Agenda 2024: All of us need to be good stewards of Mother Nature's gifts

“A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they shall never sit.” — Greek proverb

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Most Wyomingites live in the Cowboy State for one main reason: we love the state’s natural beauty, rugged landscapes and rural nature. And while many of us live within city limits, we strive to be good stewards of all of Mother Nature’s gifts.

From doing our part to limit air pollution to keeping trash out of our waterways, we all have a role in making sure our kids and grandkids enjoy the same quality of life we have now. Here in Laramie County, many government officials, nonprofit leaders and residents know that. But it doesn’t mean we can’t do more.

During our 12th and final Agenda 2024 panel discussion earlier this week, as well as in subsequent interviews, we heard from folks whose day jobs contribute to protecting our environment. We also heard from people who are working to make connections between groups to ensure this important work both continues and expands.

What’s being done

Actions to protect our air, water and land often overlap and intermingle. That’s certainly true in Laramie County, where solid waste is managed in ways to keep waterways clean, and land is farmed and developed in ways that maintain air quality.

Let’s start in the obvious place, the city of Cheyenne’s handling of waste. Vicki Nemecek, director of the city’s Public Works Department, and her deputy director, Craig LaVoy, highlighted several efforts, starting with the curbside recycling program. For a monthly fee, residents can get a 60- or 96-gallon rolling container for single-stream recycling of paper, cardboard, glass jars and plastic containers with the numbers 1, 2, 4 and 5.

The biggest problem with this important effort is people contaminating large loads of recyclable material by improperly “wish-cycling” items that aren’t accepted, such as pizza boxes, plastic grocery bags and alkaline batteries, just to name a few. All this does is create expensive garbage, since city staff must haul rejected loads of recyclable items back from Colorado and put them in the landfill. To learn more about what is and what isn’t recyclable, go online to tinyurl.com/cheyenne-recyclables or, better yet, download the RecycleCoach app and take the interactive quiz.

The city of Cheyenne also offers a Household Hazardous Waste Program, which is designed to keep certain materials out of the area’s groundwater. This includes oil-based paints, pesticides, herbicides, antifreeze, batteries and more (for the full list, visit tinyurl.com/cheyenne-hazardous-waste). There’s also a Yard Waste Program, which offers both curbside collection of lawn trimmings, weeds, leaves, pine needles and pinecones, as well as a Compost Facility, where anyone in the county can drop off tree branches, tumbleweeds, sod and large loads of other yard waste. (For more details, visit tinyurl.com/cheyenne-yard-waste.)

At the landfill, west of Cheyenne on Happy Jack Road, employees add trash to a lined pit, then consistently monitor groundwater through more than 80 wellheads and by testing residential wells nearby on a quarterly basis. Downtown and throughout the capital city, Public Works employees clean and maintain more than 4,000 inlets in order to prevent debris from flowing into Crow Creek.

Through a system of gutter bins, things like cigarette butts and other small items are collected and removed. Thanks to partnerships with Microsoft and the Cheyenne Rotary Club, many of these have been added at no cost to city residents, and more will be installed soon.

Speaking of Rotary, Brent Lathrop told us about the nonprofit group’s ongoing efforts to keep Crow Creek clean, as well as its recent purchase of a piece of land north of Dell Range Boulevard, between Prairie Avenue and Powderhouse Road. The future home of Rotary Park was donated to the city of Cheyenne both for preservation of open space and protection of a key piece of the Dry Creek watershed.

Mr. Lathrop and Councilman Pete Laybourn shared the work that has been done to clean up Crow Creek, both by volunteers who waded into the water to remove debris starting in 2017 and through efforts like the previously mentioned gutter bins. Mr. Laybourn also highlighted City Council efforts to further restrict camping near the creek, as well as creation of a stormwater drainage utility to help fund future work.

In a separate phone conversation, Matt Buelow, Water Reclamation Division manager for the Cheyenne Board of Public Utilities, outlined the processes used at both the Crow Creek Water Reclamation Facility and the Dry Creek Water Reclamation Facility to treat wastewater from the city’s sewer system. Together, these facilities treat an average of 8 million gallons per day of wastewater, ensuring that contaminants don’t travel downstream or into our groundwater.

In addition, several years ago, the city started treating wastewater to healthy standards for irrigation. From early April to late October, an average of 1.8 million gallons per day of this treated water travels by purple pipe to a detention pond at Prairie View Golf Course.

From there, it is piped out to various city parks and other public spaces to be used to water grass and trees, saving the freshwater we use for drinking and other purposes.

