CONNECTION EDITORIAL: A tale of two councils

(Gazette editor's note: For those of you who still doubt the critical need for a fair and independent newspaper in the Rim Country, I offer the following. It is the editorial from the March 3 edition of the Mogollon Connection. One of the primary reasons I have taken a minimal role in the new paper is that Editor Matt Brabb, formerly with the Gazette, stands for all the right things. Please read his editorial below and I think you'll agree.  And by the way, you can pick up your copy of the Connection on Thursday this week so election results can be included.  Check the blog Wednesday morning for the latest list of locations.)

Few people attend Star Valley or Payson town council meetings. It might come as a surprise then, to the great many Rim Country residents who have never been to either one, to witness how differently the two function.

The Payson council runs like a well-oiled machine. Only on very rare occasions is there any conflict. The council members do their homework, and come to the meeting knowing how things are likely going to play out. They are efficient; there is very little tension, and virtually no suspense.

In doing a quick search of the council’s published meeting minutes over the past eight months, the council voted unanimously in favor of a motion on 69 of 76 occasions.

And that number doesn’t take into consideration the items on the agenda that are “consent” agenda items. The council votes in favor of all of the items listed under the “consent agenda” at one time during each meeting. These items are the mundane measures that don’t generally need discussion but keep town services running smoothly.

To be sure, it’s not as if all of the items not on the consent agenda are of great importance. These include the approval of liquor licenses and minor zoning changes. Still, the fact remains, if an item is put on the council agenda, it has an overwhelming chance of being passed.

If there were a dissimilar voice on the council, it would be Councilor Ed Blair. He was a member of the minority on six of the nine cases in which the decision was not unanimous; and three times he was the lone hold out on a 6-1 decision.

That is not to say that the make up of the current council is necessarily bad. They have had to deal with a staggeringly poor economy that has been without precedent since the town incorporated. They have dealt swiftly and competently with the emergencies the town has faced in the recent past, and their efforts to make the food drive for the needy in Rim Country a success is much to their credit.

Still, it is a bit like covering the U.S. Congress as if they were composed of all Republicans or all Democrats. Imagine if in the last eight months 91 percent of the votes (69 of 76) in the House of Representatives were 435-0, and you will have some idea of how things go at Payson Town Hall.

The Star Valley council has a different feel. It is more raw, less refined. Whereas the council is a good 50 feet from where the public sits in Payson, surrounded by a dozen members of the town staff, the public is practically on top of council members in Star Valley, who are aided by only two staff members.

More people show up for council meetings in Star Valley, and they are invited to speak on virtually every item discussed. The council members themselves are more likely to disagree with one another, and tempers sometimes flare. It is not always easy to judge which way the council will vote on a given matter.

An illustration of the difference between the two councils is the recent passage of identical resolutions calling for an intergovernmental agreement between the two towns regarding water rights.

In Star Valley the measure was heavily debated. The verbiage of the resolution was actually changed by input from the public. A number of different viewpoints were given on the subject before it was eventually passed unanimously. Afterwards there were handshakes and congratulatory words exchanged between the council and members of the public. It was a big deal.

The following week the Payson council took up the measure and approved it in roughly three minutes. Only Mayor Kenny Evans spoke eloquently of the thaw in the relations between Star Valley and Payson what the resolution signified.

It was a big deal, but it didn’t seem like a big deal. The Payson council is like that- calm, efficient, clever, if not necessarily representative of the divide within the community.

They quickly moved on to the question of increasing the speed limit on South Rim Club Parkway from 25 to 35 miles per hour. They spent a good deal more time discussing that than the potential water agreement with Star Valley.

Recent condor deaths traced to lead poisoning

Photos courtesy Arizona Game & Fish

Agencies use incidents to expand conservation

PHOENIX — After three years without a confirmed mortality from lead poisoning, three California condors have recently died from the biggest challenge to the species’ recovery. The condors, including a female and her chick from the previous year, were recovered by The Peregrine Fund.

