A ground penetrating radar (GPR) study for the North Platte River was to be completed by the University of Wyoming (UW) last week, but was abruptly cancelled. The relevant faculty and student group did not return the Saratoga Sun’s phone calls.
According to Saratoga Mayor Ed Glode, the town has been unsuccessful in reaching Brad Carr, who had agreed to conduct the study the week of Oct. 26. The town received an email that stated he was going to Yellowstone and has not received any information on how they may move forward with the vital study.
“We emailed him last week … and then two days later we got that response, ‘I’m in Yellowstone. I’m sorry I’m not around. Good luck to you,” kind of deal,” Glode said. According to Glode, the correspondence began on May 5 with commitments that did not come to fruition once high-water was over.
“We need that information. It will be about as valuable as the Lidar for the town. It will just be that information for the river. To know where the bedrock is and where the utilities are is very important,” said Glode.
While the town has the option of hiring a contractor for the study, Glode said the town will continue trying to get UW to participate. “It’s a lot more money (to hire a contractor) … like 1,000 times more. So we really don’t want to go that route.”
While winter is quickly approaching, Glode says that GPR could be done during the winter. “The only time we can’t do it is high water.” The GPR is the next step in the previous river study analyzing the river within town limits. If the bedrock is not evaluated, the town will not know whether it is possible to modify the elevation of the river bed.
While the multi-year river reformation project will not take place before high water this year, the completion of a GPR study this winter would allow for a long planning period to ideally start a reformation project by low water in 2016.
“We are one big water event away from (channel shifting and bank loss) happening in the town of Saratoga,” Glode said of instances of the channel shifting at other points in the river. “We’ve lost a little from our banks but we can put those back in. The channel is trying to move, but the problem is that we have houses and not just trees, so that’s what we need to avoid.” The goal for the river as it goes through town is to straighten it out and take pressure off the banks, Glode said.
With the river project comes various issues that need to be solved quickly, not the least of which include water rights, according to Glode. Everything in the area has been surveyed except for the river, so when the channel shifts during river reformation it becomes a question of whose land is whose.
“The town’s already invested a lot of money in this study. That’s where we stopped. We did our final deal last December 5, did our presentation to the public. Now what do we do? We established that we need this GPR study and that’s where we sat,” Glode said. If they could get the GPR study for at or below $5,000, the town could absorb it. If things do not work out with UW, the town will have to petition for donations to complete the GPR study in a timely fashion, Glode said.
“They could sit there and study this thing until we’re purple, and the river’s still is in the condition that it’s in right now,” Glode said. “I’m not interested in that at all. I want to see results.”
Reader Comments(0)