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Show SALT FLAT NEWS, Text and Photos By Richard N. Goldbergcr Theres no halogeten here, quipped Earl Richardson as he tied down an airplane that had just landed at the Garrison National Airport. Its all been stomped away by those news nuts, said Richardson, his head shaking as if something valuable had been destroyed. Earl Bud Richardson, airport director, official greeter and deputy sheriff of West Millard County, made reference to his latest duty that of acting as the local taxi company shuttling Americas Eyes and Ears sixteen miles to the southeast where ! one thousand two hundred sheep died from a noxious weed. Deputy Richardson actually had good reason to be concerned with the lack' of halogeten on the runway as this plant acts as a very good mat, keeping stones from flying up and damaging the planes or an occasional sheep that may be pasturing nearby the runway. Incidentally, this plant halogeten, a weed imported from Russia in 1934, was prime suspect in the death of the thousand in nearby Burbank. Utah. Hauling away dead sheep to be sheared. Garrison, gateway to the beautiful Burbank Hills, is the major township near the broad antelope valley of west central Utah. Almost straddling the Nevada line, Garrison lies one hundred and fifty miles south of Wendover, or two 'hundred air miles from Salt Lake City. This valley has a personality that perfectly reflects the stillness of a lazy Saturday afternoon, assuming time decided to stop running at 3:30 for a lack of interest. For all matters of prac-- ' ticality. time has little meaning in this part of Utah, though during a few days in the latter part of January a portion of each day was spent by the residents of Garrison reminding one another when it was five oclock so that they could watch the evening news and see how the world watched Garrison and, more important, find out what was going on in their own back yard via Los Angeles or New York City. It was as if a piece of Vietnam had come here to roost with all the excitement of instant replays, capsuled analyses concerning the latest in a series of wooley moves that would, frighten the life of anyDeputy Bud Richardson of literally in Garrison. not one living West Millard. The airport became one of the busiest in the United States with a plane landing every thirty seconds, leaving a new team of experts, either media or medical allowing the next thirty seconds for a different plane to take off with film or kidney samples. Its two hundred miles before you go anywhere explained Deputy Richardson as he scanned the skies for more incoming traffic. For the governor of Utah, the Hon. Calvin Rampton, headaches travel faster than the speed of light when it comes to the matter of sheep dying in Utah. This seems to be a reasonable .estimate since the last incident that occurred near the town of Dug-waUtah. Referred to by local residents as the great gasacre of 68, this occurrence was officially as the Army investigation noted Halogeten just got a bad name, of certain chemically inbalanced says Mr. Lewellian, sheepherder. sheep from Skull Valley, Utah. Dead sheep are to the State of Utah what oil slicks are to odd-shee- p y. California. FEBKUARY-MARCH- Note unique , 1971 skid. nations journalists trampled around the Burbank Hills making a lot of dust and very little sense, according to a local resi; dent who also was intrigued the way each news team would follow the other and repeat the exact scene, be it an interview with a dead sheep or live sheep-herdeIt was this sheep-lik- e approach to journalism that perplexed this resident who preferred to remain unidentified. Creativity was not left out of this event entirely as ninety-nin- e percent of the citizenry of Millard County, if not of Utah, rejected the weed theory of death and preferred that blame rest upon the Army, the Atomic Energy Commission, Communists, hippies, flying saucers or per-- , haps a divine sign. The Army and the' AEC conducted their own independent investigations though for the matter of the latter suspect church attendance in Garrison is about the same as before as sinners have always been scarse in this part of Millard County as local gossip r. goes. Occasionally one or two come in from Nevada but they leave the county as fast as they came in, if not faster, as rumor continues to have its say. The dubious attitude generated by the number of unorthodox theories being espoused was the paradox of why only the Ingram herd was affected when there were approximately four other herds totaling 5,500 sheep in close proximity from five beep a shit and a sweat, says Donald Ingram, owner of phrase repeated over and over again was a pocket of something done them in. Due to a venting of radioactive' material during an underground nuclear test a short time prior to this event, the AEC was concerned enough to deploy some investigators to assist the State of Utah. Donald Ingram, 55, eldest of the three brothers, felt stunned at the suddenness of the sheep passing away. According to Ingram, Its been a shit and a sweat. I dont know. Mr. Lewellian, sheepherder for the Ingrams, felt that Halogeten just got a bad name. Lewellian, resembling a classic western-typ- e sheep. between Richard Boone and Hoot Gibson, continued to verbalize his visual findings on the dying sheep. Saw a ram ran, ran, (pause), fell over. Next thing I knew it was a dead piece of wool. Been dying all different ways, Lewellian mused as he checked the water pans on the Aint been drinking. range. This phrase is a mental catch-al- l for the mystery that continued to hover around the knotty land of tiny trees. Traveling along the beautiful hills of Burgank on a road referred to as the BLM Special by Deputy Richardson, evidence , !? , : eat halogeten to obtain salt was given a minor boost by an 'independent study reported to the News. Two secretaries who are employed by the Division of Oil and Gas Conservation for the State of Utah recently nibbled a sample of the weed left in their office as a curio or decoration by an inspector who was checking an oil well being drilled near the town of Burbank. The secretaries commented that the weed was very salty, still leaving unanswered the question of why these two women even would ponder nibbling such a plant. . Life among the little trees goes on with the sheep being sheared while townspeople concern themselves about when oil will be discovered. Drilling activity for the past year has been Garrison-Burban- k mildly active in the area. As far as fear of this weed goes, Merck Jackson, radio operator for the Millard County Sherrif fs department hasan attitude appropriate and re- . : j ; ; Aerial view of metropolitan Garrison. seen of foliage other than and water was also noted being tanked up from a nearby lake. was Halogeten i Halogeten could well in a way Burbank Hills is in background.- be compared with tobacco in that it may be hazardous to your presentative of the local citizenry. health, though the weed is comThey all wanted to know every- small in eaten monly quantities thing about Halogeten and I j for a high saline content found could not even pronounce it. in the upper leaves. That in- -' Deputy Richardson showed con- - j formation comes from Mr. Gene cern for the safety of the pilots j Hagard, whose father had a herd as he chased stray sheep off the of sheep on the nearby experirunway. Fly low and slow, mental range farm operated by Richardson quipped in a d the United States Department of as manner to a pilot he Agriculture. According to Mr. took off in a cloud of dust. Haggard, you can always tell a Those stones could kill somehalogetened sheep by the way it one if one was unlucky. smells. Dogs would not eat a Richardson said as he carefully sheep that died from halogeten avoided stepping on a rare recause of the wooley stink. maining piece of Halogeten, a Hagard s theory that the sheep weed with a split personality, j ! ! ; I back-hande- event. Amediamarewould be a good way to describe the way the It take a heck of a man to shear a dead sheep. to seven miles away. A The reaction of the towns' people could well be summed up by Mrs. Genieve Richardson, lovely, wife of Deputy Earl Richardson. Mrs. Richardson like everyone else became an instant expert on television ratings of That newscasts and casters. Dick Nourse (KSL TV, Salt Lake City CBS affiliate) told it sure straight. Gin, as Mrs. Richardson prefers to be called, admitted some concern for the way certain others reacted to the local economy in regards to comments about water and grazing. Im planning to write a letter, ipjected her husband, somewhat sore over the alleged biased reporting of this national Its 7 Garrison International Airport administration building. ! |
