Don't kid yourself. Reilly is selling NaCl as fast as they can. It's used
in recycling aluminum at that plant between their ponds and Wendover. Road
salt is magnesium chloride and that's what they spilled onto the south end
of the course in 1993 and what they sell for winter use on roads. That
doesn't clump up like sodium chloride. Salt Lake, Weber and Davis counties,
because of lake effect snow, used a huge amount between Christmas and now.
They take the phosphates and other minerals out and return the heavy brine
to their evaporation ponds. What has been pumped back onto the racing
surface is a very high percentage of NaCl but it comes from their most
easily accessed ponds. The drought and their easily accessed brackish water
from the wells they dug for the pumping project have been a problem the last
couple of years. Not as much there. They have committed to continuing the
pumping as a PR thing but I think it isn't over the 750,000 tons of salt
they take off each year. The restoration project has never been a condition
of their leases, always voluntary.
Wes
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