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wednesday, december 27, 2017
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ITD mulls moving out of Shoshone
F orest Plan Salmon-Challis planning for future Page 3
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Man files $3M tort claim against city
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Ketchum, mayor of Hailey settle claim AND GUIDE
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Congress leaves CHIP on the table Despite federal stopgap, health insurance remains uncertain for Idaho children By MARK DEE Express Staff Writer
Express photo by Roland Lane
In Sun Valley, A Winter Wonderland Olaf, the lovable snowman from the blockbuster Disney movie “Frozen,” sings and dances with a group of youthful backers during the Skating in a Winter Wonderland Ice Show on Christmas Eve at Sun Valley Resort. The ice show attracted throngs of viewers taking part in a longstanding Sun Valley tradition of kicking off Christmas Eve outside the Sun Valley Lodge. The approximately half-hour show was followed by the annual Torchlight Parade down Dollar Mountain and fireworks in the sky above Dollar. To see more photos of the event, turn to Page 32.
Recovering the Big Wood River Scientist calls for master planning process duce fish that weighed four times that, Thurow said. “What we have now is a fraction of what that was,” Thurow said in an interview Dec. 21. “We’ve had a loss in the Big Wood since the ’40s. Historically, the Big Wood was a remarkable fishery.” By PETER JENSEN In a 2006 study using land-use maps, the Hailey-based Wood Express Staff Writer River Land Trust calculated the loss of riparian habitat along the s debate ramps up over the future of the Big Wood River fol- river from 1943 to 2004. The river lost 25 percent of habitat over lowing last spring’s severe flooding, fisheries scientist Russ that time period, though it also lost habitat prior to 1943, the study Thurow wants Blaine County residents to use history as a reported. From the Warm Springs confluence to a point south of guide. He wants them to underBellevue, 40 percent of the riverbanks stand the historical potential of were hardened by riprap or levees. In its trout fishery. 2006, the Big Wood had lost 1.69 miles Thurow, who works at the U.S. Forest of river length due to channel straightService’s Rocky Mountain Research Staening, the study reported. tion in Boise, said that decades ago, the Furthermore, Thurow said fish river was capable of producing larger habitat on the Big Wood lacks the Russ Thurow and more abundant fish. As human Fisheries scientist, U.S. Forest Service complexity it once had. Historically, development along the river increased the river featured greater diversity of dramatically from the 1970s onward, the riverside habitat has insect life, as well as more spawning habitat, side channels, multideclined. ple channels, deep pools, riffles, woody debris and streamside veg As a result, the fish have shrunk in size and number, Thurow etation such as willows, brush and cottonwoods. said. Ask a fisherman: A good day on the Big Wood now might net It’s an example of what Thurow calls a shifting benchmark. a 3-pound rainbow trout. In the 1950s, the river could reliably proSee RIVER, Page 20 The last in a series of stories examining the flooding that inundated the Wood River Valley last spring.
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“Draw a line in the sand and say, ‘We’re going to keep what’s left.’”