Necropsies to determine the cause of death were performed at the San Diego Zoo’s Institute for Conservation Research. Testing confirmed the presence of lead fragments in the digestive tracts of all three birds. Lead shuts down the condors’ digestive system, which leads to starvation, weakness and death.

“While the deaths of a breeding female and her wild-hatched chick are a significant loss, condor conservation has been gaining ground since lead poisoning was first identified as a leading cause of mortality and we began to educate hunters about the effects of spent lead on condors,” said biologist Chris Parish, head of The Peregrine Fund’s condor recovery operation in Arizona. “But, as the condor recovery program progresses, new challenges have been identified.”

The three dead birds had been outfitted with tracking equipment that allowed field biologists to monitor daily movements. In recent years, that radio tracking data has identified increased use of southern Utah as a major foraging area for the flock.

“When we first reintroduced condors to northern Arizona in 1996, the birds primarily foraged closer to home,” said Chris Parish. “Now that we have observed the condors expanding their range into Utah and foraging more frequently outside of the local release area, conservation partners are working with Utah and its hunters to reduce the amount of spent lead ammunition available to condors in gut piles and carcasses left in the field.”

The Peregrine Fund tries to capture all condors twice yearly to test for lead exposure, the leading cause of condor death. Birds with high blood lead concentrations are treated with chelation therapy to reduce the lead in their system. Condors are scavengers and research in the last five years has proven that they consume tiny fragments of lead in the remains of gunshot animals.

To aid condor conservation, the Arizona Game and Fish Department started a non-lead ammunition outreach program in 2003 to hunters drawn for hunts in the condor’s core range. Surveys show that 85 percent of hunters took voluntary measures in 2009 to reduce the amount of available spent lead ammunition in the condor’s core range.

Now the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources is implementing a similar program for hunters on the Zion unit in southwestern Utah.

“We’ve started educating our hunters about the effect that lead ammunition has on condors,” said Jim Parrish, nongame avian coordinator for the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources. “The next thing we’re going to do is give everyone who hunts on the Zion unit a coupon for a free box of non-lead ammunition.”

“There’s no reason to reinvent the wheel, so we’re modeling the Utah program after Arizona’s non-lead effort,” continued Jim Parrish. “Utah’s sportsmen are conservation-minded. We’re confident they’ll step up to the challenge and that our program, combined with the highly successful program in Arizona, will keep the condor population healthy and allow it to grow.”

Condor conservation partners include The Peregrine Fund, Arizona Game and Fish Department, Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, Utah Wildlife in Need, Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and U.S. Forest Service.

For more information on condor conservation and non-lead ammunition, visit www.peregrinefund.org or www.azgfd.gov/condor.

DID YOU KNOW?
By 1982, just 22 California Condors remained on Earth. Captive breeding programs were established in the 1980s.

California Condors now live in the wild in Arizona, Utah, California and Mexico.

The condor is the largest flying land bird in North America. The birds can weigh up to 26 pounds and have a wingspan up to 9½ feet.

Condors reach maturity at about six years of age. They usually produce one egg every other year.

Prior to reintroduction, the last wild condor in Arizona was sighted just south of the Grand Canyon in 1924.
There are now 74 condors in Arizona and Utah.

Visitors at the Grand Canyon and Vermilion Cliffs may be able to observe the birds, especially during the spring and summer.

'Biggest Loser' winner keynotes Women's Wellness

You are cordially invited to attend the 12th Annual Women’s Wellness Forum entitled “Our Health Matters So … Let’s Bounce Into Balance.” This premier women’s event will take place on Saturday, March 13.

Our Keynote Speaker is Ali Vincent – Season 5 winner of the hit TV Show “Biggest Loser.” Classes include “Balancing Life with Exercise”, “Balancing Your Health Soul,” "Bounce Into Balance With Home Repairs," "Bouncing Back In Financial Hard Times," "Bouncing Back With Negotiation Skills," "Choosing The Right Foods," "Evoke Your Passion," and "Getting Rid of Aches & Pains." There are still openings!

