Idaho Briefs November 1, 2010
Bug fumigant breaks up event
PARMA - Emergency workers treated more than 175 people at a triage center set up in the southwestern Idaho city of Parma after a chemical used to kill bugs in a nearby field drifted over a drive-in movie theater.
Officials said that five people had to be transported to a hospital for additional treatment on Saturday after movie-goers at the Motor Vu drive-in theater started experiencing a burning sensation in their eyes.
Authorities said a fumigant used on a nearby field to kill bugs on Friday south of the drive-in caused the problems.
Man dies following police pursuit
ST. ANTHONY - The Idaho State Police said a 31-year-old St. Anthony man died Sunday morning after eluding Fremont County deputies who were trying to stop him for a speeding violation.
Police said Casey Rinehart was traveling at a high rate of speed when he lost control of his 2001 Oldsmobile Alero at about 1:45 a.m. near St. Anthony and was ejected when the car started rolling.
Weather slows cleanup of Highway 12 fuel spill
LEWISTON - Officials in northern Idaho say cleanup of a month-old diesel fuel spill from a tanker crash along U.S. Highway 12 has slowed because of wintery weather.
More than 7,500 gallons of fuel spilled into a ditch on the side of the highway on Sept. 29.
Gayle Westhoff of the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality said that the geology of the area is making the cleanup effort difficult.
She said the fuel has gone down through cracks in granite and has been tough to recover.
Four wells have been drilled near the Lochsa River, a federally protected waterway, to get to the fuel.
Westhoff says agencies plan to monitor the spill site through the winter.
Water gauges to help study central Idaho aquifer
KETCHUM - State and federal officials are installing water gauges on the Big Wood River and its tributaries in central Idaho in an attempt to find out why an underground aquifer is declining.
James Bartolino of the Idaho Division of the U.S. Geological Survey said more water is being removed than is being replaced, but it's unclear how much is going in and how much is being removed.
"We just don't know much about what's going on up there," Bartolino told the Idaho Mountain Express.
The aquifer stretches from Ketchum in the north to Picabo in the south, and provides water for the entire Wood River Valley. The Big Wood River and its tributaries add up to about 63 percent of the aquifer's annual flow.
"It is uncertain whether these declining water levels are caused by pumping that has accompanied increased development or are a response to several years of drought conditions," Bartolino wrote in a report.
He told the newspaper that a gauge to be installed on Trail Creek will be the first on that stream since the 1920s. He noted that no Wood River Valley stream was being measured until a gauge was put in the East Fork of the Big Wood River several weeks ago.
"We'll be able to pin these numbers down with much more confidence," he said.
The Idaho Department of Water Resources plans to install a gauge in lower Warm Springs Creek.
Bartolino said water gauges in Ketchum and Hailey would help show how much water is lost between the towns, helping officials determine how much is being used by humans. The towns are about 15 miles apart.
"Rapid population growth since the 1970s has caused concern about the long-term sustainability of the groundwater resources," he said.
- The Associated Press