Former Berthoud Police Chief Bill Wegener passed away late Tuesday evening in Berthoud. Details regarding services will be posted on the Surveyor’s Facebook page and at www.berthoudsurveyor.com when they become available.
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Thursday, August 6, 2015, 2015 © Berthoud, Colorado
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Volume 12, Number 32 75¢
West Nile case Berthoud man killed in accident on I-25 near Mead confirmed in Larimer County By John Gardner The Surveyor
By John Gardner The Surveyor In the past week Larimer County received its first confirmed case of West Nile Virus in a human this year. The Larimer County Department of Health and Environment (LCDHE) received a report of the first hospitalized case of West Nile Virus (WNV) in Larimer County this summer, last week. The county also received reports of infections in two asymptomatic blood donors. Two Fort Collins residents who donated blood in July were discovered to have recent infections through testing the blood. Both donors remain asymptomatic and the donated blood was discarded. Positive tests in blood donors are the most reliable indicators of very recent infections in people, according to the LCDHE. The hospitalized case was a Loveland resident who presented symptoms of meningitis; a neuroinvasive form of the virus. These forms include meningitis, encephalitis and paralysis. “These infections in Larimer County residents show that the risk of West Nile disease is increasing, and everyone along the county’s Front Range should be taking personal precautions to prevent mosquito bites,” said Dr. Adrienne LeBailly, health department director. LeBailly added that community measures to keep larvae from growing into biting mosquitoes began in the spring. “Spraying to reduce adult mosquitoes has already begun by some of Fort Collin’s homeowners’ associations, as well as city control efforts in Loveland, Windsor, Timnath and Johnstown,” LeBailly said. While Berthoud doesn’t spray for mosquitoes, the town has actively combated the mosquito population in July by means of larvicide; hitting the population before they become adults. According to a monthly report from Colorado Mosquito Control, the number of confirmed cases of human WNV virus infections in the state as of Aug. 1 was two. The two counties where the cases were reported were Larimer and Mesa Counties. “This number is guaranteed to increase, according to the [Colorado Department of Health and Environment] as the majority of cases are identified in August and September, during the season’s peak,” the report stated. The report stated Colorado State University had tested 733 sample pools of mosquitoes collected from mosquito traps in Fort Collins and Loveland during July. Nineteen samples were found to be positive for West Nile, the report stated. The majority of the positive test results have been from the northeastern and southeastern parts of Fort Collins with five positive pools in Loveland. CMC set 10 weekly traps in Berthoud Park and Berthoud North on Bunyan Avenue to monitor
WEST NILE cont. on page 2
One person is dead and another faces possible charges after an early morning accident on Interstate 25, Tuesday. Berthoud resident Kevin Hastings, 54, died after the motorcycle he was riding collided with a car that was trying to enter the southbound lanes of Interstate 25. The incident occurred at mile marker 245 at the Mead exit, according to Colorado State
Trooper Nate Reid, at just after 5:20 a.m. Tuesday morning. Reid said a 2001 Dodge Stratus was traveling southbound on I-25 when the driver apparently lost control and ended up in the median between north and south lanes. The driver then attempted to resume course on southbound I-25, however, when the Stratus entered the southbound lanes it was struck by Hasting’s motorcycle. “The Stratus failed to yield to the southbound vehicle,” Reid said.
Hastings was airlifted to Medical Center of the Rockies in Loveland where he was later pronounced dead, according to Reid. No one else was riding on the motorcycle and the driver of the Stratus was uninjured. The driver of the Stratus has not been released as of noon Wednesday. Reid indicated that no charges have been filed in the accident pending an investigation. Visit Berthoudsurveyor.com for updates and an obituary later this week.
Ride ’em cowboy
Photo by John Gardner
Kade Rohrbeck, 6, takes the longest ride of the morning during the first round of Mutton Busting at the Larimer County Fair and Rodeo on Saturday, Aug. 1. Mutton Busting remains a popular event at the annual fair with nearly 40 entrants this year, ranging in ages between 4 and 6. For complete fair results see next week’s Surveyor.
