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HomeMy WebLinkAboutHistorical Records - Miscellaneous (144)'/I • Weather/2 Classified/5 ucson r1zona Tucsonc Citizen Monday, June 16, 1980 • Breach of dam nearly finished Golder floods expected - ·......:...,... -- :;.;:· ·:.:t:".. ¾,· ~""';-~- ·" ~ ~ ?~ ~ .,,r < 'V s ~ ,, ~ " Clllzen photo by H. Darr Beiser No water in Golder lake now And breaching of dam wUI prevent future stackup there. Abuses are noted · PCC plans tighter vehicle use policy By LAURA DIAMOND Citizen Sia!! Wri1er Sometime soon, seven Pima Community College ad- mini 5lrators may be driving their own cars to work for the first time ever. save the college money over the present take-home sys- tem, he said. lice with marijuana allegedly in the car. Another was ar- rested more recently on charges of driving while ln- toxicated . Manilla said both employ- ees were on college business at the times of the arrests. By BEN Ma cNITT Citiz.en Staff Writer One day this summer when the first big rain comes, about 120 persons fully expect to be flooded out of their homes. If it all happens too fast, some of them could die. They are the people who have built their homes -about 50 to 55 in all - within five miles of the downstream side of Golder Dam, which is being breached on orders of the Ariwna Water Commission. The 120-foot-high earth and rock dam lies astride the Canada de! Oro Wash, just inside the Pinal County line, about 25 miles north of Tucson. Last month the breaching began arter a court order forced protestirig residents to quit blocking the bulldozers. The work is now abou t a quarter com- plete. By the middle of next month, a 100-foot- wide gap in the dam should be finished, Work proceeded and Jive month., later, Toney wrote Golder, 'you are hereby informed that the dam was constructed to the sat• isfaction of this office and is therefore granted final approval. leaving the Canada del Oro free to run unimpeded for the first time since the dam was built in 1964. In the water's path will be the homes built in the wash's floodplain over the last 16 years. Who is responsible for the danger th ese people face? There is no single or easily identified villain. But a review of court recor ds, Water Commis sion files and interviews with the principles involved provides some answers. • Evidence that the dam was funda- mentally unsafe existed even before the structure was finish ed in 1964. Within weeks after the state agency whi ch was then charged with overseeing construction of dams officially approved Golder Dam, the structure began to leak. • Up until last Augu st the Water Com- mission repeatedly took the position that it would rep air the dam if its owner, Lloyd Golder III, didn't do so himself. But the commiSsion reversed itsEili, abandoned re- pair plans and proceeded with breaching after learning that its own plans to fix the structure were inadequate. • Notification of breaching to down- stream homeowners was delayed for weeks, and when it came they were told the breaching wouldn't increase their risks. • The record also contains allegations that the commission has acted in bad faith and that the homeowners are responsible for their own fate because they built in a floodplain. The history of Golder Dam begins in 1962 when Rail N Ranch president Lloyd Golder II applied to the state Highway De- partment for permission to build the dam. At that time and until 1972 the Highway Department was charged by law with re- gulating and overseeing construction of dams in the state. Golder wanted the dam to create a recreational lake as a magnet for residential development on land the ranch owned in the area. Plans called for placing the foundation of the dam on underlying granite. But in September 1963, during construction, core drilling tests were conducted at the site revealing evidence that instead of granite, the foundation was being laid on loosely cemented sand and gravel. Aware of the test drillings, Golder, through his attorney, specifically re- quested the Highway Department to rule whether, "in fact your office has approved the preparation of the foundation." Martin Toney, then engineer of bridges and dams for the department, replied in an Oct. 4, 1963, lette r, "We wish to inform you that we have inspected the foundation that has been completed thus far and consider it satisfac tory and structurally adequate for a dam of this type." Work proceeded and five months later Toney wrote Golder, "You are hereby in- formed chat the dam was constructed to the satisfaction of this office and is there- fore granted final approval." By the following September the darn began to leak. Golder sued. In an out-of-court settle- ment, he received $565,000 from the