OCR Text |
Show f ; Pe w- - "iMrt'' vwyIv MOAB, UTAH 50 Volume 1 09 Number 1 www.moabtimes.com 0 WEATHER FORECAST Fall elections spark interest t Thursday mP Partly Cloudy High 53 Low 33 t EllddJL Snow Shower High 44 Low 14 Saturday Vfv Sunny High 50 Low 20 'rf'' Sunny High 57 Low 31 All choked up Spring cleaning gets cheaper GCHS Student Ryan McDowell displays a metal washer he choked on that he believes was Inside a Twinkle ha was eating. See the story, Page A2. Photo by Jeff Richards Cleanup vouchers worth J16 in Community value are available at city and county offices, one per family. Each voucher is good only at Bob's Transfer Station. Residents may bring almost anything to the Transfer Station up to 2 cubic yards free with the voucher. A8 To drain or not to drain major community forum, Drain It!' Is There a Middle Way 7" focusing on the pros and cons of the proposal to drain Lake Powell. It will be held Saturday, March 9, from 10.30 a.m. until noon, at the Senior Citizens Center. B3 Shopping habits What do customers want? Local groups hope to find out by using survey aimed to help businesses Increase profits and sales. B5 Book award teachers guide wins an award. B8 WEATHER HISTORY Feb. Feb. Feb, Feb. 25 26 27 28 47 33 46 22 -- 1 -- 18 -5- -- Mar. 02 62 18 48 26.11 36 II Mar. 03 13 Mar. 01 Inside The T sacs Business Directory. B7 Church Directory: B4 Dining Lodging: 63 I T-- I at-lar- council seat Times-Independe- March 7. Groat balls of fire columnist On the Road Again When you see small plugs of cyclists out on the road this weekend, smile and wave theyre riding to help raise awareness and understanding of cancer. The riders will be participating in the first Moab Skinny Tire Festival, which is a fundraiser for the Lance Armstrong Foundation. is four days The focus of the festival, March of supported group road bike rides. For the first two , days, riders will tour the river canyon, first downstream along the Potash Road on Thursday, and then upstream on the River Road on Friday. The next two days will feature local parks, with a tour of Arches on Saturday and a ride to Deadhorse State Park Sunday. About a hundred riders are expected to participate. The festival grew out of last years two-daLAF fundraiser, hosted by local entrepreneur Mark Griffith. After losing his brother to cancer, Griffith wanted to do something productive with his grief. Raising money to support cancer education and research seemed like a perfect cause, and holding a bike event seemed like the perfect fundraiser for the LAF. While the LAF doesn't hold remote events their only ride is the annual Ride for the Roses in Austin, Texas it does have a network of individual fundraisers known as the Peleton Project. Griffith became a member and used a weekend cycling retreat to bring in some money. This year. Poison Spider Bicycles Manager Scott Newton wanted to hold an event to highlight the area's road riding. An avid road cyclist, Newton hopes to see the sport grow in popularity in Moab as it has nationally. He decided to team with Griffith to add a greater sense of purpose to the festival. After all, every bike ride feels like it has some intrinsic value; each pedal stroke is work performed, energy released. But at the end of the ride, its hard 0, y Continued on Page A2 High-tec- h Moab Fira Department personnel help extinguish this blaze. Photo by Steve White, Grand County Sheriff's Office. Truck ignites load of styrofoam by Lisa Church stair writer A big rig hauling 48,000 pounds of Styrofoam beads used for insulation caught fire after a by Franklin Seal staff writer by Franklin Seal TMsnew copy then entering a tunnel, returning to U. S. 191 in Spanish Valley. Though costly, Warner said, the road would not impact residential areas in the community tt will be included in a set of options presented to the Utah Transportation Committee three-mile-lon- m Continued on Page A2 million-dolla- r Moab. Valleyites" cherish their isolation, but they pay for it, too: in higher bills at the gas pump and m frequent electrical brownouts. According to Ralph Sharp, manager for Utah Powers Moab field office, the brownouts momentary dips in line voltage stem from the fact that Castle Valleys electrical supply line is the longest in Utah Powers distribution area. But the company plans to install a new device on the line in June that they hope will solve the problem a $1 million vanadium redox battery (VRB). A leading-edg- e technology pioneered by Vantech, it will be Vancouver, the first commercial installation of its kind in the UJS. But the battery is only a temporary fix. Eventually, Sharp says, Castle Valley wifi get its own substation, which will solve the problem permanently. Meanwhile, residents make do with a sometimes-ficklpower system. B.C.