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Show Area Wide Week in Review & Fires in Mesa Verde . . . Congressional inquiry Owens Heber . . . Its nothing at all this year on Mesa Verde Nalike Park last tional year, but there have been some fires in the park, week officials said this following inquiries by citizens who saw Officials said that there have been lightning smoke and helicopters. to start in single trees, and some strikes that have caused fires "holdover" blaze that had smoldered from strikes the previous days an then burst into flame, but these have been quickly extinguished. In park was the cause of comparison, a year ago, the drought-stricke- n considerable concern about fire. Montezuma Valley Journal Cortez, Colo. City Rep. Wayne reported last Friday that he had received a U. S. Geological Survey team's preliminary draft indicating its final report on Jordanelle Dam safety will give the site the same clean bill of health as previous "independent" studThat of the raised critics has reservoir project who ies. questions by seriously doubt that the team did what they were asked to do by the Utah delegation, which asked for the study. Rep. Bill Orton requested the USGS investigation in a letter to Dallas Peck, agency director, which was signed in March by all members of the delegation. They asked for the agencys assistance in answering questions relating to the seismicity and the adequacy of the U. S. Bureau of Reclamation's design, engineering, and construction. They also asked the agency to review the work of the Bureau and the Utah State water engineer, as well as any other relevant information to determine whether or not the reservoir can be filled "without adversely impacting existing and proposed uses of the Provo River water, pursuant to valid existing rights, in and from the Provo River system over time." Timcs-Indepcndc- Moab Scrapbook . . Vernal A major ingredient to the Book Cliffs road is nearing completion. For the past year the road has undergone an extensive Environmental Impact Study, Uintah Board manager, Thom Wardell said the "EIS is just about completed. Monday Wardell told members of the Uintah Special Transportation Service Board that staff with Sen. Jake Garn's office did not share the same optimism as Rep. Bill Orton about removal of the Winter Ridge Wilderness Study Area. A preferred route for the road follows an existing county rod through the eastern edge of the WSA. "Garn's office said the BLM wilderness proposal is much more controversial than the Forest Service wilderness study which took six years to resolve," Wardell said. By putting the Book Cliffs road through the study area it would save about $10 million in construction costs. The Winter Ridge Wilderness Study Area is not a roadless area, Wardell noted. "There are many county roads in the area. Once the EIS is complete it will be subjected to public input after which the BLM will issue a decision. The highway from Ouray to the Cisco Junction on 0 is being built as a southern link to the Uintah Basin for oil, gas and tourism by Uintah and Grand Counties. The highway will traverse one of the state's most productive wildlife habitat. The Division of Wildlife Resources is in the process of acquiring several ranches in the area to use as a showcase of habitat management. The Vernal Express 90-mi- le IU-7- Halchita needs help . . . Monticello San Juan Commissioners met at length last County week with a group representing Halchita to discuss concerns of that community. Oscar Begay and Helen Tom discussed needs in the areas of recreation, roads, sewage, and solid waste disposal. Begay pointed out that the young people of Halchita have no access to a suitable ball field, basketball courts, swimming pool or indoor play areas for winter use. Funds for some of these are given to the Oljato Chapter and Utah Navajo Development Council, but seem not to reach Haltn- accict tho ommin in entriner chita residents. Commiccir'r,orc n((crrA r o their own well as as seeking use of existing recreation district up school facilities. They also agreed to upgrade streets in Halchita that are on the county "B" system. The San Juan Record More development fees soon cost a Fork It . . . American developer to build a home in may American Fork. Recommending a considerable change in the city's has drafted a policy policy, the Planning and Zoning Commission for fees to which would require developers parks and roads, not pay essential for considered those but build just in the areas in which they relied on prophas The the residents of those areas. present policy been rehave erty being donated for parks. In addition, developers Howsubdivision. the quired to build roads within the boundaries of of the city, has ever, rapid growth, especially in the northwest part spurred the need for access roads to provide better traffic flow. Under the proposed new policy, developers would pay for roads in addition to parks, with