Home Care In Milford, UT

MILFORD —A Milford man accused of downloading dozens of images depicting the sexual abuse of children faces multiple felony charges following an arrest by federal agents.

On Oct. 16, 44-year-old John Frank Mcray was arrested by federal agents as he was leaving his work near Heritage Park Drive shortly after 7 a.m. in Milford. He faces multiple charges, including five second-degree felony counts of sexual exploitation of a minor, as well as misdemeanor drug and paraphernalia charges.

The arrest stems from a multiagency investigation by the Department of Homeland Security and the Internet Crimes Against Children task force that began in June. The first of several tips came into the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s cyber tip line reporting that child sexual abuse material had been uploaded to a device.

In all, more than 80 files depicting the sexual abuse of children were uploaded to a device that investigators would later learn belonged to Mcray. While speaking to agents, the suspect said he had joined a chat thread using a messaging app that uses the internet to send messages, images and video.

He went on to explain that initially, he believed that the message thread was a private chat with a female. It was only after he joined that he learned it was “some sort of group chat,” according to the report.

It was in this group message thread, Mcray said, that other users were sharing pornographic images, which he said were “automatically being downloaded to his phone.”

Once he discovered the illicit files on his phone, he left the group chat and deleted the images. Later, he told officers, he discovered that the images had been uploaded to a cloud account and he deleted those files as well.

Through researching the messaging application that the defendant was using, investigators determined that in order to download the images to a cell phone, or upload an image to a cloud account, the subscriber would have to select the image to do so.

Mcray did not deny that he had the images on his phone prior to discovering that they were there. According to the affidavit, the first report was received by a cyber tip on June 8 involving two files, followed by another report filed the following day that contained 24 files.

Two more files were reported on June 11, while the final report was received on Oct. 14 involving more than 50 files. Upon further questioning, the suspect admitted that the email account and cell phone number in question belonged to him.

During a search of the suspect’s residence in Milford, agents allegedly recovered suspected methamphetamine and paraphernalia. Following the search, Mcray was arrested and booked into the Beaver County Jail.

The charges were filed in 5th District Court in Beaver County on Friday and a no-bail hold was signed by District Judge Matthew L. Bell.

The defendant made an initial appearance in 5th District Court in Beaver City on Monday and is scheduled to be back in court on Nov. 13 for a bail review hearing. He remains in custody without bail.

This report is based on statements from court records, police or other responders and may not contain the full scope of findings. Persons arrested or charged are presumed innocent until found guilty in a court of law or as otherwise decided by a trier-of-fact.

Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2023, all rights reserved.

The port authority has also presented a plan to incentivize wetland protection as its many projects keep cropping up across the state.

Beaver County is the latest Utah community to have an inland port project approved by the port authority. State and local leaders tout it as an investment recognizing the value of rural economies.

The Mineral Mountains Utah Inland Port Project includes four disconnected areas. The Milford Flats Zone encompasses 17,115 acres, including the Milford airport. It also contains and is surrounded by solar and wind farms. The Beaver City Zone covers 2,070 acres, including the city’s airport and wastewater treatment ponds. The Milford Depot Zone contains 445 acres and includes the area’s largest employer — a Smithfield Foods plant which announced plans to mothball most of its operations last year. The Minersville City Zone covers 190 acres, including a dairy operation and farms.

“We’ve struggled,” Beaver County Commissioner Tammy Pearson said at a meeting of the Utah Inland Port Authority board Wednesday. “But our roots run deep. And we’re determined to raise our families here.”

The announcement of the Smithfield plant’s closure came as a blow to the county, which impacts jobs supporting 250 residents and their households. The port authority could help attract new big employers with better pay, local leaders said. Pearson, however, acknowledged there are limitations to the types of businesses Beaver County can support.

“We have to be careful who we invite,” Pearson said. “We don’t have a lot of water and those resources, we don’t have a lot of housing.”

The Utah Inland Port Authority, or UIPA, says it can help cities and counties build industrial development and manufacturing zones. It receives 75% of the additional property tax revenue that comes with improvements to the project areas, like new buildings and utility lines. It uses those tax differential funds to provide incentives for businesses and build supporting infrastructure, like rail spurs and affordable housing.

In its Mineral Mountains plan and budget, UIPA forecasts collecting about $40 million in tax differential funds over a 25-year term.

