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Show ftesar-Tta- i THE SAN JUAN RECORD Wednesday, April 3, 2002 Page 6 ROUND THE REGION Weekly Mowing and Aeration years later Blanding and Monticello Call Shane Musselman Still going to the dogs, Cortez - More MAINTENANCE 10 than a decade has passed since Gay Balfour had the dream, the one about a giant vacuum sucking prairie dogs out of the ground. Balfour, a jack of all trades, got the idea for his Dog Gone business in the spring of 1991. He says that on one Friday night he woke after a vivid dream of a yellow truck with a green hose vacuuming prairie dogs out of their burrows. Soon afterwards, he stopped at the Cortez Sanitation District office and asked to borrow the districts vacuum truck. He then purchased some suction hose and caught 23 prairie dogs in 45 minutes. In a matter of days, publicity about his new business snowballed and he was doing interviews throughout the world, including Malaysia, Hong Kong, England and everywhere in between. After years of struggling to find something to do with the rodents after he vacuumed them up, he began donating them to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to be fed to endangered black footed ferrets, the rarest mammal in North America. Prairie dogs are about all that the ferrets eat, and the decline of prairie dog populations is a major factor in the ferrets Cortez Journal near extinction. Currently, the business has approximately ten employees. now-famo- 435-587-33- 13 us End game nears for Moab mill tailings removal Moab - Time appears to be running out for the forces attempting to convince the Department of to relocate the uranium mill tailings pile at the Moab millsite. A and the U.S. Congress new group of local residents was formed to come up with lower cost alternatives for moving the tailings. Currently, there is a $370 million cost estimate in the DOEs draft reclamation plan. Many local residents are concerned that the DOE will simply cap the tailings in place if a more Times Independent attractive, lower priced alternative is not found. Energy n MgS&V NEED EKTRA CASH FOR THAT SPECIAL mm pR0JECT? to $100 15 MIN. LOAN SERVICE We specialize in helping people establish good credit f Ask for Usa or Tessa $600 j J Phone applicants welcomed CALL OR STOP BY TODAYU- f- S. 2 South Main St Blanding New office hours 9 am - 6 pm Mesa Verde seeks input on new Center Cortez - A proposal to build a $50 million state of the art cultural center at Mesa Verde National Parks entrance recently went out for public review. The 96,000 square foot center would serve as visitors center, repository for the Parks three million artifacts and office space for Park administration. In addition, the center would house the Parks archival and library collections, provide space for 24 Native tribes to display and interpret their past and present connections to game qeapwfiiaa ctedi the Park. The facility would also include an additional 36,000 square feet of outdoor interpretive plazas and a large amphitheater. Currently, visitors have to travel 15 miles into the park to the visitors center to find out whether tours to Cliff Palace or Balcony House are sold out, and Cortez Journal 21 miles to reach park headquarters. j;i WmiaQuQ Monumental meetings begin over San Rafael Swell 18m inifu Emery County Concerns and questions over the proposed San Rafael Swell National Monument took center stage in a recent series of meeting. The Emery County Public Lands Council sponsored two town meetings, one in Green River and the other at Emery High School. The proposal to have President George W. Bush declare the San Rafael Swell a national monument was first suggested during a public meeting held by the Public Lands Council in January. lvice before, Emery County has tried unsuccessfully to pass legislation concerning the San Rafael Swell, only to have it fail due to heavy opposition from environmental groups. With a new administration in the White House which expressed interest in local initiatives, the Public Lands Council thought that a Monument declaration might be Emery County's last best chance to do someEmery County Progress thing to protect local interests in the San Rafael Swell. ZijalLz SAN JUAN BUILDING SUPPLY 1050 S MAIN 435 - 678 - 2000 BLANDING Rocky Mountain Housing IVe Make Dreams ... 20 years experience in A Reality the field High Quality Houses One Stop Shop Financing Concrete Home Set & Finished Service After The Sale Visit Our Model at Friday Monticello HigETSchool m lnfonnation, please caIl43EM6j Sponsored by San Juan School District and Utah State Office of Education 3 t' y - 581 N Main St Monticello (435) 587-360- 0 |