I know how important it is to have a good working relationship with the County. Dave has the people skills that will accomplish good cooperation between the city and the county. That's why I'm urging you to vote for Dave Radford.
~Bruce Rose
Dear Editor:
Bonneville County contains some of the
most scenic areas in the country, much of it on federal public lands.
It has the widest range of recreation opportunities available
anywhere. Additionally, we have been favored with a team of county
commissioners who recognize the value of diverse recreation and
support it strongly.
They also support access to public
lands, assuring that valid public road access remains open to the
public. This is crucial as subdivisions advance on the landscape.
Bonneville County manages the
Bonneville-Bingham County Snowmobile trail system, one of the finest
groomed trail systems in the state, featuring hundreds of miles of
groomed trails and four cozy warming cabins. With the encouragement
of the commissioners, our county recreation department aggressively
competes for grants to maintain and expand the system. User fees pay
for it.
The commissioners closely cooperate
with our local land managers, partnering in many grants and projects.
Much of this work is unrecognized and taken for granted. We're
lucky. Some county commissions elsewhere do not work that way, have
other interests, and are indifferent to the outdoors and the public
lands within their counties.
Commissioner Dave Radford is a key part of this team. He is a lifelong snowmobiler and all around outdoorsman. He knows Bonneville County from a recreationist's perspective. We need to maintain our pro recreation county commissioner team, and need to keep Dave Radford in office.
Adena Cook
Response to the Post Register article on Sunday May 25, 2008
Dear Editor, your title and timing of printing Robin Gibbons letter to the editor leaving me little time to respond reveals the slant of the opinion page once again. A last minute attack when you received this letter on May 2nd should justify a chance for me and my supporters to set the record straight by making four quick points.
For freedom,
Dave Radford, Bonneville county commission
Cloud seeding is based on chemistry and meteorology, but to
Craig Powell, getting more moisture is a matter of firing up his butane
lighter.
As one of 21 cloud-seeding generator operators, Powell's
two-minute trips to light an Island
Park generator are
designed to draw increased precipitation from above.
In conjunction with High Country Resource Conservation and
Development, cloud seeding is one of Bonneville
County's prime projects
this year. Based on budget restraints
and climate consideration, generators operate only during the stormy winder
season.
This year's operation ran from Dec. 1, 2007, to March 31 and
clocked 4,000 hours of generator operation.
Seeding pulls more moisture from storms, and officials are hoping a
five-year study will show a 4 to 7 percent increase in the region's precipitation
during the cloud-seeding season, Bonneville
County Commissioner Dave
Radford said. Powell said he's noticed a
difference in this season's snowfall.
"Let's put it this way: You can't see the north side of my cabin - I've
got snow over it," he said. "This is the
most snow we've had since 1996."
Cloud seeding relies on ground-based generators fitted with
a propane tank that send a smoke plume of acetone and silver iodide into the
atmosphere. The silver iodide bonds with
water particles, crystallizing to draw more water from a storm system.
Generators, twice the size of normal barbecues, are housed
on private land usually over 6,000 feet in elevation and operated by
volunteers. The landowners and operators are paid for their land and time.
Bonneville, Jefferson, Madison, Fremont, and Clark counties
are partnering for the project, but any entity relying on the upper Snake River aquifer benefits from the increased
precipitation, Radford said.
Effective cloud seeding relies on precise weather conditions. Clark
County maintains
day-to-day project operations and hired Let It Snow owners Marty and Conni Owen
to watch the weather and make decisions about turning generators on and
off. The temperature near the generator
must be above 20 and below 38 degrees; colder than that, and the storm will
just produce "frosting," and the goal is increased snow pack, Marty said. Wind can also cause a problem, as it can
extinguish the generator's flame.
Although the Owens have been trained in the necessary
meteorology, those nearest the generators often know when conditions are best
for turning on generators. Property
owners call when storms approach, and the Owens give them the go-ahead for
generator operation if conditions prove suitable.
The first seeding program in the region started in 1993 but
was primarily a response to drought conditions - an ineffective approach
because storms weren't frequent, High Country RC&D project coordinator
Steve Smart said. "Cloud seeders don't
bust droughts," he said.
Project facilitators are hoping to capitalize on the wet
winter just ending, and all clouds require seeding to produce optimal amounts
of moisture, Smart said.
One partner making the project possible is Idaho Department
of Water Resources, which pitched in $10,000 towards a $12,000 statistical
analysis. The program needs to be
analyzed for five years to determine effectiveness, Radford said, and having
the state offset the analysis cost helps facilitate the study.
The
project is a proactive approach for county commissioners, who believe increased
water will reduce court squabbles over water rights. And with this year being wetter than several
previous years, commissioners hope the project will contribute to the trend. "After seven years of drought you almost want
to say, ‘Let's have seven years of fat,'" Radford said.
A singular incident stands out as an example of the power
for good of a single individual and the importance of volunteer
cooperation. One week before Christmas
Dave Radford, Region VII chairman of Working Partners, called me, knowing I had
a special interest in the Working Partners' effort. Working Partners was established by former
President Reagan to encourage volunteer efforts, a theme that has been
continued by President Bush, who describes the volunteer work of Americans as a
"thousand points of light." The focus of
Idaho Working Partners, under the direction of Sen. Steve Symms and Al
Henderson, is to assist the Salvation Army in gathering canned goods. Dave knew that the food supply provided by
the Salvation Army was seriously depleted.
In fact, Captain Dillmond Lewis had reported that whereas the Salvation
Army normally had 2 ½ truck loads of food to distribute, they were down to only
half a truckload.
"What do you think, Sheila?" he asked. "Is there time during this busy week before
Christmas to put together a food drive for the Salvation Army?"
"If we can't gather food to feed the hungry the week before
Christmas," was my response, "when can we?"
Dave spent three full days organizing. He contacted six local grocery stores in Idaho Falls including the
three Albertson stores, IGA, Buttreys, and Smith's Food King. He expanded the effort to include Madison, Fremont, Teton, Butte, and Lemhi
counties, with their communities. Each
store donated 200 cans of food, and gave permission for volunteers to stand
outside the store to distribute a suggested list of food items to be donated to
the Salvation Army. Shoppers were
invited to purchase a canned food item to drop in a shopping card on their way
out.
Volunteers
included area legislators who donated a portion of their Saturday before
Christmas to assist in the project. The
area's full-time LDS missionaries, spending a Christmas away from their homes,
gladly contributed their time. Scouts
assisted in the effort, too. Because of
the idea of a single individual who was willing to put his idea into action,
and others who joined in to help, before the day was over 11,000 cans or pounds
of food were gathered, including 7,600 in Bonneville County alone!