When It's Dry, You Can't Swim The River - 2009

 

When It's Dry, You Can't Swim The River

 

At Midnight MDT on September 17 - 18, 2009, we honored the second anniversary of the Quantum Leap. With that and the equinox of September 22, 2009 now past, it is a good time to take stock, and write about our feelings.

 

Today, we wandered around our backyard, using a garden hose and nozzle to water the dry spots. If not everyone yet knows, the Western U.S. is experiencing a long-term drought, with no end in sight. How little water can one household use and still have green lawns? With a twenty-five percent price hike in local water prices here in 2010, we shall find out. Moreover, the drying of the Earth continues apace.

 

Do two giant dust storms hitting Sydney, Australia this week foretell of Mars-like, planet-wide dust storms here? Yes, but do not let that bother you. As you travel on your local freeway, go ahead and “floor” the gas pedal of your hybrid automobile. If you think you are getting a real bang for your hydrocarbon buck, remember that in the end, we can fool ourselves, but we cannot fool Mother Nature.

 

Just this week, scientists discovered that Mars has a large subterranean ice sheet, holding as much pure, crystallized water as our Greenland Ice Sheet. Whether ice or water is basking  in the sun, as it does here on Earth or it is hiding cartoon-like, beneath the surface of Mars, by human standards that is a large amount of water.

 

Last night, as we drove our 400+ horsepower Nissan Titan truck several miles to pick up a pizza, we rolled down the windows and listened to the evening wind whip around the inside of the cab. Since squirrels and children often appear in our headlights at dusk, we allowed the heavy truck to roll slowly down the hill. There, on our left, was a man with his garden hose gushing water into the street. After hand watering our yard for several weeks, his artificial deluge seemed out of place.

 

“You can’t do that anymore”, we called as we rolled past his position. In our town, you can drive a gasoline-powered truck several miles to pick up pizza, but you cannot open a spigot and let water gush out the end of your garden hose.

 

Effects on the environment are cumulative, but not always obvious. The marshes in Iraq’s once Fertile Crescent region are dry now, blowing away as dust. As far from our home as that may be, is there cause for alarm? Historians and scientists believe that the Fertile Crescent was the original model for the biblical Garden of Eden. Some say that the area was the cradle of human civilization.

 

Our climatic conundrum reminds us of an old cartoon about two natives, shown running away from a ferocious lion. One turns to the other and says, “At least I only have to run faster than you.” Many on this Earth have yet to learn that we share this place with many life forms, including a newly discovered one, which is water, itself.

 

Once we realize that every fractal drop of water is precious, our attitudes toward it will change. During his October 2003 exhibition, Dr. Masaru Emoto, of Japan, ushered in a new age in water crystal photographic techniques. Recognized as the originator of the international Hado water research program and movement, Dr. Emoto’s water crystals “showed the imprint of energy signatures on water”. To produce his beautiful images, Dr Emoto uses DPE (Direct Photo Etching) technology, introduced to him by Doi Photo (now Doi Technical Photo of Yurakucho, Japan). What we divine from Dr. Emoto’s photographic lens is that water is alive.

 

If you were to ask the average person which natural resource issue has the greatest potential impact on our economy and society, many would say, “Global Warming", followed closely by "Future shortages and the increasing price of oil”. How many of us would say, “Global drought and the end of surface water on Earth?” As valuable as liquefied fossil fuels have been to our recent economic and cultural past, we cannot drink any combustion fuel.

 

When Midwestern corn states had an opportunity to insinuate ethanol, distilled corn into our gasoline supply, they leapt at the chance. Few motorists today know how much corn-fuel they are burning in their hybrids. Fewer still have contemplated how much water, diesel fuel, coal and natural gas are used in concocting that fuel. Our political system allows corporate farming interests to sell us a stealth fuel at a subsidized and hidden cost. Ill-conceived plans such as that, which neglect the realities of life on Earth, cannot long stand.

