Potash Salt Tailings Threaten Colorado River Water Resources - 2011

 

Potash Salt Tailings Threaten Colorado River Water Resources 

 

In October 2010, I had an opportunity to view the Intrepid Potash Cane Creek Facility from the air. After a Redtail Aviation scenic flight over Canyonlands National Park, we turned back towards the Moab airport at Canyonlands Field. As we flew north along the Colorado River, our pilot banked the airplane around the place called Potash. Since the sky was hazy, my near-vertical shots turned out the best. If my earlier ground-level views had been disturbing, they did not prepare me for what I saw from the air.

 

Disclaimer - Aerial photos are often difficult to interpret. From the distortion of the window glass, to the interplay of light and shadow, the viewer might mistake one thing for another. The following conclusions are mine alone, and are based on the various visits and perspective views that I have experienced at Potash. If Intrepid Potash, Inc., the State of Utah Division of Oil, Gas and Mining or the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (Moab Field Office) disagrees with my conclusions, they might still want to verify the facts for themselves.

 

When viewed as a unit, an in-situ recovery (ISR) potash mine, the evaporation ponds and the processing and storage structures comprise the Cane Creek Facility. Sitting on what looks like the central bulge of the ancient Cane Creek Anticline, the facility encompasses hundreds of acres. At its highest elevation are the injection sites. While many in-situ mines require both injection and pumping, the salt structures beneath Potash appear to spontaneously eject brine at the surface. From there, wet potash salt tailings run freely to the evaporation ponds. Terraced across the bench land is a set of eighteen large ponds. A smaller set of six ponds extends almost to the edge of a precipice. Surrounding those ponds on both sides are side canyons that empty into the Colorado River.

 

If all goes well, the produced water and fine tailings are retained by the evaporation ponds. A plastic lining on the bottom of each pond is designed to prevent groundwater seepage. However, several of my photos showed what appeared to be brine running down from the evaporation ponds. It was most clearly visible in the stream beds leading to the Colorado River. My first thought was that concentrated brine was somehow leaking from the evaporation ponds. As likely as that scenario might be, I quickly thought of an alternative. Perhaps forty years of hydraulic injection mining in this complex of fractured rock had created springs that flow with brine-laden water. If water has interpenetrated subsurface rock formations, it could undermine the ponds or cause a sinkhole. If the underlying structure of the rock is compromised, a large seismic or weather event could destroy the integrity of the earthen dikes that retain the concentrated brine within the ponds. Could the current seepage of brine re-manifest as a salt and fertilizer flood? Directly below that mesa, unprotected by any catch basin lies the Colorado River.

 

Looking down at the processing and storage structures from the airplane, I saw potash spilled around it like recent snowfall. Along the roadways surrounding the structures and at the loading area, finished potash and salt spill freely. From there, wind, water and gravity move it down toward the river. When properly applied, potash is an excellent fertilizer. If millions of gallons of concentrated salt and potash were to enter the Colorado river, it could threaten the agricultural and drinking water supply for over fourteen million people.

 

If the Intrepid Potash Cane Creek Facility represents the current state of the art in potash mining, what can we expect from the upcoming Passport Potash, Inc. mine in Arizona's Holbrook Basin? If the proposed Holbrook Basin ISR potash mine goes into operation, it would immediately become one of the top ten water users within the Little Colorado River Basin. Today, it is rare to find wind-powered water wells anywhere in the Four Corners. Historical use of wind-driven pumps for cattle watering and cattle fodder was pumping enough to dry out most Four Corners aquifers. With regional water tables at historical lows, most water sources are now too deep to tap with wind power. No one knows exactly how much the Holbrook Basin aquifer may hold. One can only hope that it is enough.

 

Most of the water used at the Cane Creek Facility soaks into the ground as brine-laden slurry or evaporates from the settling ponds. In this desert-style solution mining, there appears to be little recycling or reuse of produced water. If not for a steady supply of Colorado River water, the Cane Creek Facility would not be sustainable. If the proposed Passport Potash Holbrook, Arizona Project utilizes solar energy to dry fine tailings, there will be little remaining surface water there to recycle. A gallon pumped from the Holbrook Basin aquifers could be a gallon gone forever.

