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Show Dear Sam: The snow is deep in our Canyonlands Country and it is still building up. So, perhaps we can be of some service to the good people of our community. As a good many of our old timers are discovering, discover-ing, for the first time, that they have leaking roofs I thought it timely to suggest that this is due to the buildupof ice along the eaves. You see I fought this sort of thing for some fourteen years in Oregon and Northern California prior to mov-to mov-to Moab. As the snow melts due to the warmth of the roof it trickles to the overhang where it freezes and causes, what we call "ice dams". The remaining water stops at this "ice dam" and backs up underneath the shingle roof and freezing freez-ing and thawing, coupled with standing water will weaken the roof along 'his ice dam and leaks will usually starj appearing ap-pearing within a couple of weeks or so. Some of our residents have suggested that they will have to get new-roofs. new-roofs. This, of course, can be avoided through a little maintenance. First of all, roof valleys should be cleaned of leaves, etc., each fall in order to permit the water to flow swiftly enough to clear the roof overhang before freezing to too great a thickness. Secondly, Sec-ondly, the snow should be removed from roofs before be-fore reaching depths of much more than a foot. (Anything less than this should not result in enough en-ough ice and water to do any damage.) And, thirdly, third-ly, "ice dams" should be removed before reaching a thickness of more than 4 inches, depending on the pilch of the roof and width of overhang. Ice cycles are beautiful and we hate to lose them but those ice dams above them and the resulting impounded water can cause considerable damage dam-age to roofs and interior walls and ceilings, as a good many people are finding out. These ice dams can best be removed re-moved by pounding on them with a heavy hammer ham-mer or the back of an axe. Care must be used not to damage the roof above the ice dams. Rodney Phillips and I assisted the Leo Club in removing snow and ice from house roofs over the past weekend. We found ice buildups to thicknesses of as much as a foot in a good many-cases. many-cases. We also found such things as window screens, etc., lying on roof overhangs in just the right spots to retard the flow- of water and build up ice dams. The Leo Club has taken on this work as a means of serving their community and to raise money to finance a trip to Salt Lake for four delegates to attend at-tend a Lions Club Convention Con-vention and to aid the handicapped. Rodney and I are donating our time and efforts in order to assist the Leo members and be of some service to the good citizens of our community whom we have the good fortune to live and associate with. We also hope this letter will save a few people some grief and unnecessary unneces-sary expense. -- Slim Mabery Dear Editor: A front-page article last week states that the forecasted federal subsidy sub-sidy for Frontier Airlines Air-lines continued service to Moab in 1973 is nearly near-ly S2n0.000 or $38.89 per passenger flown. I have often been a subsidized passenger on Frontier, but I cannot support the continuation of this subsidy for the rich, regardless of the benefits of regular airline air-line service to the Moab area as a whole. Most people who can afford the luxury of flying at all, can easily afford to pay the full cost. Quite a few of those federal subsidy tax dollars dol-lars were once mine, and I would much rather see them spent on necessary nec-essary services for those who really need them. You support the continuation con-tinuation of this subsidized subsid-ized airline service in the editorial column of the same issue. I find this very hard to understand under-stand in the light of you support for the words of economist Milton Friedman Fried-man in the same editorial column. That article states that nothing will stop increasing taxes and government "unless we, as citizens, once again change drastically the role that we assign to government," and that high taxes are "the price today's generation pays for accepting government govern-ment as a keeper rather than an umpire." Surely refusing to continue con-tinue this $200, 000 in welfare for the rich would be a step in the right direction that Friedman advocates. --John 0. Stevens |