BRODIE FARQUHAR Casper Star Tribune correspondent | Posted: Wednesday, September 12, 2007 12:00 am
Planning and zoning may well be the only effective way to deal with the rural sprawl that threatens to leave a far more permanent scar on Wyoming's landscape than energy development.
That's the message that two speakers, coming from two widely different worlds - the Wyoming Business Council and the Wyoming Wildlife and Natural Resources Trust Fund - will deliver in Casper Thursday night, as they kick off a free public lecture series sponsored here by the University of Wyoming.
The event, free and open to the public, takes place from 7 to 9 p.m. Thursday in the Wheeler Auditorium, Room 103 of the Wold Physical Science Building at Casper College.
The talks will launch the series "Delicate Networks: Wyoming's Land and Water and the Decisions Demanded by Growth," at the University of Wyoming/Casper College Center.
There's a key difference between the effects of energy development and residential development on Wyoming landscape and resources.
Energy impacts are "temporary n they'll last about 40 years," says Bob Budd, a former ranching industry leader who heads the Wyoming Wildlife and Natural Resources Trust Fund. Yet residential development impacts are essentially "permanent," Budd says. He will lead off the talks Thursday evening.
"We should ask questions about what we're doing," Budd says.
As uncomfortable as it might be to ask questions about energy and residential development, the obvious response to those questions is planning, says Mark Willis, Chief Operating Officer of the Wyoming Business Council. He'll speak after Budd.
As an economic development professional in Texas and Oklahoma, Willis saw wide-open growth in the burgeoning cities of the southwest, an experience which convinced him of the importance of planning in dealing with residential sprawl.
"It's all about proper planning," Willis said.
"Economic development needs to be better planned and designed in order to have lesser impact on natural resources that are in limited supply," Willis said.
"Wyoming has a chance to do it right, where in most places we haven't," he said.
"Delicate Networks" examines the intricate water-land connections that sustain Wyoming's much-loved landscapes, and the ease with which development can disrupt those connections. It also explores how Wyoming people are seeking to protect those networks when dealing with development, especially residential growth.
Development issues affecting land and water in a number of communities - Casper, Buffalo, Cheyenne, Laramie and Pinedale - will be addressed by guest speakers from those communities and from the University of Wyoming. A UW/CC Center course, taught by lecture series moderator Anne MacKinnon, for undergraduate and graduate credit, is being offered in conjunction with the series.
The series is sponsored by UW's Helga and Otto Haub School and William Ruckleshaus Institute of Environment and Natural Resources, the UW/CC Center, the UW Outreach School, and the Casper Star-Tribune.
For more information on the series, call the UW/CC Center at 268-2713.