IDL tracks and monitors news coverage of our activities and significant events that may impact our operations, recapping the coverage in this newsletter.
This publication also details IDL's social media posts for the week, keeping stakeholders and our front-line customer service staff apprised of our public-facing communications.
Wallace hosts Gov. Little’s ‘Capital for a Day’ event
Shoshone News-Press, 10-27-22
WALLACE — County seat, Center of the Universe, and now the capital of Idaho. The list of Wallace’s titles seems to have no bounds.
The historic Shoshone County town was the latest in the state to be selected by Gov. Brad Little’s Office to host the long running “Capital for a Day” program. Every month, the governor, along with numerous members of his cabinet, visits a rural community in Idaho to provide residents with the opportunity to address their issues for an entire day.
Hosted at the Wallace Elks Lodge No. 331, the banquet hall was packed throughout the day with concerned citizens, curious observers, and even inquisitive youngsters.
Groups of students from Wallace Jr./Sr. High School cycled through the building throughout the day and posed their own questions to the available officials.
'Do the rot thing': fall clean up advice from the Idaho Department of Lands
KIVI, 10-27-22
Do the 'rot' thing. That's the advice from Matthew Perkins, Urban & Community Forestry Program manager at the Idaho Department of Lands.
In a guest opinion release, Perkins encourages home owners to recycle fall leaves. Instead of raking and bagging, Perkins suggests shredding leaves with the lawnmower, and leaving them to decompose.
Perkins explains that decomposed leaves add nutrients to the lawn, reducing fertilizer and water needs. If the leaves become too heavy for the lawn, he suggests placing them in the garden, improving soils for better root growth.
"Collecting your leaf clippings and your grass clippings and reusing those can count for up to twenty five percent of your lawns annual nitrogen needs."
In addition, Perkins reminds homeowners that any pruned branches can be chipped and turned into mulch, helping retain water around your trees. Larger branches can be used as firewood, lowering heating costs during winter months.
Lioness of Idaho: Queen of the Forest
Coeur d'Alene Press, 10-27-22
Louise served on Idaho’s Advisory Committee on State and Private Forestry until its charter expired in 1981. Over the following years, she traveled extensively, going back to China. On a trip to Russia, she rented a car and drove around taking tourist pictures with her hidden camera. She wrote books about Idaho’s doctors, sheep farmers, rodeo riders and a history of Coeur d’Alene.
She was tricked by being asked to speak at the dedication of a new Department of Lands building on Industrial Loop in Coeur d’Alene. She showed up, notes in hand for her speech, surrounded by forestry and state dignitaries, but to her surprise, she was the one being honored when the new building’s name was revealed. It is “Idaho Department of Lands, Louise Shadduck Office Building.”
SANDPOINT — A Bonner County man was bound over in district court on Thursday to face charges he set a series of wildfires this summer.
Ryan Nathaniel Greene, 23, was scheduled to appear for a preliminary hearing Thursday but instead will be heading directly to an arraignment hearing at the end of the month on Oct. 31.
Greene was arrested Aug. 31 by Bonner County Sheriff’s deputies following a lengthy investigation involving local, state, and federal agencies as the authorities attempted to determine who had started several wildfires in the Priest River area.
According to Rod Weeks, a fire investigator for Idaho Department of Lands, the fires, which occurred on state and federal land, were relatively unsuccessful, burning very little land and, as far as he was aware, resulting in no deaths.
Greene came to investigators’ attention after they determined he was in the area of several suspicious fires near Priest River. According to a probable cause affidavit, he is suspected of starting the Buzzsaw, Mundy Lane, Thursday, Little Thursday, Mangy, Nail, and Gunsmith fires, all of which were set between July 20 and Aug. 4 of this year.
Because many Idaho cities and counties do not have collection programs for green waste, it forms a high percentage of trash disposed of in landfills. This autumn, plan to recycle leaves instead of raking and bagging them and putting them by the curb to be removed with the trash. Where there is only a light layer of leaves, you can shred the leaves with your lawnmower and leave them on the lawn to decompose. Visit our community forestry webpage: https://www.idl.idaho.gov/.../urban-and-community-forestry/
The Architecture + Construction Continuing Education Center reports that a 2,000-square-foot, wood-framed, single-family house uses upwards of 16,000 board feet of framing lumber.
Last year we harvested 301 million board feet of timber. That's enough to frame 18,813 homes!
We also replanted 2.7 million new trees!
Learn more about how we manage, harvest, plant and repeat to make millions of dollars for Idaho's public schools and other beneficiaries: https://loom.ly/iN5Owig
