Lincoln County Commissioner Kent Connelly called into the Weekday Wake-up on Monday, August 25 with the monthly report from the commission. Connelly discussed the latest details on the Willow Creek Fire south of Smoot, report on construction beginning on the TerraPower Training Facility in Kemmerer, updates on the Gateway West Transmission Line near Cokeville and more.

(0:00) Today, joining me live over the phone with the monthly report from the Lincoln County (0:03) Commission is Commissioner Kent Conley. Today, Commissioner, good morning. How are you today? (0:08) Good.
Good morning. Well, we’re fighting fire in Lincoln County, sir. (0:13) We we are that we are plenty going on and plenty busy.
I wanted to, of course, start with that. (0:19) And from the from the commission standpoint, where do you guys hearing and seeing on on these (0:26) fires, of course, with the fire ban and everything like that still in effect, right? (0:32) Correct. Fire ban went into effect, you know, before this started, but the the fire itself (0:38) still sits at 3800 acres, which is a big fire.
Of course, it’s been clear over to the Salt River (0:44) Pass, you know, the top of Salt River right through there and burned up and that control (0:48) burn took it back away. It’s pretty much kind of knocked down this morning from the rain, (0:53) which really helped us in the whole thing. But we still have in place the full teams, (0:58) our coordination with the federal government on this, the type three team that comes out of Nevada (1:03) that’s taking the fire over kind of gives you a description of the size that it’s fairly considered (1:07) a large, large fire, which everybody’s quite evident that the type three team will be in the (1:13) old armory.
That’s where the firefighters will be staged. People see them in the community. Please (1:18) thank them for the time and effort that they’re in and who we bring in on fighting this fire.
(1:22) And then the readiness center is where we will evacuate people to. So far, we’ve only had that (1:27) one family have to go there. We have a few homes that have been evacuated.
And if we got into a (1:33) worse scenario, that’s where they would go is the readiness center over by the high school, (1:38) the new one, the old armor, the new armor, excuse me. And the fire itself, it’s got a fairly good (1:44) footprint. You can look it up on on the internet for anybody that’s interested and give you details (1:49) on it.
You just go to, well, basically look up Willow Creek Fire, Wyoming, and they’ll bring you, (1:56) you can walk your way through that. But the fire itself, this will be one of those fires that won’t (2:01) truly be out until it snows. And hopefully the rain will get us to a point that we can control it.
(2:06) They’re bringing the slurry bombers in from Pocatello, Idaho to show you the distance that (2:12) that comes in order to get those slurry bombers. And they’re still slated for today. But that’s (2:16) the latest on the fire.
Commissioner Kent Conley on the Weekday Wake Up. Thank you for the update, (2:22) Commissioner. You mentioned that the county enacted the fire restrictions last week.
You (2:29) mentioned some rain yesterday. It takes a lot more rain than those few sprinkles, right? (2:34) Things are still extremely dry. Correct.
Well, one of the interesting parts about rain is (2:40) it helps immensely in the timber and that kind of down, you know, what the fire is using for fuel. (2:47) But actually, once you hit the sagebrush with it, when it really comes back, it burns worse. (2:52) And so there’s a catch 22 to some of that.
Most of this is in timber. This is a big timber fire. (2:58) And you have fire restrictions, residents and campsites, the stone or fire rings and what (3:03) the thing says in 15-foot radius.
If you’re doing something like this, clear the area around it. (3:09) Spark arresters. If you have a burn barrel, you can only burn between 6 p.m. and 8 a.m. (3:20) Inside a container with a spark arresters on 15 feet.
Again, charcoal fire with enclosed (3:25) grills. They’re okay. If you’re cutting or welding, which we get a lot of fires from (3:29) stuff like that, make that 15-foot boundary the same thing on it.
Portable stoves are okay. (3:35) Gas, gel, petroleum, sheep herder type, which most people refer to or open fire (3:42) branding activities, it’s clear within 15 feet for ranchers. That’s kind of a general (3:46) overview of what the resolution.
Pretty generic fire ban. This one was lightning caused. So far, (3:53) the big ones are lightning caused that I know of in Wyoming.
But we still have a lot of human (3:57) caused fires. That’s all there is to it. In the season for these, it’s going to run clear.
(4:02) We hope we can have some of these lifted by the time you get into late fall. (4:06) But we’ll have to see. You’re absolutely correct.
The actual fuel loads on the Bridger-Teton, (4:14) I think I’m preaching to the choir, telling everybody that we have a forest that is in (4:18) need of some management type stuff to be able to get rid of some of these areas. (4:23) This was one of them and it’s taking its toll. Commissioner Kent Conley with the monthly (4:28) report from the Lincoln County Commission this morning on the weekday wakeup.
Let’s switch (4:32) gears, Commissioner, and talk to TerraPower. They held an open house last week in Kemmer, (4:36) the training and event center, and their ground has been broken for the new training center (4:40) that’s going to go next to their nuclear facility. Any updates on TerraPower you can give us today? (4:46) Biggest thing on TerraPower still, the majority of people I encounter out in the open are still, (4:51) you know, when are they going to start? They’ve already started.
We’re a year and a half into (4:54) it right now. We’re on schedule. When you drive by it down here, which is south of Kemmer, (4:59) you’ll see just this big concrete pad, which is about 40 foot thick, by the way.
And so they (5:05) finished that. They have their shop is going up right now. You’re about to see steel go up.
(5:11) That’ll be the next thing that comes. And they’re right on schedule. But the training center, (5:15) we are very excited about that.