Join us at 7 a.m. for Zumba, a Latin dance/exercise class. Check-in for the forum begins at 7:15 a.m. and a continental breakfast and luncheon will be provided. Keynote speaker begins at 8 a.m.

For more information on the class choices and to register by phone call Mogollon Health Alliance at (928)472-2588.

No one goes hungry during Southern funeral

Only a short time ago, it seems, there was a band leader and all-around entertainer by the name of Phil Harris. Harris was from Nashville Tennessee, and always celebrated his Southern heritage throughout his long show business career. I thought of him a few days ago when watching the Pebble Beach Golf Tournament once known as “The Crosby.”

Phil was a close buddy and a frequent golf partner of Bing Crosby. Each year he would also act as a media commentator at Bing‘s celebrity golf outing. Once someone remarked on how huge an ocean is the Pacific, which borders Pebble Beach. “Yep,” said Harrris, “and that’s just the top.” He was known for a broad smile and a quick wit.

A song he made famous, and one which I have not heard in a very long time is, “That’s what I like about the South.” It’s a corny, exaggerated cliché-filled thing, but it has a jazzy Dixieland kind of beat which gets your feet to tapping.

It speaks, of course, of Mammy and country ham and cornbread, sugar cane, grits. and other delights from the southern table, but for some reason leaves out iced tea. “Sweet tea,” that is, as if anything else is recognized.

Fast forward to last week when I joined my wife in Columbia, S.C. for the funeral of her mother. Sharon was extremely close to her mother and was with her when she died, so the days were filled with a combination of great memories and poignant grief.

It may also be true in other parts of the country, but in The South, when someone dies, they rarely leave in unheralded solitude. This is especially true if the deceased is female.

A silent network springs to action immediately and insures that the next few days are a blur of flowers and enough food to feed half the state. It is assumed that everyone will want something to eat at all hours and no one will want to cook.

The home of the deceased becomes community property during daylight hours. The front door is never locked.

On the dining room table at Libby’s (Sharon’s mother) house, I counted 12 different entrees including at least seven casseroles of various ingredients. Squash casseroles are my favorite, closely followed by green beans with those wonderful dried onions, but there were variations of every sort. Roast beef, Honey Baked ham, fried and baked chicken, pork chops, and meat loaf made up the protein list, and there were at least two “mystery” dishes. On a side table were five or six salads, including a six-layer one and a really good Caesar with croutons. Baskets of corn muffins and fantastic little yeast rolls were in abundance. On a separate table were the desserts - pies, cakes, puddings, cobblers, and, of course, Jell-O.

Whoever coordinated the spread was a genius. No two items were the same.

There were unending pitchers of iced tea - even some unsweetened, which mostly were ignored, and a large commercial coffee pot which never seemed to run dry. This activity began immediately upon word spreading on the day of the death, and didn’t let up until a day after the funeral. Pies, cakes, breads and soups continued to show up on a diminishing basis. It was suspected, but not confirmed, that several total strangers came to pay their respects and enjoy a bountiful meal, bless their hearts.

The day prior to the funeral is set aside as a “Viewing” day. The funeral home sets up the casket with one open end displaying the perfectly embalmed body of the deceased.

They do far too realistic a job if you ask me. You half-way expect the body to sit up and engage in conversation.

Anyway, many folks are expected to come over to the deceased’s home before or afterward for more food and small talk. The family of the deceased is not expected nor much allowed to get any meaningful rest during this period. It might lead to reflection, which should be saved for the period following the burial, which follows the funeral, preceded by the Viewing.

One thing is for certain. No one goes hungry

More on southern “cuisine” later.

