Casper Star-Tribune from Casper, Wyoming • 11

QisMTS(Hi'4Tnl)wiU' Sunday, Jun 22, 2003 Wyoming OBITUARIES. WEATHER. B3 B8 In Brief Airport, taxis seek common ground he said. And, Kirschling said, resorts and other area businesses will sulfer because they cannot lor transportation lor customers. (ieorge Lirsoit, airport manager, said it would be inappropriate to comment on drivers' concerns be the issue is going before a mediator.

He has said compel it ion between cab companies al the airport is so fierce passengers have complained, and airport By VVHTTNE) ROYSTER Slur-Inbuilt wres iu It 'til JACKSON Proposed regulations at the Jackson Hole Airport may eliminate a reset vation system, forcing passengers to take whatever transportation is available. It's a move cab im iters sa could drive them out of business and has sparked a feud between cabbies and the Jack son I lole Airport Hoard Last month the board was set to vote on these and oilier changes including limiting the number of cabs serving the airport but instead has hired a mediator to work through the differences No timeline has been set for mediations "If these proposals go Into effect there are a number of taxi companies that will go belly-up." Bullseye Taxi owner Peter McNulty said. "In a nutshell it's because we won't be able to access the number of people we now have." The feud began earlier this year when the airport board ordered taxi tales to in rease Ini passengers going into louti and to Teton Village, The board had wanted rates to raise from 10 per person to $17 per person for rides to town, but cabbies persuaded the board to lower the cost to $14. Several cabbies have said eliminating the reservation system is detrimental to both taxi companies and to passen-gers. Currently, arriving passengers often call ahead to arrange for a taxi to meet them, or hotels or resorts in town contract with a taxi service to pick up clients.

The proposed change jeopardize that process. Airport officials say the changes are needed to prevent aggressive taxi solicitations Paul Kirschling. who has owned and operated Hd West Taxi for 12 years, said cab companies have built tin business through relationships with people and resorts "Denying taxis' right to handle reservations denies the general public the right to be transported in a way they want to be transported," Buried treasure HflHpjpr fi i 1 managers need to do Please see TAXI, B2 Ancient wildfires evidence found Geologist digs through Big Horn Basin m)M WIKI mi rums Army Guard unit returning CHEYENNE- A Wyoming Army National (iuard air ambulance unit will return front a three-month deployment on July officials announced Friday. The 1(1!) members of the 1022nd Medical Company, which include the unit's Helena, detachment, and 11 Blackhawk helicopters were ordered to Fort Carson, Colo March 25, to help with homeland defense. All but 20 soldiers will be released from active duty.

Those 20 are supporting the Army Ranger School with evacuation support at Fort Benning, and will remain on active duty for an undetermined amount of time, officials said. "We are proud our unit was called to active duty for this mission," said Maj. Gen. Ed Wright, Wyoming's adjutant general. Mineral Trust Fund hits $2 billion SHERIDAN Wyoming Treasurer Cynthia Lummis announced Friday that the state's Permanent Mineral Trust Fund has exceeded the $2 billion mark for the first time.

Lummis announced the milestone at the Wyoming Mining Association's annual convention Friday in Sheridan. 'That is a great testament to the mining industry," Lummis said. The milestone was actually reached three months ago. The actual amount in the fund is nearly $2.3 billion. Wyoming assesses a 6 percent severance tax on all coal, oil, gas.

trona and other minerals that are developed in the state. The money is placed in the Permanent Minerals Trust Fund and the state uses the interest from the account to pay for education. CODY (AP) Today's ranchers and yesterday's reptiles shared at least one natural force that shaped their surroundings wildfires. Scientists have just started to examine the role of prehistoric wildfires, and northern Wyoming is one of the best places to learn about them, said Marilyn Wegweiser, an assistant professor of geology at Georgia College and Slate University in Milledgeville, Ga. Wegweiser.

who spoke at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, does mosl ol het field-work in Wyoming and Montana. Four years ago. she stumbled upon pie es ol i Itarcoal sprinkled with bits of ancient bone in the Bighorn Basin FRANCIS CO KJOLSETHAP Joe Vendetti, mine operations superintendent for Solvay Minerals near Green River, points out the cutting created by a core miner, soivay minerals mines trona, the mineral important to making soda ash, a key ingredient for Mineral of many uses Trona mining boosts southwest Wyoming By MIKE GORRELL The Salt Uike Tribune GREEN RIVER (AP) Not many people are going to dispute this southwestern Wyoming city's claim to being the "trona capital of the world." Then again, not many people outside of Green River, Rock Springs or Evanston have ever heard of trona. "If you write on your computer and use the spell checker will tell you that you have a problem," joked Joe Vendetti. who runs Solvay Minerals' trona mine 25 miles west of Green River.

To Vendetti, trona's obscurity reflects a problem confronting mining in general. People just do not understand, he said, that "everything you use in your life is grown or produced from things that are mined." And so it is with trona. which is broken down and converted largely into soda ash, a key ingredient in making glass everything from light bulbs and beer bottles to windshields and television screens detergents, kitty litter, room deodorizers, paper products and insulation. Other trona derivatives control acidity levels at water treatment plants, become nutritional supplements Please set? TRONA. B2 Peabody, Kennecott earn awards SHERIDAN Caballo Coal Co.

and Antelope Coal Co each earned a surface mining reclamation award from the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality. The awards were presented during the Wyoming Mining Association's annual convention Friday in Sheridan. Caballo, which is owned by Peabody Energy, showed innovation in reclamation when it left a scoria highwall as a bluff to provide an over-look of a wildlife water impoundment, said Rick Chancellor, administrator of DEQ's Land Quality Division. Antelope Coal, which is owned by Kennecott Energy, showed innovation in relocating a prairie dog colony to create a short-grass area. The short grass area Ls intended to provide habitat for the Mountain Plover, which is under consideration for protection under the Endangered Species Act.

