The small southeastern Utah town, nestled among famous red rock monuments, will provide the backdrop for a new USU research and education center.

“We view this as a lot like the Uintah Basin gift,” Albrecht said. “We first had the land gift down (in Moab) of an initial 20 acres. This financial commitment that comes from Wendy Walker-Tibbetts and Wendy’s family … will allow us to do something like we did in Vernal and use those funds to build the first USU building in Moab.”

The USU Education Center, presently in downtown Moab, with current enrollment of approximately 115 students has been recently expanded to accommodate nearly 200. Steve Hawks, executive director and associate dean in Moab, said he predicts the center will soon be to capacity and looks forward to the potential benefits the expansion has in store for a growing faculty and student body.

“It will substantially increase our interaction with private industry (and) federal agencies,” Hawks said. “As research entities come together, it will expose our students to state-of-the-art research opportunities (and) provide increased research capabilities for our faculty members. It will just take us to a whole new level than we are able to be at right now.”

Vice President Robert Behunin, for USU Commercialization and Regional Development, said these mounting opportunities will not only be available to the 300 to 500 students the expansion will allow for, but will likely provide educational prospects for university students state-wide — especially those in the colleges of Geology, Natural Resources and Engineering looking for internships.

“Even Logan campus students can look at the entire university portfolio,” Behunin said. “There are all these connections across the university that students can dive into.”

Behunin said he led the mutually-beneficial negotiation process with Mary Walker-Tibbetts over the past two years, for the purpose of coming to an “alignment of interests.” He said two components of the final agreement are a sponsored research agreement and the gifted royalty of $15 million. The research agreement consists of a partnership between the university and Walker-Tibbetts’ potash company to develop proprietary technology.

Increasing educational benefits should be the principal outcome of the negotiations, Behunin said. Potential for the creation of programs — including that of a post-production film program — will provide for a more diverse influx of students. And similar to what is being done in Vernal, the new research enterprise in Moab will “push the research agenda for Utah State.”

Behunin also celebrates “huge economic benefits” that, he said, will affect not only Moab as a USU center, but as a community, providing space for an increase in students and faculty alike.

Hawks agreed, Vernal should provide a good template forxx the progress to be made in Moab.

“This combined research-education focus really allows us to bring a much broader array of USU activities to a local, rural community, and it really has a huge impact,” Hawks said. “(The Vernal Education Center) allows people to move into positions, develop relationships with private industry and really become a force for economic development. We are looking to that as a model for the types of things we can do here in Moab.”

Construction for the new education-research building will take place on the 20-acre property donated to the university in 1995, by the Ron and Katherine Holyoak family. The donated land is adjacent to state trust lands, which complicates the land arrangement for the university — negotiations are currently underway to expand the area.

Hawks said the goal is to have a 40-acre campus in the same area where the land was originally donated. Current USU buildings in Moab will be repurposed once construction is finished.

An additional major player in the process, he said, was Moab City’s formalization of an education fund in which it put an initial $75,000 toward future campus development.

“There’s been a long-term commitment on the part of the community and various community leaders to work toward a campus in the future,” Hawks said. “This gift allows us to take a huge step forward in making that a reality. Huge appreciation to the Walker family for a gift that will push us over the top and allow us to move forward.” -The Utah Statesman

On Wednesday morning, May 18, park service officials announced that the Shafer Trail west of Moab was impassable due to heavy rains and hail that hit the region that morning. The closure was expected to last at least through Wednesday and possibly into Thursday, according to the news release.

“The current conditions [on the trail] consist of a slick roadway and multiple standing puddles,” park service officials said.

The White Rim road is closed from the southern base of Hardscrabble Hill to the park boundary, making a complete White Rim loop trip impossible, said Paul Henderson, assistant superintendent for Arches and Canyonlands national parks near Moab. The road will remain closed until flood waters recede, officials said.

“With the forecast river flows on the Green River as the spring runoff continues, the closure could very well last for several weeks,” Henderson said in a news release issued Friday, May 13. “There are flooding issues along some portions of the White Rim when flows exceed 20,000 [cubic feet per second]. The flow was approximately 23,000 cfs when the flooding occurred.”

As of May 10th the Colorado Basin River Forecast Center was predicting a 50 percent chance that the Green River will peak at 46,000 cfs this year and a 90 percent chance that flows will reach at least 38,000 cfs, Henderson noted.

“The last time that flows exceeded 38,000 cfs was in 1983, flows above 46,000 cfs have not occurred since 1922,” he said.