 

Now, the West faces a fuel vs. water challenge far greater than the corn-to-fuel decisions made in the past thirty years. The economies of shale mining and fuel-conversion processing require both water and fuel on an unprecedentedly large scale. Individuals and corporations who promote such plans continue to avoid the issue of water usage. If the American public is not made aware of the oil-shale water use issue, we may all be in peril.

 

After blasting and crushing the oil-laden rock at their 15,000 acres of approved mining sites, old-energy giants such as Royal Dutch Shell plan to mix the crushed rock with water, and then transport the resulting toxic chemical slurry to their processing plants. Those plants will find it too expensive to detoxify the slurry, so the watery residue will meet its demise in vast settling ponds. During processing, more water will vanish from cooling towers, for dust suppression and for other industrial uses.

 

What water source in the West is large enough to allow such a withdrawal without any commensurate return? Since it will spoil their argument in favor of shale-fuel, “oil-shale conversionists” avoid answering that question. Neither above nor below ground in the Four Corners states does such a volume of water exist, other than in the Colorado River. With continued declining annual flows, both the Upper and the Lower Colorado Basin are already “over subscribed”. Regardless, oil-shale advocates continue to ignore the arguments against using Colorado River water, all the while pretending that there is some other untapped water source available to them. There is not.

 

Therefore, a great people will soon have a choice to make. The choice is – are we ready to give up the Colorado River and its living water in exchange for obsolete, yet somehow seductive liquid fuels? To do so, would be to accept a rape of the land not seen since strip mines overran and destroyed much of Appalachia.

 

Crossroads are interesting things. When we reach one, we can continue forward, or we can divert to another course. Often unrecognized, we can also make a conscious choice to turn around and go back the way we came. In our current case, "going back” implies that we might see water as a beautiful living thing. If we are able to do so, we might save its life on Earth and our own.

 

As we conclude this article, the LA Times has several new and interesting facts. Scientists confirm that where ocean water abuts either Greenland ice or Antarctic ice, the glaciers are thinning faster than previously expected. In another story, two large western power providers (Pacific Gas & Electric of California and Public Service Co. of New Mexico) are quitting the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The reason for their withdrawal is the Chamber’s hard line stance against any new climate legislation.

 

This proves that a change of consciousness can happen in America. As we watch the polar ice caps slip like water through our fingers, decision makers at some greenhouse gas-emitters realize that they and their children must live in the same world that they are helping to create.

 

Before all liquid water evaporates from the surface of the Earth, we might yet turn around and “go back”. If not, perhaps some future, far-flung culture will use Dr. Emoto’s DPE techniques to detect and document subterranean ice sheets on an otherwise desolate and empty Planet Earth. Will they conclude that Earth once supported life forms more diverse than water itself?

 

Together or divided, our collective consciousness will determine our future.

Email James McGillis

The Best View of Moab? Take Potash Road to Canyonlands, on the Shafer Trail - 2009

 

The Best View of Moab? Take Potash Road to Canyonlands, on the Shafer Trail

 

Where the pavement ends in Potash, Utah, so too does the Potash Road (Utah Route 279). There, a gravel and dirt road continues up and around the potash settling ponds. Beginning at that point, a hodgepodge of county, federal and social names prevail along various segments of the road. The two most popular names associated with the upper reaches of that track are, “South Fork Road” and the “Shafer Trail”. Before proposing our candidate for the official road name, we shall describe both its dangers and its beauty.

 

Starting at the Intrepid Potash, LLC settling ponds in Shafer Basin, the road takes a meandering course, up-slope past hoodoos, towers and buttes. As we drove the track, it roughly paralleled the flow of the Colorado River. As we climbed, the river descended until there was a 2000-foot difference in elevation between the river and our location atop the sandstone canyon rim. Along this section, are the best views of the Colorado River Gorge.

 

Prior to reaching the high point above the gorge, we came upon a large, shallow pothole. Dependent for their existence on rainfall and local runoff, wet and dry potholes dot the Canyonlands landscape. After a summer shower, they shine like so many silver coins in the sunlight. Each pool of retained water has its own unique life-cycle. Some support ancient aquatic life forms, while others are drinking water sources for wild horses or other mammals. In any given pool, a wide variety of insects and other organisms might sustain themselves through their entire life-cycle. Although our selected pothole was within yards of the main track, no wheel marks had disturbed or desecrated its pristine beauty.