 

Before potash mining is approved at the Holbrook Basin play, the public deserves straightforward, honest and complete answers regarding the intentions of Passport Potash and its partners. Here are my questions:

• Is Passport Potash proposing a conventional mine or an in-situ recovery (ISR) mine in the Holbrook Basin?
• If it is to be a solution mine, what water sources do they plan to tap?
• How much water will their one-to-two million tons per year (1-2 mtpy) mine require?
• If produced brine is injected back into rock strata below, could it raise the salinity of the aquifer?
• Is there sufficient seasonal inflow to the aquifer, or will the mine require a net annual withdrawal from the aquifer?
• If there will be a water deficit, what environmental impact will there be on the Holbrook Basin and the Little Colorado River Basin at large?
• Is the economic development created by ISR potash mines in the Holbrook Basin worth the risk of environmental degradation?

 

Before full-scale ISR mining accelerates all over the Four Corners, we need an honest and independent appraisal of its environmental impact. Not bothering to conduct an environmental impact study, the Utah BLM Office recently downplayed the impact of potash mining in the Sevier Valley, Utah. In fact, they published a statement that mining there would have "no impact". With solution mining in the Four Corners, there is always an impact, not the least of which is a trade-off between mineral yield and water usage. Plans are currently underway by both Ringbolt Ventures and Mesa Exploration for ISR potash mines in the Lisbon Valley, Utah. Uranium Resources, Inc. has approval for an ISR uranium mine on the Navajo Reservation in Arizona. Although still contested in court, plans go forward for extraction of oil sands from the Uintah Basin, Utah. With so many plans underway to divert or pump water into mineral processing, we can no longer ignore the issue of regional water usage. There is not, after all, an unlimited supply. 

 

As a child, I would often share a milkshake with a friend. From the word, “Go”, we would each suck on our straw as fast as we could until the glass was empty. Shall we now stand by and watch as the quest for oil sands, uranium and potash production dries every aquifer in the Colorado River Basin? Continuing on our current heedless path guarantees a future with water shortages for all.

Author's Note: Article updated 9/2/2017.

 

Read Chapter One – The Little Colorado River Basin

Read Chapter Two – Holbrook, Arizona Basin - Potash

Read Chapter Three - Holbrook Basin Water Crisis

Read a conversation with a Potash Investor

Email James McGillis

 

By James McGillis at 01:16 PM | Colorado River | Comments (1) | Link 

Holbrook Basin, Arizona Water Creation Myth - 2011

 

 

Holbrook Basin, Arizona

Water Creation Myth 

 

A broad range of historical studies indicate that the aquifers of Northeastern Arizona may be over-subscribed. Still other studies predict long-term, persistent drought throughout the area. Sparse winter rains and the thunderstorms of summer are the only replenishment sources for aquifers in the Little Colorado River Basin. Most of the available moisture will either evaporate or runoff into the Colorado River. Long-term drought in the Four Corners states places stress on ecosystems throughout the High Southwest.

 

An easy way to gauge dryness in a desert environment is the frequency and intensity of regional dust storms. By that standard, the Four Corners states are now drier than at any time since the Great Disappearance, around 1300 CE. Even so, we are now on a fast-track to pump large amounts of water from these irreplaceable sources. A recent news report suggests that Passport Potash, Inc. plans an in-situ recovery (ISR), hydraulic-injection mine on their Twin Buttes Ranch property near Holbrook, Arizona. In March 2011, a Passport Potash mining engineer told the press that Passport Potash, Inc. hopes to pump up to 2000 gallons per minute from wells within the Holbrook Basin aquifer.

 

At first, 2000 gallons per minute does not sound like a large amount of water. However, pumping at that rate for one full year would produce over one billion gallons of water. One billion gallons equals over 3000 acre feet of water. If each three-person household used one quarter of an acre foot per year, Passport Potash water requirements would be equivalent to over 38,000 domestic water users. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Navajo County, of which the City of Holbrook is the county seat, had a 2016 population of 110,026. Thus, if Passport Potash reaches full production, it alone will pump water equal to one third of all domestic water use within Navajo County.