Congress left Washington last week with a ‘CHIP’ on its shoulder. A short-term deal passed Thursday night dodged a government shutdown, but failed to produce a long-term solution for the Children’s Health Insurance Program, or CHIP, despite broad support on both sides of the aisle. Instead, it allocated $2.85 billion to keep the program funded through March, and pay three months in back bills. Funding for the program lapsed Sept. 30 after lawmakers failed to agree on a five-year extension. Last week’s extension provides temporary relief for the 8.9 million lowincome children who depend on CHIP coverage, but little certainty. CHIP covers kids in households that make too much to qualify for Medicaid but too little to afford private insurance. The $15 billion program is almost entirely funded by the federal government, but is administered by states. A quarter of the way through fiscal 2018, many have built federal money into their budgets. That includes Idaho, where 35,964 kids—about 8 percent of Idaho children 18 and under—relied on the program in fiscal 2016, which provides the most recent data available. As of 2015, 24 percent of children in Blaine County were covered by either CHIP or Medicaid, according to a study by the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families. In Idaho, CHIP comes in the form of the Idaho Health Insurance Plan for Children. Building on Medicaid, it provides coverage to kids whose household income is up to 185 percent of the poverty line. For a family of four, that’s around $45,500. While parents handle some co-pays and premiums for care, they’re capped. “CHIP was specifically designed to include child-appropriate benefits,” said Dr. Kathryn Beattie, executive medical director and administrator at St. Luke’s Children’s Hospital in Boise. “This legislation provided a short-term fix. This fix does not provide long-term certainty for access to the basic health care that is critically See CHIP, Page 19
FRIDAY, AUGUST 18, 2017
mtexpress.com | Volume 42 | Number 77 S U N
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Hemingway School begins new era
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WIN TODAY! GET UP AND RUNNING… For today’s Free Friday Contest, the fine folks at Girls on the Run are donating a Fall Program package designed for girls in 3rd5th grade which includes: 20 lessons conducted by two certified GOTR coaches and participation in the season-ending 5k. This empowering prize goes to the 13th caller starting at 2 p.m. today to correctly identify the location of the running shoe somewhere in today’s paper. As always, please no phone messages. Call 208-726-8060 to win this fabulous prize package.
R A N K E D N O . 1 F O R L O C A L N E W S B Y T H E N AT I O N A L N E W S P A P E R A S S O C I AT I O N A N D I D A H O P R E S S C L U B
Stars align for eclipse weather Difference between total and partial eclipse is night and day By JOSHUA MURDOCK
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Express Staff Writer
clipse viewers around Stanley and the Wood River Valley will likely view Monday’s longawaited, coast-to-coast celestial event through clear skies. The National Weather Service predicts that Monday’s weather will feature mostly sunny skies and temperatures in the high 70s and low 80s, depending on location. Weather over the weekend has a similar outlook. But sunny skies will turn to night just before 11:30 a.m., when the moon crosses perfectly between the sun and Redfish Lake south of Stanley, casting a shadow upon the earth that completely blocks the sun’s light from Gimlet to Challis. For viewers within that shadow, the result is a total solar eclipse. The path of the total eclipse shadow, known as the umbra, is called the “path of totality.” Viewers outside of the umbra are in the penumbra and see only a partial eclipse, which is when the moon appears to partly cover the sun. Viewers in a partial eclipse will not witness the otherworldly specter of premature nightfall momentarily blanketing the landscape after suddenly extinguishing the midday sun, only to see sunlight again engulf the terrain when the trailing edge of the moon’s shadow races past. According to “The Great American Eclipse” website (greatamericaneclipse.com), which is maintained by GIS professional and eclipse expert Michael Zeiler and features detailed maps of the path of totality, Ketchum is barely within totality’s southern limit. In that area, the path of totality extends from Gilmet Road, south of Ketchum on state Highway 75, north to Challis. The center of the path of totality travels directly over Redfish Lake, south of Stanley. In Ketchum, the partial phase of the eclipse will begin at 10:12 a.m., and totality will begin at 11:29 a.m., lasting for roughly one minute before returning to the ending partial phase. The ending partial phase will end at 12:53 p.m. At Redfish Lake, the total phase will last roughly two minutes and 45 seconds, beginning at roughly the same time as in Ketchum. At that time, the sun will be about 48
AAA: Gas prices to climb during eclipse event Sharp rise in the number of Gem State visitors will likely drive fuel demand higher By EXPRESS STAFF
Photo courtesy of NASA
The eclipse will enter its totality phase at 11:29 a.m. Monday, Aug. 21.
“Come Monday morning, who knows if there’s going to be any gas left.” Chris Corwin
Blaine County disaster services coordinator degrees above the horizon, or slightly more than halfway up from the horizon to straight overhead, at an azimuth of roughly 129 degrees, or southeast. Viewers in Hailey and Bellevue will experience a 99 percent partial eclipse, and viewers in Shoshone will experience a 98 percent partial eclipse. But viewers outside of the path of totality, such as those south of Gimlet, will not experience totality or the accompanying darkness—even at 99 percent, a sliver of the sun will light the Earth from behind the moon.
