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Covering the Bitterroot Valley – “Where Montana Begins!”
’ ! l a c o est at L
‘The B
June 28th & 29th!
Volume XXXIV, Number 37
Best photo
Established 1985 - Locally owned & independent
Wednesday, April 3, 2019
Benefit set for Palmer family A community fundraiser for the family of Trooper Wade Palmer will be held on Saturday, April 13 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the Super 1 Foods parking lot in Stevensville. Montana Highway Patrol Trooper Wade Palmer was shot multiple times recently in Evaro and remains in critical condition in a Salt Lake City hospital. Trooper Palmer and his family live in Stevensville. The community fundraiser is being coordinated by Stevensville Family Medicine to directly benefit Trooper Palmer and his family.
There will be hamburgers, hot dogs, sides and drinks for $5 a plate, a silent auction and 50/50 raffle. Participants are encouraged to “Back the Blue, Wear the Green” at the event. Community Medical Center and Super 1 Foods are donating the food and a professional grill chef so that 100 percent of donations will go directly to the family. If you would like to donate a gift basket or gift certificates, contact Jill at CPG Stevensville Family Practice at 777-2775.
Chronic Wasting Disease program scheduled RML, FWP to discuss monitoring, management, risks
“Trouble in the Water,” a photo by REC employee Melissa Greenwood, documented the recovery of a washed-out power line in the Bitterroot River last summer.
REC employee wins national recognition Ravalli Electric Co-op (REC) Communications Specialist, Melissa Greenwood, recently received recognition in the 2019 Spotlight on Excellence Awards program nationally, sponsored by the Council of Rural Electric Communicators and the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA). Greenwood received top honors winning the Gold Award in the Best Photo category for “Trouble in the Water,” a photo documenting the recovery of a washed-out power line in the Bitterroot River last summer. “Electric cooperatives are
being challenged to communicate to the people they serve more than ever before,” said Scott Peterson, Senior Vice President of Communications for NRECA. “Printed news publications, social media and videos are all more important than ever to keep members updated on issues affecting the electric cooperatives and their members.” A special reception honoring the award recipients will be held during the CONNECT ‘19 Conference held in Houston, Texas, on May 7. Winning entries are displayed during the event. The annual Spotlight on
Melissa Greenwood Excellence Awards program recognizes the best communication and marketing efforts by electric cooperatives and related
organizations. Entrants competed with electric cooperatives in 16 categories. Electric cooperative communicators and marketing professionals submitted nearly 640 entries in the Spotlight on Excellence program. Faculty members from the University of Missouri – Columbia and University of South Carolina, as well as noted professionals in the fields of marketing, web design and digital communications, and newspapers judged the event, which uses a finite scoring system to determine the winners.
Chronic wasting disease (CWD) in deer and elk has been a popular topic nationally in recent months as several states try to balance concerns and answer questions from hunting, wildlife management and public health sectors. What causes CWD? Can its spread be contained? Are people who consume venison at risk? Three Montana CWD experts will cover those questions and more during a presentation on Thursday, April 11, at 7 p.m. in the Performing Arts Center at Hamilton High School, 327 Fairgrounds Road. “Chronic Wasting Disease in Montana” will feature Bruce Chesebro, M.D., and Brent Race, D.V.M., from Rocky Mountain Laboratories and Emily Almberg, Ph.D., from the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks. Chesebro and Race are scientists
who conduct research on CWD and related diseases at the Hamilton-based facility, while Almberg, a disease ecologist, helps develop and manage the state’s surveillance and response. The hour-long presentation, which is free and intended for a general audience, is part of the RML community outreach series. RML is part of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of the U.S. National Institutes of Health. CWD is a type of prion disease found in wild or domesticated deer, elk, moose and reindeer. CWD has not been naturally transmitted to sheep, cattle or people. Prion diseases result from accumulation of a misfolded form of the host prion protein which leads to degeneration of the brain. Scientists identified CWD in captive deer in Colorado in the 1960s; the first case found in wild deer also occurred in Colorado, in 1981. In 1999 CWD was found in captive elk on a Montana game
Gravel pit looking to expand Bitterroot Baroque presents...
By Michael Howell
As part of his application process with the Montana Department of Environmental Quality to expand his gravel pit located northeast of Stevensville on the Eastside Highway, owner Jake Yoder sent notification of his application to property owners in the area giving them the opportunity to request a public hearing on the application or not. If a certain percentage of the surrounding property owners, in this case 17 out of 56, request a public hearing, one will be arranged. Responses are being accepted through April 15. Ravalli County is, apparently, a landowner in the area and received notification on March 12. The Commissioners met with Yoder last week to consider the matter. Yoder’s consultant Rob Kusler told the commissioners that they would have received a letter whether they owned property in the area or not. Yoder’s proposed amendment to his gravel mining permit will increase the total acreage of the enterprise to 49.7 acres. Kusler noted that not all that acreage was being dug up. Some of the permitted land, maybe up to three acres, is used for staging the crusher operation; another five may be necessary if the hot asphalt plant
is approved. Some of that land is also used to stockpile topsoil. It is estimated that over half the depth of the pit will be topsoil that will be stockpiled and used in the reclamation of the pit. According to Kusler, currently there are 13.1 bonded acres at the existing Yoder Gravel Pit site. Actual removal of soil can only take place on the bonded portion of a mining site. He said they are looking to add an additional 14.2 bonded acres which is just a little over doubling the existing size to a total of 27.3 bonded acres. The remaining 22.4 acres within the permitted mining site is not bonded. The amended permit being requested would also allow a portable asphalt plant to operate on the site when needed. Yoder said their plans called for operating the crusher for about a month and the asphalt plant for about three weeks. The current projection is to remove approximately 550,000 cubic yards of material from the site over the life of the project, which may be through December of 2058. According to Yoder, he has lived in the area and operated the pit for a number of years and gets along well with his neighbors. He said he was urged to mine some of his land for gravel for some time
but was reluctant. He said he was really interested in raising animals and feed. Ultimately, he was convinced that he could mine the gravel and then resume his work with cattle and pasture after the reclamation. So that’s the plan. The pit will be dug out 20 feet deep with the first eleven feet being stockpiled for reclamation. After mining, the topsoil will be returned and an irrigation pivot installed. All of which is set to be completed by December 2058. But if Yoder has his way it will happen much sooner, he said, he would like to get back to what he really likes doing. And it may be sooner rather than later, if all goes as planned with the state’s project of re-paving a portion of the Eastside Highway in the area. Commissioner Greg Chilcott said, “The reality is we need gravel and the proximity to the place of use is a real value.” He questioned the noise and the lighting involved and was told that the topsoil would be stockpiled as a berm to deflect the sound and light upward and most of the noise produced would be down in the pit. The commissioners came to consensus that they had no objections to the application and could see no reason to request a public hearing.
See CWD, page 3
String Quartet Concert. New York’s Diderot String Quartet will perform in concert on Friday, April 5 at 7:30 p.m., at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 600 S. 3rd Street in Hamilton. Musicians will play on gut strung, period-appropriate instruments. Hear Beethoven (Opus 18, #1 and “Rasumovsky”) and Haydn’s Opus 20, #2. Admission is $25, students $10. For more information, call (314) 8525099 or email bitterrootbaroque@gmail.com.