 

Near the highest point along the Colorado River Gorge, Thelma & Louise met their fate in the 1991 movie by the same name. For us, a close approach to the unmarked and unguarded canyon rim made our heart skip a beat.

 

Having previously stood at the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, we knew its depth to be about one mile. There, the scene is one of grandeur. Although at least fifty-three individuals fell to their death there over the past eighty years, most landed on various ledges, not more than five hundred feet below their point of departure. Although the Colorado Gorge is only two-fifths as deep, there are no intermediate ledges or outcroppings to break one’s fall. Unless it has wings, whatever goes over the edge here will not stop until it strikes the surface of the Colorado River. As we stood close to the rim here, our predominant feeling was one of queasiness.

 

Mistaking our truck’s accelerator for the brake pedal at his spot would set in motion a slow motion disaster. After going over the edge, brakes and steering would no longer matter. The mass of our body and the pickup truck surrounding it would feel weightless for the ten seconds it took to reach the bottom. There, the freefall would end abruptly at the surface of the Colorado River. Since water is quite unyielding when impacted at high speeds, it might as well be solid concrete. Knowing that such was the fate of characters Thelma & Louise, we stepped carefully back from our closest vantage point, about eight feet from the brink. After a deep breath or two, we were ready to go back to the truck and motor slowly up the trail.

 

To our way of thinking, the best natural light in the desert appears near sunup or sundown. Having taken our time along the way, we took our final look back towards the river at almost 7:00 PM. Looking forward and upward, we noted a small wooden sign, which marked our entrance into Canyonlands National Park.

 

 

Watch the Video, "Mudflaps & Helicopters"

 

 

 

Moab Utah - Best View

Shifting our Nissan Titan V-8 into four-wheel drive, we traveled up a long, otherwise undisturbed valley. Where that valley abruptly ended, the road began an equally long upward traverse of a talus slope. After that climb, we looked up at what seemed to be a sheer cliff. Hidden from our view in the fading light, was a famous set of switchbacks. Ascending the trail slowly was the prudent thing to do. Just beyond the top of the switchbacks is a mesa top, still within Canyonlands National Park.

 

During various excursions in Canyonlands, we had experienced a phenomenon that is alien to urban drivers. Often, we had perceived that a particular road would next turn in one direction, only to find it turn the other way. While climbing this set of switchbacks, we often could not determine if the road went on at all. In the failing light of dusk, the steep canyon wall hid all the switchbacks above and below us. As we continued our ascent, we wonder if the spirit of the Ancients might be riding along with us, having a good laugh about the optical illusions of the trail.

 

After viewing unique pillars of stone and other rock tableau, we crested the Mesa top, and then paused to look back from whence we came. Many miles to the east, the alpenglow crept up the sides of the La Sal Mountains. Day turned to night in the canyon below. Near our junction with State Route 313, we stopped at the Canyonlands self-pay box and did our part to support maintenance and upkeep of this unique road.

 

The stretch of road we just described starts as Potash, by the Colorado River and ends on the mesa top in Canyonlands. On many maps, including our 2005 Edition of the Delorme Utah Atlas & Gazetteer it appears as “South Fork Road”. Recently, Google Maps began showing both "South Fork Road" and the more common, "Shafer Trail" along this section of road. According to our research, “South Fork Road” is a social-road name, not used by any official agency in the area. When we questioned several Moab local residents, each said that the road has always been the “Shafer Trail”. On most locally produced maps, there is no other name associated with the road,  the road.

 

The track has its origin in Shafer Basin, adjacent to the potash settling ponds. Just below its mesa-top crest, stands Shafer Campground. Before extensive grading allowed its use as a haul-road for uranium ore in the late 1940s, a local rancher named Shafer used the trail each year to herd cattle from what we now call Shafer Basin to the mesa top and back again. In the interest of public safety and standardization among mapmakers, the road from the Cane Creek Potash Plant, up to Canyonlands National Park, should bear the name of its originators, and his brother Frank Shafer. Since the track is as much a trail as it is a road, henceforth its name should be, “The Shafer Trail”.

