Casper Star-Tribune from Casper, Wyoming • 11

1-1 svjsiar Wyoming Bl Monday, May 25, 1992 Star-Tribune, Casper, i 111,1.1) iijiiu 111 1 1 -f -( 4 Ferrari, Meyer act to loose Medicaid funds XJSFWS' Buterbaui retires from Region 6 By JOAN BARRON Star-Tribune capital bureau CHEYENNE Action taken during the special session of the Legislature will avert delays in paying those who provide medical services to Medicaid clients. State Auditor Dave Ferrari said Thursday. State Medicaid officials had notified many providers, such as hospitals, physicians and nursing homes, that they ran out of money and couldn't pay providers for services rendered in April, May or June until after July 1 when the new appropriation became available. Although the 1992 budget session appropriated an additional $12 million in state funds for Medicaid to pay bills for the rest of the fiscal year which ends June 30, the money ran out by the end of April, Ferrari said. State Medicaid officials planned to complete the current fiscal year by delaying payments until after July 1.

Ferrari said he first learned of the problem last week when a Erovidcr called to complain that is group had been told to expect no more payments until July 13. "The plan to pay this year's bills out of next year's appropriation was clearly in violation of state statutes," Ferrari said in a news release. He credited Attorney General Joe Meyer for acting quickly to draft a footnote in time for consideration by the special legislative session which convened May 1 1 for three days. The footnote, which was adopted, results in the new Medicaid appropriation for the 1993-94 bi-ennium becoming available immediately. Ferrari said he objected to paying this year's bills out of next bi-ennium's appropriation for several reasons.

"In addition to being illegal, I thought it was absolutely essential that the Legislature be made aware of the problem," he said. "Additionally, we cannot expect those who are rendering services to the state to wait up to two months before being paid." Buterbaugh's retirement means that all three federal officials who served on the federal Wolf Management Committee last year no longer will be in their posts. Lorraine Mintzmyer, last year the National Park Service regional director, and John Mumma, a regional forester based in Montana, also both served on the wolf committee. Mintzmyer and Mumma both have said they believe they were forced out of their regional posts due to political pressure applied by congressmen from northern Rocky Mountain states opposed to their work on the Yellowstone vision document. Mintzmyer was transferred to another post in the East.

Mumma subsequently retired. He has spoken publicly about his worries about inappropriate political interference in the management of federal lands by agency professionals. Buterbaugh, meanwhile, said he intends to stay active in conservation affairs and may do some independent consulting work. He said he has discussed such work with water development proponents in the region and the National Wildlife Federation. By DAN NEAL Star-Tribune staff writer Galen Buterbaugh, director of the U.S.

Fish Wildlife Service's Region 6 the past 10 years, will retire effective July 3. JJuterbaugh said Tuesday he has decided to turn down a transfer to the directorship of the agency's Region 2 in Albuquerque. eligible to retire anyway" in. about a year, he said. Buterbaugh said.

Since it takes a new director at least six months to "learn which way the water runs" in any region, Buterbaugh said he decided it "was not in my best interests or the taxpayers'" for him to take the new post. Buterbaugh will be succeeded ia Region 6 by Ralph Morgan-week, now a USFWS assistant director for endangered species and federal aid. Morganweck worked in the Rockies a few years ago as the director of the National Ecology Center in Fort Collins, Buterbaugh said. Region 6 includes Colorado, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, North and South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming. Smithsonian opens bison kill exhibit Campbell County seeks body armor for deputies Rawlins authorities attempt to I.D.

body RAWLINS (AP) Carbon County authorities say they have some leads on the identity of a body found about 10 miles west of Rawlins last week. Sheriff Chet Engstrom said papers found with the body indicate the man was from the East and that state crime lab technicians are working to decipher the writing on the papers. At least until a cause of death is determined the sheriff is treating the case as a homicide. The body was found lying underneath a snow fence by a railroad worker last Monday Forester lauds voluntary tree planting CHEYENNE. (AP) A state forester has praised the Stewardship Incentive Program, a voluntary cost-share assistance project for tree planting and other forest management practices on private lands.