“We’re going to create and have an opportunity to help reinvest fairly significant amounts of money into these project areas,” said UIPA Executive Director Ben Hart. “As we do that we’re going to be doing so in a very disciplined way. It’s not going to be ... to subsidize the private sector.”

UIPA leadership has stressed the importance of improving connectivity to rail and reducing heavy truck traffic across the state as part of its port projects.

Beaver County intends to use its port support to sustain the region’s traditional agriculture and mining-based economy, according to Jen Wakeland, the county’s strategic development director. It also wants to lure tech businesses, advanced manufacturing and additional renewable energy industries.

“Each zone utilizes the individual community strengths to work independently,” Wakefield said, “but contribute to and function as a larger part of the project as a whole.”

Beaver County adopted a resolution inviting UIPA to form a project area in April. Milford City passed a similar resolution in May, and Beaver passed their own in August. The UIPA board unanimously approved the project plan and budget at their meeting Wednesday.

“This is probably the greatest opportunity that I’ve seen come along in my 30-something years of being involved in city politics,” said Milford Mayor Nolan Davis. “Maybe [it can] make something work.”

Mineral Mountains marks the sixth port overseen by UIPA. Other projects include Salt Lake City’s northwest quadrant, which spurred the port authority’s creation and has a contentious history. There’s also Iron Springs in Iron County, Verk Industrial Park in Spanish Fork, Golden Spike in Box Elder County and Central Utah Agri-Park in Juab County.

Next on the docket are two proposed project areas in Tooele County. Although most areas with disjointed sites, like Mineral Mountains, were presented as a single port area, the locales in Tooele are pitched as separate projects. The UIPA board will decide whether to approve the plans at their next meeting on Nov. 6.

The Tooele Valley Utah Inland Port Project Area includes 162 acres south of the Great Salt Lake at the Burmester exit of Interstate 80. The Grantsville City Inland Port Project Area covers 1,835 acres, including several parcels partly owned by Josh Romney, son of U.S. Sen. Mitt Romney. The site is considerably smaller than a 12,000-acre “satellite port” pushed four years ago.

But the Tooele Valley site is surrounded by Great Salt Lake wetlands and the Grantsville property includes plans for a rail spur that could impact several wetlands that support the imperiled lake as well.

“The impacts of this proposed massive industrial development on water quantity and quality are a huge concern as Tooele County relies on wells for water,” members of the Stop the Polluting Port Coalition wrote in a news release ahead of UIPA’s meeting this week. “Also, the Tooele Valley is part of the hydrological system that fills the Great Salt Lake, which is in crisis.”

Lake advocates worry about impacts from the port in Salt Lake City’s northwest quadrant, too, along with the proximity of Box Elder County’s ports to Great Salt Lake wetlands and Spanish Fork’s location near Utah Lake wetlands. The next port project up for review, in Weber County, is directly next to one of the largest wetland complexes on the Great Salt Lake.

“The wetlands around the Great Salt Lake are one of our most unique assets here in the state of Utah,” Hart said, adding that UIPA is committed to protecting them.

Staff presented a draft wetlands policy that would commit 1% of the tax differential collected at each project area to incentives that encourage developers to preserve wetlands on their properties. The policy would not apply to Salt Lake City’s port, where UIPA has a separate interlocal agreement with provisions about mitigating impacts to the environment.

“Because we don’t control zoning,” Hart said, “we can’t dictate what happens on these sites, [but] we can try and help guide it and steer it.”

The UIPA board will consider a vote on the wetlands proposal at their meeting next month.

It might have been the weirdest tailgate anyone could imagine. For the Marshall family, the moment was totally theirs. High atop Baboon Peak, elevation 7,300 feet, Thane Marshall hooked up his Dish TV receiver to a portable generator last Saturday.

They had driven 29 miles south from tiny Milford, Utah (population: 1,400) -- Thane, his son Wes and their spouses -- to hunt deer for the weekend. That was just a cover. It turned out exactly no wildlife were harmed in the viewing of Milford native son Bryson Barnes beating USC.

"If anybody was hunting deer, there wasn't a deer within 20 miles," said Thane, Barnes' coach at Milford High School. "They got scared away. We were all screaming."

Unless you've been up on Baboon Peak yourself, you probably know that Barnes has become one of the college football's most celebrated figures this season. The Utah quarterback, who won two state titles at Milford, engineered the upset of the Trojans last week that kept the Utes on point and solidified USC as one giant question mark.

