NORTH CACHE WILL POP ON THURSDAY. SEE STEPPING OUT.
Jackson, Wyoming
Wednesday, August 19, 2015
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Group home is still closed Van Vleck House remains shut pending state investigation into student’s death. By Emma Breysse
PRICE CHAMBERS / NEWS&GUIDE
A group of friends plows into Big Kahuna on Saturday while field testing a new design from Hammocraft, a Jackson business with a product that mounts hammocks to paddleboards and rafts. The crew was Tyler Seligman, Eric Steinmann, Michael Hammer, Ian McGregor (pilot), Bland Hoke, Padgett Hoke, Felicia Tumaneng and Casey Box. Somehow Seligman never spilled his beer throughout the experimental whitewater run.
B-T’s parcel is no easy sell Third would-be buyer walks away; interest of S.R. Mills is renewed. By Ben Graham The third time was not a charm for the Bridger-Teton National Forest. The agency’s most recent attempt to sell its property in downtown Jackson fell through last week, and the future of the land remains as unclear as it was more than two years ago when it first went on the market. Questions have emerged about the soil stability of the 10-acre parcel, what can feasibly be built there and the $12 million price tag that the U.S. Forest Service has hung on the land. Real estate agent Bill Van Gelder, who is working on the deal with fellow Jackson Hole Sotheby’s International
Realty agent Jay Kornoff, said the Forest Service understands the complications. The entire situation is “atypical,” he said. The agency recognizes that “concessions” may have to be made for a sale to happen, and the price could be one of those, Van Gelder said. The land sale has grabbed community attention for years. The parcel is the largest developable tract of land in a town strapped for places to put housing. It also abuts the National Elk Refuge on one side and is just blocks from Town Square. Money from the sale is needed to build new Forest Service office space on the North Cache Street property, just adjacent to the land that is for sale. There has been keen community interest in seeing the Bridger-Teton headquarters stay in Jackson Hole since the Forest Service said it wanted to sell the land. See B-T PArCEl on 22A
Nearly two months after a student died at Van Vleck House operations at the facility are still suspended as part of a state investigation. Representatives of Teton Youth and Family Services and of the Wyoming Department of Family Services confirmed this week that the investigation has suspended most services at Van Vleck House. The department began reviewing operations at Van Vleck House and the Adams Canyon Crisis Shelter following the death of a student at Van Vleck on June 25. Police reports at the time indicated the death was not a criminal matter, but rather the result of either self-harm or an accident. Both facilities are residential placements for at-risk youth between the ages of 10 and 18. Van Vleck is a longer-term group home, while the crisis shelter accepts students for placement of up to 30 days. “This tragedy has affected us deeply and we are working harder than ever to safeguard our students from this happening again,” Teton Youth and Family Services spokeswoman Sarah Cavallaro said in a statement last week. “Our focus is on ensuring we can resume providing critical services to families in Teton and nearby counties as soon as possible. We See GrOuP hOmE on 18A
DEQ: Oil-fouled Dry Piney Creek is not impaired Wyoming Range stream can’t support its native cutthroat trout. By Mike Koshmrl A stream in the foothills of the Wyoming Range that’s been so degraded by an oilfield that it no longer supports its native cutthroat trout is not found on the state’s im-
paired waters list. Data collected more than 15 years ago at Dry Piney Creek, a small tributary of the Green River 80 miles south of Jackson, were “inconclusive” to support listing in the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality’s 303(d) impaired waters report. The DEQ’s draft report, now up for public review, summarizes all known impaired waters, including Jackson Hole’s Flat Creek, a water-
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shed whose main pollutant is municipal stormwater. But Dry Piney Creek, which has been degraded and polluted primarily by activity tied to the Labarge Oil and Gas Field, including more than one spill, has for decades escaped listing as an impaired water. When monitoring Dry Piney Creek in 1998 the DEQ discovered “some indications of habitat degradation and degraded biological condition.” 16A 25A 27A
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“However, designated use support was not determined because data were inconclusive,” says the DEQ’s most recent draft report on impaired waters. “Oil and gas wells and a gas-processing facility are located in the headwaters of the LaBarge, Dry Piney, and South Piney Creek drainages.” Flowing adjacent to Hogsback Ridge west of Big Piney, Dry Piney See dEq on 18A
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