Coal-Fired Power Intensifies a Heat-Island Over Four Corners Region - 2015

 

Coal-Fired Power Intensifies a Heat-Island Over Four Corners Region

Navajo Generating Station (NGS) -

In August 2015, I ate lunch at the Wahweap Overlook to Lake Powell. One year prior, I had visited the same place and eaten lunch while looking out over Lake Powell. This time, I was amazed to see that the Lake level was slightly higher than the previous year. Then I remembered the southwestern monsoon of May 2015. Throughout that month, unusually strong thunderstorms made their way north from the Gulf of California and into the Four Corners region. Even in these drought-stricken times, intense storms appear to turn back the clock on scarcity, quenching both land and lake.

During my visit, a throng of French-speaking tourists viewed the ethereal sight of so much water in a sandstone desert. None of them seemed to notice the three tall concrete stacks standing in the distance, on the far side of the lake. Although dwarfed by the landscape, each of the three flue gas stacks stands 775 feet tall. At that height, they are among the tallest structures in Arizona. The stacks and the coal-fired power plant that they service comprise the Navajo Generating Station (NGS).

Prior to the installation of new burners in 2009, NGS was the largest emitter of nitrogen oxide in the country. As a greenhouse gas, nitrogen oxide is 300 times more powerful than carbon dioxide. In 2011, NGS emitted 71,000 tons of sulphur dioxide, 14,000 tons of nitrogen oxide and 586 pounds of mercury into the air above Lake Powell and Page, Arizona. As such, NGS remains one of the largest heat and pollution sources in the Four Corners region.

Heat Island Effect -

If you have visited Phoenix, Arizona in the summer, you will be familiar with the term, “heat island”. During the day, pavement and buildings absorb heat from the sun. At night, the convective qualities of dry desert air are insufficient to dissipate the heat of the day. As a result, nighttime often feel as hot as daytime. Only the slow change of seasons brings relief to residents and visitors alike.

Near Lake Powell, the coal fired NGS plays a significant role as a heat generator. Fuel consumed in 2011 provided 170,529,313 Million Btu of heat input. As coal burns in the enormous furnaces at NGS, all of that heat is either absorbed at ground level or sent up the flue gas stacks and into the environment. There, the heated flue gases, still laden with sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, fly ash and heavy metals such as mercury meet the giant methane bubble already in place over the Four Corners region. Picture a gaseous blob of airborne chemicals propelled into the high atmosphere. Effluent from the giant flue stacks of NGS and other coal-fired power plants in the region often punch through the atmospheric inversion layer. Once this heated stream of gas disperses, it creates a persistent regional haze over much of the Southwest.

What are the final consequences of having a highly volatile chemical heat island hovering over the Four Corners region? First, the heat island deflects rainfall away from the area, further exacerbating (perhaps creating) the persistent regional drought. With their rise on a cloud of methane, these greenhouse gases head directly toward the stratosphere, and beyond. Perhaps we need a new “Blue Marble” photo from space, showing the degradation of our atmosphere over the past fifty years.

Four Corners Regional Drought -

For geodetic proof of the Four Corners regional drought, look no further than Google Maps. Most people are familiar with zooming in on a Google map, thus increasing the resolution of small objects. While zooming in on the Wahweap Overlook, I discovered that the midlevel map of the area was a USGS Landsat Map of undetermined age. By zooming in one additional level, I discovered a Google Data map of more current vintage. Click on the thumbnail image of Lake Powell on this page to see a top and bottom comparisons of the two maps.

In the 2015 Google Data map, significant portions of the former lake are now dry land. If not for a new channel cut across it, the former Antelope Island would require the more apt name of “Antelope Peninsula”. Also in the 2015 view, new shoals are visible in each of the first four primary basins, hinting that more dry land will surface in the future. At the upper end of the lake, sediment clogs the river, exacerbating evaporation and producing what scientists call methane volcanoes in the mud.

This is Part 2 of a three-part article. To return to Part 1, please click HERE. To read Part 3, please click HERE.

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By James McGillis at 11:02 PM | Colorado River | Comments (0) | Link

Lessons of the Homolovi "Ruins", Homolovi, Arizona - 2008

Lessons of the Homolovi "Ruins"

The Little Colorado River originates at Mt. Baldy in Arizona’s White Mountains and travels northward to Joseph City, Winslow, Homolovi Ruins State Park and Wupatki National Monument before reaching the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon. 

