340,000 acres in just one county.

Buffalo eat young, green cheatgrass in the spring and dormant plants but they mostly avoid it during the mid-summer seed stage when the awns are sharp and unpalatable. Wapiti or elk, mule deer and pronghorn travel from Grand Teton National Park to winter ranges throughout the region and into the Wind River Reservation eating cheatgrass along the way. But disease, urban sprawl and oil and gas development have altered historic migration routes in wonderful Wyoming.

So, irony is just another casualty of Wyoming's wildfires which have also cleared millions of acres of fences, power lines, dry grasses, sagebrush, ponderosa pine and juniper in Republican ranch country even as the Biden administration reached out to those serial ecoterrorists who rely on moral hazard to survive. But, if grazing cattle is the key to preventing wildfires why do red states suffer from near daily high even extreme grassland fire danger indices even in February? Because they're in denial about how manifest destiny is destroying the West.

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Ponies visit blogger for Christmas Eve

Thirteen of the free-roaming horses found their way to the top of the mesa and reminded a blogger to fill the tank with water.

Alph and Shaggy recognized an interested party.

Barker Realty updates clients on market trends

ip image: a full moon rises over Santa Fe County.

Santa Fe was just named the number one destination in the country. That is no small thing. It reflects what we already know: this is a place people want to be.

Sales activity remains strong overall, but the market is shifting beneath the surface. We are seeing clear bifurcation between high end and more affordable price points, along with increased sensitivity to pricing across the board. Homes that are well priced and well presented are still moving. Homes that are testing the market are sitting.

We do not expect demand to slow, especially with Santa Fe’s continued national visibility and lifestyle appeal. But we may see modest price adjustments as the market seeks balance.

This remains a highly sought after destination, even with all the quirks and challenges that make Santa Fe what it is. Our job, and yours, is to stay informed, stay realistic, and help clients navigate it with clarity.

Solid SD unaffiliated conservative gubernatorial candidate would elect Sutton

ip photo: Jason Frehrichs and Heck On Wheels, Billie Sutton review the script for a skit during the 2014 Democratic SD State Convention.

It seems unlikely that interim South Dakota Governor Larry Rhoden will stand for nomination in a contested primary splitting the "moderate" vote with Howdy Doody Dusty Johnson and giving the nod to Tubby Toby Doeden.

And, if the SD Earth hater state convention delegates are mostly made up of the extreme white wing of that party and forsake Marty Jackley and Lance Russell, Jon Hansen would do well as a nominee for attorney general or he could enter the governor's race as an unaffiliated candidate. 

But, veteran reporter and columnist, Kevin Woster sees hope for the South Dakota Democratic Party in the 2026 governor's race if Billie Sutton is our nominee.

A friend of mine got what he called a lengthy phone survey the other night asking if he would prefer Dusty Johnson or Billie Sutton in the 2026 governor's race. My friend said there was also a "slight mention" of Toby Doeden, basically just whether my friend would consider voting for him. The focus, though, seemed to Johnson vs. Sutton. Then, of course, there's the state of the Republican Party these days and the hard right's oversized influence come primary time. That always adds a dose of crazy to the proceedings. But if Johnson does win the primary, a Billie Sutton candidacy would certainly get Johnson's attention in the way that no other Democratic challenger could or would. [Woster, Faceberg post]

Image right: Billie Sutton and SDDP Chair Shane Merrill at McGovern Day. 

Don't forget that the SDGOP is broke and broken so if you are a South Dakota conservative with the fire in the belly who can get on the General Election ballot in 2026 and intends to run as an unaffiliated or third party candidate for any statewide office or for the legislature from your district I will support your efforts both with money and in print.

Bobcat in the trail cam!

A big, wet snow that fell a few months ago broke all the supports for the wire that kept critters out and the coop has been empty of chickens for several days but DM wanted to know what got all the hens so she left the door open and had an interested party mount the trail cam across the yard. She bought pullets about a month ago and they are in the enclosed pen near the rump of that bobcat. The time on the camera says AM but it tripped last night.

NYT posts another relevant Wordle

Trump and his family have monetized the White House more than any other occupant, normalizing activities that once would have provoked heavy blowback and official investigations. www.nytimes.com/2025/05/25/u...

