Given a paragraph, generate a claim that is supported by the given paragraph. 1) The claim must contain information from within the paragraph. 2) A sentence within the paragraph can be used as a claim. 3) The claim should not have contradictions within the paragraph. 4) The claim should be at most one sentence long.

The Lewiston Tribune reports health officials and the Nez Perce Tribe have urged people to use caution when spending time in or near the water. A release from Public Health Idaho North Central District states that blue-green algae is a natural part of Idaho’s water bodies. But when temperatures rise, their populations can bloom, and toxic chemical compounds can be released into the water. Those spending time near surface water with a health advisory are urged to avoid swimming, wading or other activities. Health officials say people should not drink or cook with water containing a bloom. ___ Information from: Lewiston Tribune, http://www.lmtribune.com
Advisory in place for Idaho’s Winchester Lake.

A lawsuit filed this week in Eagle County District Court contends Vail town officials violated local rules when they approved a Triumph Development project to build high-density worker housing along Interstate 70 where the bighorns forage during winter. The residents also argue that a Vail Resorts employee on the local Planning and Environmental Commission, which approved the project on a 4-3 vote, should have recused himself due to a conflict of interest. Their lawsuit asks Judge Russell Granger to send the case back to town officials with instructions for proper decision-making. “Developers tried to come up with mitigation. But it doesn’t seem the mitigation measures are sufficient to comply with the code,” which requires the implementation of “all necessary mitigating measures,” attorney Kim Perdue said Thursday. “My understanding is that there are other sites … that would be better for residents and also not have catastrophic impacts on this herd,” Perdue said. This battle pits the mountain resort’s economic demands against the needs of wildlife, in this case Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep, Colorado’s state animal. Bighorns once numbering more than 2 million around the west have been declining, hammered by disease — including sickness spread by domestic sheep — as development eclipses bighorn habitat. The Colorado bighorn population has dwindled to about 6,800, down from about 7,600 in 2012 and 8,000 in 2001, state data shows. Vail Valley bighorns have decreased to about 5% of their historic numbers, along with other species, and the herd that forages east of Vail has been reduced by 40% over the past 12 years to around 50 bighorns. Meanwhile, mountain resort operators around the state have been developing properties and struggling to ensure enough housing for workers as tourism and recreation industries expand. Triumph Development has proposed to construct the housing for Vail on 5.4 acres at one end of a 23.3-acre parcel that Vail obtained from the Colorado Department of Transportation. Local governments have broad discretion. The lawsuit targets town decision-making on narrow grounds, alleging that proposed “mitigation” measures are not sufficient to comply with town rules aimed at protecting the natural environment and wildlife. The developers’ proposals included the construction of a berm between the housing complex and a meadow where bighorns forage, limited lighting and restricted dog ownership. Residents walking to town would have to use an underpass designed for vehicles to cross I-70. The lawsuit also alleges town officials gave improper guidance to planning and environmental commission members by asserting they had no choice but to allow the development of the property, owned by Vail, because otherwise their action would amount to an illegal “regulatory taking” of the property. Vail officials declined to comment on the lawsuit. “We received the complaint, and we have forwarded it to our insurance carrier for review,” assistant town manager Patty McKenny said. Former Mayor Rob Ford, a longtime resident opposing the construction, said even people who recognize a need for affordable worker housing have been questioning Vail leaders’ decision-making. “It was not transparent. Residents were lied to. It is a poorly planned project, a crummy project,” Ford said. The conflict has escalated over the past two years. Colorado Parks and Wildlife biologists have provided guidance, warning that bighorns likely would suffer harm and questioning whether mitigation is possible. Vail officials have countered that the resort needs housing for service workers, in part to create a sense of community and reduce worker driving. Only 20% of Vail’s 8,500 workers live in town. Others commute as far as 75 miles. Houses in Vail cost $1.3 million on average. Renting an apartment typically costs around $1,200 a month. The Vail Homeowners Association has opposed the development. A 40-member group called Citizens to Protect Our Wildlife asked Gov. Jared Polis for help. The local chamber of commerce asked Polis to stay out of the matter unless he planned to support the construction. ___ Information from: The Denver Post, http://www.denverpost.com
Lawsuit challenges Vail development in bighorn sheep habitat.

