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Show sin; I r 1 SI C . DT H4 3 01 77 Rocks in park P&ge 4 - Pay for A's page 3 Help for food addicts ....page 13 Adventure for seniors ...page 14 Utah 2nd in region page 10 Swimmers rule at Price. page 19 Single Copy 50t WEDNESDAY, October 29, 1997 Vernal, Utah 84078 105th Year No. 44 20 Pages Check Inside peiro toowse at temple closes dooirs by Kathleen Irving Staff Writer As expected, nearly 120.000 people peo-ple toured the new Vernal Temple during the two week open house that closed late Saturday night. Local temple committee vice-chairman vice-chairman Gayle McKeachnie said the event was deemed a success by organizers. He praised the thousands thou-sands of volunteers who worked long, diligently and sometimes on short notice to create a pleasant experience for the many temple visitors. vis-itors. "We heard no negative comments about the open house," said McKeachnie. "On the contrary, people told us they felt very rewarded for coming." McKeachnie said tour groups came to the temple from as far away as Nebraska. Many Wasatch Front, Colorado and Wyoming residents resi-dents also traveled to Vernal, in addition to the relatives and friends of Uintah Basin residents from around the country. "Vernal's business community worked hard to accommodate all the people who came into the city," he said. "We know the restaurants, hotels and motels had their times of stress and overload and we really appreciate them. Likewise, Vernal City has been very cooperative, as has the police department with traffic traf-fic control and security, and the medical community who volunteered volun-teered their time to help with our first aid station." David Labium, open house committee com-mittee chairman, said he was "overwhelmed" "over-whelmed" by the willingness of Youth charged with attempted homicide A 12-year-old Naples boy will stand trial in 8th District Juvenile Court for allegedly attempting to murder an 11 -year-old boy who he shot in the back of the head. The boy was arraigned Thursday on the charge of attempted criminal homicide and was released to the custody of his parents. A pre-trial conference is scheduled for Dec. 18. The injured child will come back- Project Sportsmen who frequent the Stewart Lake Management Area during their fall hunts will notice thut some major changes huve taken place. In fact it would be a stretch to still refer to it as a lake. A major drainage project is underway in an effort to improve a selenium loading load-ing problem. Draining the lake was no small undertaking. A large amphibious pontoon mounted track hoc was used to complete the channeling and dredging. To the knowledge of the crew members operating the hoe, it is a one of a kind piece of heavy equipment. According to Rick Larson. Regional Habitat Manager for the Division of Wildlife Resource! (DWR). the track hoe was brought to Stewart Lake from Yuma. Ai. While mounted on a tractor trailer and traveling on the highways, it required a police escort. The machine, crew and police entourage arrived in Vernal only minutes prior to the Uintah High School homecoming home-coming parade. It traveled down Main Street as if it were the warmup attraction or initial parade entry. "I've had Mime interesting experience experi-ence and turned many head while hauling this piece of machinery around, but I've never really had a turnout hke the people in Vernal gave me." joked the equipment people in the temple district to help with the event, including the over 6,500 musicians who performed throughout the open house. "I feel the open house created a unity or bond in the Basin that we haven't felt before. Where we've had competition among our communities, com-munities, this created a single purpose," pur-pose," he said. Labrum said he was especially touched watching children who visited vis-ited the temple. "It is hard to see it end," he said. "This has been a rare experience in life." The temple will be closed this week for cleaning and to prepare for dedicatory services which begin Sunday morning and run through Tuesday. Eleven dedicatory sessions ses-sions will be held to accommodate LDS Church members from the Grand Junction and Meeker, Colo., Rock Springs and Green River, Wyo., and Altamont, Duchesne, Roosevelt and Vernal areas. Church President Gordon B. Hinckley will preside and speak at the dedication. He will be assisted by his counselors Thomas S. Monson and James E. Faust. Members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, the Seventy and local leaders will also speak at dedicatory ded-icatory sessions. A cornerstone set-. set-. ting ceremony will be lieJd Surlay morning as part of the first dedication dedica-tion session. While the open house was a public pub-lic event, the temple dedication is held only for LDS Church members in good standing. Admittance to the services is by ticket only. to Vernal from Primary Children's Medical Center on Thursday, Oct. 30. Officials have not released the name of the suspect. The shooting occurred Oct. 3 when the boy found a loaded .38 caliber gun in the parent's bedroom. The boy was arrested Oct. 16. Loni Deland, attorney for the 12-year-old, maintains that (he incident was an accidental shootine. begins to operator referring to the homecoming homecom-ing parade crowd that lined Main Street w hen he entered tow n. Showing a sense of humor, the crew said that they thought about turning the transport around and having another go at Main Street as an official part of the parade. Larson said that it was unfortunate unfortu-nate that the track hoe had to operate oper-ate during the waterfowl season. The demand for the hoc was such that it was only available for this time period. In the best interest of completing the project, the decision was made to proceed. "We know we have inconvenienced inconve-nienced some sportsmen." Larson said. "But. we felt that we needed to take advantage of lite opportunity to use the equipment and get started with solving the problem we have. Hopefully, it will mean that we will have the area back in operation that much sooner." Much of the increased selenium problem in Stewart Lake ha been associated with an irrigation waste water dtainage system installed in the early I9S0. The system dtain directly into Stewart Lake carrying heavy load of the naturally occurring occur-ring element into the marsh. According to an Environmental