State fair attendance down as concerts don’t sell out
Attendance at this year’s Colorado State Fair was down compared with last year as concerts, including one featuring the star power of 2005 “American Idol” winner Carrie Underwood, failed to sell out.
Underwood, who was nominated for four Country Music Association Awards and has a platinum country music album, “Some Hearts,” drew 4,433 to her concert at the 8,000-seat Events Center last week.
“Well, some of the concerts have been light, and some have been real good,” fair general manager Chris Wiseman said Monday. “You basically know you’re not going to have 11 sellouts.”
Los Lonely Boys, the Texas trio who performed Saturday, was the only act to sell out.
Overall attendance at the 11-day fair was 400,351, down from last year’s 422,116, officials said.
BROOMFIELD
Man in hospital after getting hit by nail gun
A carpenter on Monday accidentally shot himself in the head with a nail gun that fell while he worked on a construction site, authorities said.
The man, whose identity was not released but is said to be in his 20s, was taken to St. Anthony Central Hospital in Denver with an industrial staple in his head, but his condition was not made available.
The pneumatic nail gun fell off some scaffolding, hitting the man in the head and causing the gun to discharge.
ESTES PARK
Louisville man ID’d in fatal 800-foot fall
A 58-year-old Louisville man who fell to his death while descending from a mountain Sunday was identified as Clayton M. Smith, according to the Boulder County coroner.
Smith and his climbing partner had reached the summit of Mount Meeker and were descending via the Loft, a saddle between Meeker and Longs Peak, when he fell about 800 feet.
Two rangers in Rocky Mountain National Park saw the accident and rushed to his aid but could not revive him.
A helicopter retrieved his body.
LARAMIE
First wild geese tested don’t show avian flu
Test results for the first birds sampled in Wyoming for highly pathogenic avian influenza have come back negative.
Several government agencies began testing wild and domestic bird populations in Wyoming for the disease.
It has not been found in North America.
The first test results come from 50 Canada geese that were tested during a banding operation June 19-21 at Eden and Big Sandy reservoirs north of Farson.
The birds were tested for the H5N1 strain of the disease, which has caused some human deaths in Eastern Europe and Asia.
Experts believe that if the disease enters North America, it will most likely come in through Alaska.
The Wyoming Department of Game and Fish plans to collect about 500 more samples from birds this fall from species that could have migrated from Alaska. The department will test 400 migratory game birds and 100 shorebirds.
FARMINGTON, N.M.
2 rivers spur worries over water quality
The New Mexico Environment Department has concerns over water quality in the Animas and San Juan rivers of northwestern New Mexico.
“There is a nutrient problem in the Animas River downstream of Aztec,” said the department’s Abraham Franklin. “And there’s a bacteria problem in the San Juan downstream of Largo Canyon, as far down as Hogback.”
Bacteria pose significant health risks for swimmers or children who could accidentally ingest the water. Excessive nutrients cause too much algae, which uses so much oxygen that fish suffocate.
The San Juan Watershed Group, formed under a nonpoint source pollution grant in 2001, has organized studies of area rivers to pinpoint such sources, then devise ways to clean up the water.
Dave Tomko, the group’s coordinator, said it is investigating both the possible causes of excessive nutrients in the San Juan and bacteria contamination in the Animas but said that “there weren’t any real smoking guns identified along the rivers.”
CODY, Wyo.
Pine-cone cornucopia brings a grizzly alert
The large crop of whitebark pine cones in some areas of Wyoming could attract grizzly bears, and the state game department is warning hunters and other outdoor recreationists to be alert.
The seeds of the whitebark pine are high in fat and can be an important food source for bears as they prepare for hibernation, the game department says. Bears get the seeds by raiding caches, called middens, made by red squirrels.
The department says people heading into the woods should be aware that bears may be searching for middens in mid- to high-elevation conifer stands that hold whitebark pine.
Mark Haroldson, wildlife biologist on the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team, said last year was considered a good year for cone production with a mean of 17 cones per tree.
This year, he said the mean number of cones per tree was more than 34 in some areas of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.