engi- neering and construction firms which worked on the project. But his claim against the Highway Department was dis- missed by a Superior Court judge whose ruling was upheld by the state Appeals Court. The decision upheld a law which pro- vided that, "no action shall be brought against the state engineer for damages sustained through the partial or total fail- ure of any dam by reason of his control or regulation thereof." Simply put, the law excused the state from the consequences of its actions. Subsequent chapters in the lengthy con- troversy culminated in a March 12, 1979, judgment by Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Paul LaPrade. That ruling gave Golder two principle options. By a fixed date he was either to present repair plans to the Water Commis- sion (which now had responsibility for dams) based on the commtssion's criteria for fixing such a structure or to present an alternative repair proposal. The commis- sion's criteria were spelled ou t in the judg- ment as lowering the dam's spillway to a fixed level and re inforcing the down- stream side. Any alternative was up to Golder. In the years preceding the judgment, land downstream of the dam was sold to For the second time, ap- parently, Golder had re- lied on state decisions that in the end proved faulty. vario us individuals, some of whom chose to build their homes in the floodplain which appeared to them to be protected by the dam. In the weeks betw een the filing of the judgment and the July 23 deadline for Golder to submit his repair plans, Water Commission records clearly reflect its po- sition that the dam would be fixed in any event. Using figures prepared by the com-· mission, the Legislature passed a bill ap- propriating JI.6 million to have the com- mission repair the dam if Golder didn't. The bill provided that the cost would be recovered by placing a lien on Golder's land . A July 9, 1979, letter from Benson Scott, the Water Commission's chief of dam safety, to the director of the Pima County Flood Control District, states, "In the event that the owner (of Golder Dam) fails to timely comply with the agreement, the state engineer may make the approved modifications and the cost thereof may be imposed as a lien against all property of the owner ... The fact that this money is available makes us confident that repair work can begin early in 1980, even in the event that the owner fails to comply with the agreement." On the same day, Charles Huckelberry, county flood control director, wrote to Continued, Page 4C I \ '-~' I I \-:,;::I I 1.:-./ I ,/ 1·:::'-, I 1"'-' f-C::'-, I I "' --,._ -_-::. J I ', "',::.-:: _::i1 I Golder Dam 'y:-:·!:.03 1, t • _( -~ & Lake 1;;;:. c:. ~? I \ 'I I I I I I I I li '· -0-- 111- I I I I Golder Dam 2 miles I I • • l I I I I I I ft I I [;} ,' frr I &-,' I I I I I I I • I I • ■I I ■1 I 0.. • ~ Scale: 800 Feet Legend: I (1) • I -\ .. • • ■ ■ ' 4'q, lt• Residential ~Ii ... ~r • \ structures (50) ~"' .... ... -,~.. ~ \ .... _ ...... ;; ,' / 1•~•• \ 100-year ~; :■• Flood Plain ,,~· . t~11 •• • 1 ,r O I I I • cl I I I I I I ,, ... iii:.. : M •♦ I • I I I I • I I I I I I I Citizen Illustration by Paul Krall!le Flood danger? Within five miles of Golder Dam downstream on Canada del Oro wash, more than 50 resi~ deuces are in the JOO-year flood plain, and resi- dents there feel the breaching of the dam places them in peril. In an effort to reduce an ex- pensive 50-vehicle fleet, PCC President S. James Manilla wouJd like to do away with take-home cars for deans and vice presidents. And he is looking into ways the motor pool could be fur- th er cut back. Of tne 50 PCC vehicles, one is assigned to the president. Also negotiated in his con - tract in Heu of a higher sal- ary, Manill_a's car is the only one authonzed for both per- sonal and business use. In addition to service-type vehicles, 13 are available on a check-out basis. Manilla would like to get rid of some of those cars, too. He was shocked to find that students were allowed to use the· col- lege vehicles. "This will be ei- th er eliminated or very dras- tically curtailed next year," he said. Nevertheless, closer moni- toring and less availability may put an end to such prob- lems. Freeway Follies to get even .worse Getting rid of the seven cars which are assigned to the deans and vice presidents means breaking a PCC tradi- tion. In the past, unwlitten policy has allowed adminis- trators to negotiate a car as part of their contract in lieu of higher salaries. Consequently, PCC would have to compensate the seven administrators for that lost fringe benefit. At the Board of Governors meeting Wednesday night, Manilla plans to ask the board for permission to take the cars away from the deans and vice presidents. If