Email James McGillis

By James McGillis at 05:09 PM | | Comments (0) | Link

Rock Art & Live Webcams at Moab, Utah - 2009

 

Rock Art & Live Webcams at Moab, Utah

 

I just finished a new website devoted to the Indian Rock Art found near Moab, Utah. The Home Page at MoabRockart.com includes a story about author and naturalist Craig Childs, as he leads a writers group up Seven Mile Canyon during the Confluence Celebration 2008.

 

·    The website also includes a two-part article about Native American rock art along Mill Creek, in Moab, Utah.

 

During my August 2009 visit to Moab, I repaired or replaced several of our old webcams with higher quality Logitech, International. units. Currently, we have three live webcam feeds from Highway 191 South, at the Moab Rim CamPark. Additionally, Moab Ranch has a live webcam feed from the Pueblo Verde Tract in the Spanish Valley. To review all of our webcam feeds, go to the MoabLive.com Webcam Page. There you will see live webcams from Downtown Moab to the Spanish Valley.

 

Currently, we have two webcam systems that are tested and ready for deployment in Moab. If you live in the area and have a business and a great view; let us talk about a shared feed through MoabLive.com. We are actively looking for business partners and will lease an entire system on an annual basis or barter our webcam placement for your services in return.

 

While in discussion with Michele Hill, newly appointed Facility and Event Promoter at the Moab Area Travel Council, (developing conference and event planning for Moab), we mentioned how fun it was travel throughout the West and always be able to see four live views of Moab. Apparently, we made it sound like the sole purpose of the Moab webcams was for personal pleasure. In explaining that we sometimes succumb to hyperbole, we told Michelle that our writer hero is Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain). Known during his lifetime as an American prophet and a humor writer, Mark Twain enjoyed making up his own version of any facts that were not readily at hand.

 

Then it struck us; what would Mark Twain have to say about webcams and streaming video? Clemens lived from 1835 until 1910. Imagine meeting the spirit of Mark Twain that less than one century after his death. There, you would describe a worldwide viewing-port, capable of producing live images of his favorite places on Earth. Might he think you were telling a story as tall as his own, "Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County". According to his biography, Clemens met with Alexander Graham Bell regarding investing in the fledgling Bell Telephone Company. Bell offered Clemens as many shares of stock in the new company as he might want, at any price he was willing to pay. Although Clemens spent his fortune and over a decade of time funding an ill-fated typesetting machine, he did not see the value of Bell’s telephonic device. Maybe if Bell had a working webcam at the time…

 

From our place of understanding, one of the most popular searches on the internet is for webcams that are local to the searcher’s point of interest. Believing in that theory and believing in the beauty of the land, sky and weather around Moab, we launched our first webcam in October 2008, at the Moab Rim RV CamPark. There, it stands today.

 

Over the past year, we had our share of webcam failures. From power failures to hardware and software glitches, we experienced it all. Since early August 2009, all four webcam systems have operated flawlessly. In our case, “flawlessly” means that from time to time, individual frames may drop out. Using a cable modem or DSL at the head-end of our systems, available bandwidth does not allow for an infallible feed. More costly, dedicated bandwidth would solve that issue.

 

As of August 2009, we are proud to say that no other organization has more live webcams streaming from Moab and the Spanish Valley. Here, we tip our hat to Red Cliffs Lodge for their pioneering webcam work along the Colorado River. Although their Colorado River webcam is reliable, the MoabLive webcams refresh every three seconds, rather than every three minutes.

 

We see a future in which almost every business in Moab will have at least one webcam. By offering MoabLive, and in color to the world, interest in tourism surely would grow. How could any distant viewer resist the beauty that we see each day, around Moab and the Spanish Valley?