Park Service officials said a number of variables, especially upcoming weather conditions, will determine both the peak and the duration of the high flows.

“Warm weather and rapid snowmelt could produce very high volumes of relatively short duration,” Henderson said. “Cooler weather and a continued pattern of late-season storms could produce somewhat lower overall flows but of a longer duration.”

Canyonlands National Park will regularly update the park’s web page, www.nps.gov/cany, to advise visitors of conditions on the White Rim as well as boating conditions in the park, the news release stated.

Visitors planning a trip to Canyonlands over the next few weeks are advised to check current conditions via the park’s website. Those interested may also follow the current weather conditions in the park on Twitter at www.twitter.com/canyonlandsnps.

Read more: Moab Times-Independent – Rains high water force closure of White Rim road Shafer Trail

Federal and local officials originally believed that the project would not be completed until late spring, reopening in June or July, however, according to Andrew Coit, the project engineer for U.S. Department of Transportation’s Central Federal Lands Highway Division (CFLHD), construction crews were able to use alternative construction methods, which aided in the project being delivered ahead of schedule. Coit also acknowledged that the aggressive repair strategy, cooperative partners, and the experienced and knowledgeable contractor enabled the project to be completed for about $900,000, about half the $1.95 million originally budgeted for the work.

“Construction crews were able to quickly mobilize and commence construction activities using these alternative methods, and Bureau of Land Management, Grand County, and Canyonlands National Park were all active in getting the project started and headed in the right direction,” said Coit. “The support and input throughout the process of those partners were very efficient and effective.”

Russ von Koch, recreation division chief for the Buruea of Land Management in Moab, said that the project owes a lot of its success to the Utah governor’s office and Congressman Jim Matheson, who were “very supportive” of the project.

“This is just another great example of local, state, and federal government branches working together to come up with a solution and cooperatively work toward making it happen,” said von Koch. “It’s just amazing what everyone was able to accomplish.”

Coit said KSUE Construction, Inc., a local contractor that won the bid for the work, worked efficiently and quickly to help save money and time. He said KSUE’s ability to respond, communicate, manage, and perform the work proved to be instrumental in delivering a quality product in a short time and within budget.

Von Koch also agreed that KSUE’s efforts to work with the design team during the process helped expedite the project.

“The key result of this cooperative work environment is the savings to the county because of the early opening,” he said. Last fall, a BLM study showed that the county stood to lose $5 million in revenue from tourism should the road remain closed until June or July.

Coit said he has been employed by CFLHD for two years, but this is his first time working on a project for the agency’s Emergency Relief for Federally Owned Roads (ERFO) program. ERFO funding is intended to pay for “replace in-kind” repairs. The reconstruction and repairs to Mineral Bottom Road repaired the washed-out section of the road to pre-disaster conditions, with a few exceptions, according to Coit.

KSUE was able to generate most of the fill dirt needed for the construction on site by blasting into the hillside. Some aggregate was brought in for roadway surfacing, clay was used for the core of the detention dam above the switchbacks, and concrete was poured to provide rigid pavement sections in areas where water could cause the most damage, von Koch said. Coit said there was also a focus to integrate several redundancies in detouring drainage water away from the switchbacks to ensure future storm events do not cause such significant damage and, hopefully, save the county money in extra maintenance costs.

“It has been a great experience and I am proud to be part of this delivery team,” said Coit.

The reopening of Mineral Bottom Road is a joyous occasion for two local river companies who use the road to access the Mineral Bottom takeout for rafting, canoe, and kayak trips down the Green River through Labyrinth Canyon.

Bob Jones, owner of Tag-a-Long Expeditions, said his company had to find alternative takeout points last fall to continue serving trip reservations for the remaining part of the 2010 season.

“We continued to run the Green River, but we had to take out at Spring Canyon, which is seldom used and 20 miles further upstream,” said Jones. “About 75 percent of our reservations opted to run the shortened trip, causing some loss in revenue. Others couldn’t justify losing that much of their trip length.”

Tex’s Riverways co-owner, Devin Vaughan, said that the impact from last season’s closing of the road was less than he expected. “September is our busiest month, and we were on course to have our best season ever,” he said. “We ended up having just another pretty good year, which in our minds is still good,”

Vaughan said his staff’s diligence, ability to rearrange schedules, and the cooperation of his customers helped his company successfully weather the road closure.

“We refunded some money, but most customers took the alternative route options we had in place,” said Vaughan.

