Wtf Wyoming

“If you discover an environmental disaster in Wyoming, you’re obliged according to this law, to keep it to yourself.”

Wait… What? Does this sentence make sense to you? Me neither.

The state of Wyoming has made a new law, which makes it a crime to gather data about the condition of the environment across most of the state if you plan to share that data with the state or federal government. Wyoming is scared that its residents will find out that E. coli bacteria contaminates many of their streams. Certain E. Coli strains can cause serious harm to humans and animals even resulting in death.

Western Watersheds Project (http://www.westernwatersheds.org/) has found this bacterium in a number of small streams in Wyoming and enough that would violate the water quality standards. Instead of facing these hard facts head on Wyoming has decided to pretend this problem doesn’t exist while creating this new law that threatens anyone who would challenge their beliefs (who do they think they are?!).

Apparently the reason behind all of this is because of the ranchers around Wyoming. Their cows are spending too much time in and next to the streams and ultimately causing the increase in E. coli. Since the ranching community in Wyoming wields considerable political power and has no interest in such obligations, the state is trying to stop the information instead of addressing the actual issue.

But another question to ask yourself is: is all E. coli bad? The answer is no. There’s a fine line between something that is contaminated and something that is dangerously contaminated. Scientists will argue that these streams are not full of dangerous strains of E. coli rather just strains that are contaminating the water and are harmless to the human body.

So what do you think… Is what Wyoming doing ethical? Do you agree with the way this situation was handled? And do you think the water is even dangerous?

– K