   

Currently we are in Simi Valley, California, writing and developing new webcam systems. To view our current test, look at CasaCarrieCam, live from Simi Valley. In early October 2009, we will return to Moab, for both business and pleasure. While there, we will cover the 24-Hours of Moab Bicycle Race. While the race is on, we will post an updated article on our blog.

 

If you go to Moab24Live.com, you will see our coverage of last year’s race. In October 2008, we followed Dax & Dean of Team Shake & Bake. From prerace to podium, we covered their first-in-class victory. This year, we have agreed to cooperate further, reporting their story through the written word, still images and video. Dax has assured me that he and partner, Dean will win their class again in 2009.

 

With proper exposure, this race could have enormous TV appeal. Couch potatoes all over the country would like to be riding free in the wind, as Dax & Dean shall for the 24 Hours at Moab. The race starts at Noon, local time on Saturday, October 10. The race will conclude at Noon on Sunday, October 11, 2009, with award ceremonies to follow.

Email James McGillis

By James McGillis at 04:52 PM | | Comments (0) | Link

A Place Called Potash, Utah, USA - 2009

 

A Place Called Potash, Utah, USA

After skirting the Moab Pile, Potash Road then flows in close proximity to the Colorado River, hugging its right bank for most of the seventeen-miles to the place called Potash. There, at pavement's end, Intrepid Potash-Moab, LLC operates its “Cane Creek Plant”. Although a rocky road continues on, Utah Route 279, the Potash Road ends there.

 

The fact that Kane Creek (with a “K”) enters the Colorado River upstream from the plant and on the opposite bank made us wonder if the plant was misnamed. Further research indicated that raw potash deposits are contained within a geological structure known as the “Cane Creek Anticline”, which is part of the broader Paradox Basin. Thus, the plant name reflects its geological underpinnings, not a fanciful geographical location adjacent to Kane Creek.

 

Watch the Video, "Potash Utah, USA"  

 

For a number of miles between Moab and Potash, the canyon accommodates both the river and two wide banks. Thick stands of tamarisk trees lined each bank, often blocking our view of the river. After its excursion through a deep road-cut and tunnel near Corona Arch, the Union Pacific Railroad’s Potash spur line joins Potash Road for the second half of the run to Potash. In the 1960’s the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad built the line to service the then-new potash mine. Reflecting its support for the mining industry, the State of Utah provided access to the mine by constructing State Route 279. Although now used mainly for recreational purposes, the route is still the only paved access road to Potash. The rail line and the highway opened in the early 1960s, just in time for the first shipments of processed calcium carbonate, commonly known as potash.

 

While driving along the riverbank, we saw rock spires, buttes and many distant views. Often showing barely a ripple on its surface, the river here runs fifty or sixty feet deep in its bedrock channel. In William Faulkner’s novel, “As I Lay Dying”, Darl says, “Before us the thick dark current runs”. Before us, the thick dark Colorado River ran like a solid mass. Looking tame within its banks, an undercurrent produced its silent power. On the way to Potash, we had no way of knowing that the river would soon enter the dramatic Colorado River Gorge. Looking up at the escalating height of the canyon walls brought back our premonition about the Perfect Flood.  Our vision of the future included a flood so large that it spanned from one canyon wall to the other. Its immense volume swept away everything in its path, including any sign of man or road.

 

At one time, there were plans to continue the paved highway to the top of the high mesa, near Dead Horse Point State Park. Because of the difficult terrain along that former cattle path, Utah abandoned the route-extension in the 1970s. In the late 1970s, the longer and less arduous State Route 313 became the primary route from Moab to Dead Horse Point and Canyonlands National Park.

 

The Cane Creek Potash plant operates on a grand scale, including sprawling settling ponds, a processing plant and loading facilities for both rail cars and trucks. As we approached the plant, its mid-century-modern industrial architecture dominated the tranquil riverside setting. More than fifty years old, the facilities still served their intended purpose. As we traveled past the plant that afternoon, we neither saw nor heard another human. With nothing moving at the area, Potash had the feel of a 1950’s ghost town.

