“The Moab-area non-profit organization Plateau Restoration, in partnership with the EPA, is offering a free weed education workshop geared towards Castle Valley residents and landowners, but open to everyone. The workshop will begin at 9 a.m., Saturday, April 24 at the Castle Valley Town Building. Featured speakers are Dr. Mark Miller of the National Park Service, speaking on cheatgrass, Dr. Dan Bean of the Palisade Insectary, speaking about biocontrol and Mike Johnson of Utah State University Extension, discussing pest control and herbicide safety.
“There will also be a discussion of plans for weed control in the Castle Valley watershed. The afternoon will feature a field trip focusing on plant identification and light volunteer work involving diffuse knapweed removal and revegetation of Porcupine Ranch burn area.
“Snacks, handouts and packets of native seed will be available to all participants. To RSVP please call Plateau Restoration at 259-7733 or email info@plateaurestoration.org.”
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Get rid of all that stuff! That is the message from the Town of Castle Valley as they announced the date for the annual Spring Clean-Up Day.
The clean-up day will begin at 9 a.m,. Saturday, May 8 at the town lot by the fire station. Each house is limited to four truckloads of debris and only four tires. As usual, it is being restricted to non-commercial junk, furniture and appliances and they ask that boards, branches and irrigation lines be cut to manageable lengths. Refrigerators will be accepted, but will have a $10 freon removal fee and air conditioners will be charged a $20 freon removal fee. Commercial construction debris and yard debris will not be allowed.
Traditionally, this free spring clean-up day proves to be a very busy day. Last year, Bob’s Sanitation’s three-man crew from Moab hauled away 12 large dumpsters full of trash from the valley as well as a couple more full of recyclable material. The event will continue until 4 p.m.
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Twenty-five years ago this week, residents were reminded of the annual spring cleanup to be held that following Saturday. Back then, people were asked to pile their load near the road to be picked up. This column stated, “County crews will furnish dump trucks, loaders and other equipment to assist the valley in the annual campaign.”
The county crew and other volunteers went up and down every street picking up the piles as they went. That cleanup was postponed, however, because of heavy rains during the week and was rescheduled for the following Saturday.
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Also during that week in 1985, the property owner’s association heard from the project manager from Conoco and the drilling company that was sinking an exploratory well near the bottom of Pace Hill Road. He was there to explain the evacuation procedure in the event of a surface blowout. The evacuation plan involved the Grand County Sheriff’s Office, Castle Valley Fire Department and drill site employees with the county road department, a helicopter service and Air Life on stand-by.
They had places for residents to meet, depending on where they lived, but most were to meet at the fire station or the Day Star Academy. The company had drilled down over a mile deep at the time of the meeting.
There never was a blowout and the residents were assured that the drilling crew would be aware of a problem and could take appropriate action before it manifested itself. That is a pretty secretive business, so of course nobody ever heard of what, if anything, they found. The area was restored to the original terrain and replanted with native seeds and only the old-timers might be able to remember where it was.
It was a massive, self-contained drill rig, requiring 50 trucks to haul it out to the site, but it really didn’t impact the life in the valley as much as some feared it would.