An old story from the Summer, and there’s nothing particularly new here.  But something about this has brought increased news-worthy relevance.

Diners at a restaurant in Prosser were startled Monday when a furry marmot wandered through the front door and settled into a corner.
That was no surprise to city Administrator Charlie Bush, who says the big rodents have long been a problem in the central Washington wine town.

And so the residents of Prosser, Washington continue their marmot problems.  It’s a long time problem, and here I go back to that news story which, for some reason or other, “went viral” a few years ago about the Marmots attacking an area manufactured home community — er trailer park — which was the biggest news story to hit South Central Washington since the area started giving the nation’s canivores spongiform encephalopathy.

In 2006 and 2007, (following the Mobile Park Attacks) the city paid $5,700 over two years to hire trappers to thin the population. But last year, the City Council ran short of money and decided to get out of the marmot-control business.

Budgetary resources are stretched thin enough that the Marmots will continue to have the lay of the land.  Theoretically, money might be tapped from the Stimulus Funds for the purpose of marmot removal, but apparently there are greater priorities for critter troubles a ways upstream.

In late September, a helicopter hovered 50 feet above the Hanford nuclear reservation, methodically hunting almost 16 square miles for radioactive poop that critters with a taste for salt spread.

Going about 80 mph, the helicopter used detection equipment attached to its sides to map out each piece with GPS coordinates.

Between the helicopter survey and the GPS coordinates, the radioactive scat can be found and removed in days rather than the months that would have been needed for people search for the poop on the ground, said Dee Millikin, spokeswoman for CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Co. That company is responsible for much of the environmental cleanup of central Hanford. […]

Nevada-based National Security Technologies did the helicopter survey for $300,000 in federal stimulus money sent to Hanford.

A bit more is found here.   One important distinction: the process described here was the surveying in the process for the actual clean-up.   All in all, a news story which would appear at the end of the local news broadcasts and not the beginning, where the Giant Marmot attacks would tend to go.  Though, for attitudes, I have to wonder about this:

Posted by Bob_Allen at 10/8/09 8:12 a.m.
The “environmental” whacks never tire of spending another ton of our tax money on useless crapola.

Why must we waste our money on such frivulous things as clearing out nuclear rabbit poop?  What will those environmental whackos think of next?

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 24th, 2009 at 12:51 pm and is filed under Doc Hastings and the 4th Congressional District of Wash. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.