 

Through their creation myth, the Hopi people tell us that all water is both sacred and connected. In what could be a lapse of ancestral memory, the Hopi new lands trust appears to have granted eighteen sections of their Holbrook Basin water rights to Passport Potash. If the southern aquifers of the Holbrook Basin are pumped dry, it will be only a matter of time before the drought worsens in both Navajo and Hopi reservations. The elders within the Hopi new lands trust might want to check their pre ancestral memories regarding drought and its consequences. For decades, scientists have known that around 1300 CE, drought brought an end to Pre-Puebloan cultures within the Colorado River Basin. The Hopi creation myth was founded in fact, not fantasy. If they have the fortitude to retain, rather than to sell their hard-won water rights, the Hopi people may yet avoid watching their ancient and venerable culture dry up and blow away.

 

Potential potash producers now lure the Hopi, Navajo, Zuni and other tribes with prospects of employment. Touting well-paying jobs and generations of employment for local citizens, they predict that ISR mines will still produce potash and jobs a century from now. One hundred years of operations at the proposed Holbrook Basin mines would require 100,000,000,000 gallons of water. Does anyone seriously believe that the Holbrook Basin aquifers hold one hundred billion gallons of water, free for the taking?

 

I wonder what has happened to the Arizona State and federal agencies who are stakeholders in the Little Colorado River Basin. Other than the mining authorities, I could find no published position statement on behalf of any agency. Do the Department of Interior, the Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Indian Affairs and the U.S. Geological Survey have no opinion at all regarding this issue? Unless someone or some agency steps in and demands a region-wide approach to water use planning, continued depletion of the Little Colorado River aquifers is a near certainty.

Author's Note: Article updated 9/2/2017

 

Read Chapter One – The Little Colorado River Basin

Read Chapter Two – Holbrook, Arizona Basin - Potash

Read Chapter Four - Colorado River Watershed At Risk

Read Comment - Holbrook Basin Potash, Sinkholes and 'Nutjob Math'

Email James McGillis

 

By James McGillis at 12:02 AM | Environment | Comments (0) | Link

Holbrook Basin, Arizona The Environmental Cost of Mineral Exploitation - 2011

 

 

Holbrook Basin, Arizona

The Environmental Cost of Mineral Exploitation

   

Located south of the Navajo and Hopi reservations in Arizona, the Holbrook Basin is wholly contained within the larger Little Colorado River Watershed. The heart of the Holbrook Basin rests in a triangle of land created by the confluence of the Little Colorado River and its main tributary, the Rio Puerco. On its eastern flank, the Holbrook Basin overlaps the fragile environment of Petrified Forest National Park. Over the years, the Holbrook Basin has been a hotbed of mineral exploration, if not major exploitation. Oil, natural gas and uranium ore are but a few of the resources prospected or extracted from the Holbrook Basin.

 

The City of Holbrook is the County Seat for Navajo County, Arizona. Interstate I-40, Historic Route 66 and the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad (BNSF) all pass through Holbrook. In addition, Holbrook hosts the only golf course along I-40 between Gallup, New Mexico and Flagstaff, Arizona. Water from the adjacent Little Colorado River makes that amenity possible.

 

Upstream and to the east of Holbrook, the confluence of the Rio Puerco and the Little Colorado River creates a larger, seasonal flow. Radiochemical contamination is present in the alluvial aquifer along the Puerco River. The elevated levels of gross alpha and gross beta are caused by the movement of uranium-, radium-, and thorium-rich sediments from the 1979 Church Rock uranium mine tailing pond spill in New Mexico (Webb and others, 1988) and discharges of mine dewatering effluent, which ceased in 1986 (U.S. Geological Survey, 1991b).

 

Movement of existing radionuclides is due to discharges from the sewage-treatment plant in Gallup, New Mexico (U.S. Geological Survey, 1991b). This area is considered one of the principal water-quality problem areas in the state (Arizona Department of Environmental Quality, 1990). After learning late about prior nuclear contamination along the Rio Puerco, the Navajo Nation outlawed uranium mining on its reservation in 2005. In 2010, despite Navajo objections, Uranium Resources, Inc. (URI) received approval to restart uranium mining within the contamination zone created by the 1979 spill.

 

Strathmore Minerals Corp. (purchased by Energy Fuels Corp. in 2013) is also listed as controlling 640 acres adjacent to the URI site. The ninety-four million gallon Church Rock Spill was the largest release of low-level nuclear radiation in U.S. history. Despite that, in-situ recovery (ISR) mines are now being planned for the area. With the use of hydraulic injection and subsequent pumping, both groundwater depletion and produced water are of concern to the Navajo Nation. Subsequent to the 1979 spill, the Navajo were not told that surface flow along the Rio Puerco was caused largely by uranium mine dewatering. Pre-ancestral memories run deep. To this day, cattle and domestic animals rely on the alluvial aquifer of the Rio Puerco to quench their thirst.