Assessment tEA) recently completed complet-ed for the problem, the drain are part of the Jenen Unit of the Jy jt- f ftllfv ' '- Celeste McCormick, 6, holds her really likes witches. Roosevelt apologizes to tribe Hoping to work things out. the Roosevelt City Council met with the Ute Tribal Business committee and apologized for any misunderstanding misunder-standing the two croups may have had. The division between the two entities resulted in letters sent to the news media explaining their positions, posi-tions, but the meeting between the two entities was sparked when businessmen busi-nessmen approached the Roosevelt City Council stating that they were being hurt by the boycott of their businesses by Tribal members. Since Sept. 9. the Ute Tribe Business Committee has urged its members not to do business in cleanup Central Utah Project. The project was completed in 1 98 1 and was developed to provide 4.NK) acre-feet acre-feet of full-service and supplemental supplemen-tal service water to lands in the Jensen area. According to the EA. subsurface drains on about 7(X) acres of irrigated hind flow directly into Stewart Luke. It points out that the drainage discharges urc contaminated contam-inated with selenium and ate contributing con-tributing to high selenium levels in the Stewart Lake water and bottom sediments. Although selenium is a naturally occurring clement, when it accumulate and is found in the levels that il is in Stewart Like, it becomes toxic and is harmful to animal life. The report acknowledge that animal ani-mal and human need selenium in small quanlitic to May healthy, but amount in execs of that required result in reproductive impairment and other severe health problem, or death in exttcme case. Draining the lake i the first part of a two phase alternative that a selected to mediate the problem. According to the EA. the phased approach will follow successive tcp with monitoring and evaluation evalua-tion conducted at cash decision point It i hoped that thi procedure w ill reduce the uncertainly anJ provide pro-vide the earliest benefit at the least cot. The report said that this phased entry in the Great Pumpkin Contest Roosevelt. In a more humble style. Mayor Leonard Fcrguscn. Roosevelt City, apologized to the Tribal Business Committee. "1 apologize for any misunderstanding we may have had with the Tribe. It seemed all the people felt it was wrong for the city to write the open letter in the media." Fergusen promised to get back to talking to the tribe face-to-face rather than through the media. "We hope to have more meetings with the attitude of friendship." he said. Other members of the city council expressed a desire to work more in cooperation. The meeting with the Stewart approach is known as adaptive management. It states that adaptive management is a continuing process of action based on careful monitoring, monitor-ing, evaluation and planning, A significant part of the plan will be rerouting the irrigation dtainage system around the Stewart Lake marsh. The plan w ill allow the lake to flush through naturally occurring ... f -0 ', Track hoe clean channel into lake. I I. at Maeser School. She says she tribe leaves the door open to further meetings, which both groups said are needed. A new round of court cases have opened wounds in the conflicts between the two groups. Last May, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver opined that the Supreme Court ruled that the original boundaries bound-aries of the Uintah Indian Reservations remained intact, except for the homesteaded lands. Uintah and Duchesne counties have filed an appeal to the Supreme Court of the 10th Circuit Court's interpretation, but the boycott came alter U.S. District Judge Bruce Jenkins issued a ruling that Lake selenium spring flows from the Green River and, if deemed necessary, man-induced man-induced management flooding and diaining of the marsh system. The second phase of the plan will be based on and adapted to the results found from the phase one woik. It will include restoring a source of high quality scaler and reconstructing the Stewart Lake , , mm .- - - , ''si j. '. Jl" " t ft. Stewart Lake as part of massive project to reduce Ihe seiinum at the Vote Nov. 4 Next Tuesday's election may seem a little too calm, but with four different elections is has a lot of variety. In Naples City, three candidates. Dean Baker, Bruce Cook and Grant Hatch are seeking two positions on the city council. "1 believe there are three well-qualified well-qualified candidates for the city council position." said Cook, who is seeking his third term. Running for mayor are John T. Kay and John G. Mathis. Mathis is seeking his second term, and Kay is trying to follow in his father's, footsteps. His father was the city's first mayor. Other elections include Vernal City: three running for city council: Deb Cox, Jim Abegglen and Bert Clark. Two are running for mayor. Allan Mashburn and Bill Kremin. Running for the Maeser Water District board are Floyd W. Bodily, Orin A. Massey and Timothy Thomas. Running for the Ashley Valley Water and Sewer Board are Theron A. Davis and Harry Dee Kidd. The polls open at 7 a.m. Tuesday and will close at 8 p.m. Venial City residents vote at Vernal Middle School, District 10; Vernal Junior High. District 11; Discovery Elementary, District 8 and 9; Uintah County Courthouse, Districts 14 and 12 and Golden Age Center. District 13. Naples residents vote at the City Hall and Ashley Valley Water and Maeser Water vote at their respective respec-tive offices. Roosevelt City is not subject to tribal trib-al law. The Judge ruled that tribal members visiting the city, the closest clos-est commercial center, would pay state sales tax and can be tried in state court if they commit a crime. Roosevelt City loses between $60,000 to $100,000 a year by not charging Tribal members sales tax. contends Brad Hancock. Roosevelt City manager. But with the boycott, the city is hurting far more. The Tribe is the second largest employer in the Uintah Basin and the Business Committee has a yearly year-ly budget of more than $12 million. See Apology on page 3 dike and water management systems. sys-tems. Stewart Lake was purchased in 193f by the State of Utah to be managed specifically for waterfowl. A dike system was improved to expand the lake capacity. 'I he marsh is a popular area for water-See water-See Stewart on page 3 0 POOR COPY |