 

Draining a large part of northeastern Arizona and a portion of far western New Mexico, the Little Colorado River winds it way from forested headwaters in the White Mountains down through woodlands and grasslands and finally to the arid depths of the western Grand Canyon.

 

About midway on its journey, the “Little C”, as it is known to locals, cuts through Homolovi Ruins State Park.  The park is only a couple of miles north of Interstate Highway I-40, near the east end of Winslow, Arizona.  For most travelers, the word “ruins” ruins their fun and they do not bother to stop.

 

On Monday, May 19, 2008, I picked up my travel trailer in Phoenix and headed north, towards Homolovi.  At the Verde Valley, I departed the busy and hectic Interstate Highway I-17 and took Arizona Highway 260 east, and then Arizona Highway 87 northeast towards Winslow.  According to the maps, I saved 20 miles by diverting from the crowded interstate to the more scenic and forested two-lane highway.  With the light traffic of a Monday afternoon, I was able to slow down, relax and enjoy the climb up and over the Mogollon Rim, which separates the desert south of Arizona from its higher and cooler north.

 

Arriving at Homolovi just before sundown, I selected a campsite that featured electricity and piped water, which is a luxury in such a dry part of the high desert.  Only a handful of the 53 campsites had occupants that evening.  Just as a shortage of resources had depopulated Homolovi before 1400 CE, the current price of liquid fuels had stripped Homolovi of its contemporary RV culture.

 

Although the residual heat of a high pressure system made Homolovi quite warm during the day (100 degrees f.), I decided to stay an extra day and explore the ruins.  In Craig Childs' book, “House of Rain”, he describes taking part in an archeological dig at Homolovi.  His entire episode takes place during a summer sandstorm, so the light breeze I experienced made up for the heat during the day.  Besides, I had air conditioning in my coach, so when it got too hot, I just flipped the switch and enjoyed my cool retreat.

 

On my first evening, I watched the Arizona Public Television station.  One of their shows lamented the decline in residential property values in the state and particularly in Phoenix, with an average drop of 21% to 24%, since the peak, less than two years ago.  Whether we speak about Homolovi’s pre-Puebloan Indians or current day Phoenicians, every human culture has its fads, fancies and economic bubbles.  Although euphoria can mask reality for a time, eventually economic, social and natural forces conspire to burst any speculative bubble.

 

The route I had taken north from the Verde Valley, in central Arizona to Homolovi paralleled an ancient Indian path that allowed the ancestral Puebloan Indian cultures of the Mogollon Rim to travel as far as what we call the Four Corners Region today.  In the years from 700 – 1100 CE, the populations moved north to new areas opened to trade and agriculture.  In 1200 – 1300 CE, a great drought and other factors put pressure on the overpopulated areas as far north as Mesa Verde, Colorado.  By then, the human exodus was from north to south. While entire populations searched for reliable water sources and new places to live, the former homes fell to ruin.

 

At Homolovi, the result of this ebb and flow of human migration is perhaps the most diverse collection of cooking and storage clay pots found in any single location in the southwestern US.  From ancient gray-ware to stylish and elegant orange-ware, the potsherds tell the story.

 

Homolovi both benefited and suffered from its location along the Little Colorado River.  While its channel is dry most of the year, spring runoff from snowpack on the forested plateau moves quickly and often sends the Little Colorado into flood stage without warning.  Since the original village of Homolovi developed during a relatively dry period, subsequent devastating floods wiped large sections of the settlement and its agricultural fields off the ancient map.  

 

Responding to this catastrophe, the ancients rebuilt much of the village and its ceremonial structures on higher ground, half a mile from the river.  It is there, on the sun-baked mesa, above the river that the remnants of ancient structures and the broken pottery of a five hundred year habitation survive today. 

 

For those who expect to see large or well preserved ruins similar to what exists in Aztec, New Mexico, Mesa Verde, Colorado or Hovenweep, Utah, prepare to be disappointed.  Although the state-run visitor’s center has excellent interpretive materials and artifacts, the most prominent features you will find in the field are a few low masonry walls and a rectangular pit kiva. 