half of the funds being deposited at the time the land is annexed. American Ford Citizen can continue . . . Logging Kanab A call environmental for the immediate end to by groups all logging in the States of Arizona and New Mexico has been denied by a Federal Judge in Phoenix. Judge Earl Carroll refused to issue a temporary restraining order against logging, filed as a lawsuit by the Sierra Qub Legal Defense Fund in behalf of the Wilderness Society, Sierra Qub, and Audubon Society. The groups claimed the forest ecosystem was in danger ads evidenced by the apparent decline in the number of goshawks, large predatory bird. Although not on the endangered species list the Forest Service uses the bird as an "indicator species. Indicator species are used to estimate the vitality of wildlife populations in general. Southern Utah News $4 million in Richfield, - Over . . . marijuana million worth of marijuana, $4 Ranch 17 miles -- being grown on south of Hanksville, was seized and Granite Creek y two men taken into custody last week by the Narcotics Task Force. Arrested were John William Casner, 48, Hanksville, and Danny Dean Cleaveland, 31, Moab. Both were taken to Sevier County Jail where bail was set at $5,000 each. The confiscating and ultimate harvesting of the crop culminated three months of investigation. The Richfield Reaper Quad-Count- Photo Courtesy of the Dan O'Laurie Museum . . . Robbery at First National Bank rocked the community in 1923 The Wasatch Wave EIS is nearly done . institution was acquired by First Security Bank in the 1950s. A large crack in the wall separating the two buidings from the explosion in the vault remained until the building was demolished. The First National Bank was located on the northeast corner of Main and Center. The north half of the building was occupied until 1948 by The the Grand Valley Times and later The By B. J. Eardlcy In the early morning hours of April 26, 1923, Brumlcy Green, First National Bank's bookkeeper, was on his way home after a late night out. As his path took him past the bank, he thought he heard a muffled noise, almost like an explo- sion. Using his key, he entered the bank and was immediately knocked down, gagged and bound with wire. The sound he had heard was a crude application of nitroglycerin and dynamiteBrumlcy Green had just stumbled into the first bank robbery in the history of all of southeastern Utah. The break-i- n at the First National Bank was also the first burglary of any consequence ever committed in Moab. That's a bit of irony for a town that began with a reputation as a rough and reckless frontier outpost, where outlaws frequented saloons and bullets rebounded in the streets. Brumlcy was able to break the wire that bound his hands and feel in about a half an hour. He then walked to the nearby hospital (then located in the building at 35 West Center) and notified authorities. For nearly 30 hours, however, Sheriff Murphy and his deputies had no tangible clue to help them in tracking the robbers. Finally, a phone call was received from Thompson. Will Beeson and Jesse Maxwell, drivers from the f n n mAn VUIliyunj , HUU own tracks of three men in the state road just west of the Courthouse stage station. Other reports followed. A piece of a $5.00 bill was found, also in the Upper Courthouse area. It was a good lead. Officials knew that the robbers had used too much explosive in the theft and had literally blown apart some of the currency. The discovery of a currency wrapper in the same area gave the search team the 1V1UUU corroborating evidence that they needed. The hunt was on. The robbers had hidden above the Courthouse Bridge, waiting for the cloak of night to make their escape. They failed to appreciate, however, the intricacy of die area's rugged red rock country. Consistently they found themselves rimrockcd. Each twist of the landscape that forced them to retrace their steps deprived them of valuable time. Disguising their tracks by walking on their toes and then changing to their heels, the robbers also tried to set their footsteps on top of weeds and low brush. But they had not gone as far as they hoped. At last, 37 hours after they had looted First National Bank, the thieves were found hiding in the bottom of a dry gully and were forced to surrender. Buried in the sand next to them were 3 rolls of currency and 3 revolvers. The currency amounted to a little over $5,000. Another $1,800 in silver was still missing. Although their story was contradictory and it was never clear exactly how long they had been in the area, nor where they were heading, it was postulated that the three men had been in Moab for several days and were probably expecting someone with a vehicle to come through and pick them up. Something had obviously gone astray. Officers also be prisoner some air, and the vault door was left ajar." At first, none of the men would divulge the location of the missing silver. Representatives of First