[image or embed]

— Peter Baker (@peterbakernyt.bsky.social) May 25, 2025 at 9:11 AM

Forest Service, BLM about to revisit Trump's bad old days

One third of the Earth's tree species is at risk to extinction according to the United Nations.

Fuel treatments on the Santa Fe National Forest helped contain the Medio Fire in 2020 and were accelerated after President Joe Biden took the oath of office. But it’s probably a straight line from the Trump Organization's Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue and crashes in morale within the US Forest Service to current conditions on the SFNF and others in the National Forest System. Extreme wildfire conditions caused embers from the Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon Fire to create spot fires some four miles from the main burn. 

Northern New Mexico doesn’t really have a viable timber industry and to this interested party the Calf Canyon/ Hermits Peak Fire was a blessing in disguise for hardwood release despite the estimated 62 million trees burned, the lawsuits and misery in its aftermath. A recent study revealed that heavy metals in the suppressants and retardants that the Forest Service and other agencies use against wildfires leach into waterways. Prescribed fire is used extensively by the Bureau of Land Management and the National Park Service with few pushbacks from sawmills. But, take fire off the the Forest then listen to extractive industry guys like Frank Carroll saying public land management is broken.

The woman who headed the Santa Fe National Forest during the largest wildfire in New Mexico history and was given a temporary assignment in the aftermath of the devastating blaze will remain in Washington, D.C. Former supervisor Debbie Cress, who headed the Santa Fe National Forest for about a year and a half, has taken a permanent position with the U.S. Forest Service office in Washington, D.C. [Santa Fe National Forest supervisor not coming back to N.M.]

Some New Mexico ski areas opened after recent heavy snows and the aspen bowl above Santa Fe was white while everything that is covered in pine and spruce was dark. 

Remanding lands in the public domain to the tribal communities from whom they were seized can’t happen soon enough. But as much as this interested party would like to see a Forest and Land Management Service within the Interior Department a Trump administration consolidation will cause catastrophic damage to both agencies. Pending budget cuts are already putting essential recreation, conservation work and firewood going to tribal communities at risk.

When the Rio Gallinas flooded this June, a deluge of ash and chemicals used in fire retardants ran down Hermit’s Peak into the Rio Gallinas watershed, causing high turbidity in the drinking water in Las Vegas, New Mexico. In fact, the dreaded words “historic” and “unprecedented” were used to describe the wind in the spring of 2022 — which is to say, the Forest Service fucked up very specifically. Setting the stage were decades of settler-colonizer fire suppression practices, along with the rapid warming of the planet, creating a tinderbox of trees and undergrowth dead or brittle from disease, bark beetles, not enough water and too much heat. [The aftermath of the Hermit’s Peak and Calf Canyon Fires]

Current BLM Director Tracy Stone-Manning was selected as President of The Wilderness Society as the incoming administration threatens the agency's health again.

Learn more at Oregon Public Broadcasting. 

ip image of Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon Fire captured 22 May, 2022.

Another study warns that aspen is at risk to grazing

The Mountain West and Black Hills have been home to much larger aspen communities in the fairly recent past. Because it reproduces clonally underground from adult trees aspen (Populus tremuloides) is one of the first plants to reestablish after fire. Mechanical treatments and burning together is most effective in reducing fuels and improving forest resilience but the timber industry doesn’t like prescribed fire because burns release aspen and kill pine species. 

Ponderosa pine sucks billions of gallons from aquifer recharges, needles absorb heat and accelerate snow melt while aspen leaves reflect sunlight in the summer months and hold snowpacks in winter. Insects like the mountain pine beetle and spruce bud worm can help promote drought and fire-tolerant species like aspen. Nevertheless, the march to replant ponderosa pine after wildfire seems paramount on the Santa Fe National Forest. 

Scientists in the State of Washington found thinning a site helped retain up to 30% more snowpack so scaled up, that would mean an additional 4 million gallons of water per 100 acres of forest.

A study released in October by Northern Arizona University's Ecological Restoration Institute revealed that animal grazing and wildfire management have contributed to the decline of aspen trees in the area.