Now, Barnes is a central college football celebrity, beyond Milford, heading into No. 13 Utah's game Saturday against No. 8 Oregon.

Along the way, beyond Milford, Barnes has been elevated to hero status. Because of injuries to starter Cam Rising, Barnes has played in the last two Rose Bowls. Because Rising has been declared out for the season having blown out a knee in the last Rose Bowl, Barnes is QB1 with a bullet.

Not bad for a guy who has bailed out a program. Not bad for a guy who has permanently replaced the other quarterback, Nate Johnson, whose play had become ragged. Not bad for a former walk-on who endured scout team hell, and now, football heaven.

"The best way possible [this ends] is he actually makes the NFL," Thane said. "What I would really like to see him do is win a College Football Playoff game at Utah. It's possible."

The winner of Saturday's game at the madhouse that is Rice-Eccles Stadium at least stays in the CFP running. But in a town 3 ½ hours away from campus in southwestern Utah, they long ago saw indications of this from a kid who worked on his family's pig farm and never seemed to wind down sports.

Wes Marshall was Barnes' offensive coordinator. Father, son and hometown hero won two state titles at the state's smallest Class 1A school playing 11-man football.

"It's kind of fun for us down here," Thane said. "You watch these Heisman Trophy winners and these five-star quarterbacks. We told a couple of college coaches Bryson is more talented, well, just as talented as those guys they're recruiting; he just doesn't have the talent around him."

The bond remains strong as it has to be for one who never forgets his roots. Barnes has a sister who runs track at Weber State. An older brother played for Milford and is currently on a Mormon mission. A younger brother plays for the Tigers now. Chris, his father, works for the railroad. Stacy, his mother, helped run the family's pig farm.

"Bryson's probably the worst athlete of the group," said Thane. "He always had his mother's legs. My defensive coordinator [once] kicked him out of the meeting and called him 'Shirley.'"

But in a Stetson Bennett sort of way, the Utah quarterback has gone through what amounts to basic training. From official visit at Washington State to full-ride offer at FCS Southern Utah to America's hero at Utah where he walked on.

How did it get to be that way? Well, first, those other schools missed out.

Barnes goes into the Oregon game tied for 12th in the Pac-12 in passing. He's also darn close to being the Pac-12 MVP considering where overachieving Utah stands at the moment. That is 6-1 as the two-time reigning Pac-12 champions.

"If you've got a dream and you've got the ability to make it happen, he's proof of that," Wes said.

But when Utah's Cole Becker kicked a 38-yard game-winning field goal against USC after Barnes' run set it up the play, you could call him an inspiration. Certainly, a difference maker -- at least for this week but perhaps for the season depending how far Utah goes.

Only football does this to people. Milford just happens to be the latest center of such a transformation. The Barnes kid was a bit of a football savant as a grade schooler. He would break down his youth league football games in fifth grade and hand a report to his coaches, according to The Athletic.

Wes moonlighted at the Beaver County Correctional Facility as a prison guard. Barnes would hit him up on his phone to go over game film.

"He's always just loved the process," Wes said. "He understood coverages in eighth grade."

Barnes' LinkedIn page is one of the most humble business bios in existence, at least for a starting Power Five quarterback. Did we mention Barnes was a customer associate at Lowe's? In addition to working on the pig farm, he also worked in plumbing and installing solar panels as well as "screw pile systems."

Such is the life of that former walk-on who earned a scholarship after the season-opening win over Florida.

About that pig farm. Barnes would have to get up at 4 a.m. to tend to the pork. It was part of his 24-hour energy. He also wrestled, ran track and played basketball and baseball.

According to the Marshalls, Mike Leach said Barnes was just as good as anyone at the Army All-America Game during Barnes' senior year. Barnes actually took a visit to Wazzu as the coaches said Leach was ready to offer a preferred walk-on spot. A week later, Leach took the job at Mississippi State.

Everything has worked out.

"I knew if they gave Bryson a chance he could do this," Wes said. "... I really wasn't surprised."

Others were. In high school, Barnes wrestled at 145 pounds. At 6-foot-1, 210 pounds in college, he isn't particularly imposing now. Still, he has become an inspirational, if not statistical, difference maker.

Barnes' 26-yard run with 16 seconds left that set up the game-winning field goal at USC? It didn't make sense. For the most part, the Trojans are bigger, faster, stronger. The same applies to the Ducks, in a matchup that has drawn national attention.

