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About Spilyay tymoo. (Warm Springs, Or.) 1976-current | View Entire Issue (July 14, 1978)
JULY IS, 1978 PAGE 3 KAH-NEE-TA DAY USE AREA TAKING SHAPE With Only Minor Inconvenience By Cynthia Stowell Constructing a new access to Kah-Nee-Ta Village during the peak of the tourist season is no easy task, but the Tribes are doing just that with a minimum of traffic problems. The project, which had been scheduled for completion this spring, suffered delays when the contractor’s bids were too high. The Tribes eventually decided to administer the project themselv es. Contracting officer Les Yaw estimated that by taking on the project, the Tribes will realize a substantial savings. Total pro jected cost of the day use area improvements is 3328,000, Yaw said, an amount being supplied by a combination of Title X and Bureau of Outdoor Recreation funds. Completion is expected by early September. Architectural plans drawn by Reddick, Brun and Moreland of Portland, show a dramatic facelift for the north side of the Warm Springs River, opposite the Village. The main features will be a landscaped parking lot for 174 cars, controlled access to the Village, and increased rec reation facilities. Also included in the project is the rebuilding of the footbrige which washed out during a storm last November. When the day use area is completed, visitors to the Vill age will no longer proceed directly across the car bridge but be routed through an inform antion-toll house and into the measurements for the irrigation system at Kah-nee-Ta’s day use area, now under construction. Souers and Clerk of the Works Bill Bennatt are engineering the project for the Tribes and eyeing a tentative completion date of early September. The project includes parking, controlled access to the Village and increased recreational area for day visitors. CDS Photo. appropriate parking area. Only overnight guests will park on the Village side while day visitors will use the new parking lot for a fee, refundable with a purchase at the Village, The booth will be manned at all times to control access and prevent the traffic abuses that currently exist. The Village has experienced problems with visit ors using day facilities without spending a penny, trespassing on non-resort property and dis turbing overnight guests. Not in the original plans but found to be a necessity is an overflow lot across the road which will make more than 400 additional parking spaces avail able. A busy day at the Village brings at least that many cars into the existing facilities. Subcontractors are current ly installing the irrigation sys tem for the several landscaped areas within the main lot and along the river. The landscap ing, which may not be done until next spring, will involve the planting of 1598 shrubs and trees as well as the seeding of lawns. Sagebrush has been remov ed in preparation for the seeding of the picnic area situated a- mong the junipers at the river’s edge. A jogging trail and a play structure will be other features of the day use area that should take some pressure off the Village. Footbridge construction will be underway once the ordered parts arrive, said Yaw, and that part of the project should be completed by late August. An other aspect of the first •phase of the project is stabilization of the river banks for flood control. Long range plans for the day use area include rest rooms, a second footbridge, additional play structures and a generally expanded recreational plaza. Engineers for the project are Dick Souers of the B.I.A. Roads Department, who has overseen the grading and lay-out of the parking lot, and Clerk of the Works, Bill Bennatt, whose specialty is the concrete work, structures and signs. Another local resource being utilized is Tribal Engineer Satish Puri, who is designing a water filtra tion system for the new area. The Tribes took on the project when the lowest bids were $80,000 higher than the amount budgeted. Construction of the new mobile home park was also handled in this uncon ventional fashion. BRUSH CLEARING HELPS TREES GROW In their fourth week of tedi ous labor, 18 boys and one girl are pruning away ‘plot after plot of snow brush, rose buses and red stem in clear cut areas on the north end of the reservation. The brush treatment crew, as it is called this year, leaves Warm Springs for the clear cut area about 40 miles north mak ing for a very chilly hour-long ride by flatbed truck. The crew is employed by the tribes’ summer work program to clear away the brush in the clear cuts that endanger the re cently planted seedings. The snow brush, especially, becomes so thick that the little trees are choked from sunlight and water. The crew only tackles the brush that is about four feet high. Anything larger is handled by spraying from helicopters through the U.S. forestry depart ment. “I wish there was a natural death for this brush,” said co crew boss Doyle Whipple as he struggled with a stringer of snow brush. He explained that if not all the stringers of the brush are cut, the brush will grow right back in a matter of no time. But, if all the branches are cut, it takes three or four years for it to grow back to four feet. That four years is time enough for a tree to get a good start. Sam Col wash, the other co crew boss, also explained that the forestry department assigns 20 to 30-acre plots and then marks off five acres of that plot to show how effective brush treatment actually is. The kids receive $2.85 per hour. En route to their work sight, they have spotted deer, bear and elk. They even caught an elk calf that had been wound ed, and then later decided that if he found water he could heal himself. STROKE! - Like a mother bird coaxing her brook out of the neat, swimming instructor Terry Macy demonstrated the proper arm movement to a bevy of beginning swimmers, at the Kah-Nee-Ta Village pool Monday. Macy is now into her third session of swim lessons, part of the Community t Cep|ej^ Summer Recreation Program. CDS Photo Nature not only supplies us with trees, bushes 'and flowers; but we are also plagued by bees, deer flies, and heat. Five girls were hired to clear brush but as of July 11, only one girl, Rene Sohappy, had stuck to the grind stone and primers.” BRUSH TREATMENT - Dondi Hoptowit is employed by the tribes’ summer work program as a brush treatment crew member. Days begin early, at 7:00 a.m., and work is tedious and often a pain In tiie back. Dondi appears to enjoy his work, smiling as he cuts away the four-foot high snow brush that chokes the life of many seedlings.
