Sweltering on the AZ Trail: 8A • Koon honored: 10A • Section honors: 1B ARIZONA NEWSPAPERS AND NATIONAL LOCAL MEDIA ASSOCIATIONS’ NEWSPAPER OF THE YEAR
payson.com
PAYSON ROUNDUP TUESDAY | MAY 17, 2016 | PAYSON, ARIZONA
75 CENTS
Flood of problems Can Fossil Creek reservation system protect stream and rescue rescuers? by
Alexis Bechman
roundup staff reporter
LUNKER ALERT!
Photo courtesy of DJ Craig
by
Peter Aleshire
roundup editor
Don’t read this. Really, go do something else. Especially if you’re a fisherman. Otherwise, all you grown-ups wishing you could some day catch a 13-pound trout, just go do something useful, instead of sitting around reading the paper. But if you’re a kid — who has got no clue how to fish —
you can stay. Because the Payson Wildlife Fair on Saturday was pretty darn cool. Where else can you pet a monster boa constrictor? Use a free fishing pole? Take a ride in a canoe on a perfect spring day? Cover your ears as the varmint callers squeal? Put an arrow in the bull’s-eye?
• See Shhhhhh – Don’t tell page 12A
• See Fossil Creek, page 11A
Highway speed cameras return
Averting Disaster
Star Valley speeds soared during hiatus by
Teresa McQuerrey
roundup staff reporter
The Town of Star Valley will turn on the Highway 260 cameras for its photo enforcement program Friday, May 20 — perhaps curtailing the soaring number of drivers speeding through town since the cameras shut down. However, the reprieve will likely prove temporary — since state lawmakers have banned speed cameras on state highways entirely starting in the upcoming fiscal year. The town turned off the cameras in mid-March after the Arizona attorney general said the oper-
Last year, an estimated 130,000 people jammed into Fossil Creek, leaving behind trash, stinky messes and exhausted rescuers — called in more than 240 times to rescue hikers in flip-flops and drunken cliff jumpers. One man died swimming in a pool near the popular waterfall and another 200-plus hikers needed help getting out, either because they didn’t plan for the grueling hike out or injured themselves. Most of those rescues took place during the peak summer months, taxing local resources, like the Pine-Strawberry Fire Department and local search and rescue groups. On April 1, the Forest Service implemented some controls. Until Oct. 1, visitors coming in on either the Photo courtesy Rim Country Search and Rescue road from Camp Verde or the four-mile trail from Some 130,000 people inundated Fossil Creek last Strawberry will need a $6 year and 240 of them needed to be rescued, overtaxpermit that guarantees a ing the efforts of volunteers. parking space. The Forest Service says it is working on a long-term plan to manage the area’s use, which is now as popular as the trek up Camelback Mountain in the Valley. Pine Strawberry Fire Chief Gary Morris said hiking up the Fossil Springs Trail to the trailhead in Strawberry is akin to hiking Camelback Mountain on a summer afternoon, except the four-mile-long Fossil Springs Trail has 1,500 feet of elevation gain.
ators (Redflex in Star Valley’s case) must have private investigator licenses for its employees. The company complied with the order and last week both Scottsdale and Phoenix resumed their photo enforcement programs, said Tim Grier, Star Valley’s town manager/attorney. “We wanted to alert drivers that the program is resuming in advance of it going operational,” he told the Roundup. The cameras did continue to record speeds on the highway even when they weren’t snapping photos for tickets. The results shocked town officials.
• See Star Valley, page 2A
Volunteers save rider after fall by
Alexis Bechman
roundup staff reporter
A man was airlifted to a Valley hospital Friday after falling off his horse and badly injuring his arm. The man, in his 50s, was riding with his wife on the Highline Trail east of Payson when he fell off his horse 3.2 miles west of the 260 Trailhead around 1:40 p.m., said Bill Pitterle, Tonto Rim Search and Rescue commander. It is unclear what led to the fall, but the man landed and broke his arm. Sgt. Rodney Cronk with the Gila County Sheriff’s Office hiked in to see if the man could ride or walk out, but the man was in a lot of pain, Pitterle said. Christopher Creek Fire Department firefighters hiked in and splinted the man’s arm and TRSAR
hauled the man out by hand 3.2 miles on a litter. “It was a pretty long trip,” Pitterle said. “I am still sore from it.” The man was later airlifted to a Valley hospital. Sheriff J. Adam Shepherd thanked TRSAR and the fire department for their coordinated response.
volume 26, no. 42
See our ad and upcoming events on page 6B
by
Peter Aleshire
roundup editor
So, here’s the good news. The Forest Service has a plan to keep Rim Country from burning down to ash and mudslides. Here’s the bad news. The massive environmental impact statement necessary to award thinning contracts on 1.4 million acres won’t be done until 2020. Even then, it might take years for a timber company to actually get around to thinning the tree thickets. In the meantime, preliminary studies have documented the soaring risk of a devastating crown fire on virtually every forested acre in Rim Country — including the watershed of the C.C. Cragin Reservoir on which Payson’s economic future depends. Forester Randy Fuller said the existing forest is in terrible shape, thanks to a century of grazing, logging and fire suppression. “It’s a biological desert in some areas. We’ve got 800 trees per acre where we should be averaging 125. We’re seeing lots and lots
of density-related mortality. There’s so many trees they’re killing each other — like throwing one piece of pizza in the middle of the room — the big guy is going to get it and the rest of us are going to starve.” The trees have grown in such tight thickets that virtually the entire forest is now vulnerable to crown fires, where on a dry, windy day the fire can race through the forest faster than a man can run. “We’re fighting these high-severity canopy fires that are just taking out everything. When we get a fire, it will take 200 years to get the trees back — if they come back at all. Our fuels are just completely out of whack.” Sixteen Forest Service experts on everything from tree growth to goshawks hosted the hearing at Messinger Payson Funeral Home on the draft of the largest single environmental impact statement in U.S. history, an effort to lay out the guidelines for the eventual treatment of 1.4 million acres. The study will include all of Rim Country, both above and below the Rim. The effort is part of the
Study on thinning plan in Rim Country will take years
THE WEATHER
Wednesday: Cloudy with a 70% chance for rain; high of 69, low 48. Details, 11A
Peter Aleshire/Roundup
The Forest Service gathered comments last week in Payson on a plan to use controlled burns like this one and logging companies to thin 1.4 million acres of badly overgrown ponderosa pine forest.
Photo courtesy Alicia Keller Rim Search and Rescue
Volunteers carried a horseback rider with a badly broken arm 3.2 miles out on the Highline Trail on Friday.
E R O M &
• See Thinning, page 8A
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