I'd actually had Utah-sourced meer originally mentioned to me by the owner of J. H. Lowe pipe repairs; apparently a friend of the owner gets meer from Utah for reproduction cane tops and such and has had success with it.
The stuff is available at
http://www.greatrough.com for those interested; typically it sells for around 6-8 dollars a pound. Right now they've only larger blocks, but the blocks they typically sell range from 2"x2"x2" to stuff around 6"x7"x2" (the latter, I assume you could make a longstemmed pipe or two with those :3)
Initial roughing out I normally do dry (with a Dremel and hand chisel) and then soak it for about ten-fifteen minutes after which it is carvable with a good set of wood knives (the Niji kits you can pick up for $10-15 at most craft stores work well in my experience).
Other than crappy pressed meer kits, I've not had the chance to play with Turkish meer so I can't compare how well Utahn meer works, but the source was recommended to me as "comparable".
Much like briar, you sometimes have to worry a bit or work around inclusions in the rock, and meer *does* have a slight grain to it (but again, that only really comes into play for rough-shaping).
I actually find that the hardest part is getting the rough shape; once you whittle down to something workable and after a few soaks, you start being able to see a shape in the meer itself and the detail comes easier.
Regarding Utah/New Mexico as a source of meer:
Supposedly a fair amount of meer mining was done in the 1800s, but mostly small scale; Iskesehir has by far had the better press re availability (well, along with Tanzania).
Actually, several places besides Turkey and Tanzania have meer deposits; the Utah/New Mexico area is one, and the Isle of Man has some Tanzania-quality meer (aka it doesn't take colouring quite as much as, say, Turkish after longtime smoking and is a bit harder as far as working with it, probably comparable to briar).
I do recommend Greatrough as I think they're the only place (save the one place mentioned here, or Ebay) that has meerschaum in hobbyist/artisian quantities :3