Berthoud student school supply drive Berthoud updates water policy to streamline development process The Berthoud Weekly Surveyor is hosting its annual student school supply drive for Berthoud students attending or planning to attend Berthoud Elementary, Ivy Stockwell Elementary and Turner Middle School this fall. Items needed include: • No. 2 pencils • Pocket folders • Spiral notebooks • Colored pencils • Crayons • Markers • Loose-leaf paper; both wide-ruled and narrow-ruled • Three-ring binders • Elmer’s liquid glue and glue sticks • Rulers – metric and standard • Boxes of tissue • Pens (black, blue, and red ink) Supplies can be dropped off at six Berthoud area locations including: Adams Bank and Trust, the Berthoud Community Library, Habitat for Humanity Re-Store, Berthoud Drug, and the Berthoud Weekly Surveyor office. For more information contact the Berthoud Weekly Surveyor at 532-2252.
By Rudy Hemmann The Surveyor
At the July 28 town board meeting, trustees took a stab at coming up with a raw water policy for developments that would keep area developers happy. Town Administrator Mike Hart explained that questions came up regarding how to interpret the town’s development code in light of the revised raw water policy adopted earlier this year. According to Hart, staff had difficulties reconciling portions of the water policy dealing with natural or native areas within a proposed development, which the developer maintained would not require irrigation. “We thought when we went through all of the changes to the water policy, raw water dedication, and the pricing for raw water that we had come up with a really simple concept that would make it easy for us and the developers [to calculate the raw water dedication requirements],” said Hart Deanne Frederickson, a landscape architect with AGPROfessionals, a water and agricultural landscape firm located in Greeley, detailed her recommendations for the amount of irrigation water needed for sections of a development to be reseeded with non-turf grass natural or native grasses. According to an executive summary of the
Look who’s in the news!
440 Mountain Ave. Berthoud, CO 80513
Mollie Boruff Anita Yeh Bella Mehren Elizabeth Kearney
report, “One approach the town may want to consider is to define all land dedicated for purposes other than residential, commercial and industrial as ‘common areas.’” Those common areas include parks, rights-of-way, entry ways, (storm water) detention areas and “natural areas.” “The town could then define the amount of water dedication for the common areas and there would be less confusion as to the purpose for which the land is dedicated and the amount of water required for irrigation,” the report stated. The summary also notes the “town’s current development code requires three acre-feet per acre for areas with lawn grass, which include, but are not limited to, playing fields, parks, turf areas within golf courses and similar situations.” The summary goes on to state: “The (town’s) development code requires 1.33 acre-feet (per acre) for ‘native vegetation’ which includes ‘open space and other areas with non-turf native vegetation … including areas without lawn grass turf … planted with native grasses, trees, shrubs, flower beds and low water-use ground cover.” In addition, Frederickson suggested the town consider two additional categories, areas that are not disturbed by development, such as river corridors and wetlands which are truly “natural areas,” and areas to be reseeded with a native seed mix which “should require 0.8 acre feet per
acre for irrigation because most native seed mix areas need to be irrigated to some extent to keep them in a live and seed-free condition.” Following Frederickson’s report, trustees took comments concerning the issue from six area developers. All of the developers who spoke stated they were not in favor of having the code dictate the amount of raw water to be dedicated for natural/native areas, but rather have the developer show that a desirable result can be achieved through temporary irrigation of the natural or native areas. After lengthy deliberations, Mayor David Gregg summed up the issue by stating, “We have been striving to achieve some simplicity in the code. We asked staff to find a consultant to make a recommendation to us.” Gregg said the consultant came with a recommendation of .8 acre-feet per acre for “common areas,” which is lower than the 1.33 acre-feet required by the current development code for “natural or native areas.” This is a sizeable per-acre reduction in the amount of raw water which needs to be dedicated, stated Town Water Attorney Paul Zilis. “I believe there are other natural areas that perhaps could be considered (as native areas) even
WATER cont. on page 2
Then & Now
Play
Sports
Preston Shop sat near presentday skate park.
U-Create Art Studio opens at Wildfire
Molli Boruff tops competition at Longmont Junior Championship
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Derrick Martin Aimee Randall Dave Levy
Weather...................................... 2 Classified.................................... 3 Legal notices............................... 3 Sports......................................... 4 Then & Now................................ 5 Opinion....................................... 6 Crossword................................... 7