Do nothing and PSWID is out of water by July 4

By Sam Schwalm
Gazette Contributor

The Pine Strawberry Water Improvement District (PSWID) board had an additional meeting on Saturday afternoon, Feb 20, to discuss changes that needed to be made to the rules/regulations document. For the most part it was minor stuff about how the district would be run.

Next regular PSWID Meeting: Thursday March 18, 7 p.m. at the Pine Cultural Center

Terry Schleizer resigns from board
Mr. Haney read a letter of resignation from Ms. Schleizer. Ms. Schleizer said that she was happy to have been part of the effort to purchase the water system. She said that she would be moving to Buckeye to be near her children and grandchildren.

Surprisingly, she recommended that I be her replacement. Mr. Haney said that they would be putting a notice on the PSWID website and in the newspaper for people who might be interested in filling the position. The board will address it at the next regular meeting. If you are interested in being considered for the position, you should let the district know.

District purchases backhoe
The district received six bids for backhoes. The board reviewed the bids and selected a backhoe from RSC Rentals for $46,468. That was the lowest priced bid that was compliant with the request put out by the district.

Water supply vs. water storage
Mr. Tanner Henry, who is the District Engineer being supplied by Tetra Tech, presented material that looks at the trade-offs between increasing storage and supply and provides an estimate of how much of either is needed to get through the summer. He also addresses several scenarios with the potential water sources that are currently on the table. The presentation can be viewed here: http://www.waterforpinestrawberry.com/data%20pages/BudgetDocs.htm .

Mr. Henry based a lot of the assumptions used to determine his estimates on Town of Payson information and the feel that Mr. Shaffer has for how the water system will perform in the summer. Comment: While there are a couple of things in the assumptions that I have questions about, I think as a whole they are a fairly reasonable set to start discussion from.

Mr. Henry’s presentation addresses the following scenarios (which assumes no usage restrictions):
i. Existing Conditions: Out of water by July 4th weekend.
ii. Adding 5.5 million gallons of storage: Get through the summer at a cost for $5.5 million+.
iii. Add Strawberry Hollow well: Out of water by Labor Day weekend at a cost of $550,000.
iv. Add Strawberry Hollow and Milk Ranch wells: Survive all year at a cost of $1.2 million.
v. Add Strawberry Hollow and Hill wells: Survive all year at a cost of $675,000.

The issues with using the various wells:
i. Strawberry Hollow: Could be used as soon as hooked up. Very close to main water tank, so connection costs will be low.

ii. Milk Ranch:
1. Don’t know the extent of the sand abatement needed. Mr. Ploughe said at an earlier meeting that he thought that this would run $120,000 to $150,000.
2. Needs ADEQ permit to use water.
3. Needs ADEQ construction permit.
4. Connection construction time
5. Needs ADEQ approval of construction.

iii. Hill:
1. Needs ADEQ permit to use water.
2. Needs ADEQ construction permit.
3. Connection construction time
4. Needs ADEQ approval of construction.
5. District will not own the well.

iv. Comment: There is significant time required to bring the Milk Ranch or Hill wells on-line. Unlikely that all the ADEQ hoops could be jumped through very quickly, so chance for them being on-line by June is slim.
Mr. Henry’s recommendation was to pursue getting the Strawberry Hollow well on-line as soon as possible and to find another source of at least 25 gallons per minute to get on-line before Labor Day weekend. That additional source could be the Milk Ranch, Hill, or the first deep test well.

Board voted to move forward with a $1.2 million budget to negotiate Strawberry Hollow, Milk Ranch well, and the first test well. There was general agreement that Strawberry Hollow is the top priority, Mr. Haney felt that the test well is second priority and other board members suggested that Milk Ranch well is second priority. Test well will be done in parallel with the other efforts.

Mr. Hill well proposal
Mr. Jim Hill had a slot on the agenda to present his proposal for trading the leasing of his well for the extension of a water line to his property. However, he did not attend the meeting. The outline of the proposal was addressed in Mr. Henry’s presentation, basically a $1 a year lease on the well in return for the connection to the water system.