 

According to mining industry sources, the Holbrook Basin is located in an area with excellent infrastructure and is known to contain a 600 square mile potash bed in its Permian Supai Formation (Arizona Geological Survey Open File Report 08-07). The potash bed was drilled and delineated in the 1960s and 1970s by Duvall Corporation and Arkla Exploration. Due to low potash prices in the 1970's the Holbrook Basin potash bed saw no development since its discovery.

 

A recent AZJournal article quotes the Arizona Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (AZOGCC) as saying, "There are now 38 core holes permitted in the Holbrook Basin. While Passport Potash holds the permits to 19 of those holes, HNZ Potash, also known as HNZ Holding, LLC, a joint venture of Hunt Oil and NZ Legacy Resources, holds the other 19 permits. Efforts to contact the company have gone without response, but according to its now defunct website, HNZ Potash is the largest private owner of the Holbrook Basin deposit with a reported land position of 74,000 acres." The former HNZ website was so secretive that it required the visitor to defeat a log-in request before accessing their Home Page. Drilling applications filed with the state indicate that HNZ now controls the old Arkla Exploration properties, first explored over fifty years ago.

 

In March 2011, Ringbolt Ventures entered into agreement with Passport Potash, Inc. for the exploration and development of Ringbolt Holbrook Basin potash property. Ringbolt Ventures (and now Passport Potash) has been granted fifteen State mineral exploration permits in the Holbrook Basin. On their website, they say, "If compared to the Saskatchewan, Canada mines that operate at far greater depths, the relatively shallow depths of these occurrences should lend its self towards a much larger recovery of the potash ore”. At the time of this writing, Passport was continuing negotiations with the Karlsson Group Inc. on the terms of a Definitive Cooperative Agreement (the "DCA") in which Passport and Karlsson outline plans to jointly develop their potash resources. By combining holdings, Passport and Karlsson control over 120 sections of state and private lands which total nearly 80,000 acres.

 

Under the terms of the Navajo-Hopi Land Dispute Settlement Act of 1996, the Hopi Tribe purchased up to 500,000 acres of former Arizona state lands, mostly within the Holbrook Basin. Recently, Ringbolt/Passport/Karlsson sought and obtained agreement from the Hopi new lands trust to conduct mining operations on some or all of their Holbrook Basin properties. Through that agreement, Passport Potash will have access to some or all Hopi water rights in the Holbrook Basin.

 

On the Passport Potash website, they once displayed an image of conventional (shaft mining) and a diagram of in-situ recovery (solution) mining. There they say, “Potash deposits in the Holbrook Basin are considered shallow by industry standards, with deposits ranging at depths of between 800 and 1300 ft., which is a major advantage for Passport.” Nowhere on the website do they indicate a preference for one mining technique over the other.

 

To what extent Passport Potash will pump ground water from the aquifer adjacent the Little Colorado River remains to be seen. In discussing their recent exploratory drilling program, Passport said, “This hole represents the first exploration for potash within the boundaries of the Twin Buttes Ranch (on their Holbrook Basin property) in more than forty-five years. Potash was intercepted in this hole and has been confirmed by both visual inspection and by downhole geophysical logging”.

Further, they said, “Upon completion of drilling and logging, the hole has been converted into a producing water well. Water is present in the well and will be used in the ongoing drill program at a considerable cost saving to the company. The company has also set up a field office at the well site and this area will now serve as a base of operations from this point forward.” Although water wells are necessary to explore the location and extent of potash reserves, the public is left to believe that Passport Potash might use conventional shaft mining for their Holbrook Basin project. Was their “producing well” intended only for exploration, or did it foreshadow full-scale hydraulic injection mining throughout the basin? If not, why does the current Arizona Geological Survey map show forty-five wells permitted in the Holbrook Basin by the state since 2009?