"He's a tough guy. He's a really tough guy," Utah coach Kyle Whittingham said of Barnes this week. "Those two scrambles where he lowered the shoulder and just went, that's who he is. … In that situation, the game was on the line. Every scramble and run is not created equal."

How did it get to be that way? Utah is built different. Under Whittingham, you're going to have to beat the Utes up before beating them. That seldom happens. The Utah ethic is so well known that the Utes might be the early favorite when they enter the Big 12 next season.

Barnes fits the mold. Thane recalls Barnes taking over the quarterback job as a freshman, then playing without a backup at the position for four years. Ironically, back then, he had to warn his quarterback about lowering his shoulder with no safety net. It didn't take. Such are the depth issues at a high school with 110 students, half of which are boys. Out of those approximately 55, 36 play football.

In the 2018 state semifinal game, Barnes directed an offense that scored touchdowns on seven of 10 possessions. The Tigers scored 70 points and won by 48.

The bond remains strong as it has to be for one who never forgets his roots. Barnes recently drove those 3 ½ hours following the Gators win to watch the Tigers play. Of course, he appeared on the radio postgame show with his coach.

As for Saturday?

"We're going to be glued to the TV," Thane said. "We may be on the mountain again."

If one didn’t know better, Joseph Moore could be talking about one of his grandchildren or a shiny sports car parked in his garage.

But on this day, amid a blustery desert wind against the backdrop of a barren sage-brush landscape north of Milford, Beaver County, Moore is talking about rocks, drilling rigs, super hot heat and the power of the ground that lies beneath him.

Moore is principal investigator of the Frontier Observatory for Research in Geothermal Energy, or FORGE, a U.S. Department of Energy project aiming to bring geothermal energy to the market on a utility scale that is financially viable and scientifically sound.

The day before the Thursday media tour of the site, the project reached a milestone — proving two deep vertical wells that link to a long horizontal conduit are indeed connected — much like a radiator in a car that operates on a circulating loop.

“It’s the first time we made that connection,” Moore said, smiling.

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The project injected 1,800 barrels of water into one well at five barrels a minute and achieved success when it flowed along the horizontal pathway to travel up the production well.

Moore, a research professor at the University of Utah’s Energy and Geoscience Institute, said FORGE distinguishes itself from conventional geothermal extraction because it is creating the reservoir itself from which the energy is tapped.

Water is pumped deep into the super-heated rocks thousands of feet underground to ultimately turn into steam to power a turbine to produce electrons. Imagine capturing that steam from geothermal pools throughout the West.

Not far away from FORGE sits PacifiCorp’s Blundell Geothermal Plant which produces 38 megawatts of energy from an existing underground water resource — but at much lower temperatures.

Both Moore and co-principal investigator John McLennan said heat is simultaneously their friend and foe as they strive to fulfill the first phase of the $220 million U.S. Department of Energy project.

“The hotter we get, the more energy we can produce,” Moore said, adding that conventional plants use temperatures nearing 500 degrees while 705 degrees is the target here — if FORGE can get it to work.

“There is a tremendous amount of energy at that temperature,” Moore said.

But getting all the equipment to withstand that heat and continue to operate with structural integrity is not easy.

“Temperatures have been a particular challenge here,” McLennan said.

Moore and others, however, are not deterred, because of the clean energy hope the ground has to offer.

They pointed to statistics by the U.S. Geological Survey of an estimated untapped potential of 518,000 megawatts of geothermal resources that exist in the western United States alone.

Utah, in fact, is third in the country for its energy produced by geothermal, behind California and Nevada.

Moore said there has been unwavering bipartisan support for the project since Utah’s FORGE site was selected from a fierce list of competitors, even beating out the U.S Department of Energy’s own national laboratories.

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Utah’s vast geothermal potential has attracted the investment of private industry over the years and recently was reignited with a company called Fervo that is using the same horizontal drilling technology at a site not far from FORGE.

Rep. Carl Albrecht, R-Richfield, said he is optimistic about FORGE and anxious to see more results.

“There’s not a lot of the environment that you can hurt down there with geothermal, frankly,” said Albrecht, who chairs the state Legislature’s House Public Utilities, Energy and Technology Committee.

One reason the Milford site stood out in the selection process is that it is considered “aseismic,” and to date, the largest scale of seismic activity that happened with the fracturing of rocks was logged at .5 magnitude, McLennan said, stressing the activity is monitored constantly.

Albrecht said he would like to see more development of geothermal resources in Utah.