 

Homolovi is as much a “place of the mind” as it is a place to see artifacts of an ancient and bygone culture.  One needs imagination in order to see the community that thrived there on trading cotton, pottery and perhaps what we today would call tourism. 

 

Did the inhabitants of Homolovi profit from their knowledge that they could not control everything in their environment or did they hold out there until the last person died?  Fathoming their fate reveals lessons for our contemporary culture.  Do we cling to the energies and ways of the past or do we move on to new vistas and explore new energies to light our own future?

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By James McGillis at 07:11 PM | Travel | Comments (0) | Link

RV Camping in Quartzsite, Arizona - Crystalline Memories - 2007

RV Camping in Quartzsite, Arizona - Crystalline Memories

From Quartzsite, Arizona, I offer special greetings to all. For those who do not know, Quartzsite is located on Interstate-10, about thirty miles east of the Colorado River, which forms the border between California and Arizona. The first thing that comes to mind about Quartzsite is “Hot”. Although it is an RV boom-town in the winter, it is a “gas-stop” ghost town in the summer.

With my coach’s air conditioning set in the mid-70s, it is usually a good place to catch up on sleep, while making the two-day journey between LA and Phoenix. However, since it is too hot to do construction work during the day, a local highway bridge-building project went on all night, just yards from my camping spot. Last night, it was a case of “earplugs to the rescue”.

The founders of Quartzsite named it after a mineral for a reason. This part of the Arizona desert has many rock outcroppings that contain quartz crystals. In earlier days, “rock hounds” stripped the area of as much of the crystalline energy as they could find. Despite their avarice, the inaccessibility of many deposits leaves the mineral in abundance here.

Over the years, there has been much controversy about the supposed healing properties of naturally occurring crystals. Since no one can prove it either way, it becomes an issue of belief, or disbelief, as the case may be.

When I was ten, my parents bought me a radio-kit that used a quartz crystal as its receiver. In those days before transistor radios, a crystal set used no batteries at all. To make it work, I would take a “cat’s whisker” of wire and bend it until it touched the metal-encased crystal. One wire led from the bottom of the crystal’s metal cup and another wire ran from the cat’s whisker. Those two wires terminated at a small earpiece.

After placing the earpiece in my ear, I would manipulate the touch point of the cat’s whisker on the crystal. With some practice, I could receive radio broadcasts from 710/KMPC, a “clear channel station” from North Hollywood. In those days, a “clear channel” meant that there was no other station sharing the same frequency for many thousands of miles. At night, when the Earth’s atmosphere was conducive to sending radio waves everywhere, one could hear KMPC from many areas of the desert southwest, maybe even here in Quartzsite.

Better yet, I could also receive 1500/KBLA, which stood for “K-Burbank, Los Angeles”. Broadcasting from a tower at McCambridge Park in Burbank, 1500/KBLA competed with KHJ, KRLA and KFWB for the Top-40 AM radio audience in Los Angeles back in the 50’s and 60's. The station sounded great in the mid 60's with DJs like Bob Dayton, Emperor Bob Hudson, Dave Diamond, Humble Harve, Roger Christian & more.

Before he achieved fame and fortune, Wolfman Jack was a DJ on the midnight to six AM show, spinning records by request. Advertisers on his show included El Monte Legion Stadium (“No Levi’s or Capri’s please… Guys wear ties. This Saturday night, hear Richie Valence live, singing his new hit tune, ‘Oh, Donna’”).

Fans of the movie American Graffiti, staring Harrison Ford in an early role will recall that when the young people in the movie went cruising on Saturday nights, Wolfman Jack was always playing on their car radios.

Many summer nights, my friend Paul and I would sit in our home-built, backyard clubhouse, each of us listening to the Wolfman on our own personal crystal sets.

Does “crystal power” really exist? Sitting here in the “land of crystals”, I can say, “Yes; absolutely”. Whether it was the quartz crystal of my 1950’s crystal set, the crystal energy of Quartzsite, Arizona or the crystal amulet I wear around my neck, each has the power to focus our consciousness as we please. Crystals are ancient distillations of Earth energy, which allow us to go “forward” or “backward” in time, as we see fit.

Now I raise my morning coffee cup to you and to your own very special “crystal power”. Enjoy

Email James McGillis