Although aspens can produce seeds, the most successful method of reproduction occurs when new sprouts, known as “suckers,” grow out of the root system of an existing tree. The suckers are growing back after disturbances, but cannot reach maturity due to elk grazing and lack of resources from prolonged drought and rising temperatures. [Drought, higher temperatures, hungry elk threaten aspen trees near Flagstaff]

Yep, kill off apex predators like grizzlies, wolves and cougars, spray atrazine, neonicotinoids and glyphosate on everything then wonder why cervids like deer and wapiti contract a prion contagion like chronic wasting disease. 

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BLM, FS moving to Trump-proof ancestral Pueblo lands

Our neighbors to the west, the Jemez, Cochiti and Zia Pueblos, the Santo Domingo and San Felipe reservations, were hit hard by the Trump Virus where tribal authorities have been restricting travel for non-members. New Mexico is home to twenty three Indigenous nations.

Established by President Bill Clinton in 2001, Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument is just across I-25 from the Baja Waldo/Red Rock community and is one of the most popular national monuments in New Mexico.

The Monument was temporarily closed in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, BLM and Cochiti Pueblo jointly agreed to maintain the closure after pandemic restrictions were lifted in order to renegotiate operations of the Monument. In keeping with the Biden-Harris administration’s priorities of honoring Tribal sovereignty and the federal trust responsibility and respecting the ties that native and traditional communities have to public lands, the BLM and Cochiti Pueblo entered into an agreement under the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act that will allow Cochiti Pueblo to take on day-to-day operations of the Monument. [BLM, Cochiti Pueblo announce reopening of Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument]

On 18 April Interior Secretary Deb Haaland announced protections for 4,200 acres in New Mexico for lands sacred to the Santa Ana and San Felipe Pueblos. In Arizona she signed historic agreements with the Colorado River Indian Tribes and pledged $14.5 million to the Navajo, Hopi and San Carlos Apache to electrify homes. 

Los Alamos County is a member of the Coalition of Sustainable Communities New Mexico and the city has been part of Local Governments for Sustainability since this interested party has lived in the state. LANL boasts its electricity needs are 31% carbon pollution-free so the National Nuclear Security Administration wants to erect a transmission line across the Caja del Rio wilderness from a substation that generates some of its power from a photovoltaic array.

Today, leadership from the Bureau of Land Management, the USDA Forest Service, and the Pueblo of Tesuque signed a memorandum of understanding to co-steward culturally significant Tribal places located on public lands of the Caja del Río Plateau west of Santa Fe, N.M. This agreement establishes a framework to collaboratively ensure the protection, preservation, and access to culturally significant Pueblo sites within the boundaries of land managed by federal agencies. In 2021, Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland and Secretary of Agriculture Thomas Vilsack signed Joint Secretarial Order 3403 to ensure agencies manage federal lands and waters in a manner that seeks to protect the treaty, religious, subsistence, and cultural interests of federally recognized Native American and Alaska Native Tribes and the Native Hawaiian Community. [The Pueblo of Tesuque, Bureau of Land Management, and USDA Forest Service to co-steward the Caja del Río Plateau]

A settlement has been reached in the Jemez Pueblo's long dispute with the National Park Service to occupy a portion of the Valles Caldera National Preserve. A co-stewardship agreement is in place between the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes and Craters of the Moon National Monument & Preserve in Idaho.

In Colorado, Senator John Hickenlooper is taking fire from Republicans opposed to the creation of the Dolores River National Monument. Republicans in Arizona and Utah are challenging Pres. Biden's authority to limit grazing permits and uranium mining on Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni — Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument and on Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments. 

Kristi Noem’s father hated American Indians, she hates Indians and Donald Trump hates Indians so moving to prevent a convicted felon and his mob from seizing ancestral lands from Indigenous people again needs to happen fast.

Learn more at the Associated Press.

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Winter is coming

Jack o' Lantern filled with raw sewage expected to stiff ABQ again

Update. 

Trump’s last visit to Albuquerque, in 2019, resulted in the city billing his campaign more than $200,000 — a sum that remains unpaid and has climbed to $444,986 with interest, according to the city of Albuquerque. [Democrat-controlled State Land Office says sublease quashes parking plans for Trump rally]

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Update.