 

With her Pulitzer Prize-worthy reporting, Linda Kor was first to break the story that Passport Potash plans an in-situ recovery (ISR) mine on their Holbrook Holdings. In a March 18, 2011 AZJournal article, Kor interviewed Passport Potash mine engineer Allen Wells. Wells was quick to point out that while other types of mining use cyanide or acids to flush out minerals, in mining potash, the only solution that will be used is salt and water. When asked where the water would come from for the project, Wells referred to the aquifer that runs beneath the earth’s surface. “With the current drilling that we’re doing the aquifer is pumping 200 gallons per minute. We would be pumping 2,000 gallons per minute to provide the solution for the mine,” he stated.

 

Prior to the granting of a full mining permit, the public has a right to know, once and for all, if Passport Potash plans to operate a conventional mine or a solution mine in the Holbrook Basin. If Passport Potash plans a conventional mine, then I say, “Bravo”. A conventional mine at Twin Buttes Ranch should not place significant additional burden on the water table of an already overstressed regional aquifer. Their stated intention to pump up to 2,000 gallons of water per minute in support of an in-situ potash mine does not bode well for the indigenous cultures of the Little Colorado River Basin. Only by retaining a steady state in the regional aquifers can the Navajo and the Hopi avoid seeing their wells go dry, thus ending over 4200 years of continuous cultivation on their sacred tribal lands.

 

Author's Note: Comment by Carla Padilla on July 30, 2016 12:25 PM.
My great grandfather was Juan Padilla. He was the first to settle by the confluence of the Lift Colorado River & the Rio Puerco. My father told me he had Spanish land grants & he settled this area because there was plenty of water and the grass was as tall as his chest. It is so very sad to see that this precious commodity has now been contaminated by human negligence.

  

Read Chapter One – The Little Colorado River Basin

Read Chapter Three - Holbrook Basin Water Crisis

Read Chapter Four - Colorado River Watershed At Risk

 

Email James McGillis

 

 

By James McGillis at 03:48 PM | Environment | Comments (1) | Link

The Little Colorado River Basin - Pre-ancestral Memories - 2011

 

 

The Little Colorado River Basin - Pre-ancestral Memories  

In his 2007 book House of Rain, author Craig Childs describes the Little Colorado River, as follows. “It is hardly a river. A death rattle of water, more like it. Barely wet enough to be called a river, it is named the Little Colorado. During the few weeks it runs high; it is a bloody froth of silt.”

 

In June 2008, I visited the “Little C.” at Homolovi State Park, Arizona. As I approached the river, runoff from winter snows and spring rains had ceased. Ducking under a floodplain safety fence ravaged by the river, I walked out on to the rapidly drying floodplain. The remaining surface water in the riverbed collected in pools near the banks. While lingering at the edge of a large pool, I realized that I was standing in quicksand.

 

Without warning, my sandaled feet sank up to the ankles. As I lurched to get away, gravity pulled me deeper into the liquefied sand. The viscosity of the quicksand made it difficult to move. In fright I pulled harder, lifting one foot, only to find my other foot sinking deeper into a bottomless goo. Driven by fear, I began my version of an Indian dance, rhythmically lifting and then driving each foot into the quicksand. As my dance step quickened, I arose from that hole in the Earth. Not stopping the rhythm, I padding across the shaky surface until I reached the riverbank.

 

Looking back on that episode, I now realize new things. One is that quicksand can be deep enough to conjure pre-ancestral memories of death and rebirth. Unexpectedly, I had reenacted my own version of the Hopi Indian Creation Myth. Although firsthand versions of the myth are sacred to the Hopi, there are as many translations of that myth as there are Hopi willing to tell a story to an outsider. Still, at the center of each version of the myth is a vision of the ancient Hopi people arising from a water-filled hole in the Earth.

 

To this day, the Hopi protect their knowledge of creation both for themselves and for all of humankind. Whether one considers the Hopi story of creation to be myth or truth is not important. Either way, the Hopi, who are native to the lands and aquifers at the heart of the Little Colorado Basin, knew the power of water to confer both life and death. I for one was happy to be reborn that day on the banks of the Little Colorado River.

 

After my bottomless quicksand scare, I vowed to keep moving while exploring the riverbed. As I moved and observed, the lack of surface water led me to perceive that the Little C’s flow was opposite from its actual direction. Proving the power of our belief systems, three years later, I still tend to believe that the river flows back toward its source, in the White Mountains of Arizona. Scientists tell us that only prior to the Late Triassic Period, 250 million years ago did this system of rivers and aquifers flow as my mind’s eye still perceives. Such is the power of the landscape in the desert that it brings forth pre-ancestral memories for us to ponder.