Approved activities can receive up to 75 percent of the money it takes to install the practice. A participant must agree to protect and maintain the practice for 10 years. Game Fish notes elk license changes CHEYENNE (AP) The Wyoming Game and Fish Department is urging hunters to familiarize themselves with the numerous changes in the application booklets for elk licenses. The change that generated the most interest involves moving back the start of the general license elk season from the traditional Sept. 10 opener to Sept.

26 or Sept. 20 in certain Jackson Hole areas. The changes were made to help shore up low bull populations. The resident application period is now underway for limited quota elk licenses. Greybull company plans aircraft museum GREYBULL (AP) An aviation company in Greybull wants to build a museum featuring antique fire-fighting aircraft.

Hawkins and Powers Aviation wants to lease more land at the South Big Horn County Airport in Greybull for the museum. "It will be called the Museum of Flight and Aerial Firefight-ing," said Bob Hawkins, co-owner of the company. Plans call for the company to obtain some of the older types of aircraft that have been used to fight forest fires for the museum. Hawkins said his company already has obtained three such planes for display. Cody may be site of thriller movie shots CODY (AP) State film commissioner Bill Lindstrom says a major motion picture company is thinking of coming to Cody next month to shoot portions of a movie.

According to a Seattle newspaper, the movie is called "The Vanishing," and stars Jeff Bridges and Keefer Sutherland. It is a remake of a 1989 Dutch film of the same name and is a suspense thriller. Perot to stage electronic rally in six states DALLAS (AP) Billionaire Ross Perot will connect rallies in six states by satellite television next Friday in a partial demonstration of his "electronic town hall" concept, his office announced Saturday. Perot will be at a rally with supporters in Orlando, Fla. The sound will be telecast to similar gatherings in Cheyenne, Columbus, that operated on Sheriff's Sgt.

Steve Hamilton after he was shot through the upper chest in the early morning of April 26th. Drs. Jim Swenson and Dave Crowder said they approached the commissioners because they "were astonished to find out some of our deputies are operating without body armor." Crowder, who operated on Hamilton and also has served as a military surgeon, said he feels "body armor is like wearing a seat belt, just something you do." "It will cost a lot more to rehabilitate Steve Hamilton than it would to buy the entire department the armor," he noted. The total departmental cost has been estimated at about $16,000. GILLETTE (AP) The Campbell County Sheriffs Department plans to request bulletproof vests for its 40 officers, and county commissioners say the sheriff should haye little trouble getting approval.

Sheriff Byron Oedekoven said his department is preparing a request to county commissioners for purchasing body armor. The vests will cost about $400 each and will need to be replaced every four or five years, he said. At a meeting Tuesday, Commissioner Harry Underwood said that if Oedekoven puts a request in, "I'm sure it will be looked at I commissioners were approached about officer safety by a Gillette dentist and the surgeon and 4 1 ,000 bones belonging to 300 animals unearthed by Stanford and his team in 1973-75, researchers have reconstructed a likely picture of the struggle that nomadic Ice Age hunters waged to live here during brutal winters 10,000 years ago. The Smithsonian has recognized the contributions of the Jones-Miller site, as well as other paleo-Indian digs in Colorado, with a comprehensive new exhibit in the Wray Museum. One of the few permanent Smithsonian exhibits outside of the nation's capitol, it opened with a community celebration Wednesday evening that drew 260 people.

"I've spent a total of three or four years of my life here out of the past 20 years," Stanford said last week. The Wray Museum is in the renovated space of the former Farmer's Restaurant across from the courthouse. The exhibit organizes and explains the culture behind the ancient bones and projectile points that townspeople have been regularly finding in and around Wray for generations. The centerpiece of the exhibit is a re-creation of a small portion of the bone bed. Dozens of bones are mounted in the positions in which they were discovered.