Based on Mr. Henry’s estimates, it would cost about $75,000 to hook the well into the water system and another $100,000 to extend a line to Mr. Hill’s property. Mr. Hill claims that the well will produce 60 gallons per minute.

Comment: My understanding is that the pump testing of the well was done in December which usually isn’t a good reflection of what a well is capable of in the summer. I have also heard that the well’s performance drops when the Portals well is being heavily used.

Comment: Looking at it, it doesn’t seem like a very good deal for PSWID. While the lease payment is $1 a year, there is essentially an up-front payment of $175,000 for the lease. If you assume a cost of $1 per thousand gallons, the well would have to produce 175,000,000 gallons to break-even. Being generous and saying that 60 gpm is pumped 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, it would take 5.5 years to produce that much water. Under less optimistic circumstances, it is likely to take more than a decade to recover the costs. This is a lot of money to spend on a well that the district wouldn’t own.

Search for permanent general manager
Board discussed and approved placing an ad for a permanent general manager, with a target salary of about $75,000 per year. Mr. Harry Jones is currently the interim general manager.

CAP allocation
In the acquisition of the water system, the CAP allocation of 161 acre-feet per year of water that PWCo had was left out of the purchase agreement. Brooke returned the allocation to CAP and CAP is asking PSWID if they want to acquire the allocation.

Mr. Haney indicated that the cost would be about $472,000 plus nine years of deferred taxes, the cost of which isn’t know at this time but is expected to be substantial.

Comment: There is also a yearly fee to maintain the allocation. I have a vague recollection that Brooke was paying about $16,000 a year for it.  There would not be much to do with it other than trade it. CAP wants an answer in the next six months. The board voted to take it up again at a later date.

Comment: Whether they might want it or not, given what the board has committed out of the capital budget, the district does not come close to having the money to pay for this. Doesn’t look like it would be a good use of money even if they did have it.

February 20th meeting
There are about 300 idle meters in the system. The board had a fair amount of discussion about whether to require people with a meter to pay the monthly minimum or the meter would be removed. So in other words, if you have a meter on an empty lot or you have turned off service to a home, you would have to start paying the monthly minimum in order to keep the meter. The board decided to take that approach.

Mr. Haney gave an update on the status of the Milk Ranch well activities. On the 19th they put an air line down the well and lifted the sand out. The slots in the casing that allow water to flow into the hole are tightly plugged with sand and they have not been able to unplug them. They are going to be trying additional approaches to unplugging. The camera will go down the well on Feb 24th. They have a limit of $22,000 to spend on this. Not sure if they would have the appraisal based on the current situation or whether to ask Mr. Ray Pugel to invest the money to deal with the problems that the well has and then do an appraisal.

Comment: The sand issues with the Milk Ranch well have always been a problem. While it may be possible to deal with them if enough money is spent, the district runs the risk here of buying a continuing headache. It would seem unlikely that the Milk Ranch well could be hooked into the system before summer, even under the best of circumstances. Mr. Henry’s analysis says that there needs to be an additional 25 gpm source (assuming that the Strawberry Hollow well is hooked up) before Labor Day. It might make sense to put the Milk Ranch well on the back burner and prioritize the drilling of the first deep aquifer test well. Since it is on Pine Creek Canyon Dr. it may not experience the same sand challenges. Given the uncertainties with the Milk Ranch well, it might be better for the decisions related to that well to not be pressured to meet a summer deadline.

Water For Pine Strawberry is a group of residents concerned about the communities water issues and how they can best be resolved. Visit our website, www.WaterForPineStrawberry.com, for more information. The website for PSWID is www.pswid.org .

Mesa del water plan will be unveiled at meetings

A plan has been developed to end Mesa del Caballo's chronic summer water shortages, and the community's water committee is holding a weeklong series of meetings March 15-19 to inform residents of the details, the impact on water bills, and to answer questions.