the board agrees, Manilla suggests one of two ways to make up for the loss of the cars: Either an across-the-board raise in sala- ries or a monthly allocation for using their own cars for college business. Currently, all 50 of the vehi- cles PCC owns or leases cost about $345 a month each, an approximate yearly cost of $207,000. Manilla said giving the deans and vice presidents sa\. ary increases would be more costly to the college than giv - ing them a proposed $165 a month travel allowance. But either choice wou!d ,; By cutting student use of vehicles, Manilla hopes to trim an additi ona l three or four ca.rs out of the dispatch pool. The theory is that the harder it is to check out a car, the Jes~ likely those cars will be uselessly or abused. "Son1e faculty and adminis- trators, there's no question, abuse their privileges, too," MaIDJJs. said . "If its not convenient, peo- ple will think twic~ .before using a car," he said. "Maybe they will think about doubling up or they might be en- couraged to use the telephone for some business." Some board members are hoping getting rid of some cars will help put an end to "more t,latant" abuses -the kind thitt give the college a bad nauie. Two .PCC employees have been arrested in college cars this year. One was picked up by University of Arizona po- Board member Michael Hansen, who favors cutting the number of PCC vehicles, believes the amount of abuse is related to the size of the fleet. "I think we have a lot of misuse because we have a lot of cars." By MARK KIMBLE Citizen Staff Writer That ever-unpopular game of Freeway Follies, played each evening by creeping and irate Interstate 10 drivers, promises to get even more un- popular this fall, when con- struction workers will bottle up traffic · in a six-mile, year- Jong construction job. Work on the project to add two additional lanes to a JX)r- tion of the interstate where it winds through Tucson is scheduled to begin sometime before the end of this year, and traffic Won't be back to normal until about the end of 1981. ~ ,·a.n "It's really going to put a pinch on it (traffic move- ment), obviously," said Or- ville R. Abney, traffic engi- neer for the state highway district that includes Tucson. Portions of 1-10 are among the most heavily traveled roads in the Tucson area, with the interstate between 1.-10 traffic as it is now; a scene near Saint Mary's Road West Congres s and West 22nd streets carrying about 63,000 cars on an average day. The state plans to add two lanes to portions of the inter- state -one eastbound and another westbound -but in the process of widening the freeway, drivers will have to put up with some temporary narrowing. The two lanes will be added to the center of the interstate, taking up what is now the me- dian island. The work, ex- pected to cost about $9.5 mil- lion, will involve temJ)Orary closing of one of the two inter- state lanes headed in one di- rection. And when bridges are built over city streets, traffic down below probably also will be slowed, Abney predicted. With one interstate lane closed, and with people slow- ing to take a look at the con- struction, Abney said that the freeway capacity could easily be cut in half, causing traffic to actually come to a halt dur- ing the evening rush hou r. To min imize the disrup- tions, work on the interstate will start near West Prince Road, then move in about 10 segments toward the comple- tion point, at the Interstate 19 interchange. One section will be completed before work on another begins. "It's going to have to hurt some, but we're trying to con- fine it to one area or to one or two interchanges at a time," Abney said. Although I-10 is part of the nationwide interstate high- way system, between 60 and 75 percent of the traffic in the affected segment is local traf- fic, with Tucson drivers hop- ping on and off the freeway to get to different parts of town. Abney hopes those drivers wi !l find other routes, but that cuuld lead to overcrowded city streets nea r the West Side freeway. "They (local drivers) do have other options, and they're going to have to take alternate routes or put up with delays," Abney warned. Although no exact timeta- ble for the work has been es- tablished, the state will ask for bids sometime this fall, with the actual construction starting before the end of th e year. It will take about a year to complete. And then after that is over, there's more ahead. The state then will start working on I-10 on-ramps and frontage roads. And no orie is predicting when that will be done. -~ :,:Page 4C • Tucsoll Citizen Citizen Photo by Dan Tortorell Witnesses meet here W. L. Barry, a representative of the Watchtower Society, addresses a convention of Jehovah's Witnesses at the