Submitted by Ken Watts
The November 2022 issue of Fall River Flashes had two very good articles. One was in regard to breaching the 4 lower Snake River dams and the other in regard to the installation of charging stations for electric vehicles. The article on breaching the dams has a graph that shows a profound increase in the number of salmon and steelhead counted at the Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River. The article states: “All the Lower Snake river Dams have been modernized with multiple fish passage systems including fish ladders, advanced technology turbines, fish screens, and spillways that allow salmon to pass upstream and down with minimal impact.” Breaching the dams would have a very significant impact on the economy of Northern Idaho and Eastern Washington. The environmental impact of replacing the stored water, the carbon free energy, and the transportation infrastructure would be enormous. You may recall that Idaho congressional representative, Mike Simpson, has proposed breaching the dams. The Idaho Conservation League is currently making a push to breach the dams. You may also recall that it was Congressman Simpson and the ICL that sold out the people of Custer County over the Boulder-White Clouds wilderness. Now they are attempting to sell out the people of Northern Idaho. On the second topic, FRREC “is helping create an electric vehicle fast-charging network along major corridors in the Intermountain West”. “The kickoff event was held in Island Park, Idaho, to highlight the fact that Fall River will receive nearly $865,000 in grants from the state to install five DC fast chargers in three locations to serve members and visitors.” Governor Brad Little was at the kickoff event, so one could reasonably assume that the grant is coming from the “state” of Idaho. If you do the math, you will find that the tax payers of Idaho, (presumably) are paying $173,000 per charging station. That is some “righteous bucks” so that a dude from California can charge his Tesla! We all know that electric vehicle perform very poorly in cold weather. I was recently talking to a lady who drove her KIA EV6 from Denver to Mesa, in January. Both she and her husband were employed by KIA. They were able to purchase the EV6 at MSRP because they worked for KIA. The average person has to pay about $20,000 over MSRP to get this car. I asked the lady if she had charging anxiety before and during the trip. She said they planned the trip very carefully because of the cold weather and the need to go over 10,000 foot mountain passes. They traveled during the day so that they did not have to use their headlights. They used their seat warmers for heat rather than the car heater system. They also wore heavy boots to keep their feet warm. Wonder if they turned on the stereo? I did not ask. They made it to Mesa OK. Sounds like a delightful trip, doesn’t it!!!!
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Submitted by Ken Watts
The following is a portion of an article written by Margaret Carmel of BoiseDev on February 7, 2023. With the heavy snow load and the seismic activity in Island Park, the county building inspector can be your best friend. Fortunately Fremont County has a very good inspector. A Boise man filed suit against the City of Boise last fall alleging gross negligence after its Planning & Development Services department failed to address changes in building plans to his house or notice major code violations before giving it a certificate of occupancy. On September 9, Alexander Abel filed a complaint in Ada County’s Fourth District Court against the City of Boise seeking damages after he says the city failed to accurately review changes to building plans he submitted to build a home, check for proper structural engineering calculations and didn’t do a thorough enough inspection to catch “glaring” errors before signing off on the final product. In the summer of 2018, Abel said he hired Flynner Homes to design and build a home for himself and his mother to live in. He applied for a building permit and submitted a set of construction plans and other documents prepared by Flynner. These plans included structural calculations completed by a structural engineer to accompany them for building permit staff to review. Abel later parted ways with Flynner before the building permit was issued and the company notified the city they were no longer affiliated with the project in November…… Christensen Homes then altered the construction drawings and created plans for the house with “very significant changes” from the plans originally submitted to the city. These plans included changing the foundation from a concrete slab to a crawl space, reorienting the home and increasing the size to 6 bedrooms. However, despite the changes, Abel says Christen Homes never submitted any new structural calculations to the city and the city never required them to be submitted, the complaint alleged. “Despite there being very obvious and significant structural differences between the Christensen Plans and the Flynner Plans, the city unexplainably relied upon the Flynner Structural Calculations when reviewing and approving the Christensen Plans,” the complaint said. In July 2019, Abel got a building permit and Christensen Homes started work on the project. Between that summer and November 5, 2020, Abel says the city “purportedly” sent its inspectors to the home several times to check if the builder was following the approved plans and building codes. “During the numerous inspections, the City’s inspectors failed to recognize the open and obvious inconsistencies between the construction being performed and the Approved Plans,” the complaint said. The final property inspection before issuing a certification of occupancy was completed on September 10, 2020. A certificate of occupancy was issued that day and officially verified on October 16, 2020, even though Abel says the home did not meet the requirements of the International Residential Code or International Building Code and were not built according to the construction plans. Afterward, Abel hired an outside consultant to inspect the home and learned there were “many code violations” that should have prevented it from being issued safe to live in. On November 5, 2020, Abel says city officials visited the home and confirmed there were numerous code violations in the house and several were missed during the final inspection. Submitted by Ken Watts