The rally is instead slated to take place Thursday at noon at a private hangar owned by CSI Aviation near the Albuquerque International Sunport, according to Trump’s campaign website. The president of CIA Aviation is former state Republican Party chairman Allen Weh, who ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate in 2014. [Trump wanted the ABQ convention center for his campaign stump]

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After Donald Trump's plane was diverted to Billings where he still owes $43,000 from a 2018 visit he stiffed eight thousand of his supporters for an hour and a half before introducing his disgraced and demoted drug dealer to the audience. Convicted felon and stochastic terrorist Trump still owes El Paso, Texas over a half million dollars and screwed Albuquerque out of $211,000 after a 2019 mudfest in Rio Rancho.

The Secretary of State’s Office released data early Friday showing more than 324,000 of the state’s 1.36 million registered voters already had cast either absentee or early in-person ballots, with Democrats outnumbering Republicans 162,000-115,000. Nearly 44,000 unaffiliated voters had cast ballots. A little under a third of Santa Fe County’s 112,000 registered voters had cast ballots. The 25,000 Democratic county voters weighing in early, either absentee or in person, led Republicans 5-to-1. [GOP: Trump scheduled to make Halloween visit to New Mexico]

In a related story, a federal appeals court upheld the conviction of former Otero County Commissioner and Cowboys 4 Trump insurrectionist, Couy Griffin for his role in the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.

Because Trump had previously sworn an oath of office in 2017, and the Colorado Supreme Court declared Trump engaged in insurrection on January 6, 2021, it decided he was not eligible to appear on the ballot. Trump appealed the Colorado Supreme Court’s ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court. The nation’s highest court unanimously ruled on March 4 that Colorado could not invoke Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to bar Trump from the ballot. Notably, the U.S. Supreme Court did not rule on whether Trump met the disqualification thresholds of the clause. [The 14th Amendment Does Not Disqualify Felons From Holding Office (It does bar public officials who had sworn an oath and then ‘engaged in insurrection or rebellion.’)]

ip image: plenty of New Mexicans turned out for early voting at the Southside Library in Santa Fe.

A rotund orange mass will be coming to ABQ on Halloween, and we're not talking about a pumpkin. Even though he still owes ABQ $$ from his last visit, the incoherent insurrectionist who's been found liable for rape will come back to the state he's already lost by 8% and 10%. https://t.co/cAuchFAeEt

— Democratic Party of New Mexico (@NMDEMS) October 27, 2024

Upgrades likely coming to NMRX

When Democratic Governor Bill Richardson found the money to build the New Mexico Rail Runner Express or NMRX it was intended to serve communities from El Paso to Denver but that has yet to materialize since it began service in 2006. Rail enthusiasts have been shoving the NM Legislature to equip it to operate as designed even as Colorado sorts out ways to add service between Trinidad and Denver.

As ridership continues to rise for the state’s large commuter rail, concerns are being raised about the number of passengers it carries to offset CO2 emissions. The Rail Runner transports thousands of riders throughout the day, but a recent newsletter from the Legislative Finance Committee said ridership needs to go up if the train wants to offset its carbon footprint. However, they want to purchase more energy-efficient locomotives eventually. [Concerned raised over Rail Runner’s carbon emissions]

On Monday NPR aired a segment that highlighted a $64 million federal grant Texas received for high speed rail. Listen here. 

California has replaced two diesel-electric commuter trains with zero emission locomotives. Read more about building certainty into California Air Resources Board's electric transition linked here.

2024 Legislative Report: Cost Effectiveness and Operations of the New Mexico Rail Runner Express.

ip image: Santa Fe Railyard.

Arizona's voucher plan a $400 million black hole

Blurring one line between church and state America's founders extolled the virtue of education as local schools were run both by christian sects and by local municipalities under the Tenth Amendment to the US Constitution. But, in the late 19th and early 20th Century the Ku Klux Klan and those on the losing side believed John Wilkes Booth was a patriot who took out the US President that started the American Civil War directed by a Marxist Illuminati. Then after World War I the Klan grew to some 4 million members, got involved in education and its leader, Hiram Evans complained that the control of school textbooks had been taken away by "un-American forces." 

