A little over a year ago British artist Chris Drury installed a piece of artwork named Carbon Sink on the University of Wyoming campus. The sculpture which resembles a vortex of dead wood surrounded by coal with a burnt charring in the middle was paid for by anonymous donors and the Wyoming Cultural Trust. Simply put, it was a statement about the environment and climate change, but not everyone saw it that way.
The 36 foot sculpture was to be on exhibit for a minimum of two years or until the artwork naturally deteriorated, but instead the artwork was removed a year early.
Thanks to public record requests and the Wyoming open records laws, the political and corporate backlash that bombarded the university can fully be realized. Immediately politicians, coal companies and petroleum producers sounded war bells.
The sculpture felt like a “stab in the back,” said Wyoming Mining Association President Marion Loomis. The energy industry pays millions in taxes, royalties and fees, he noted. As if to say, their funds are paying for the university to stay open.
Bruce Hinchey, president of the Petroleum Association of Wyoming, lashed out in another email.
“The next time the University of Wyoming is asking for donations it might be helpful to remind them of this and other things they have done to the industries that feed them before you donate,” Hinchey wrote. “They always hide behind academic freedom but their policies and actions can change if they so choose.”
Peabody Energy and Cloud Peak Energy threatened to retract a donation of $2 million dollars to the university because of the artwork. Mark Northam, had written an email to other university officials stating that almost $4 million dollars in donations were under threat.
Legislators from counties that have a strong coal industry also jumped into the fray. “It never ceases to amaze me how the UW invites folks in that spit in the face of the very system that writes the checks to pay the bills at the university,” wrote Rep. Elaine Harvey.
Representative Tom Lubnau took it an step further by threatening the direct funding of the university. “I am considering introducing legislation to avoid any hypocrisy at UW by insuring that no fossil fuel derived tax dollars find their way into the University of Wyoming funding stream.”
Lubnau who would “never tinker with the University of Wyoming budget” is now calling for a new sculpture to be erected on campus depicting coal and energy workers. Maybe as a reminder to all the students attending the publicly funded state university that special interests and corporations are really in charge.
“It has always amazed me that the coal folks talk about how their industry supports the state and the University, but in reality the coal comes off of public lands and is leased at under market value to the companies,” says Wyoming-based Sierra Club organizer Steve Thomas. “The coal is public coal being sold to private companies. The bulk of the money coal generates comes from the sale of that coal. So really, the university is partially paid for by the sale of public coal not by the largess of the coal companies.”
For more on this story, be sure to read or listen to the Wyoming Public Media story by Irina Zhorov.