One such option was to run trips down the Colorado River side of Canyonlands National Park to the Confluence, which shortened the trip by only 5 miles in comparison to the Mineral Bottom route, Vaughan said.

“It was a tolerable solution, although the Colorado route allows for interaction with motor boats, which can often be a distraction in the peaceful wilderness to boaters,” said Vaughan.

Both businesses say that reservations this spring have been slightly down from previous years, mostly due to the Mineral Bottom closure. However, both hope that the road reopening will begin to change those numbers.

“Now that it is open, everyone wants to do the trip,” said Jones. “I didn’t think it would be open so soon, but I am happy to be able to provide that option again.”

Jones said he drove one of his buses down the newly repaired road as a test for the construction company before the official reopening.

“They widened the first four switchback curves, and I was able to actually turn my bus around rather than having to drive down to the drop area,” he said. “I am very complimentary on the new road and the way the work was done. It really worked wonderfully.”

Vaughan said the construction crew stayed in close communication and “really listened and put the interests of [river companies] as a priority.”

“We were able to plan well for this season because of the accurate information they [contractors] were giving us,” Vaughan said. “I can’t wait to get out there and see what they’ve done.”

-Moab Times-Independent

REGISTRATION: To register for the next Easter Jeep Safari Event you must fill out the official form. Please click here to request your name be added to the mailing list to receive the official Easter Jeep Safari Paper in which the 2011 Registration Form is located, you can then cut out the form, fill it out, and mail it in with the appropriate accompanying payment.. Or, print out your registration forms from the website. There are complete details on the policies and cancellations in the Safari Paper.

In brief, this is what happens: After you send your registration materials to us, we must figure out who gets on what trails. Most trails have been filling to specified limits in recent years, so our priority system becomes important to you.

We do not accept any registrations until complete information on trail schedules, descriptions, and difficulty ratings is published in the Safari Paper. The only people getting ahead of the priority system will be our trail guides.

The registration will use a lottery system to determine priorities for those who register promptly. Because the timing of newspaper deliveries is not the same for everyone, we open a “window” during which all registrants are given an equal chance for trail choices through a random drawing. This lottery period also helps people who need to organize group choices. Our lottery has worked well for everyone except those who were unlucky at the draw.

A lottery system will be used to set priorities during the first few weeks after the newspaper is mailed (in January). All registrations will be considered equally until the lottery is completed. Registration applications received at our PO Box after that date will be considered on a first postmark first served basis for remaining spaces. Registration applications received during the lottery period will be drawn randomly to determine priority in getting preferred trail choices; the lucky draws will get their first choice assignments. As trails become filled, it may be necessary for us to go down your list of preferences to consider your second third etc. choices. Registrations received after the lottery date will be assigned to trails still having spaces available after the lottery.

Mailing of the Jeep Safari newspaper is usually done each January and is specific for each years Click here to request newspaper safari. You may want to consider making travel arrangements at your earliest convenience as the available hotel motel and campground fill up quickly.

Note: There may be trails available at the time of the event, you can check at the registration desk at the Spanish Trail Arena during the hours they are staffed to inquire as to the last minute availability. There are no registrations at the trailhead line up.

Letter from the Club: Regarding Concerns during Easter Jeep Safari Event Week

The lone vote in favor came from council member Jeffrey Davis, who voted against the zone change when the measure was first introduced two years ago. During the discussion, Davis said that Moab’s economic circumstances had inspired him to change his mind.

“A couple years ago, times were different,” Davis said. “At the time, I felt the zoning was appropriate and needed to stay. At this time, with the hospital being built and other businesses opening in the area, I feel the city needs more commercial space to help our finances. If we’re not going to be doing any major diversifying of our economy, then we need to look for what we can do.”

Several council members voiced concern over the loss of residential zones. The measure would have changed the parcel’s zoning from R-4, meant primarily for manufactured homes and other high-density housing, to C-3, where residential units aren’t allowed on the ground level. Council member Sarah Bauman said that Moab “[doesn’t] really have any alternative affordable housing.”

“When we turned down the application two years ago, we were trying to preserve residential housing… to enable people to walk to the city from their homes” Bauman said. “Those conditions still exist today.”

Red Rock Partners has said it will close the mobile home park regardless of the council’s decision. In 2008, residents of the park were given a nine-month notice to vacate. While plans to empty the park were eventually put on hold, residents have been renting there on a month-to-month basis since that time. According to Moab City Manager Donna Metzler, the developer doesn’t have to give residents a second notice before forcing them to move out.