We put a lot of work into trying to get this (5:19) system through TerraPower. TerraPower is doing an excellent job. That training center is not (5:24) going to be just for that facility.
It is going to be large enough to accommodate all future growth (5:31) of whatever TerraPower or anybody does in the nuclear and other side industries, and not just (5:36) on a Wyoming basis. They’re actually going to gear this center for worldwide training. And that was (5:40) one of the quotes that come out of the meeting.
They walk through the nuclear, even the waste (5:44) issue in there. You can store the waste from this facility on less than one acre for 20 years. That (5:50) is the difference between what I say when I talk to people about this.
This isn’t your grandpa’s (5:55) new. You don’t have these great big rods. You don’t have all the waste.
And it’s very small (5:59) in size to give you that much power. And it is part of what is going to be the new type of nuclear (6:05) reactors as you see them across there. And TerraPower has already announced their number (6:09) two unit here.
And so those things are in coordination. There’s a lot of traffic. And (6:14) if you’ve been down around Cameron down in here, you’ll see the workers not only coming to TerraPower (6:19) but Exxon and all the others in here.
So we have a lot of activity. But if you drive south of (6:24) Cameron, the TerraPower plant is easy to see. It’s by the Skull Point Mine Road, right across it, (6:29) right on the highway.
And right next to the main gate is where they have already broken ground. (6:34) And then they’re hoping to pour concrete footers on that training facility. They want it up and (6:37) running three years before the nuclear is ready to fire.
So this shows you what kind of preparation (6:43) they’re going to make training people and personnel to be able to handle it. And one key thing in the (6:48) question that we got, very good turnout to the thing. Somebody kept asking, you know, who can (6:53) work there? Who can qualify for this? And they pretty much said, if you’ve worked in a power (6:58) plant before, you’re going to be highly qualified.
They can train no problem. But these are opportunities (7:03) for young people. We need these kind of people to come on board.
Once we do it, the schools will be (7:09) working with them going back and forth. There’s going to be a lot of opportunity coming in and (7:14) out of here with that training facility. Commissioner speaking with sticking with the (7:18) energy production.
A couple of years ago, there was talk of a large solar farm going in in Lincoln (7:23) County, south of Cokeville. That’s been pretty quiet, though, for a while. Is that still something (7:27) that could potentially happen? I don’t know really where it’s at.
We haven’t heard anything (7:33) out of it lately. With the money and everything else that’s tied to it, land negotiations, (7:40) I don’t have any update at all on that. I wouldn’t expect anything in the near and (7:44) present future.
Like I said, we haven’t seen anything. We actually did an industrial (7:49) siting on it where the tax money that comes in gets distributed to the communities. That’s all (7:55) on hold.
And quite frankly, I would think that would take a redo. Along with it, Gateway West. (8:00) Gateway West, just come out of meetings, some high-level meetings in Park City, where Rocky (8:05) Mountain Power and Pacific Corp were there, made some glaring announcements of how they’re (8:11) handling things.
They have pretty much kind of given up on the market in the northwest. (8:16) So the Gateway West power project we always thought went through is not going to go through. (8:19) We’re going to concentrate on basically Utah’s boom in those places, then through there, (8:25) in the speculation on data centers and all this other stuff.
The need for power is definitely (8:31) there. And so that’s what’s driving all this. But Gateway West and that solar farm, I don’t (8:37) think we’ll see in the near and present future.
In fact, Gateway West themselves, they said that’s (8:42) off the table right at the moment, which in a 10-year planning process means they’re not planning (8:46) on doing it in the next 10 years. (8:49) Linkey County Commissioner Kent Conley this morning on the Weekday Wake-Up. (8:52) Commissioner, as always, appreciate your time.
Anything we missed you’d like to mention today? (8:56) Well, one more thing. The McNeil Bridge for the people down in the lower valley that are affected (9:00) by it, that’s a bridge project we put in process over two years ago. And we finally got the bidding (9:05) and everything else taking place.
And based on the reports, the state inspects our bridges. We (9:10) don’t control them. They walked in the door the other day and said they put a restricted order on (9:14) it, which caught us off guard.
And so we had to up the schedule on that in there. And that’s (9:19) an inconvenience for the people down there. And we will put up $230,000 in advance to try to have (9:25) a bridge within there in a week, a temporary bridge, and speed up the process that’s on that.
(9:30) And so that’s another item that’s on our agenda. And we’ve got a lot of things going on in the (9:36) county around the money factors like that. And with the legislature’s cuts for everybody, it’s going to (9:43) take two, three years for some of these effects to take place on how they do on long-term spending (9:48) and funding.
But one of the most glaring ones is these type of things. How much money do we have (9:53) and what do we get into? Like the handle, it’s $230,000. We just passed our budget in the red (9:59) at $180,000.
So we’re right on the line for every one of these projects. But I want the people to (10:04) know in the Lower Valley that live there, we are pushing full bore ahead. We’ve already okayed (10:09) the push on that bridge to try to get that bridge installed so that they can (10:13) get kind of life back to normal where the big restrictions were put on that bridge.
(10:17) Thank you, County Commissioner Kent Conley. This morning, it’s the Weekday Wakeup. Commissioner, (10:20) thank you for your time.
We’ll talk again. Well, do understand the fire. They can look (10:26) it up online.
If something else goes on, we will be highly depending on you guys. (10:30) Remember where those centers are. Our command system stays in place until the day that baby’s (10:37) out.
And so anybody that’s got questions, don’t hesitate to call us and ask. Appreciate what you (10:42) guys are doing. Absolutely.
That’s Commissioner Kent Conley this morning. It’s the Weekday Wakeup (10:46) on SVI Radio.