Tucson • Community Center yesterday. A spokesman estimated that about 8,500 persons were attending the four-day convention. • Monday, June 16, 1980 Big floods are feared State's Golder Dam breach may he done next , month (From Page 1c) Scott aoout a meetmg the two had had a week earlier, noting, "I was also pleased to learn that should Rail N Ranch default in the Mari- copa County court judg- ment, the Arizona Water Commission is ready to use the $1.6 million appropria- tion to resolve the Golder Dam problem." Wesley E. Steiner, state water engineer, personally endorsed this plan of action in a July 17 letter stating, "The court agreement is binding on both parties and does provide for repair of the dam even in the event the owner fails to comply. In that event, the fact that $1.6 million is available makes us confident that re- pair work can begin early in 1980. As stated above, the Arizona Watei Commission is vitally interested in see- ing that Golder Dam is re- paired and made safe as quickly as possible." None of the Water Com- mission's records during this period reflect any con- sideration given to breach- ing the dam. All the corre- spo nd ence deals with tached plans and specifica-boundaries of the Canada is inevi tabl e." He said they tions are as directed by de! Oro Wash." "have bu ilt their houses you, we find it very difficult That opinion since re-ri~ht smac k down in the to understand your, refusal peated to the fesidents, is middle of_ t~e wash. The to accept that whic.h you based on calculations that real culpnt 1s the person yoursel~ have !>ee~, mstru-downstream damage from who sol d_ t_hen_i the prop- mental m creating. a lO0-year flood would be erty. By hvmg m ~t ~~sh Gnaed.inger said he had the same with or without thl:"Y are . actually 111!",1tmg been informed by commis-the dam. Huckelberry has bemg subJect to fl ood. sion members both verbally conceded, however, that Sandra Joy is on e down- and by letter that he _woul_d les~r storms of !h~ t~ strea m resident who has have a cha1:1ce to revise his ~es1dents are ant1ci~Ung been left both confused and proposal m accordance m the next 12 weeks will en-disillu sioned by the state's ~it~ the review board's ta!l flooding by water !hat respon se to her probl em, findings. will no longer be tm-She and her husband who He got no such opportu-pou nd ed by th e dam. is confin ed to a wheelChair, nity. Letters from commis-That admission is not r ecei\·ed the April 14 notice sion officials stating "there contained in the written re-th at floo d danger s are will probably be some ports provided to residants equal with or Without the areas (in the sub mittal), which stress only the all-is-dam. which will need to be re-equal proposition posed by But she said she was also vised slightly" and that a 100-year flood, that is a told by an offi cial of the Gnaedinger "will be able to flood which statistically is County Flood Co ntrol Dis- ma~e changes agreed upon certain to occur at least trict "that I ou ght to build a d~nng the week .~the re-once every 100 years. ramp to the roof of our VIew boa rd meets) appear Scott also concedes that house for my husband be- to bac~ up 5?me as~cts of "flooding for those peo ple cause I can expec t fiv e feet Gnaedmger s version of (immediately downstream ) of wa ter in the ho u.s.e." events. jl5J(g(9@i[EjVALUABLE COUPON.9@i@j@j(§(§ IID HEAVY WASH CLOTHS Iii !ID As,ort,d p,;,t, & wl;d,. 3 s 14 9 WITM Ii! lID Orig. 1.10 to 2.00 COUPON ffi1 (ID Volues Eoch FOR Urit6,-~ ~ F&S JOBBERS BED & BATH SHO:-r::, 3154 NORTH 1ST AVE. eir r--------------------------------------------------, repairing the dam, either b)'. qolder or by the com- In a final attempt to sal - vage the situation, Gnae- dinger wrote the commis- sion offering to entirely scrap his alternative repair proposal and to proceed with the Water Commis- sion's criteria as set out in the March 12 judgment . That letter wasn't an- swered. What had happened? ll!J 622-2373 Open 9 to .5:30 WKDays 9 to 4:00 Sat. -ffiJ ifil[gfil[Ei[Ei[Ej[§[Ei[§[§[§[§[§[§[Ej[§[Ei[§[§[§ Who rises from the ashes? Bisbee curing fiscal aches By JEFF SMITH Cltl.7.en Staff Writer Try calling Bisbee Phoenix, and you'll have two communities setting the hounds after you, but in a literary senst the teflI! is an apt one. Bisbee, the town either too dumb, too cute or too passively resistant to die, has risen once more from the ashes of fimmcial ruin. It survived the Great Depre,sion, it sur- vived the shutdown of the mines, and now, a year after anybody with any brains at all fig- ured Bisbee was down the fiscal drain, this city is about to pay the last in~t allment on what was, at this time last year, a S480,0CO debt that threatened to make Bis-bee lhe first city