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Snowcat donated to Volcano Rescue Team

Melensdad

Jerk in a Hawaiian Shirt & SNOWCAT Moderator
Staff member
GOLD Site Supporter
Nice to see snowcats in the news for positive reasons (not like the article I posted about one catching on fire!).

Snowcat donated to volcano team
By Erik Robinson
Columbian Staff Writer
Sunday, December 27, 2009
http://www.columbian.com/news/2009/dec/27/snowcat-donated-to-volcano-team/

20091226-185821-pic-395884184_t600.jpg


YACOLT — With its plans to string a new high-voltage transmission line through Clark County, the Bonneville Power Administration hasn’t exactly been a popular entity over the past couple of months.

“BPA, find a better way,” read yard signs sprinkled around the landscape.

Last week, a BPA flatbed trailer found its way to Yacolt with a peace offering: a track-driven snowcat. Volunteers with the Volcano Rescue Team will use the donation of surplus equipment to reach injured or lost fun-seekers in the rugged backcountry around Mount St. Helens.

“There’s plenty of work for us out there,” rescue team volunteer Sid Millman said.

The snowcat will carry as many as five rescue team volunteers into the wilderness, and the volunteers figure it will be able to carry out injured climbers or snowmobilers in relative comfort. Tom McDowell, the longtime director of North Country EMS and the Volcano Rescue Team, said the team currently uses snowmobiles to access high-elevation areas.

“Obviously, they can only carry one person at a time,” McDowell said. “And in difficult weather, they’re hard to use.”

Millman said a snowcat has been on the group’s wish list for years. The Volcano Rescue Team formed in 1986, after the U.S. Forest Service first allowed climbers to return to Mount St. Helens after the catastrophic eruption of May 18, 1980. Today, the rescue team’s two dozen volunteers keep busy providing aid to climbers and snowmobilers recreating around Mount St. Helens.

Bonneville used the 30-year-old snowcat to access remote areas along a transmission grid spanning 15,000 miles in Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana. The Bombardier Skidozer 252 became surplus property when BPA decided to update and standardize its snowcat fleet.

Federal officials calculated the value of the donated machine at $15,000.

BPA, which literally wrapped the snowcat in a large red bow, typically sells surplus equipment or transfers it to other federal agencies. The donation to the Volcano Rescue Team was one of Bonneville’s biggest donations in terms of dollar value and the largest in several years.

“For a search and rescue agency that’s covering the area around Mount St. Helens, it’s a huge piece of equipment that would be very expensive to acquire on their own,” Ulrik Larsen, BPA’s property disposal officer, said in a BPA press release. “Our responsibility is to get the best value for ratepayers. In this instance, if even one life is saved, that’s a very large payoff.”

McDowell figured the cost of a new snowcat to be $50,000.

BPA, based in Portland, markets the energy produced at 31 federal dams and one nuclear plant. In Clark County, the agency has taken plenty of heat recently as it explores potential routes for a new 500-kilovolt transmission line between new substations planned for Castle Rock and Troutdale, Ore. It ruled out a path through an old Pacific Power easement running from Chelatchie Prairie through Hockinson to Camas last week, but many other possible paths remain.

The power line controversy faded briefly Saturday as Millman fired up the newest addition to the Volcano Rescue Team.

Millman and three other volunteers initially will be trained to operate the snowcat during rescue operations. Millman, a semi-retired electrician, knows firsthand the value of quick response. He began volunteering with the Volcano Rescue Team after suffering serious head injuries while climbing in the Wind River area years ago.

“It changes your perspective,” he said.

Erik Robinson: 360-735-4551 or erik.robinson@columbian.com.30​
 

Melensdad

Jerk in a Hawaiian Shirt & SNOWCAT Moderator
Staff member
GOLD Site Supporter
And from another source:
BPA donatates snow cat to volcano rescue team
http://www.tdn.com/news/article_d8fb155e-f028-11de-a417-001cc4c03286.html

By The Daily News | Posted: Wednesday, December 23, 2009 10:35 pm |

Southwest Washington's Volcano Rescue Team is better equipped for winter emergencies around Mount St. Helens following the donation of a track-driven snowcat to the volunteer rescue group.

The Bonneville Power Administration announced Wednesday it has donated the snowcat to the Yacolt-based North Country Emergency Medical Service, which responds to emergencies and missing persons reports across more than 1,000 square miles of Southwest Washington, including the Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument.

Until now the rescue team usually responded to winter emergencies on snowmobiles or foot, with members providing all their own personal equipment.

"We're often going far into backcountry areas where there is no other way in," Tom McDowell, director of North Country EMS, said in a prepared statement. "With a snowcat you can get a large number of people out in the field without our guys having to hike in and without people being exposed to the snow and the cold."

In some conditions a snowcat could make the difference in saving lives, he said.

BPA, a federal agency that is the region's largest power wholesaler, used the snowcat to maintain transmission lines. It typically sells such used equipment or transfers it to other federal agencies. However, the agency determined in this case that donating the snowcat to the Volcano Rescue Team would provide lasting benefit to the region BPA serves.

The snowcat is valued at about $15,000, making it one of BPA's largest donations in terms of dollar value and the largest in several years.
 

Melensdad

Jerk in a Hawaiian Shirt & SNOWCAT Moderator
Staff member
GOLD Site Supporter
And a third story:
Bonneville Power donates snow machine to SW Washington search and rescue
By Terry Richard, The Oregonian
December 22, 2009, 11:08AM
http://blog.oregonlive.com/terryrichard/2009/12/bonneville_power_donates_snow.html

Members of southwest Washington's Volcano Rescue Team will be the proud owners of an all-terrain snowcat after the Bonneville Power Administration hands over the keys in an 11 a.m. ceremony Wednesday (Dec. 23).

The vehicle will better equip the search and rescue team, based out of Yacolt in Clark County, when volunteers respond to calls in rugged terrain, including Mount St. Helens.

The ceremony will take place at the Yacolt Fire Station, 404 S. Parcel Ave. Directions are available at www.northcountryems.org/.

The Volcano Rescue Team is part of North Country Emergency Medical Service, which serves more than 1,000 square miles including backcountry areas around Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument. Increasing winter recreation has led to a number of search and rescue calls, including many where a snowcat would have provided faster and safer transportation and evacuation.

This is one of BPA's largest donations in terms of dollar value and largest in several years. BPA used the four-person snowcat to access power lines in remote areas in winter. The vehicle is available because the agency is standardizing its fleet. BPA typically sells or transfers such property to other federal agencies, but in this case is donating the snowcat because of its value to the rescue team and BPA's service area.

BPA is a not-for-profit federal electric utility that operates a high-voltage transmission grid comprising more than 15,000 miles of lines and associated substations in Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana.

-- Terry Richard​
 

XeVfTEUtaAqJHTqq

Master of Distraction
Staff member
SUPER Site Supporter
Interesting. I don't want to take away from a Snowcat related story but the BPA is most likely doing some damage control over it's very questionable attempt to expand it's powerlines. I think the BPA probably has the right to string powerlines over every house in Clark County. I know it is in our title when we purchased our house.

I feel for the people who's homes are threatened by this most recent land grab by the BPA. I'm not sure a snowcat donation is worth the damage the BPA will do to these people's lives.
 
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