The following article was written by Allen Zhong from the Epoch Times. The results of the study are not intuitive and therefore fact checking is warranted. The cost to fuel electric vehicles (EV) in the United States is higher than the cost to fuel gas-powered cars for the first time in 18 months, a consulting company said. “In Q4 2022, typical mid-priced ICE [Internal Combustion Engine] car drivers paid about $11.29 to fuel their vehicles for 100 miles of driving. That cost was around $0.31 cheaper than the amount paid by mid-priced EV drivers charging mostly at home, and over $3 less than the cost borne by comparable EV drivers charging commercially,” Anderson Economic Group (AEG) said in an analysis. However, luxury EVs still enjoy a cost advantage over their gas-powered counterparts. It costs luxury EV owners $12.40 to drive every 100 miles on average if they charge their cars mostly at home, or $15.95 if they charge their cars mostly at commercial charger stations, according to the fourth-quarter data. Meanwhile, the fuel costs for luxury gas-powered cars are $19.96 per 100 miles on average. AEG, a consulting firm based in Michigan, offers research and consulting in economics, valuation, market analysis, and public policy, according to the company’s website. The fuel costs in the analysis are based on real-world U.S. driving conditions, including the cost of underlying energy, state taxes charged for road maintenance, the cost of operating a pump or charger, and the cost to drive to a fueling station, AEG said. Crashed Low-Mileage Teslas (are) Often Too Expensive to Fix. Insurance carriers are sending low-mileage Tesla Model Ys to salvage auctions because they’re too expensive to repair. Of more than 120 Model Ys that were totaled after collisions and listed at auction in December and early January, the vast majority had fewer than 10,000 miles on the odometer, according to a Reuters analysis based on online data from Copart and IAA, the two largest salvage auction houses in the United States. Copart and IAA auction listings note whether the vehicles were involved in front, rear, or side collisions, and typically include after-crash photos of each vehicle. But the listings don’t disclose specific details on the type of damage suffered. Copart listings in some cases included the names of the insurance companies that had bought back the crashed vehicles before listing them at auction. Those companies include State Farm, Geico, Progressive, and Farmers. Geico is a unit of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Idaho saw a reduction in traffic fatalities in 2022. Last year, 219 people were killed in crashes on Idaho roads, according to preliminary data from the Idaho Office of Highway Safety (OHS). This represents a 19% decrease from 2021, where there were 271 deaths on Idaho roads.
“It is nice to see progress, but 219 distinct tragedies show we still have a lot of work to do,” said OHS Manager Josephine Middleton. ‘These deaths have a profound impact on families, friends, and communities. We want to work with partners across the state to prevent future tragedies.’ ‘We certainly want to see that number move lower and lower but it is a good step in the right direction,’ said Ellen Mattila, a spokeswoman with ITD. ‘We did see a jump in seatbelt use. Office of Highway Safety does an observational seatbelt survey every summer, and we saw an increase in seatbelt use over previous years so we think that is a really good, positive trend.’ ITD reports: More Idahoans are making the safe choice to wear their seat belts. The Idaho Office of Highway Safety (OHS) is pleased to report that statewide seat belt use rose to 87.6% in 2022, an increase of nearly 5% over last year. In 2021, Idaho’s seat belt use was 82.9%. ‘This increase in seat belt use is a good sign for Idaho because seat belts save lives,’ said OHS Occupant Protection Program Manager Tabitha Smith. ‘We want everyone to buckle up. One click can save your life.’ Seat belts increase your chances of surviving a crash by nearly 50%. Despite the effectiveness of seat belts and the high usage rate, failing to buckle up is one of the most common contributing factors in traffic fatalities. Last year, 103 people who were killed in motor vehicle crashes were not wearing seat belts – that is 38% of all fatalities in 2021. “That simple action of clicking your seat belt is one of the easiest things you can do to stay safe. I’m happy that most Idahoans buckle up, but we still can still do better” It should be noted that 2021, the COVD breakout year for driving, was a higher fatality year. There were so many bad behaviors on the road. Lots of aggressive driving and speeding has been witnessed across the State and in Island Park. |
Making Sense of It All
This blog will help you make sense out of all the information on the website, how it affects IP, our history, and how efforts continue to put IP into various forms of conservation status. Archives
May 2023
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