National assured them that the bank would accept a plea of 2nd degree burglary if the silver was returned and if the men agreed to take the maximum penalty of 20 years. Eventually, the thieves submitted, the silver was recovered (buried just north of town) and Moab's first major burglary ended with a solid conviction. Trivia Question: Albert Beach (who was Deputy Sheriff at the lime of the First National robbery) also worked as a mail driver for Moab lieved at least one of the three men had been involved in robberies in Nephi, Fillmore, Sandy, and St. George banks. The crudeness of the application of explosives, however, was distinct to the Moab "job," perhaps indicating a novice attempt to "go it alone." "From their actions during and following the robbery," The Times reported, "the burglars apparently had no desire to kill anyone. In binding the bank's bookkeeper . . . they showed that they were somewhat solicitous for his welfare. They did not attempt to bind him securely . . . On leaving the bank, one of them stated that they should give their Garage Company between Thompson and Monticello. What special service did Beach offer to Monticello merchants that enabled them to bank at First National in Moab? Answer to last week's trivia question: That stocky spotted Ute Pinto was bred to be fast. It was ideally suited in strength and size to negotiate challenging mountain trails. The photo of last week's Ute hogan, by the way, was courtesy of the Dan O'Laurie Museum from the Mitch Williams collection. Mitch has devoted untold hours to collecting and contributing photos to the museum's photo file and helping to add to the research on Moab's history. He deserves a special thank you. Water is a critical factor in future growth in Utah cient, and therefore relatively least costly, damsites have logically been used first so that each succeeding project tends to be more expensive than the last." Utah's immediate water problem is becoming one of money rather than water itself and market considerations arc more and more coming into the water picture to replace the historic concept of beneficial use, it is reported by Utah Foundation, the private research organization. A number of Utah counties and communities are currently facing serious, some critical, problems in meeting inC.r immediate and foreseeable needs for culinary water, the Foundation notes in a research report released Monday. Water to meet these needs is available within the state, but costs of treating (for purification) and transporting water to points of critical need appear to be substantial. In a few places, sources of supply which have been adequate in the past have been significandy reduced by the recent series of drought years, and supplies from other sources will have to be developed. However, most of the statewide problem is that available supplies of water are being fully utilized leaving little or no room for further growth and development If further growth is to be made possible, new sources of supply will have to be developed for these areas also. The cost of delivering water to consumers in Utah and other western states is significantly higher than in other areas of the nation, the Foundation points out. A the study made by Congressional Budget office in 1987 reported that per capita spending to Utah appears to have sufficient water (providing the Central Utah project is completed) for the next two or three decades, but the cost of developing, treating and transporting It tr rtf irrramst nrpri will he - o p substantial, and meeting these costs may be difficult, especially when demands for education, welfare. transportation and other state-finance- d programs are large and grow- ing. In years further ahead, when available supplies of water itself approach their ultimate limit, decisions on water use may to an even greater extent be decided on market considerations rather than historic water val- ues, Foundation analysts suggest, noting that "clean drinking water will have to be preserved, of course, and its availability may eventually become the limiting factor in the states growth." replace and expand local water supply facilities in the Mountain States was more than double the national average and more than five times the amount spent in the Mid-Atlant- ic region. "Furthermore, Utah's cost of developing, storing and delivering water to points where it is urgently needed is expected to increase in the future," Foundation analysts noted. "This is due not only to inflation, which affects costs in every location, but also to the real (inflation-adjusted- ) costs of building storage dams and transportation systems, the of factors that make the unit-coswater so much higher in the Mountain States. This is because the effi ts Tcri Lyn Warner bumps the ball during an exciting volleyball game against Paonia, Colo. The Lady Red Devils were participating in a tournament at Olathe, Colo. Also shown is Jessie Robinson. |