Utah sets gas production mark

SALT LAKE CITY - Gas drillers last year set a production record in Utah.

Drillers produced more than 385 million cubic feet of natural gas. That was up 12 percent over 2006.

The Utah Division of Oil, Gas and Mining attributes the increase to markedly higher drilling. There were nearly 4,700 wells producing gas.

Uintah County was the state's largest producer of natural gas, followed by Emery, San Juan and Summit counties.

Oil production, once in decline, rebounded to more than 19 million barrels - the highest since 1997 but still below the record of 41 million barrels. Duchesne County is the state's biggest oil producer.

CSU plans $300M in building

FORT COLLINS, Colo. - Colorado State University plans about $300 million in construction projects over the next 24 months, including dorms, parking garages and academic buildings.

The projects are expected to add about 344,000 square feet to the CSU campus in Fort Collins.

They include a $22 million, 200-bed dorm, a $21.6 million parking garage with 850 spaces and an addition to the Warner College of Natural Resources. Funding sources include a fee of $10 per credit-hour that students agreed to pay in 2005.

GPS tracks Glacier wolverines

GLACIER NATIONAL PARK, Mont. - Biologists at Glacier National Park are putting GPS transmitters in collars to track the elusive wolverine.

Carnivore ecologist John Waller says they began the program within the past year and are already learning more about the rare species, which also has been found in Wyoming.

Research has shown Glacier is one of just a few remaining refuges for the wolverine in the continental United States and there may be as few as 50 of them in the park.

Waller says the wolverine is the least-studied animal in the United States.

He says GPS allows him to watch an animal's movements from his office computer, a big improvement over the older tracking method of affixing a collar with a VHF radio transmitter to the animal.

April runoff falls below norm

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. - Runoff into the three upper Missouri River reservoirs was only 33 percent of normal in April and the level of all three lakes fell, the Army Corps of Engineers said.

There was little rain in the Dakotas or Montana and cool weather slowed the melting of mountain snowpack, the corps said.

Those factors made it hard to maintain or raise water levels during the spawn of bait fish in Fort Peck, Garrison and Oahe reservoirs. Fort Peck is in Montana, Garrison in North Dakota and Oahe in South Dakota.

Each reservoir fell about half a foot in April. Garrison and Oahe are each expected to rise about 2 feet in May, and Fort Peck will rise by 1.5 feet, the corps said.

The corps expects May-ending water levels to be 30 feet below normal in Fort Peck, 26 feet below normal in Garrison, and 20 feet below normal in Oahe.

Average releases from the system were an all-time record low in 2007 because of drought conservation measures and high downstream inflow. Corps officials expect releases will continue to be much-below average this year, to save water in reservoirs.