“There’s lots of places in the state where there’s geothermal, but it’s been proven as a good resource down there in Beaver County. I would just like to see more development because, you know, it is a renewable and you can count on it 24/7.”

This first phase of the project is due to wrap up in 2024, with an eye toward continuing to the second phase through 2032, depending on more funding.

Moore said the goal is to extract heat for a long period of time.

“Ultimately we will be injecting hundreds of gallons of water into the well.”

Beaver County’s Cape Station expects to begin pumping out continuous power in 2026.

This story is part of The Salt Lake Tribune’s ongoing commitment to identify solutions to Utah’s biggest challenges through the work of the Innovation Lab.

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Fervo Energy has announced new financing and technical advances that put the Houston-based company on track to open the world’s largest enhanced geothermal power plant in Beaver County in two years.

The Cape Station plant is scheduled to start producing 90 megawatts of continuous power in 2026, but the plan is to expand to 400 megawatts by 2028, which would put it among the top 10 Utah electricity sources. It would be smaller than the state’s coal plants but larger than any hydroelectric plant in the state, including the Flaming Gorge Dam.

“Were it not for transmission limitations, Cape Station could supply even more power,” said Chelsea Anderson, strategic communications specialist for Fervo. “We believe that Cape has at least 2 gigawatts of geothermal potential.”

It also will be “dispatchable” power, which the Utah Legislature has made a priority. By varying the amount of water pumped through the system, the plant can produce power on demand or shut down when intermittent sources like solar and wind are producing.

So far, none of the plant’s power has been sold to Utah utilities. Anderson said the company has current agreements for 53 megawatts, all with California customers.

“Demand continues to skyrocket,” Anderson added, “for clean, firm power” in the Golden State.

The Department of Energy says enhanced geothermal has the potential of powering 65 million homes and businesses in the U.S.

“Demand for around-the-clock clean energy has never been higher, and next-generation geothermal is uniquely positioned to meet this demand,” Tim Latimer, Fervo CEO and co-founder, said in a recent statement. “Our technology is fully de-risked, our pricing is already competitive, and our resource pipeline is vast. This investment enables Fervo to continue to position geothermal at the heart of 24/7 carbon-free energy production.”

Another geothermal lab nearby

Fervo’s project 10 miles north of Milford follows on the work of Utah FORGE less than a mile away.

Utah FORGE (Frontier Observatory for Research in Geothermal Energy) is a University of Utah-run laboratory funded by the DOE to develop enhanced geothermal technology. The U.S. agency has invested more than $200 million in FORGE, which has made its results public to encourage enhanced geothermal development.

There are a number of power plants that currently run on geothermal energy, but they exist only where hot springs carry water to the surface. Enhanced geothermal energy is produced by drilling into solid rock. It is heated by underground magma sources but has no water flowing through.

Using techniques perfected by the oil and gas industry like horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing (fracking), geothermal producers drill two wells into the rock. They then frack to open up cracks in the rock so cold water can be pumped down and hot water comes back up. The water is hot enough to drive a turbine to produce electricity. It also can be operated as a closed loop, meaning the same water can be used repeatedly.

Faster drilling

Earlier this year, Fervo said it had drilled its latest Cape Station well into the solid granite in 21 days, which is 70% faster than the first test wells it drilled in 2022. The faster drill times mean lower costs. For the first 90-megawatt phase, the company expects to drill 20 to 24 wells more than two miles long.

“We drill roughly 8,000 feet deep and 5,000 feet horizontally,” said Anderson. She said the company expects to “flow-test” the system, meaning producing hot water, in the next few months.

Last year, FERVO opened the country’s first enhanced geothermal plant near Winnemucca, Nev., but it’s only 3.5 megawatts. All of the power is contracted to Google for its data centers.

Fervo announced recently that it had secured $244 million in financing. The lead investor is Devon Energy, another Texas company that built its success on horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing.

“Fervo’s approach to geothermal development leverages leading-edge subsurface, drilling, and completions expertise and techniques Devon has been honing for decades,” said David Harris, chief corporate development officer and executive vice president at Devon. “We look forward to deepening our partnership with Fervo to capture the full value of Fervo’s first-mover advantage in geothermal and the adjacencies to Devon’s core business.”

The Cape Station plant is on land leased from the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, with some additional property leased from private landowners.

Anderson said the the plant will employ about 200 people during construction and “a few dozen” during operation.