 

The northern flank of the Little Colorado River Plateau basin ends at Navajo National Monument, near the Arizona-Utah border. Its eastern flank is near the Arizona-New Mexico state line. On the south the up-tilt of the Mogollon Rim constrains it. In the west, U.S. Highway 89 North traces its periphery. Even with its watershed of 27,000 square miles, few places within the Little Colorado River Basin offer year-round sources of surface water.

 

According to the Arizona Department of Water Resources, aquifers of the Little Colorado River Plateau basin contain large quantities of groundwater in storage. However, they are in a sensitive relationship with the Little Colorado River and its few perennial tributaries. Lowering of hydrostatic heads by excessive groundwater withdrawals may cause some perennial reaches of the streams to dry up (Mann, 1976). After thirty-five years, it seems time for an update on that research.

 

When last surveyed, almost two decades ago, the two southern regional aquifers were still in hydrostatic equilibrium, or ‘steady-state’. However, local groundwater sinks or cones of depression were already developing in areas of heavy pumpage (Arizona Department of Water Resources, 1991) such as the paper mill near Snowflake and three of the power plants: Springerville Generating Station, Coronado Generating Station (St. Johns), and Cholla Generating Station (Joseph City/Holbrook). Of those top-four users of water in the southern aquifers, three are coal-fired power plants.

 

According to the Food & Agriculture Organization (FAO) at the United Nations, the Little Colorado River Watershed qualifies as a Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System (GIAHS) – Following is the FAO's description of the area.

 

“On the Colorado Plateau (including the Little Colorado River Basin) farming has been an unbroken cultural tradition for at least 4200 years. The Navajo, Zuni, Apache, Hopi, Paiute and Tewa have cultivated the most diverse annual crop assemblage in the New World north of the Tropic of Cancer. The landscapes of this ecologically diverse but arid region have been shaped by a variety of traditional land and water use practices. Farmers have managed the same fields and terrace gardens for centuries, in a way well adapted to the arid climate and the altitudes from 3350 to 4000 meters. Their traditional ecological knowledge has been transmitted orally in at least six indigenous and three European languages. In addition to tending pre-Columbian crops, residents adopted and further adapted some sheep herding, ranching and orchard keeping traditions of Hispanic, Basque and Anglo immigrants. More recently, these rural communities have developed a multicultural food system with extensive cross cultural exchange and mutual support.”

 

In a recent report, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) said, “A system-wide management approach is needed to achieve cost-effective floodplain and sediment management, while enhancing environmental aspects of the Little Colorado River watershed.”

 

In general, the outer boundaries of the Navajo Indian Reservation coincide with the outer reaches of the Little Colorado River Basin. There are two major exceptions. The southern boundary of Navajo reservation coincides with the northern boundary of Petrified Forest National Park. From there, west to Flagstaff and south to the Mogollon Rim, the land is Forest Service controlled or privately held. The other exception to Navajo hegemony over the basin is the Hopi Indian Reservation. Despite their independent tribal status, the Hopi reservation is landlocked within the larger Navajo reservation.

 

 

Surface and ground waters flow between the two reservations without regard for political boundaries. Although the Navajo and Hopi stress cooperation where they can, competing claims on water rights can be a contentious issue. Among other issues, the 1996 Navajo-Hopi Land Dispute Settlement Act identified and funded the purchase of up to 500,000 acres of new Hopi Trust Lands. These 'New Lands', including attendant water rights were to come from Arizona State holdings, beyond the borders of either reservation.

 

In exercising their rights, the Hopi subsequently purchased land and water rights within the southern reaches of the Little Colorado River Basin. Little did anyone know at the time, but Hopi Trust Lands and their concomitant water rights would soon make news again. In March 2011, the Ringbolt/Passport/Karlsson Group potash consortium obtained agreement from the Hopi Lands Trust to conduct exploratory operations on their Holbrook Basin holdings. Through that agreement, Passport Potash will have access to Hopi water rights in the southern reaches of the Little Colorado River Basin.

