Dam Security

 Is it stimulus…is it security…is it necessary? There’s a proposal to work on a canyon county dam that will do one thing…stimulate you. Over in Canyon County, most people know about Riverside Road which goes across Lower Deer Flat Dam near Caldwell. It’s almost a mile long and is used a lot by farmers and merchants

 The dam’s been there for almost 100 years but the feds have a feeling that it might not be there much longer because of a potential terrorist attack. Rather than close the road in an effort to prevent a bombing…or something, Bureau of Reclamation project managers may have found an $8.4 million alternative to closing the road. To explain, here’s Canyon County Commissioner Dave Ferdinand: “They’ve come up with an idea that they could extend the width of the embankment by adding lots of fill dirt so if somebody wanted to blow those up it would just take a lot more effort to do. Hey, I have a best friend and he and I will stand at either end of the damn with shotguns and we’ll do it for a million dollars. Is that a year? Make it 2 million in perpetuity. (Laughter)”

 Hey, I’m not kidding and my buddy and I will get a pay hike.