According to B&H Photo Senior Creative Writer Todd Vorenkamp, an experienced solar photographer who has been preparing for this eclipse for more than a year, total solar eclipses occur somewhere on Earth roughly once every one and a half years, but because most of the planet is covered by the oceans, few total eclipses are visible from land. Even more rare, he said, is when a total eclipse crosses across the width of a large, developed nation, such as the U.S. The last time a total solar eclipse traveled coast to coast in the U.S. was 1918. In 2024, a total solar eclipse will travel across the South, Midwest and Northeast. The next coastto-coast solar eclipse will occur in 2045. “This eclipse in itself is not unique … but because it’s going coast to coast, it’s the bomb,” Vorenkamp said. Blaine County Disaster Services Coordinator Chris Corwin estimated that as many as 50,000 people could visit See TRAFFIC, Page 14
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As locations along the Aug. 21 eclipse “path of totality” prepare for a massive influx of visitors anxious to witness the event, increased fuel demand will likely apply upward pressure on gas prices in Idaho and other affected states, says AAA. For the first time since 1918, a coast-to-coast solar eclipse will cross the United States, and Idaho is well-positioned to offer prime viewing opportunities statewide. As a result, Gem State emergency planners are preparing for more than 500,000 eclipse tourists from neighboring states. About a million more visitors are expected in Oregon. Matthew Conde “It’s been another AAA Idaho strong summer for travel activity, with no immediate signs of letting up,” said Matthew Conde, public affairs director for AAA Idaho. “The eclipse and Labor Day travel could provide a one-two punch that keeps gas prices moving higher for the foreseeable future.” AAA encourages Idahoans traveling or staying close to home to keep a full gas tank in the coming days to avoid the potential for higher prices and longer lines at the pump. On Tuesday, the average price of regular unleaded in the Gem State was $2.65, which is 12 cents higher than a month ago and 21 cents higher than a year ago. Over the past week, Idaho prices have increased by about 9 cents per gallon. In the Rockies region, gasoline inventories have almost reached the low for the year. Nationwide pump prices are also on the rise. A gallon of gas currently costs $2.35, which is 10 cents higher than a month ago and 23 cents higher than a year ago. Since the beginning of August, crude oil prices have hovered near the $49 mark. Today, crude See ECLIPSE, Page 14
“It’s been another strong summer for travel activity.”
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Lost cat lands on its feet After 4 months in the Sawtooths, Mr. Maxx Meow heads home snows dressed the high peaks along the lake in white, and October came full-force, pulling temperatures into the low 20s. California resident Karen Jones spent Jones took a new job, and settled in the the summer at Stanley Lake with her fields and farmland of Linden, Calif. “pride”: Nugget, Pearl, Bella, Bear, Baby By the time Melodi Brown came up to the lake from Twin Falls, Mr. Maxx Meow and Mr. Maxx Meow. For three months, the cats lived in a had been gone exactly 100 days. 10-foot teepee tent while Jones worked at On the night of Oct. 23, after a day huntthe lodge at the Mountain Village Resort, ing with her husband, Brown took her blue heeler on a walk past a nearby brush dump in Stanley. “They were all so happy. All of the trees, when, black against the backdrop and thin the other animals,” she remembered. as the twigs, a cat wandered out. And the “And Maxx, he’d come back to camp every dog, all 85 pounds of him, gave chase. single night. I’ve never seen a happier cat “They took off in a dead run and the fight was on,” Brown remembered. “But in my life.” Maybe that’s why, on July 16, Mr. Maxx then the cat turned around and fought back. He was like, ‘What the Meow decided to stay a little heck?’ And [the dog] backed longer. off. When he started fighting That night, amid the comthat 85-pound heeler, I knew motion of the Stanley Arts there was something in this & Crafts Festival, he didn’t cat worth saving, even if he’s come back to camp—and nothing but skin and bones.” wouldn’t, for another three When Brown tried, the and a half months. cat fought her too, tooth and “He wasn’t the type to leave claw. But she wrestled it, then for long,” Jones said. “But wrangled it, and, as it gnashed there was so much confusion, whatever it could, shut the cat so much going on. Every sininside her RV. While the cat gle night I’d go, drive around calmed down, she grabbed and look in the trees. Look on a metal milk crate from the the side of the road. Just callfront of her husband’s fouring his name, thinking, ‘God, wheeler, folded up a towel and I wish I could find him.’” Melodi Brown put a piece of chicken on top. But she couldn’t. And Then, she drove herself to after almost three weeks, she couldn’t keep looking. There was a job the Salmon River Clinic to see about her up in Humboldt County, Calif. After that, wounds. family near Stockton. So, Jones left fliers Back at the RV, the cat had settled in. in town, and a note on Facebook, and left Brown topped the crate with a bungee for California with only Nugget, Pearl, cord and a scrap of cardboard, and looked over what she’d found. It weighed five-andBella, Bear and Baby in tow. Summer passed to into fall. September a-half pounds, with white paws and yellow
By MARK DEE Express Staff Writer
“When he started fighting that 85-pound heeler, I knew there was something in this cat worth saving, even if he’s nothing but skin and bones.”
Photo courtesy of Karen Jones
Mr. Maxx Meow sits at Karen Jones’ camp near Stanley Lake. Maxx survived 100 days alone in the Sawtooth Wilderness. eyes. It had punctures on its nose and head the size and shape of teeth. And it had a collar, dug deep into the little remaining muscle of its right front shoulder, with a tag. There was a phone number—disconnected—and a name: Mr. Maxx Meow. Answering her mother’s call the next morning, Mikki Pittman didn’t know what to make of it. But as she drove up from Twin Falls, she planned to take Maxx to a vet, and find a way to get him home. “I have a rescue cat,” she said. “I would have been devastated if this had happened. I knew I needed to try to find his owner before I went somewhere else.” But the name was all Pittman had to go on. Maxx had come by that name three years earlier, after Jones found him at a shelter under a different one: Chairman Meow. That, somehow, didn’t fit. He was a Maxx—Mr. Maxx Meow. “He has the most unique name because he’s the most unique out of any of them,”
Jones explained. So, finding the phone line dead, Pittman typed that unique name into the Facebook search bar, followed by the word “lost.” One result popped up, posted in July, by Karen Jones. “When we finally spoke, she was balling,” Pittman remembers. “I couldn’t believe it,” said Jones. “It was a miracle.” Together, they set up a GoFundMe page to raise money to get Maxx home. As of Tuesday, they had raised $371, mostly from Jones, and enough to cover the gas and motel costs of Pittman’s 19-hour, 1,300-mile round-trip from Twin Falls to California. If all goes according to plan, the miracle cat of the Sawtooths should be home sometime today, Nov. 8. “I’ve never met another cat like him. He’s just something else,” Jones said on Monday. “I can’t wait to see him.” The cat, for his part, was speechless.
Atrial Fibrillation: Latest Advancements & Treatment Options If you experience a racing heart or palpitations, chest discomfort, light headedness, shortness of breath and fatigue, or you’ve been diagnosed with atrial fibrillation make sure to join us for a FREE presentation and refreshments. You will hear from Saint Alphonsus experts on the latest advancements, treatments and surgical options for anyone living with atrial fibrillation, including the state-of-the-art Hybrid Maze, a new procedure that has been effective for patients that haven’t had success with medications or other treatments. Join us and get your questions answered.
Thursday, November 9, 5:30 p.m. The Community Library 415 Spruce Avenue North, Ketchum, ID 83340 Refreshments will be served. PLEASE RSVP SaintAlphonsus.org/AFibSeminar
Ilyas Colombowala, MD
Stephen Fall, MD
Stephen Jones, MD
Benedict Taylor, MD
Margot Vloka, MD
Tobin Hill, NP-C
(208) 367-7482
Carolyn Holly EMCEE