Prior to the vote, Moab City Planner Jeff Reinhart gave a presentation to the council on the history of the parcel’s zoning, using hand-drawn charts dating back as far as 1954 and a photographic view of the streets surrounding the parcel, cobbled together from dozens of digital pictures. According to Reinhart, part of the parcel in question is, in fact, an unused right-of-way that belongs to the city. The right-of-way had been slated for development as a road, but the project was canceled, and the right-of-way was never vacated by the city, he said.

A few dozen Moab residents attended the meeting, with most of them leaving immediately after the council voted to reject the zone change. One man turned around to rebuke the council as he was walking out the door.

“The recession’s hurting people. We need jobs,” he said. “I think you guys made the wrong decision.”

- Moab Times-Independent

Mustering all of his strength and determination, Young managed to slowly roll on his side, over and over, to reach his vehicle and call for help. The call that went out was the first of what Young considers many miracles that night.

“I’m alive,” he said. “I won the fight and I’m alive – it’s such a miracle.”

Young, 34, a state parks law enforcement officer, was shot and critically wounded in November during a traffic stop west of Moab.

This week, Young and his wife Wendy discussed some of the details of that night, his ongoing recovery and the impact to his life with The Times-Independent.

Young said nothing seemed unusual that night in November when he found the parked, silver Pontiac in the Poison Spider trailhead parking lot.

“It was a routine stop,” he said.

The car belonged to Lance Leeroy Arellano, 40, who was sleeping in the vehicle until Young woke him, intending, Young said, to direct Arellano to an area where he could camp.

Young grew suspicious when Arellano would not produce identification, and the vehicle had an expired registration. But he said that until the first shot was fired, the incident was still “standard.”

“I went to check on his history and background,” Young said. “It was just the standard contact, and then he turned on me. When I went to head back to my truck, that’s when he started shooting.”

Young rolled back to his truck after the gunfight, radioed for help, and then waited.

“I was so happy when help arrived,” he said. “You couldn’t ask for a better crew of EMTs and doctors than the ones that were working that night.”

Young was transported first to Allen Memorial Hospital in Moab and then to St. Mary’s Hospital in Grand Junction, Colo.

Young said he cannot discuss any details of the altercation with Arellano because the investigation is ongoing. Young did say his training kicked in, and he’s glad now that he spent countless hours outside of work practicing shooting.

“I had to shoot with my weak hand, which I trained for, and I was taught to shoot through a car – that’s what really helped me win the fight,” he said. “Training was a big part of my survival.”

As for Arellano and the ongoing search, Young said he only worried early on, when he still did not know what the end result was.

“I was worried about Wendy and the kids because I didn’t know what had happened to the guy,” he said. “I was wondering if they were safe.”

Now, although he said he cannot disclose any details, Young is confident that Arellano no longer poses a threat.

“Personally, I don’t think we need to worry about him,” he said. “I know he was shot.”

Young himself was shot nine times. Two of the rounds were stopped by his Kevlar vest. Six entered his body, two of which have been removed. The ninth bullet was stopped miraculously by something in Young’s pocket.

“There was actually a bullet that my wallet stopped – a credit card stopped it,” Young said.

Though that bullet is still in evidence, Young said he will keep it by choice. “I’ll get it back, and we’ll frame that, definitely,” he said.

Several other bullets from the shooting will be kept not as souvenirs, but by necessity.

“I still have four in me,” Young said of the bullets that are too close to major organs or too deeply embedded to remove surgically. One bullet is still buried in his vertebrae, another in the lower lobe of his left lung, another behind his heart near the spine, and the last is in his pelvic bone. “There’s also lots of shrapnel in my left arm,” he said.

Gunshot wounds caused damage to Young’s heart, small intestine, colon, stomach, right kidney, liver, diaphragm and lung.

“It was basically every organ except for my spleen and bladder,” Young said.

Among the many occurrences that Young and his family consider miracles was the formation of a blood clot in Young’s heart, in the pericardial sac.

“Those kinds of clots in the pericardial sac usually kill you,” Wendy Young said. “In Brody’s case they kept the heart from bleeding out.”

At St. Mary’s, the trauma surgeon expressed amazement at Young’s condition.

“They said he should have died on the helicopter,” Wendy Young said.

The Youngs also see as miraculous the fact that Allen Memorial Hospital had unusually high number of blood units on hand that night, all of which were used to save Brody Young.