Yellowstone fecal bacteria study released The objects seemed out of place at first, until an idea dawned on her I thought, 'I'm walking around in a very, very old lor-est Wegweiser said. She soon found further evidence of paleo-wildllres in eluding dinosaur bones and trees in the Elk Basin cooked in a lire so hot that all the organic matter was burned off. The rest was preserved lor many millions of years "They haven't really changed since the day it occurred," Wegweiser said. "That's really cool." She has also found pieces ol a dinosaur that died either in a wildfire or within two weeks of a fire. The heat could have ranged from 650 to 1.200 degrees Celsius.

Lightning was a large factor in wildfires 70 million years ago, just as it is today, Wegweiser said. Active volcanoes played a role, too. but a meteorite could have been another culprit. Around the same time as the ancient fires of Wyoming, a meteorite estimated to measure 2 miles across entered the atmosphere and crashed into what is now Manson. Iowa.

The Please see WILDFIRES, B2 By JEFF GEARINO Southwest Wyoming bureau conditions across the country, determining how water quality is hanging over time and improving the understanding of the primary natural and human factors that affect water-quality conditions. The Yellowstone River Basin was selected to be one of the NAWQA study units. USGS officials spent from 1999-2001 collecting intensive data about ground-water, stream-water and biological conditions. Clark said in an interview that a synoptic study to determine fecal-indicator bacteria was conducted at 100 sites in the three basins in the YRB every stream pretty much because they are natural sources for it such as wildlife," said USGS hydrologist Melanie Clark, who conducted the study. "It's pretty rare that you don't have any bacteria count it's more of a issue of the magnitude and how high the counts are," she said In 1991, the USGS began implementation of the National Water Qualitv Assessment (NAWQA) program.

The Wyoming Department ol Environmental Quality assisted in the YRB portion of the study. The program's objectives include describing current water the Wind River, the Bighorn River and the Goose Creek basins. Clark said several of the study areas were located below municipal water treatment plants in part in order to determine the effectiveness of those plants. The study measured both Escherichia coli (E.coli), which is a bacterium found in the intestines of warm-blooded animals, and fecal-coliform bacteria, which is a class of bacteria found in the intestines of warmblooded animals and other sources. Please see BACTERIA, B2 GREEN RIVER A two-month study of fecal-indicator bacteria in the Yellowstone River Basin (VRB) in 2000 detected fecal bacteria in streams and rivers of the Wind River.

Big Horn River and Goose Creek basins in Wyoming, according to a recently-released report by the U.S. Geological Survey. USGS officials said it is not unusual to find these types of bacteria in streams and rivers when humans and domestic animals are nearby. "(Fecal) bacteria occurs in Milward Simpson's records opened to researchers On the net UW athletics adds familiar artwork LARAMIE- The University of Wyoming's athletics grounds are now adorned with a familiar symbol cast in bronze. Ukenesscs of a cowboy riding a bucking horse, created by Casper sculptor litis Navarro, have been placed at the north end of War Memorial Stadium and on the second floor of the Rochelle Athletics Center The sculpture, known as "Cowboy Tough," was commissioned by the Athletics Department to signify the toughness of Wyoming athletics.

"The Cowboy astride a bucking horse represents the www uwyo.eduahc I 1 m. LARAMIE (AP) The records of former Gov and Sen Milward L. Simpson. have been opened for researchers to examine at the University of Wyoming American Heritage Center. The documents include correspondence, legal papers, financial records, speeches, photographs, political papers and I ewspaper clippings relating to Simpson's life as an attorney and elected official.

The 200 cubic feet of material details both Simpson's professional and personal life. The collection touches on hundreds of topics including ranching, grazing rights, the development of Yellowstone Na- term. He married Lorna Kooi in 1929 and they had two children, Peter and Alan Simpson was Wvoming's governor from 1955-1959 and a senator from 1962-1967, when he retired from full-time politics because of ill health. He died in 1993 and was inducted into the University of Wyoming Athletics Hall of Fame in 1996. The American Heritage Center is a repository of manuscripts and special collections, rare books and the university archives Its collections focus on Wyoming and the Rocky Mountain West.

The center is open to the put-lic and free of charge. ft tional Park and the Shoshone irrigation project. Simpson was born in Jackson in 1897 and attended Cody High School He earned a bachelor's degree in political science from Wyoming in 1921 and then attended Harvard Law School. Simpson took over his father's law practice in 1924 He passed the bar exam in 1926. In 1926, Simpson was elected to the legislature from Hot Springs County and served one toughness, pride, spirit and independence of the people, lands and the animals of Wyoming," Navarro said Each bronze stands over 4 feet tall and rests on a 3-foot marble pedestal.

COURTESY, University of Wyoming Former Wyoming governor and U.S. Sen. Milward L. Simpson is pictured in this file photo. His records are now open for research at the University of Wyoming American Heritage Center.

State Editor Nadia White. For information, questions and comments about this page, call the news desk (307) 266fl583 or (800) 442-6916; e-mail editorstrib.com; lax (307) 26WW58..