Montana State Park System to Celebrate 75Th Year
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
THE LOCAL NEWS OF THE MADISON VALLEY, RUBY VALLEY AND SURROUNDING AREAS Montana’s Oldest Publishing Weekly Newspaper. Established 1873 75¢ | Volume 142, Issue 7 www.madisoniannews.com Thursday, December 12, 2013 Laurin, Alder areas to experience morning power outage on Dec. 17 Faith Moldan work needed surpasses that time cording to a NorthWestern Energy south of Ramshorn Creek Road to age, but they have found that this may reschedule the outage. He The Madisonian limit, the company will do its best statement released last week. the Upper Ruby Road, including time is the best so businesses and added that the company appreci- [email protected] to notify customers of a lengthened “Crews will be working on a the towns of Laurin and Alder. Ap- people’s daily lives are not severely ates customers’ understanding and outage. transformer,” Butch Larcombe of proximately 525 customers will be impacted. patience, especially when the work NorthWestern Energy has The outage will allow com- NorthWestern Energy said. “It was affected by the outage, which was “People may need to plan and outages occur during the cold scheduled a four-hour power out- pany line crews to make repairs identified as a needed repair. We do scheduled to minimize the impact ahead if they have special needs,” winter months. age for the entire Laurin and Alder safely at a local substation south of the work when we know there is a of the loss of electric service. Lar- Larcombe said. “We try to give NorthWestern Energy apolo- areas beginning at 2 a.m. on Tues- Sheridan. The crews will replace problem so there are no unplanned combe said they scheduled this people enough time to make other gizes for any inconvenience this day, Dec. 17. equipment needed to improve the outages in the future. We have a outage for the early morning hours arrangements.” planned outage may cause. For any The four-hour estimate in- reliability of service to Laurin and pretty good sense of the work in- so it would affect the least amount Larcombe said it is possible questions or concerns, contact their cludes some wiggle time, accord- Alder-area customers and to avoid volved and we’ll do our best.” of people possible. He added that that if the frigid temperatures con- customer contact center at (888) ing to NorthWestern energy. If the longer outages in the future, ac- The impacted area will be there is no ideal time for an out- tinue NorthWestern Energy crews 467-2669. On the loose Power outage creates issues in Ruby Valley Faith Moldan Facebook page read. The Madisonian In response to the outage, [email protected] Christopher Mumme and Steve DiGiovanna with Madison A nearly five-hour unantici- County Emergency Manage- pated power outage during the ment went out to help people early morning hours of Dec. 6 who had medical needs—espe- left about 930 NorthWestern En- cially people with medical needs ergy customers in the dark and that require an electrically pow- cold. ered device. Mumme said they According to Butch Lar- visited the nursing home and combe of NorthWestern Energy, hospital to establish a location a breaker in the Sheridan sub- people in need could go to re- station went out at 2:21 a.m. and ceive help. power was restored at 7:10 a.m. “We left word for people to He said crews continued work call in to 911 and dispatch knew on the breaker throughout the where to send them,” Mumme day and shut off power for 30 said. minutes at 5 p.m. that evening to The Sheridan and Twin finish repairs. Bridges public works depart- “Sometimes these things ments were also assisting during happen,” Larcombe said. “We the outage and after. According work to restore the power, find to Twin Bridges’ town manager the cause, fix it and try to pre- Cathy Cross one resident there Photo courtesy of Carol Delisi vent it from happening again.” reported broken water pipes that Because of the evening re- were a result of lack of heat in pairs, the Ruby Valley Chamber their residence. sent out a notice to members Twin Bridges School can- BLM wild horse escapes Spanish Q Ranch, returned Tuesday about the short outage and what celled classes for the day on Fri- they could do to prevent com- day due to the power outage and Faith Moldan resident discovered the horse not had a problem like this one, While the BLM pays $1.36 per puter issues and other problems cold temperatures. The school The Madisonian on Dec. 9 in a subdivision near but that does not mean it cannot horse, per day, the Rices are re- at their homes and businesses. did send out buses on the morn- [email protected] Laurin. happen, especially with hunting sponsible for the