“Statistically, I shouldn’t be here,” Young said.

Young spent five weeks at St. Mary’s, almost all of that time in intensive care. For the first three and a half weeks, he was completely unconscious.

“I had no idea how long I’d been there,” he said. “But I knew what had happened to me.”

Upon regaining consciousness, Young suffered both physically and emotionally from his injuries.

“I had a lot of anxiety, with all the tubes sticking out of me,” he said. “It was very frustrating – I couldn’t talk, couldn’t really communicate.”

Once Young left intensive care, his progress sped up dramatically. He underwent only a few days of physical therapy before being released from the hospital on Christmas Eve.

“The healing process has been a miracle,” he said. “All the wounds have nearly healed, and it’s just Band-Aids and a little gauze now.”

With tears in his eyes, Young credited both his survival initially and his speedy recovery to his wife.

“Wendy takes such good care of me,” he said “I think she’s the real hero.”
During his fleeting moments of consciousness in the first weeks of his hospital stay, Young said he thought often of his wife and children.
“Thinking of you and being with you and our kids is what kept me alive – see them grow up, and to grow old with you,” he told Wendy Young.
Having survived such a traumatic, violent experience, Young said he has a new perspective on life.
“It makes me want to be a better person,” he said. “To do better, be better. There are so many more things I want to do with my life, good things to contribute to society.”
Young said he hopes to continue contributing by returning to his old job in law enforcement in Utah State Parks, and he said he will use his experience to help others.
“I want to teach other officers what I went through and how to survive, how to win the fight and go home to their families,” he said.

Doctors have said it will be at least a year before Young will be able to return to work full-time, but, with a smile on his face, he said he thinks he can beat that.
“I’ll give it six months,” he said.
Until that time, Young will continue physical therapy, which he says he enjoys.
Despite all his wounds, the only permanent nerve damage Young sustained was in his right leg, where he experiences numbness.
Above all, Young said he is grateful to the countless people who have supported him and his family through the crisis.
“I don’t want to name any names because there have been so many, but you know who you are,” he said.
Wendy Young said she was told this sort of horrific event would make her lose her faith in humanity. “It’s just the opposite,” she said. “One person made a bad choice, but millions of people have come out of the woodwork to make good choices.”
Brody and Wendy Young said they harbor no negative feelings towards Arellano, since they both have come away with a fresh outlook on life.
“It’s been really positive,” Brody Young said. “Now, I have more chapters to add to the book of my life.”
Read more: Moab Times-Independent – Wounded park ranger describes his survival as a ‘miracle’

Read more: Moab Times-Independent – heal utahs 4th annual fall fundraiser

Read more: Moab Times-Independent – winter sun festival december 3 4 2010

Others maintain that the waste that is steadily being chipped away under the purview of a U.S. Department of Energy cleanup project should have been contained and buried decades ago.
“It means everything to me that the tailings are finally being moved,” said Rebecca Martin, a Castle Valley resident who pushed for the removal for years. “I love that river — I don’t love it when the wind blows.”
Seal, too, admits that moving the Pile is especially in the interest of the 25 million downstream users who depend on Colorado River water.
“Could be this year, could be next that we get a 100-year flood and Lake Powell might glow in the dark.”
In August, the Department of Energy and its primary contractor on removal, Energy Solutions, marked the removal of 2 million tons of tailings to a disposal site 30 miles to the north.
An infusion of $108 million in federal stimulus funding in April 2009 accelerated the daily cleanup to two trainloads of dirt.
At 3 p.m. each day, 144 containers are loaded onto the railroad cars by a Gantry crane to ferry 5,000 tons of waste to Crescent Junction. At 3 a.m., the next trainload departs.
Don Metzler, the DOE’s project director, said even absent the stimulus funding, the removal is 44 trains ahead of schedule and the project is well under budget.

“I am just kind of a regular guy, but I am not kidding,” Metzler said. “I would put this up against any other DOE project in the nation for performance, safety and community involvement. I set the bar really high. I want to make sure everybody on this project can feel good about what they do and make sure the taxpayer is not getting cheated.”
Metzler is a hard-driving, meticulous manager of details who insisted that the overwhelming majority of the employees hired on because of the cleanup project — especially with the federal funding — had to come from local stock.
“That was the mandate from Don,” said Kirk Briscoe, the Moab site operations manager. “Anyone outside that 150-mile radius had to have Don’s approval” to be hired.
-Deseret News