The concept of a charter school began in 1971 as a progressive movement but especially in red states has since been hijacked by the far white wing of the Republican Party to advance the New Apostolic Reformation. Dominion theology supposes christians must control the seven “mountains” of government, education, media, arts and entertainment, religion, family, and business in order to establish a global christianic theocracy and prepare the world for Jesus’ return.

The Trump Organization was simply the latest obstacle to public education because it hates people of color and social equity, too. Add it all up: Rupert Murdoch, a a not-so-closeted racist himself, the Kochs, the John Birch Society, the American Legislative Exchange Council or ALEC, the Council for National Policy, the National Rifle Association, Fox News, Tucker Carlson, their attacks on public education and their fear of the "Great Replacement." 

On Monday WBUR's On Point aired its second episode on school vouchers as part of a partnership with ProPublica and revealed that vouchers don't have to meet the level of transparency that Arizona requires of public schools.

In terms of transparency, I mean, as a reminder, this is all of our money as taxpayers, is public money being spent on private schools and homeschooling. It seems to me that that should come with some level of accountability. So, like, I, as a reporter or any other citizen of the state can't see private schools' budgets to see how our taxpayer dollars are being spent or homeschoolers' budgets. There are states like Arizona where there aren't testing requirements. [Eli Hager, ProPublica]

In my home state of South Dakota public money for private schools and homeschooling is still an explosive topic, too. 

ip photo: Saquaro National Park near Marana, Arizona.

Trump alludes to eliminating the Department of Education so states can pump money into private schools.

"School choice is a very big deal. A lot of people don't know that, but it's a big deal. It'll be great." pic.twitter.com/dhVXyv1oHy

— American Bridge 21st Century (@American_Bridge) September 29, 2024

Wyoming congressional delegation now begging feds for bailouts

Irony is just another casualty of Wyoming's wildfires which have also cleared a half million acres of fences, power lines, dry grasses, sagebrush, ponderosa pine and juniper in Republican ranch country even as the Biden administration reaches out to those serial ecoterrorists who rely on moral hazard to survive.

The Small Business Administration makes Economic Injury Disaster Loans available when the US Secretary of Agriculture designates an agricultural disaster. Primary Wyoming counties receiving bailouts are Campbell, Converse, Niobrara and Weston but Custer, Fall River, Lawrence and Pennington Counties in South Dakota will also receive federal handouts per the rewards of democratic socialism.

They call her Harry the Hag on Faceberg not just because of her ongoing attacks on the federal government and her hatred of the Earth but because some people wonder whether she's even a woman.

U.S. Senators John Barrasso and Cynthia Lummis as well as U.S. Representative Harriet Hageman (all R-WY) sent a letter Friday to the U.S. Department of Agriculture urging approval of a disaster designation request in response to the devastating wildfires across the state. [Wyoming Delegation Urges USDA to Support Local Wildfire Recovery Efforts]

If grazing cattle is the key to preventing wildfires why is Republican ranch country still suffering from near daily high even extreme grassland fire danger indices? 

And because of extreme drought Wyoming Republicans are on full tilt now that anthrax has emerged from overgrazed pastures and killed at least fifty cattle. It was detected in North Dakota in 2023.

More on Gaia's revenge linked here.

ip photo: a moose and her calf browse in Grand Teton National Park.

Today's intersection: dumped wind turbines and energy giants

NextEra is the fourth-biggest US energy group after ExxonMobil, Chevron and ConocoPhillips.

The story began with the company NextEra Energy, a large Florida-based clean energy developer. Often, expired turbine blades end up in a landfill. The fiberglass components are tough to reuse, creating a weak recycling market. Xcel Energy now owns the wind farm, but the company says it can’t move the blades because it doesn’t own them and described the situation as “isolated.” Xcel is still sensitive to the issue because the blade junk is not exactly building goodwill in a wind-rich area. [‘Seriously, this sucks’: How a small Minnesota town was left with a giant pile of wind turbine blades]

Xcel Energy is responsible for part of the methane bubble over the Four Corners area and worse. In 2015 the Minneapolis-based utility even sued to prevent the hookup of a solar generating station for a Minnesota company and enjoys frequent rate hikes from the South Dakota Public Utilities Cartel (SDPUC). Several utilities are based in South Dakota because of the state's regressive tax structure — Northwestern Energy and Black Hills Power among them. In South Dakota the three elected Republicans on the PUC have taken a position opposed to net metering and the state's Koch-soaked legislature has considered but declined to pass legislation on the issue. No corporate taxes, a compliant regulator, a dearth of environmental protection and cheap labor make South Dakota the perfect dumping ground for earth killers like coal and eyesores like wind farms. 