in the U.S. to go bankrupt. As of last Friday, according to city clerk Jeff Freudenberg, Bisbee's dePt had been whittled down, in $31,500 monthly incre- ments, to about $28,000. Over i:he weekend that dropped to about $18,000, ht said, all of which is owed to the state retirejllent fund. All of the debt will be paid off by the end of the month, Freudenberg said 1 giving BiS- bee a clean slate -plus an ex:i:ra $31,500 a month in the kitty -to begin next fiscal year's budget the beginning of Jldy. So Bisbee has bailed itself out. It did so by resorting to some of the most Draconian fiscal measures ever adopted by a living, breathing American city. The previ- ous city council cut the city police and fire departments, and the entire work force, by half. Certain urban services were suspended and garbage collection was continued on a pay-as-you-go fee basis. Freudenberg said that attritional losses in staffing were filled with new and younger hirees who were paid "at more reasonable levels than the people they replaced." And Freudenberg himself took the initia- tive with his various department heads to force spending stringency exceeding ever that imposed by the city 's austelity budge• "I told them, 'I know the budget says you can spend this much, but this is how much I'm telling you you can really spend,'" Freu- denberg said. Bisbee got itself into a fix courtesy of a variety of factors, Freudenberg explained. First ~nd most obvious was the closing of Phelps-Dodge mining operations there in the mid-70s. That cut city sales tax revenues by about half, but the levels of city staffing and services weren't cut accordingly. But beyond this there were a number of federal "free" programs which proved a near-fatal temptation to the city fathers. The CETA program, which paid the salaries of unskilled trainee workers, brought 68 addi- tional staff members to Bisbee government -a seeming windfall. But these 68 bodies needed office space to house them and gasoline to get them around town to their work projects, and this created a sizeable burden on the local coffers . Also there were federal grant programs which sounded attractive in their time, Freu- denberg said. The fact that they required 50 percent city matching funds did no t appear so traumatic until the city's major creditors threatened, last spring, to freeze the city's assets and attach its funds to collect back payments of retirement funds, Social Secu- rity contributions and Internal Revenue Ser- vice collections. But that is behind Bisbee now, and the city anticipates a new fiscal year, with some extra cash on hand, one more cop, one more fireman, a dogcatcher and a public works employee. Bisbee obviously has slimmed down and come to like its new shape. "We're not counting on any revenues we haven't got in our hands," said Freudenberg, who, with one year and 13 days of tenure, has beaten the record of the previous five Bisbee city clerks. Novel approach to government. m1ss10n. The record of this period also reflects a considerable degree of cooperation be- tween the commission and the engineer hired by Golder to make the repair plans, John P. Gnaedinger, partner in Soil Testing Ser-, vices, a Chicago area firm with offices in IO states, Washington D.C. and three foreign countries. Gnae- dinger's fees ultimately ran to about $35,000. The commission ap- proved a hydrological study prepared by Gnaedinger. Golder and Gnaedinger worked on alternative plans as allowed by the judg- ment. Outlines of those plans by Gnaedinger were se.en by the commission which recommended im - provements. Two weeks before the deadline for 5l!bmitting the plans, the Wat er Commis- sion's Scott wrote an in- terested party, "We antici- pate that this submittal will be acceptable in most as- pects. However, there will probably be some areas which will need to be re- vised slightly." A key to Gnaedinger's plan was to grout the core of the dam, where the leak- age was occurring, with ce- ment. "We agree with and strongly support the pro- posed grouting of the pud- dled core," according to a July 17 letter signed by 1------------------------------------------------, Steiner. 