At least 260 workers at Westfleisch’s slaughterhouse in the city of of Coesfeld have tested positive for COVID-19 in recent days, causing alarm at a time when the country is trying to slowly relax the restrictions that were imposed to curb the pandemic. As authorities scrambled to contain the growing outbreak over the weekend, it emerged that many of those infected were Eastern European migrants working for subcontractors who also provide them with accommodation and shuttle buses to work. “If one person is infected then basically everybody else that sits on the bus or lives in the shared houses is infected,” said Anne-Monika Spallek, a Green Party representative in Coesfeld who has campaigned against the meat industry’s practice of outsourcing much of its back-breaking work to migrants working under precarious conditions. Among them is Iulian, a trained carpenter from Bacau in Romania’s poor northeast who previously worked for a German courier company . He recently got a job at Westfleisch that promised several times what he would make back home. The 48-year-old, who declined to give his last name fearing repercussions, said he still must pay his employer rent for a room he shares with a colleague, but he doesn’t know if he will receive pay while he isn’t working. Standing behind a metal fence erected to stop workers from leaving the house they share about a 15-minute drive from Coesfeld, Iulian waited Tuesday for results from a coronavirus test. Residents inside also awaited results from tests taken four days earlier. “Like a jail,” he said of his current situation. “Like a lion in a cage.” Authorities had stopped the men from going to a nearby supermarket but subsequently groceries had been delivered. “Water, food, salami, it’s OK for now,” Iulian said. As for medical care, so far there is none. “If we do have problem, we call,” he said hopefully. Westfleisch declined a request for an interview. But in a statement, the company said it was “deeply affected” by what had happened in recent days. “We are fully aware of our responsibility,” Westfleisch said, adding it now requires workers at facilities that remain open to wear face masks on site, have their temperature taken at the gate and work in clearly separated small groups. The company said it is also trying to impress upon workers “the importance of hygiene and behavior measures in the company and in private settings.” The outbreak has caused consternation in Berlin, where German Chancellor Angela Merkel acknowledged Wednesday the “alarming news” about the situation at Westfleisch. “There are significant shortcomings in accommodation – we have all seen that now – and it has to be seen who is held responsible,” Merkel said. “I can tell you in any case that I am not satisfied with what we have seen there.” The outbreak began shortly before Germany’s federal and state governments agreed to trigger an “emergency brake” on relaxing restrictions when the number of new infections passed 50 per 100,000 inhabitants in a week — a threshold that Coesfeld has far surpassed. Authorities in North Rhine-Westphalia, where Coesfeld is located, have ordered all 20,000 workers in the meat industry tested for the new coronavirus and delayed the reopening of bars and restaurants in the region by another week. Some enraged restaurant owners have threatened to sue for lost earnings, though it is unclear who they would take to court: Westfleisch, the subcontractors, the workers or regional officials now being accused of acting too slowly. Olaf Klenke of the NGG union, which represents workers in the food industry, says the outbreak could be the right moment to clamp down on outsourcing in the meat industry. “The corona crisis simply reveals the situation that exists in this area,” he said. “We often talk about animal welfare in the industry,“but what happens to the people who work there is at least as important.” While the outbreak in Coesfeld has drawn the most attention, there have been smaller clusters of cases at slaughterhouses across the country in recent days. And though there’s been no death yet among abattoir workers, a 57-year-old farm worker from Romania died of COVID-19 in Germany last month. In the United States, which has also seen a spate of infections at meatpacking plants, experts have cited extremely tight working conditions that make factories natural high risk locations for contagion. Klenk blamed a lack of public interest in the issue and price pressure from large supermarket chains for promoting cut-throat competition in the slaughterhouse business. At a market stall in Coesfeld’s town square, a pork cutlet from a pig butchered by hand costs 15.50 euros per kilogram ($7.63 a pound), compared with 3.29 euros per kilogram ($2.32 a pound) for an industrially processed portion of the same cut at a nearby supermarket. Amid mounting pressure to act, Labor Minister Hubertus Heil pledged late Wednesday to “clean up” conditions in German slaughterhouses. “We as a society mustn’t continue to look on as people from Central and Eastern Europe are exploited,” he said, adding that the subcontractors were the “root of the problem.” Spallek, the Green party politician, said the outbreak has prompted sympathy for the migrants among many Germans who had previously taken little notice of the problem. “Everybody wants these miserable conditions to finally end,” she said. “On the other hand the people are really mad at Westfleisch and at the county official for not closing (the factory) sooner.” Spallek voiced fears that a number of workers might develop serious illnesses in the coming days. “I’m convinced that we’ve yet to see the consequences, including in the hospitals,” she said. ___ Kerstin Sopke in Berlin, and Vadim Ghirda in Bucharest, Romania, contributed to this report. ___ Follow AP pandemic coverage at http://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak

Outbreak at German slaughterhouse reveals migrants’ plight.