A Texas group calling itself American Stewards of Liberty with ties to the so-called Sagebrush Rebellion presented anti-Earth resolutions to a receptive Otero County Commission and the San Juan County Commission heard two resolutions dealing with land use issues after watching ASL's Margaret Byfield's dog and pony show. Byfield has been lobbying the Yankton, South Dakota County Commission appearing for a second time in the mostly Democratic district near the Yankton Sioux Nation.

Wind power has stirred a storm in Yankton County. The proposed development is the Swan Lake wind project from NextEra Energy Resources. [Wind energy proposal fans flames at Yankton County Commission meeting]

Ice storms and other calamities driven by anthropogenic climate hijinx routinely knock out electric power often resulting in lost lives and the inevitable cyber attacks on the US will take down the grid for days, even months causing food shortages and mayhem but the addition of virtual power plants or VPPs can change that handling some twenty percent of peak power demand by 2030.

Two years ago, NextEra Energy agreed to a settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice related to accidental eagle fatalities at certain wind farms owned or operated by the company in Wyoming and New Mexico. The resolution resolved past fatalities and provided a framework that allowed NextEra Energy to move forward without a continued threat to the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. [Florida Firm Proposes 600-MW Wyoming Wind Project Near Jim Bridger Plant]

The cost of subsidizing, manufacturing, transporting, erecting, maintaining then removing and disposing of just one wind turbine eyesore bat and bird killer would take about six hundred subscribers to energy self-reliance. Microgrid technologies are destined to enhance tribal sovereignty, free communities from electric monopolies and net-metering only gives control back to utilities enabled by moral hazard. 

Utilities are not your friends so don’t tie your photovoltaic system to the grid but if you use it as a backup keep your own electricity completely separate from the utility that reads your meter.

ip image: a residential solar array powers two houses on a Santa Fe County property.

Corn acres down but hemp's budding

The Chinese Ring-necked Pheasant isn't wildlife but it is a canary in a chemically and genetically engineered corn mine since the pesticide industry that greases Republican politicos doesn’t give a whit about anything but profit.

But, unless it replaces corn acres this blog hasn't supported widespread growing of industrial cannabis (hemp), especially on tribal lands because it is an invasive species capable of overgrowing native grasses. It was introduced to the western hemisphere by the Spanish in the south and in the north the colonizing Europeans began seeing the Powhatan population growing it around 1609. Thomas Jefferson would not plant tobacco because he believed it to be bound to the capitalism he abhorred and chose cannabis as his crop of choice for its utilitarian applications. 

Pastures in Brookings and Moody Counties and the ditches along the I-29 of my youth were adorned with feral cannabis from Sioux Falls to Omaha, descendants of an agribusiness destroyed by a racist and xenophobic law enforcement industry now dealing with bulging prisons.

After it was legalized by the 2018 farm bill a jury in Montana awarded more than $65 million to hemp growers in 2021 in that state after being screwed by Canadian and American businessmen yet replacing the ecocidal corn/ethanol subsidy in South Dakota with hemp acres is a bridge too far for Republicans who run for office on habitat destruction. Besides, why anyone would want to buy genetically engineered seed from Bayer Crop Science/Monsanto or some other Earth hater every year remains a mystery especially since pollen drift can destroy therapeutic and "recreational" cannabis crops. 

The good news? Welfare farmers planted less corn in 2024 while ninety-four percent of all corn acres planted in the United States are genetically modified, up from 93% in 2023 according to the US Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service.

Farmers grow three different varieties of hemp in South Dakota: CBD, fibers, and grain and seed. South Dakota reached No. 1 for grain and seed acres in 2022 and now reached No. 1 for fibers this year. [South Dakota No. 1 state in nation for hemp production]

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