Please note that
all links to the news stories below were accurate and
working at the time of posting and archiving, however,
the Guardian has no control on the length of time that a
respective news source will continue to maintain any
story in its own archives, so be advised that you may
encounter non-working links - Bill
McKee - Editor
The
local overnight low temperature last night was
+47F and yesterday's afternoon high temp was
+95F. No precipitation has been recorded
at our location in the last 24-hour period
ending at 6AM. Daily local min-max temp
& precip charts may be seen on our
PR Temp & Precip Data page
We have been advised that PUMCO Construction lost
a piece of road construction equipment into the
lake on Tuesday afternoon. It was a
(relatively) small (4000-5000 pound) remote
controlled vibratory earth compactor. It is
in the vicinity of the gabion walls now under
construction in about 70 feet of water. We
are told that divers will be sent to attach a
cable for retrieving this piece of equipment.
Fluids in the machine are just 1.5 gallons of gas
and 3 gallons of hydraulic fluid and there is no
indication of leakage to this point in time.
We have been advised by local citizens that late
last week they discovered, reported, controlled,
and extinguished a small fire near their homes a
few miles up Hughes Creek. We're told that was
well before the two (2) responders from the
Painted Rocks Fire Department got there over an
hour later and, we are further told, spent an
additional 15+ minutes putting on their official
fire garb, by which time the fire event was
definitely already over. We understand from a
person who attended both 'events' that the number
of responders sent to the fire was considerably
fewer than the number of responders attending a
recent local fireworks display .... interesting,
huh?
The local overnight low temperature last night was
+45F and yesterday's afternoon high temp was +94F.
No precipitation has been recorded at our location
in the last 24-hour period ending at 6AM.
Daily local min-max temp & precip charts
may be seen on our PR Temp
& Precip Data page
Congressmen
try to get park snowmobile ban reinstated Three
eastern congressmen are hoping to ban snowmobiles
in Yellowstone National Park and end the killing
of bison there by amending an Interior Department
spending bill, a national environmental group said
Monday
The
local overnight low temperature last night was
+44F and yesterday's afternoon high temp was +86F.
No precipitation has been recorded at our location
in the last 24-hour period ending at 6AM.
Daily local min-max temp & precip charts
may be seen on our PR Temp
& Precip Data page
Is
Idaho losing its technology edge? That could spell
future trouble for
Idaho
, which credits high-tech businesses with
producing about 25 percent of the gross state
product -- more than timber, mining and
agriculture combined -- and employs about 60 of
every 1,000 workers in the state
Bible
verses out at Canyon "...The
National Park Service has decided that plaques
with biblical psalms at the South Rim of the Grand
Canyon violate the Constitution and has removed
them. However, the Park Service decided one of the
main trails into Grand Canyon may carry the name
Bright Angel, and a number of the Canyon's
formations can share the names of Hindu
gods..."
The
local overnight low temperature last night was
+43F and yesterday's afternoon high temp was +83F.
No precipitation has been recorded at our location
in the last 24-hour period ending at 6AM.
Daily local min-max temp & precip charts
may be seen on our PR Temp
& Precip Data page
Park
Service backlog unchanged Although
the White House says it has put billions of
dollars toward reducing the list of overdue
maintenance projects on national park buildings,
the price tag of still-needed repairs never seems
to shrink.
A government auditor told a
Senate panel Tuesday that is because the National
Park Service can only guess at how many buildings
are under its care and what shape those structures
are in.
"The Park Service backlog is a moving target;
it's just a guesstimate that is not based on any
inventory," Barry Hill of the General
Accounting
Office told the Senate Energy and Natural
Resources Committee.
"Congress is asking the right questions, that
if we put $2.9 billion into dealing with this
backlog why does the number keep staying and
floating around [$5 billion]? There's
really no accountability right now."
The
local overnight low temperature last night was
+46F and yesterday's afternoon high temp was +97F.
No precipitation has been recorded at our location
in the last 24-hour period ending at 6AM.
Daily local min-max temp & precip charts
may be seen on our PR Temp
& Precip Data page
The
local overnight low temperature last night was
+42F and yesterday's afternoon high temp was +93F.
No precipitation has been recorded at our location
in the last 24-hour period ending at 6AM.
Daily local min-max temp & precip charts
may be seen on our PR Temp
& Precip Data page
News
Archives
In order to keep the news page loading time short, we
regularly archive the stories appearing on this page. You can see other News,
Links, & Commentary stories by selecting the appropriate
available archive period in the table below.
In accordance with
Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in the stories above is
distributed under fair use without profit or payment for non-profit
research and educational purposes only.
About
the Painted Rocks Guardian's
News, Links, & Commentary Section
It is a
daily look at environmentally related stories from around the country,
many of which are illustrative of the high level of incompetence (and
worse) existing within most of the government entities currently charged
with administering our nation's parks, forests, other public lands,
waterways, and airsheds. As you read these news stories from many
different sources, you will note that almost all environmental
protection/preservation efforts and programs to save our nation's public
treasures originate from private environmental organizations, often
times via court order, and NOT through the respective governmental
agencies with primary administration responsibilities. Most of these
governmental entities (e.g., the Forest Service) have become top heavy
with many levels of career bureaucrats who, instead of protecting and
preserving the nation's priceless resources, are 'busy' catering to
consumptive/extractive industry interests in the course of administering
politically designed social welfare employment programs and wealth
redistributionist grant programs. While the current system is almost
hopelessly corrupt at many levels, it is being increasingly understood
as such by the general public. Increased general public awareness of the
problem is necessary to trigger environmentally informed political
actions that will eventually save the nation's public treasures.
Effective solutions to the current situation will most likely involve
the deconstruction of several bureaucratic agencies as they exist today
with a functional redesign that will shift major policy development and
administrative direction authority into the hands of environmental
groups/organizations (as contrasted with agency hand-picked and selected
'citizen groups' dominated by consumptionists) and out of the hands of
self-interested bureaucrats and extractive industry interests.
- Bill McKee - Editor.