Water committee and El Caballo Club board member Ed Schwebel provided the following information:

Mark your calendars for March 15 through 19. We are tentatively scheduled to do two presentations each night on the status of water and what it means to you. Please show up for one.

They will be from 5-7 p.m. and 7-9 p.m. There will be a one hour presentation and a one hour question and answer period personalized for you. Please let Ed Schwebel (468-3712), Randy Norman (474-4454), or Irene Schwartzbauer (474-3360) know when you can attend so we can make sure you get the personal attention you deserve.

Dancing on Sundays, normally from 1-3 p.m. at the club house, will start at 12:30 p.m. for the next two weeks. All residents are welcome.

We would like to revive Bingo and maybe even schedule movie nights. If you are interested or have other suggestions, please let us know.

NAU researcher helps recalculate glacier melt

NAU geographer Erik Schiefer surveys a debris-covered glacier margin. Photo by Amanda Stan

A 3-D view of the Barnard glacier in Alaska showing significant quantities of debris that cover the lower parts of the glacier. Imagery courtesy of CNRS—French National Center for Scientific Research

Research team breaks ice with new estimate

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (March 1, 2010) --The melting of glaciers is well documented, but when looking at the rate at which they have been retreating, a team of international researchers steps back and says not so fast.

Previous studies have largely overestimated mass loss from Alaskan glaciers over the past 40-plus years, according to Erik Schiefer, a Northern Arizona University geographer who coauthored a paper in the February issue of Nature Geoscience that recalculates glacier melt in Alaska.

The research team, led by Étienne Berthier of the Laboratory for Space Studies in Geophysics and Oceanography at the Université de Toulouse in France, says that glacier melt in Alaska between 1962 and 2006 contributed about one-third less to sea-level rise than previously estimated.

Schiefer said melting glaciers in Alaska originally were thought to contribute about .0067 inches to sea-level rise per year. The team’s new calculations put that number closer to .0047 inches per year. The numbers sound small, but as Schiefer said, “It adds up over the decades.”

While the team looked at three-fourths of all the ice in Alaska, Schiefer noted, “We’re also talking about a small proportion of ice on the planet. When massive ice sheets (such as in the Antarctic and Greenland) are added in, you’re looking at significantly greater rates of sea-level rise.”

Schiefer said the team plans to use the same methodologies from the Alaskan study in other glacial regions to determine if further recalibrations of ice melt are in order. These techniques use satellite imagery that spans vast areas of ice cover.

Previous methods estimated melt for a smaller subset of individual glaciers. The most comprehensive technique previously available used planes that flew along the centerlines of selected glaciers to measure ice surface elevations. These elevations were then compared to those mapped in the 1950s and 1960s. From this, researchers inferred elevation changes and then extrapolated this to other glaciers.

Two factors led to the original overestimation of ice loss with this method, Schiefer said. One is the impact of thick deposits of rock debris that offer protection from solar radiation and, thus, melting. The other was not accounting for the thinner ice along the edges of glaciers that also resulted in less ice melt.

Schiefer and his colleagues used data from the SPOT 5 French satellite and the NASA/Japanese ASTER satellite and converted the optical imagery to elevation information. They then compared this information to the topographical series maps of glacial elevations dating back to the 1950s.

While the team determined a lower rate of glacial melt during a greater than 40-year span, Schiefer said other studies have demonstrated the rate of ice loss has more than doubled in just the last two decades.

“With current projections of climate change, we expect that acceleration to continue,” Schiefer said. This substantial increase in ice loss since the 1990s is now pushing up the rise in sea level to between .0098 inches and .0118 inches per year—more than double the average rate for the last 40 years.

Working on the Alaskan glacial melt revision with Schiefer and Berthier were Garry Clarke of the University of British Columbia, Brian Menounos of the University of Northern British Columbia and Frédérique Rémy of the Université de Toulouse.