SDGOP squish Troy Jones: "Not what I expect from Apa."

While I THINK I get his main point (taxing and spending more than he thinks appropriate), the rest is disjointed, is mostly innuendo, and what appears to a be a personal attack on someone he doesn’t like personally. Comes across as petty and small. Again, not the Apa I had come to respect and appreciate. [comment, Troy Jones]

Water leaks in a century-old system built by Homestake Mining Company could affect supplies in Deadwood. City of Lead public utilities officials estimate that millions of gallons are lost every year much of which needs to be pumped from the lab buried in a former gold mine under the dying town.

The leak is located on lab property, but is part of the Lead-Deadwood municipal water system. As of early Monday evening crews with the Lead Public Works Department were waiting on parts to arrive before repairing the leak. The cause of the leak is not yet known. [Black Hills Pioneer]

The current mayor of Lead is earth hater Jerry Apa, who ran illegal poker games in the twin towns before legal gambling came to Deadwood. He and previous Lead mayor, Tom Nelson, also an earth hater former South Dakota legislator, have ignored this blogger's pleas to save their fucking mile-high village.

Ice climbing is driving the economies of several former mining towns like Bozeman, Montana; Durango and Ouray, Colorado; and Cody, Wyoming.

The organizers of North America's first mixed climbing competition for teenagers hope an event held here will be a starting point that will launch the sport into the Olympics. But, what is mixed climbing? It is ice climbing — with ice axes and foot spikes called crampons — without ice. Ice climbing, essentially, on rock. It was popularized in 1995 in Vail, Colo., as a means to an end — when the ice doesn't flow all the way down, climb the rock to get to the ice. The reason Adam Markert thinks mixed climbing should be an Olympic sport is because spectators in every country with TVs tuned to the games will see it, maybe start thinking about it, talking about it and then, hopefully, doing it. Markert — school teacher by day, rock climbing coach by night and one of the competition's organizers — described climbing as a culture, and he wants it to grow. [Four Corners Daily Times]

Ojo Caliente near Santa Fe is a sought-after destination for locals: it's fabulous. Behind the Deadwood Convention Center there is a rock bench large enough for a slightly smaller open air hot water spa.

Drilling for hot water is not cheap, but investors would find that a well will produce enough hot water to ease pressure on the Maitland Drift filling the former Homestake Mine being dewatered for an underground laboratory.

The collapsing slag pile has been left at its repose in Whitewood Creek having been rendered "benign" by the agencies under state Republicans in control. If that slag is harmless, it should be added as aggregate to the concrete destined for highway repairs.