WRAY, Colo. (AP) In recognition of one of the most important records of North American prehistory, the Smithsonian Institution has opened a permanent exhibit here of a communal bison kill by Ice Age hunters about 10,000 years ago. Rancher Bob Jones Jr. made the discovery 20 years ago as he was leveling a ridge on his property near the Kansas border for a new irrigation line. He bladed up some bones and thought at the time it was cattle remains.

A thunderstorm erupted at the moment of discovery, and Jones took refuge in his pickup truck and watched as rain flushed through the site. When the clouds broke, he found not only that the bones were larger than those of any cow he'd ever laid eyes on, but the ridge cut was littered with sharp flint spear points as well. The Smithsonian's paleo-Indi-an expert, Dennis Stanford, needed to take but one look at weathered bones from Ice Age bison and the spear heads' rare and distinctive chipping pattern known as Hell Gap. He declared the patch of arid short-grass prairie as the Jones-Miller dig in honor of the rancher, who died in 1991, and Wray anthropologist Jack Miller. From the 248 projectile points Sour gas' line would connect eight wells to Whitney canyon plant Ohio; Montgomery, Topeka, Kan.

and Boise, Idaho. Study says Great Plains economy changing, not declining states. The pipeline, proposed by Amoco Production Co. in 1983 as the Cave Creek Sour Gas Gathering System, received final public and private approval in 1984. Amoco didn't proceed with the project, however, and instead sold its interests to Union Pacific Resources.

The company plans to begin construction of the pipeline, now known as the Wahsatch Gathering System, in 1993. About 18 miles of the pipeline will run through Summit County and nine miles through Rich County. It will cross the Utah-Wyoming state line six times and will run under Interstate 80, Utah 16 and the Union Pacific railroad line. The pipeline will also cross two sections of the Bear River in Wyoming, and would lie about a quarter-mile below the high-water mark of the Woodruff Narrows Reservoir in Wyoming. The pipeline will pass through important wildlife habitat in Utah and Wyoming.

Union Pacific Resources acknowledges the dangers of sour gas and is emphasizing the safety measures including unusually deep burial and a complex monitoring and shutdown system that will be taken during the construction and operation of the pipeline. No environmental advocacy groups commented on the environmental study in 1984, nor did any concerned citizens. Representatives of the Utah Wilderness Association, the Utah chapter of the Sierra Club, the Wyoming Wildlife Federation and the Wyoming Outdoor Council said they were unaware of the revived pipeline project under either of its names. Union Pacific Resources is emphasizing the financial benefits the project will bring to Utah and Wyoming, and is planning public briefing sessions for this summer. Informal meetings already have been held with commissioners in Summit and Rich counties in Utah.

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) Utah Pacific Resources has revived a dormant plan to construct a pipeline to carry natural gas contaminated with extremely lethal concentrations of hydrogen sulfide between Utah and Wyoming. The 4 1 -mile pipeline will connect eight "sour gas" wells to a processing plant in Whitney Canyon, about 16 miles northeast of Evanston. SThe so-called "sour gas" will bS taken from seven wells in Wyoming and one in Summit County, Utah. The southernmost Summit County well, near the Ball Mpore Reservoir about 10 miles northeast of Coalville, accounts for about half the gas that will be transported to Whitney Canyon. The rest will come from wells near Evanston.

Hydrogen sulfide, hazardous to people, wildlife and livestock in even low concentrations, forms sulphur dioxide when it is burned and must be removed from natural gas before it is used in homes or businesses. The sour gas that will be transported in the pipeline will have a hydrogen sulfide concentration of 15 percent, or 150,000 parts per million. A person exposed to sour gas with 700 parts hydrogen sulfide per million would die in less than two minutes, according to information provided by Union Pacific Resources. An environmental study completed in 1984 shows a 95 percent chance of a "pipeline incident" and a 28 percent chance of a pipeline rupture over the 20-year life of the project, but assumes the actual risk of exposure to people living in the area to be almost nonexistent. Sour gas, like natural gas, is lighter than air and disperses rapidly into the atmosphere when released.