 

Operated as a deep mine at its inception, an August 1963 mine explosion killed eighteen miners. With its human toll placing it in the top five U.S. mining disasters since 1940, the mine operators opted to change over to a water injection process. The subsequent use of deep water injection required conveying large amounts of scarce Colorado River water to the mines and ponds, there to evaporate in the desert sunlight. With water accomplishing all of the underground work, there are now both fewer miners and a reduced threat to their lives. Mining engineers now pump Colorado River water uphill to the mining sites, where they inject it three thousand feet down and into the Cane Creek Anticline. Once inside, the water loosens the raw calcium carbonate, creating a plastic flow, which migrates back to the surface. Once the minerals are at the surface, huge pipes conduct the brine to the settling ponds below. For reasons of efficiency, gravity conducts the minerals downward, in a series of steps that end at the processing plant near the riverbank.

 

Intrepid Potash’s predecessors created the settling ponds in the late 1970s. Terraced into anticline bench lands above the river, the settling ponds cover hundreds of acres. Large enough to show as geographical features on our Utah Atlas, the settling ponds created for us a striking blue and white oasis in the desert.  Because their location covers two sides of a bulge on the Cane Creek Anticline, the ponds are visible from many locations around the area. With the blue and white pools appearing in so many photographs, taken from so many different angles, even some Moab locals think that there are several different settling pond facilities in the area.

 

Although we are not aware of any declared seismic risks within the anticline, its geological history suggests large-scale upheaval and subsidence. With that as background, common sense tells us that the diminutive and elegant earthworks at Potash might not survive even a moderate seismic event. In our mind, we pictured continued injection of water into the Cane Creek Anticline precipitating such a seismic event. If the resulting earthquake were large enough, it could liquefy or slump the earthworks at the settling ponds. If breached, highly concentrated brine could cascade down-slope toward the Colorado River.

 

Apparently, there is not a centralized website that covers issues regarding the Potash entire settling pond system.  Although we did find individual pages that indicated the size and depth of some ponds, there was no way for us to understand the overall size and scope of those operations. The scant documentation provided by State of Utah web pages classifies individual pools as “low risk”. Since there is no unified reporting system regarding settling pond issues, we wondered if there have been any recent inspections of the earthworks at Potash. If not, how can mine operators and the state declare that individual parts of the system are "low risk"?

 

With the decades-long drama taking place at the the Moab Pile, only a few miles upstream, identification and remediation of other potential threats to the Colorado River have taken a back seat. It would be a shame to save the Colorado River from nuclear peril, only to witness an accident at Potash. Collapse of the settling pond system could pollute the river with untold amounts of potash, which is primarily used as crop fertilizer. Although placing poor second to the danger of radiation entering the Lower Colorado Basin, surely a large dose of industrial strength fertilizer would not help water quality.

 

According to legal documents available on the internet, Intrepid Potash uses both temporary and permanent pipelines to conduct potash brine from their mining sites to the settling ponds. A second set of pipes conducts the chemicals from the ponds to the plant for processing. During our own drive past the settling ponds, we saw evidence that raw potash slurry had recently cascaded down a streambed and into the ponds. Although little was growing along that streambed prior to its flooding, the heavy coating of crystalized brine will prevent new plant growth there any time soon.

 

At the Moab Confluence Festival in October 2008, author and naturalist Craig Childs signed for us a copy of his classic book, "The Desert Cries".  The subtitle of Craig's book is, "A Season of Flash Floods in a Dry Land". On the title page of our copy, Craig wrote, "Put your hand on the ground.  Feel for the flood. It is coming, always".

 

In December 2008, three million gallons of toxic fly ash and water cascaded downstream from a Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) power plant. Once its retention pond failed, there was no way to save the valley below. A river of toxic chemical-sludge obliterated the local landscape, ruining it forever as a place to live. If nothing else, the senseless destruction at the TVA facility tells us that old, earth-dam retention ponds like the ones at Potash require periodic, independent inspection and public disclosure of their current risk. 

Email James McGillis 

By James McGillis at 06:05 PM | | Comments (2) | Link

Colorado River - Perfect Flood - 2009

 

Hey, what's that Sound? Is it the "Perfect Flood"? 

