The youth of the Vernal Teen Outreach Program (TOP) have big hearts and working hands. The group spent their Saturday building planter boxes and planting a garden behind TriCounty Health Department’s Vernal location with the hope that it can provide healthy delicious food to locals. “This is a great community project,” shares Health Promotion Division Director Jake Isaacson.
Highway 191 south of Duchesne was closed down for most of Friday and Saturday after a tanker crashed on the Carbon County side of the line, resulting in a major oil spill. According to the Carbon County Sheriff’s Office, approximately 4000 gallons of yellow waxy crude oil spilled onto the roadway and down into Willow Creek on Highway 191 at milepost 257.
The DWR translocation of urban deer program that brought city deer to live in the Uintah Basin and other rural areas of the state has been discontinued. According to the announcement by the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, the decision was made in order to limit the spread of Chronic Wasting Disease.
A special ride across America that benefits children’s charities is traveling through the Uintah Basin this Sunday. The beginning of the Kyle Petty Charity Ride Across America started as a road trip to NASCAR with three friends that grew to 30 riders. Kyle Petty saw something special and developed it to the charity that it is today. It is now in its 25th year and has had more then 8,400 riders that have accumulated 12 million miles and raised over $18.5 million dollars for Victory Junction and other children’s charities.
For 50 years, OARS (which was formerly known as Hatch River runners) has been running river tours. To celebrate this feat they are taking an idea that they started last year and turning it into a giant celebration called the Boathouse Tour being held at several of their locations including Vernal, Utah. They are describing the celebration as a way “ to pay tribute to thousands of guides and employees, nearly a million guests, countless relationships within each of the communities where we operate, and decades-long partnerships with the National Park Service, U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management among others.”
The Utah Department of Transportation made an announcement on Wednesday of the Top 10 construction projects they have planned for 2019 and adding important Highway 40 passing lanes made the list. This is great news after a rough winter full of accidents along the stretch of Highway 40 receiving the new lanes.
The Duchesne County Sheriff’s Office was advised that it was necessary to close Strawberry River Road. According to a press release from the sheriff’s office, the Duchesne County Road Department said that spring runoff has put the safety of the public in jeopardy and asked that Strawberry River Road be closed one-half mile west of Camelot Resort, which includes Timber Canyon.
It took only a few minutes for a group of jurors to decide on a Not Guilty verdict for a Uintah Basin man on trial for 3rd Degree Felony Tampering with a Witness or Juror. As an investigator for the Uintah County Attorney’s Office, Jayson L. Chamberlain was present at the Summit County Courthouse in December of 2017 when potential jurors were being considered for the Flatlip, Flatlip, Rondeau trial that at that time ended in mistrial.
A report of the investigation into allegations of racism and misconduct that took place during Tabiona High School sporting events has been released by the Duchesne County School District Board of Education. According to the report, the Board of Education retained Ostler Moss & Thompson Attorneys and Counselors at Law, based out of Salt Lake City, to conduct a “neutral and independent” review of the events in question.
This isn’t the first report of local infrastructure being vandalized but it may be the incident that will ultimately affect the most people. Uintah County Emergency Management shared a message from Rocky Mountain Power on Wednesday stating that there will be a planned power outage that is necessary to complete the replacement of a three pole transmission structure that was vandalized by gun fire