However, hydrogen sulfide dissolves quickly in water and is poisonous to aquatic organisms, the 1984 environmental study DENVER (AP) A new study disputes recent reports that the Great Plains' agricultural economy is dying on the vine. The study by the Center for the New West, a Denver-based independent think tank, suggests that social and economic barometers used since the 1950s to gauge economic health cannot accurately measure changes occurring in the 12 states, including Wyoming, that lie between In-terstates 25 and 35, from Denver to Des Moines, Iowa. "People in communities have an incredible ability to adapt, and that's certainly what's going on in the Great Plains," said Phillip Burgess, the Center for the New West's president. The report is the first phase of the center's project, "A New Vision of the Heartland: The Great Plains in Transition," which was undertaken in response to a controversial study that said the area is in decline and should be turned into a grasslands preserve. Funded by the Ford Foundation and the Aspen Institute, the report attempted to measure entrepreneurial spirit, quality of life and the basic assets of a community, including health care, education and environment.

And in those areas, the plains region is doing as well or better than the rest of the country, the study said. The Great Plains region is bounded on the north by Montana, North Dakota and Minnesota, and on the south by New Mexico, Texas and Oklahoma. If this area were treated as a na tion, it would be the fourth largest in the world economically, behind only the rest of the United States, Japan and united Germany, the study said. Burgess said researchers were impressed by the vitality and optimism seen among residents of 40 Great Plains counties that were pronounced dead in December 1987 by Rutgers University Urban Studies Professor Frank Popper. In a widely circulated study, Popper named 150 plains counties that by conventional standards, such as population and per-capita income, appeared to be in decline, and another 40 that he declared to be beyond redemption.

"We took the 'beyond redemption' counties and we did a novel thing we went out and actually talked to the people," Burgess said. "Popper and the economists of the Federal Reserve tend to look at numbers only, and never ever go out and actually kick the tires." If small-town America is to be rescued from decline, "what is needed is possibility thinking and bootstraps action," the report suggests. Morgan County in northeastern Colorado was one of the counties that the Popper study said was beyond economic repair. But the New West report found that in the town of Brush, businesses have begun to diversify to protect themselves, and have started to move into the high-tech world. Great Plains tliink tank report stats DENVER (AP) Here are some statistics about the Great Plains from the Center for the New West's report, "The Great Plains in Transition: Overview of Change in America's New Economy." The report says the Great Plains: Encompasses 12 states, 741,000 square miles and 675 counties.

Is larger than every country in western Europe and more than three-quarters the size of the entire 12-nation European Community. If the region were treated as a nation, it would be fourth-largest in the world economically with a gross domestic product of $668.9 million, trailing only the rest of the United States, Japan and Germany. Has a population rivaling Argentina's 38.7 million people, about 15.6 percent of the U.S. population. Has 51,250 miles of railroad track, or about 35 percent of all tracks in the United States.

Has 1,287,911 miles of blacktop and 33.2 percent of U.S. streets and highways, which translates to about 58 miles per person. That compares to a national average of 15.6 miles per person. Has a per-capita income of 1 7,06 1 or about 9 1 percent of the national average of 1 8,748. Had a 1990 unemployment rate of 5.32 percent, compared to the national average of 5.5 1 percent.

Exported $77.1 billion in 1989. Texas led with $38. 1 billion in exports. In addition: South Dakota is the region's most "rural" state, Colorado the most "urban." Eighty-two percent of the region's residents have high school diplomas, compared to the national average of 77 percent. About 21.1 percent have a college education.

The states of Colorado, Kansas and North Dakota have the highest percentage of residents with four or more years of higher education. Plains residents travel more by car than other Americans. While the rest of the nation traveled an average of 1 2,727 vehicle miles in 1 989, residents of the Great Plains exceeded 1 3,500 miles on the average. In Wyoming, there are more cars than people. In 1989, Wyoming residents traveled an average of 17,500 miles by motor vehicle..