construction of At least one business—Sil- ing routes in order to assure stu- Lili Thomas, the National activity in the area and the pos- fences, providing feed during the ver Lining Boutique in Twin dents and families knew there After elk ran through a Wild Horse and Burro Program sibility of gates being left open. winter and caring for the horses. Bridges—closed early due to was no school and were not out- fence keeping the Spanish Q Manager with the Bureau of Greg and Karen Rice acquired The other horses that es- the day’s events. side in the below zero tempera- Ranch’s wild horses contained Land Management (BLM), said the horses for their Spanish Q caped through the broken fence “We are closing early today tures waiting for the bus. Sheri- near Ennis, one horse remained that with 34,000 wild horses Ranch through The National due to weather and condition of dan Schools did not have classes on the loose for two weeks. A across the country they have Wild Horse and Burro Program. Turn to HORSE on pg. 2 the shop due to the power outage that day because of a regularly early this morning,” the store’s scheduled day off. Fisheries manager discusses current issues with commissioners Abigail Dennis head, Broadwater, Park, Lewis vives,” Horton said. “The fish According to Horton, the Horton is hopeful that the Horton’s fears about the en- The Madisonian and Clark, Silver Bow and Deer has historically occupied the grayling has been on the candi- Montana fisheries division of the dangered species list are straight- [email protected] Lodge counties were in atten- Missouri River Basin, but the date list for potential listing as an FWP has made enough progress forward. dance, along with multiple FWP distribution of [graylings] is endangered species for around in conserving the species that it “I do not think there is Travis Horton, Region 3 fish- officials. down to only 4 percent of its his- 20 years, since the fish’s popula- will stay off the endangered spe- any mechanism for the federal eries manager for the Montana Horton focused his pre- toric range.” tion first started dropping during cies list. government to come in and tell Fish, Wildlife & Parks (FWP) sentation to the commissioners The FWP’s official position the 1980s due to extended peri- “We reintroduced the gray- Montana how to manage water, addressed all county commis- around the potential listing of states that because of the prob- ods of drought in Montana. By ling into the Ruby River sys- but if the grayling is controlled sioners from areas within Region arctic grayling on the Endan- able impact on land and water September 2014, the U.S. Fish tem in the late 1990s,” Horton under the ESA there will be law- 3 at an annual overview meeting gered Species List under the En- management, species manage- and Wildlife service will make explained. “In just the last five suits based on the ESA and water on Dec. 9 in Whitehall. dangered Species Act (ESA). ment and recreation, the FWP a final decision to either list the years we have noticed they are flows.” Commissioners from Madi- “Montana is one of the only does not want arctic grayling fish or completely remove it from not reproducing naturally… that son, Jefferson, Gallatin, Beaver- states where the fish still sur- listed under the ESA. the candidate list. is a success story.” Turn to FISHERIES on pg. 2 Montana state park system to celebrate 75th year Abigail Dennis Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks $6—most of which goes to the likely to pay.” paying the fee, Madison County The other substantial por- The Madisonian (FWP) Region 3 Park Manager. parks,” Walker said. That discrepancy is high- Commissioner Dave Schulz be- tion of park revenue comes di- [email protected] After North Dakota, however, For the first half of 2013, lighted when examining num- lieves in Madison County it may rectly from camping and entry Montana’s state parks have the the choice to pay an additional bers from Madison County and partially have to do with the fees. The inception of Montana’s smallest operating budget. $6 for the parks maintained a 77 the more urban, neighboring lack of “significant parks” in the “We keep state park camp- state park system happened in According to Walker, Mon- percent compliance rate, so more Gallatin County. In Madison county, though Beaverhead Rock ing permits more expensive than 1939 with the formation of Lewis tana state parks receive money than three-fourths of Montana County, only 53 percent of peo- State Park is located in the south- private campsites,” Walker said. and Clark State Park in Jefferson from 18 separate funding sourc- residents who registered a vehi- ple registering a vehicle choose west corner of the region.