On June 22, 2009, the first full day of summer, we drove the Potash Road (Utah Route 279), beginning at its junction with U.S. Highway 191 North, near Moab, Utah. A paved highway, Potash Road parallels Kane Creek Access Road, on the opposite bank of the Colorado River. Both roads meander downstream from Moab and the Spanish Valley.

 

Watch the Action - The Potash Road Moab, Utah 2009

 

On the west bank, Potash Road skirts the Moab Pile, which occupies most of the floodplain along the outside radius of the river bend. When we stopped downstream of the pile and looked across, we saw charred evidence of the October 22, 2008 Matheson Wetlands fire. The high water table there has encouraged new growth in that unique and vital wetland habitat, but years will pass before nature erases the scar.

 

The Matheson Wetlands occupy a floodplain along the inside radius of this unique Colorado River bend. Its uniqueness as a riparian environment stems from the lack of canyon walls on either side of the bend. From the east, Spanish Valley descends gradually, until it meets the wetlands within the ancient flood plain. Despite a setback from the fire, The Nature Conservancy's ecologists are midway through a plan to bring back a natural flow of water throughout the Matheson Wetlands.

 

Water use planning in the Four Corner states, Nevada and Southern California depends on the stability and ultimate removal of the radioactive landfill, known as the Moab Pile. The fragile position of the Moab Pile is what most concerns downstream water planners in Phoenix, Las Vegas and Los Angeles. They know that documented paleofloods of enormous size periodically scour the flood plain of the Colorado in that location. At least two megafloods occurred in the past several thousand years. In such a flood, the broken megaliths that line the canyon upstream of the pile could be set loose, battering the vulnerable pile and washing it into the Colorado River channel. If it happened that recently, it could happen again.

 

In a “Perfect Flood” scenario, there would be heavy snowfall during a cold winter in the Colorado Plateau watershed. With an entire winter’s snowpack still in place, dust storms of enormous size could arise from the over-grazed Navajo Indian Reservation, to the South. Contemporary dust storms create weather vortices that are orders of magnitude larger than the largest firestorms. As the storms move across Southeastern Utah, land long overgrazed by ranchers and more recently overrun by off-road vehicles ads to the problem. If a series of such storms carried sufficient airborne soil, followed by rain, a blanket of dust could melt the Colorado Plateau snowpack in short order. At its peak, the subsequent flood could engulf the Moab Pile and wash its toxic and radioactive material downstream towards Lake Powell.

 

Currently, there is an active effort to relocate the Moab Pile to the new Moab Mountain, location at Crescent Junction, Utah. According to current Department of Energy (DOE) estimates, the removal project will take until 2022-2025. Depending on materials and conditions found in the core of the pile, those estimates are subject to change. As of this writing, the most optimistic estimates are for a thirteen-year project. Meanwhile, engineers and planners have done little to protect the pile from the potential of a Perfect Flood, as described above. The only observable difference at the site is the widening of a dry watercourse adjacent to the upstream side of the pile. The widening and deepening of that arroyo is all that stands between the river and the safety of the Lower Colorado Basin water supply and its seventeen million users.

 

If a Perfect Flood were to hit the pile before its complete removal, life in the West would never be the same. Communities and individuals whose water sources are upstream of the pile would be safe. Those living downstream of the potential washout could find Colorado River water unfit for home, industrial or agricultural consumption. If our water supply experienced a dramatic spike in chemicals, heavy metals and radioactive waste, we would immediately seek a different water source.

 

If seventeen million residents had to find new water supplies or perish, the Southwestern U.S. would face depopulation far greater than the Anasazi Disappearance, around 1200 CE. Financially, the Perfect Flood would make the estimated $150 billion cost of Hurricane Katrina look diminutive, by comparison. From Moab, Utah, to its dry and neglected delta, at the Sea of Cortez, Mexico, the Colorado River would become a river of death.

Email James McGillis 

By James McGillis at 11:45 AM | | Comments (0) | Link