Hi
At the USFRA monthly meeting last Thursday, Larry Volk the chairman of Save
the Salt, Gave us an update on the pumping project. He said that Riley's
pumps had been running 24 hours a day since Nov. pumping hi concentration
brine. To their credit, Riley has been living up to their agreement. Last
year the project was troubled by many start-up problems resulting in a lot
of pump down time, and the pumping of very low salt concentration brine. I
don't recall the exact figures that he gave, but he said that in November
they pumped more hours and better quality brine than was pumped all year
last year and they have been pumping steadily ever since. According to his
calculations, over a million tons of Salt will have been deposited this
year by the pumping. He had just returned from an inspection of the
project and had with him a surveyors post that he had removed from the
brine at the end of the road, that was encrusted with salt several inches
thick that gave us our first look at the quality of the salt being
returned, and it sure looked good to me. The installation of monitoring
equiptment by the BLM has been very slow. But it is nearly in place now
and for next years pumping we will have data from a flow meter and a
conductivity meter (indicates salt concentration) that will give us more
accurate info on how much is pumped and what the salt content is.
Currently there is only an hour meter to indicate pump run time.
As for the outlook for Salt conditions this fall, there are currently
several inches of water covering the Salt, which is normal for this time of
year. Last year set state records for the amount of rainfall here, with a
lot of it coming in the summer months (it was an El Nino thing). If our
weather patterns are more nearly normal, I expect a quality racing surface
in August and Sept.
I will take a few notes during the salt report at the next monthly meeting,
and will keep you updated. We most always hear from someone that has been
out recently.
Dan
"Its our Salt and we want it back"
Dan
daniel.wright@genetics.utah.edu
Daniel Wright
University of Utah
Dept. of Human Genetics
20 S 2030 E
Salt Lake City, UT 84112
801-585-7863
Fax 801-585-7177
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