Mark Ellison, manager of Cheyenne Urban Forestry, discussed the important work being done by that city department and the related nonprofit Rooted in Cheyenne to maintain and rejuvenate the city’s urban tree canopy. While many large, aged-out cottonwood and willow trees have had to be removed recently from parks, cemeteries and private property for safety reasons, they are being replaced by new, more long-lasting varieties.

Urban Forestry maintains about 15,000 trees on city property, and Rooted in Cheyenne is planting 200 to 300 trees per year, including offering free and low-cost trees to residents willing to add them to their property. Since it takes 20 to 30 years for new trees to get to the canopy level, these are important investments in future quality of life.

The city is also working to preserve the High Plains Arboretum west of Cheyenne, which had been a USDA research facility. If city leaders can convince state lawmakers to grant it state historic site status, the additional funding could lead to reopening of the greenhouse, which was used to test and develop drought-resistant plants that could thrive on the high plains.

In addition to county officials and their work, the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality operates mobile air quality monitoring stations in Laramie County and throughout the state. The data collected can be viewed online at wyvisnet.com.

In addition to all of these ongoing efforts, Sophia Maes, a sustainability specialist with the Cheyenne Planning and Development Department, is bringing key stakeholders together and forming committees to develop and implement a large-scale sustainability plan by February 2026. This county-wide plan will be based on geography, and feature ideas for both maintaining what we have now and improving things for the future.

And at the University of Wyoming, Melanie Armstrong, director of the Ruckelshaus Institute and associate professor of the Haub School of Environment and Natural Resources, is bringing students, community leaders and government agencies together to work on collaborative projects involving such things as prescribed forest fires, co-management of public lands and a Junior Ranger program for National Historic Trails. She said she often points to Cheyenne’s environmental efforts as examples of how to do things right.

What you can do

All of this work is abundant evidence of the priority officials put on protecting the quality of life southeast Wyoming residents have come to expect. But every one of our panelists said they want to do more, and they need local residents’ help to do it.

Ms. Armstrong is organizing and hosting workshops about carbon capture and sequestration. She’s also constantly looking for ways to generate better data to support quality decision making at the local and state levels and beyond.

Ms. Maes is on the verge of conducting community surveys to gather input from residents about their priorities, as she also seeks volunteers to serve on working action teams and a technical committee.

Mr. Ellison encourages residents to consider adding trees to their property, whether through Rooted in Cheyenne or on their own — but reminds us that they do need to be watered regularly here on the high plains. Also, Rooted always welcomes financial contributions, as well as volunteers to help during its twice-annual planting days and with the Tree Steward program, where volunteers check on conditions of existing trees.

Many other sustainability efforts are underway, from the city using grant money to make lighting more efficient at the Cheyenne Civic Center, the Municipal Building and Fire Station 1 to ongoing work to optimize city sanitation truck routes to cut down on wasted miles and fuel. In our own homes, we can do more, too.

If you haven’t already done so, get a recycling program bin and become educated about what can be recycled and what can’t. (County residents outside city limits: You can do this, too, even though it will cost you a bit to drop items off at the Transfer Station.) Every bit of material we keep out of the trash helps to extend the life of the landfill, which delays the need for another one to be created and monitored.

Instead of using disposable plastic grocery bags, whenever possible, take reusable totes to the store and fill them with your purchases. The result will be fewer bags blowing around, getting caught in trees and contaminating local creeks.

Each year, commit to planting at least one tree, whether that’s on your own property, through volunteering with Rooted in Cheyenne or by donating to its effort. If you’re physically able, get together with some similarly motivated friends and family members and clean up a section of the Greater Cheyenne Greenway, or a nearby roadway, waterway or fence line.

Take some time to write to state lawmakers, encouraging them to make the High Plains Arboretum a state historic site. And stay alert for other opportunities to encourage elected officials to do what’s best for this place we call home.

We all know how blessed we are to get to live in Wyoming. It’s our responsibility to give back by making small and sustainable changes that make a big difference. Those who come after us will be glad we did.

Our panelists

In preparation for this month’s editorial about protecting the environment in Laramie County, we convened a panel of local experts that included:

• Melanie Armstrong, director of the Ruckelshaus Institute and associate professor at the Haub School of Environment and Natural Resources, University of Wyoming
• Mark Ellison, manager of Cheyenne Urban Forestry and director of Rooted in Cheyenne
• Brent Lathrop, Cheyenne Rotary Club member and former Southeast Wyoming program director for The Nature Conservancy
• Craig LaVoy, Cheyenne Public Works Department deputy director
• Pete Laybourn, Cheyenne City Council, Ward 1 representative
• Sophia Maes, sustainability specialist, Cheyenne Planning and Development Department
• Vicki Nemecek, Cheyenne Public Works Department director

Interviewed separately:

• Matt Buelow, Water Reclamation Division manager, Cheyenne Board of Public Utilities