-bas- 7imee-icvend- paper is printed on recycled paper and is recycta&e. sive route, according to Supervisor Dave Warner, would include using the Ftotash Highway, crossing the Colorado River on a new bridge near the portal, tions as their part in funding a highway corridor study that previously has been called a highway bypass study. UDOT has promoted the idea of the study as a means of involving the planning community in long-terefforts to solve traffic problems miles from anywhere. Actually its only 17 road miles upriver from bustling ed e Dectroyts storage tanks arent many options for a viable Moab highway bypass around City This is one was developed by the Grand County Road Department. The expen- staff writer drawbacks, too. Consider, for example, the hamlet of cal Monday 70 two hours while fire fighters extinguished the blaze. The Thompson Fire Dept., the Utah Highway Patrol, Moab Val- Continued on Page A2 There A joint citycounty transportation committee has derided to go back to Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) contribuwith a proposal to offer d life in the midst of a vast, impossible desert has its rewards, but it has its IhtJlmetr 1-- Group tries to rekindle UDOT study Castle Valley. Nestled between the La Sal Mountains and the Colorado River, Castle Valley has a coveted sense of remote isolation, as if it sat a thousand Bt beads on flat tire burst into flames Monday morning on Interstate 70. The truck was headed for California. There were no itjuries, but traffic in both lanes of was shut down for about firm announces Castle Valley to receive To aubeeribe to POOR offices and the now held by Mayberry will The name those individuals who have filed after they have returned their petitions to the county, starting by Ron Georg Obituarist: A4 1 e by March 17 to be eligible. and fundraiser Ja FW&nc rnCw, A2 Modcet: Bt CTh county-wid- require 1 00 signatures, while district seats including the school board require petitions bearing 25 names. Tbwnsend said her office will begin accepting petitions on Thursday, March 7, and all applicants must file Road bike fest combines fun EtartsM, Letter: AW Region Review: Sports: B1 said last week that, given the number of individuals who have picked up petitions for the county council and county attorney positions, a primary will likely be needed to narrow, the field in those races. Anyone who wishes to run for office must file a petition with signatures from registered voters. All Here 's the skintiv: Plans are complete for a "Just County Clerk Fran Townsend Political aspirants who wish to run for elected county offices have until March 17 to file petitions for candidacy. This year, three Grand County Council seats are ope- n- those currently held by Susanna Mayberry, Kimberly Schappert, and Bart Leavitt - as are three school board seats currently held by Kaaron Jorgen, Bruce Louthan and Brian Walston - and the County Attorney, Clerk, Treasurer, Sheriff, Recorder, and Assessor. - Sunday. Thursday, March 7, 2002 Rattlesnake No. 22, the g battery transmission line that serves the valley begins at a substation southwest of La Sal on the old Rattlesnake Ranch. From there it extends 120 miles over the La Sals, through Castle Valley, up nver past Dewey Bridge and terminates at two ranches on the Colorado River near the Westwater Ranger Station and the state line. The amount of power an electrical line can deliver diminishes the further out on the line the user is located. Because of its extreme length, users at the very end of Rattlesnake No. 22 get a maximum of roughly one amp. Sharp said. Castle Valley, being closer to the middle of the line, can draw significantly larger volumes of power from the system. Even so, problems for users on the line have increased in recent years as more homes have been built in the area. Residents describe frequent incidents vhere their lights dim momentarily. Continued on Page A5 25.000-vol- t 8 intM. misM: |