'Everybody and his brother' a • mmer Silver fever strikes Tombstone By RICHARD WILBUB Citizen Mining Writer TOMBSTONE -Will this town again be able to pave its streets with silver? Back in the 1880s, enough silver was dug in the Tombstone mining district to do the job as a sideline. Mine operators were too busy making money to indulge in such a public-spirited gesture, though. Then Tombstone's silver bonanza col- lapsed as water flooded underground mine shafts and silver's value plummeted in the United States. But now it's the 1980s, and silver fever is stirring again in the famed mining area 70 miles southeast of Tucson. Some exploratory drilling is under way in a search for undisco- vered deposits. They're also tunneling into old mines for what the early miners may have missed. And century-old dumps are being pro- cessed for silver ignored by the high-grade seekers of earlier days. From the Crystal Bar here, as in the ear- lier era, patrons can see some of the mining activity going on nearby. The price of silver may gyrate. It reached $48 an ounce in January, dropped to $10.80 in March, and has now climbed only to the $15 to $16 range. However, silver seekers point to figures showing production of silver has fallen at least 150 million ounces short of demand every year since WorliJ War II. There, they say, is a need that won't quit, so . how can they lose? Are there a lot of people involv¢ in silver activity in the Tombstone area nP~? "Ye_s. Everybody and his brother,'' ~1~ David Rabb, a University of Ariwna rr1,mmg spe- ciali 5t There's been "a significant increase" in exploration companies scouting the Tomb-- stone terrain, he added. One of the firms is Occidental Minerals Corp. It started exploratory dr~lling last month about two miles west of 1ombstone, near the Three Brothers Hills. "It's in an old established mining district, and that's the name of the game these days," an official of the Denver firm said. "A lot of old districts are getting a second look, and that's what we're doing." About 100 people are employed in mining in the Tombstone area, Wayne Winters, pub- lisher of the Western Prospector and Miner, estimated. That may not sound like many, but he said 10 years ago the number was zero. Rabb thinks Winters' estimate may be conservative. Winters, former editor of the Tombstone Epitaph, said the mining district has been plagued with promoters in recent years. Now, he thinks, some more solid companies are on the horizon. He pointed to Houston Mining and Re- sources Inc., which has formed a subsidiary, Silver Ridge Mining Co., and leased almost 50 mining claims in the Tombstone area. He said 30 of the claims, which his Piedras de! Sol Mining Co. owns, are along the east edge of town. On a two-shifts-a-day basis, the Texas firm is constructing a 472--foot cross-cut tun-.: nel to intersect a vein in an old mine called 'the Gambasino Dre.am, about 2½ miles south and west of Tombstone, Ken Hodgson, Silver Ridge's general manager, says. At the Nicholas Mine nearby, the com- pany is planning to sink a vertical shaft 410 feet. That's the equivalent of a 41-story building, Hodgson said. Already, in a test of the mine's silver content, the company has produced a silver bar Winters described as so high-grade it was equivalent to 1,400 ounces of silver to a ton of ore. The Nicholas Mine produced the richest ore ever shipped out of Tombstone in 1889, Winters said. "They shipped 50 tons that averaged 4,032 ounces of silver to the ton. Then they shut down because of a lawsuit and never reopened," he said. Thomas Winn, president of Houston Min- ing and Resources, estimated the company may spend $2 million over the next two years developing projects on its mining leases. "We're excited about the district and what's happening down there," he said. "We intend to be a major part of that district." The Contention Mine, visible from down- town, is being changed from its onetime un- derground form to an open pit in an opera- tion by Tombstone Exploration Inc. Its general manager is Dustin Escapule, candi- date for mayor of Tombstone. Heading the company is a New York in- vestment specialist, Thomas H. Schloss, who is board chairman of a securities finn be- longing to the New York Stock Exchange. He said Tombstone Exploration has leased "quite a number" of mining claims in the area. On a site near the Contention, the com- pany is processing rock left as waste at about 15 other old mine sites in order to re- cover whatever silver was left behind, Schloss said. He said this material totals about 1 ½ million tons. Ore being mined from the Contention also is being processed there, he said -. In another Tombstone enterprise, Charles and Louis Escapule have been manufactur- ing equipment for silver and gold recovery plants for two years. So far they have sold 90 of these products to buyers in locations ranging from Canada to Costa Rica, includ- ing quite a few to Mexico mining operators, according to Louis Escapule. He said two orders from Australia re- cently were recieved. The brothers also sell silver bars pro- duced from ore processed at their State of Maine Mine. The most popular size is 10 ounces, now costing about $150. But then something hap- pened that made the com- mission reverse its entire position. In late August Gnae. dinger's proposal was sub- mitted to a special three- man review board made up of engineers independent of the Water Commission. The grouting plan en- dorsed by Steiner "is merely a temporary meas- ure and should not be con- sidered a permanent rem- edy," the review board determined. A proposed 12- inch thick upstream blan- ket "is much too thin," the board members found. Overall the submittal was "a concept rather than a finished product," the board concluded. Faced with this finding, Steiner wrote Golder on September 10 that the re- pair plans "have failed to comply with the judgment" and presented for the first time a new option, noting, "I shall proceed with ac- tions to eliminate the haz. ard created by the dam, considering all available options including breaching the dam." Gnaedinger said he was "shocked" by the commis- sion's new position. He wrote Steiner on September 11, "Since much of the ma- terials presented in the at- Camp closing is planned KINGMAN (AP) -The Water and Power Re- sources Service has an- nounced plans to close the Davis Dam Camp on the Colorado River and dispose of its buildings. Officials said the build- ingS, north of Bullhead City, would be sold for re- moval and use elsewhere. The cleared land will be turned over to the National Park Service. In a recent interview Scott admitted that the Water Commission un- derestimated the work nec- essary to make the dam safe. The review board "thought the work that wou!d be required would be more" than the commission had contemplated, Scott said. For the second time, apparently, Golder had re- lied on state decisions that in the end proved faulty. Faced with the review board's findings, the Water Commission upped the esti- mate to fix the dam, ac- tually to rebuild it, to $2.5 million. Steiner proposed giving Golder a month to place that entire sum on deposit with the commission. Golder declined and went to court claiming breach of faith. But Judge l..aPrade uphe ld the commjssion 's position. And why didn't the com- mission, which just a few weeks earlier had been "vi- tally interested in seeing that Golder Dam is re- paired" use the money ap- propriated by the Legisla- ture for that purpose? Last week Scott said that the "cost has to be recov- ered from the owner. To re- cover some $300,000 (needed to breach the dam) may be easier to recover than $2.5 million that might never be recovered." Last month, however, Scott denied that doubts abou t recovering the repair cost had anything to do with the decision to drop that course of action. On February 15 of this year Steiner informer Huckelberry that the com- mission expected to begin breaching the dam' by mid- May. The breaching, he wrote, "poses another problem not as hazardous REVCO DISCOUNT DRUG CENTER DERMOLATE HYDROCORTISONE CREAM 30 gm Stop That Itch and Min ar Sk in Irrit ation EVERYDAY DISCOUNT PRICE. s3_49 DERMO LATE HYDROCORTISONE OINTMENT 30 gm ' D ~ I t · <YD1'0WHISONE ' ermo a e /\NA(·ITCH()("fTMfN r r::-:---:~-~ ··; · ·-7 ltmoc,,n ,e1,tr I 1/ ~/j_..,.I o•~N/\LITCHING 2- Effective Temporary Relief of llchy Ana l AFeas EVERYDAY DISCOUNT PRICE. s3_49 aw yOUnecdall thcRE'1icoJOU V' can~t as the unsafe dam, but a 11--------------------- problem that needs early attention.'' Steiner referred to the people living in the floodplain downstream from the dam. "After Golder Dam is breached, the floodplain will once again be subject to inundation during high flow periods," Steiner in- fo rm ed Huckelberry. "Your office is familiar with the damage potential and the possible hazard to life." Steiner proposed a meet- ing within two weeks "to allow you maximum time to consider steps your agency may wish to take prior to the actual breach- ing." But not until two months after Steiner's letter to Huckelberry did the flood control district write to downstream residents in- forming them the dam was about to be breached. A meeting between residents and flood control officials did not occur until after the breaching had already begun. In addition, the residents' first notice of the proposed breaching, contained in an April 14 letter from Huckel~ berry, minimized the dan- gers those people were going to face once the work was finished. "We want to emphasize that in our opin- ion," Huckelberry wrote, "the effect of bre.actung or repairing Golder Dam would not have influenced in any manner the status of your property in relation- ship to the flood hazard Tailor, Tambourine, Telescope, Tool. ,; Cloeck c1 .. ,H1e.i Star & Citizen. 88 9-5333 Usher, Udometer, Umbrella, U-bolt. ,/ Check c1 .. ,1n.,1 Star & Citizen . 889-5333 V.n, Vacancy, Vial, Violin, Virtuoso. ,,/ CHck ClaHlffed Star & (,lizen 889-5333 Work, Waitress, Wig, Whippet, Wh-lbarrow, \; Check Cla11lfled Star & C1t1zen. 889-5333