 

Author's Note: Clarification on the Passport/Ringbolt/Karlsson Potash "Consortium". Article Updated 9/2/2017

 

Read Chapter Two – The Holbrook Basin Potash Project 

Read Chapter Three - Holbrook Basin Water Crisis

Read Chapter Four - Colorado River Watershed At Risk

Email James McGillis

 

By James McGillis at 02:35 PM | Environment | Comments (1) | Link

Tsunami Hits Port Orford, Oregon - 2011

 

Tsunami Hits Port Orford, Oregon

On March 11, 2011, I awoke to stories about an earthquake and tsunami in Japan. My heart goes out to all who suffered loss in that epic event.

 

By 8:30 AM PST, I was online and watching our live webcam at the MoabLive website. The webcam faces east on to the beach from the Port of Port Orford. I did not have to wait long before the water surged around the Port Orford Heads and into the Port. Over the next ninety minutes I counted at least five surges, most of which rose to cover the entire beach.

 

 Watch the Port Orford Tsunami Video  

In order to capture the moment, I copied a series of JPG images from the webcam. Since the camera uploads a shot every three seconds, there was plenty of action to record. After saving the images, I compiled them in WMV file format. The generic term for such a file is a "wave movie". After uploading the video to YouTube, I embedded it here on my blog.

 

Luckily, there was no apparent damage at Port Orford, although Coos Bay to the North and Brookings Harbor to the south did not fare as well. After all of the excitement was over, we developed a bug in the webcam. In this case, it was a real bug that walked in front of the lens and stayed there until the webcam shut off for the night.

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By James McGillis at 09:15 PM | Current Events | Comments (0) | Link

New Orleans - The Lessons of Atlantis Begin to Sink In - 2011

 

 

New Orleans - The Lessons of Atlantis Begin to Sink In

In the early 1980s, then President Ronald Reagan endorsed the idea of creating an International Space Station (ISS). At the time, it appeared to be a make-work project designed to keep the aerospace industry alive during a period of relative peace. As early as 1969, during the Apollo Program, Americans had walked on the Moon, 238,000 miles from Earth. With a planned orbit of only 173 miles above the Earth, the ISS had no such lofty goals. Instead, the solar-powered pressure-vessels of the ISS offered only slow and steady progress toward long-term human habitation in space. Commensurate with its low-key goals, was a bargain price, estimated at less than $10 billion. A lot has changed over the past thirty years. At a current running cost of $150+ billion, the ISS is now the most expensive human engineered structure, either on or above the Earth.

 

As it passes overhead 15.7 times each day, most Americans think little about the ISS mission or its cost. If they knew more about it, many would say, “Who needs an ISS?” All these years later, I now believe that the ISS program is worth its cost. Even though its useful life may be less than ten more years, the ISS serves us as a microcosmic reflection of Earth. There, on a human-created, Earth-orbiting satellite, the ever-rotating crew conducts experiments in biology, chemistry, human biology, astronomy and meteorology.

 

Back on Earth, we find the Mississippi River available for similar, if unplanned experiments. Looking 135 nautical miles upriver from New Orleans, Louisiana, we find the Old River Control Structure. Only the static backpressure of its levees and control gates maintains a precarious balance of life downstream in New Orleans. In allegorical fashion, joints and fasteners connect the various ISS modules. Stressed by the unrelenting vacuum of space, gas leaks on the ISS are potentially deadly to the crew. While the ISS relies on constant atmospheric pressure within its structure, the Old River Control Structure relies on gravity and friction to hold back the kinetic energy of the Mississippi River. Both structures experience unrelenting energy, while entropy assures their ultimate demise and destruction.

 

As Katrina approached the Louisiana coast in August 2005, the hasty evacuation of New Orleans was a debacle. At the time, each city, state and federal official assumed that someone else had called for buses to provide evacuation of a poor and vulnerable population. The public evacuation plan turned out to be a myth. Hundreds of unused school buses later sat ruined by the flood. As affluent and able citizens evacuated structures to the North, a monumental traffic jam ensued. If each bus had carried a full load that day, more people could have evacuated in far less time. As it was, no one remained to assist the most vulnerable and helpless residents. Leaving the sickest in their beds, a hospital physician may have ordered lethal injections for forty-five non-ambulatory patients, prior to abandonment of the hospital.

 

One major difference between the International Space Station and New Orleans is that NASA and the ISS crew cannot afford to employ mythical thinking. If they ran the ISS in similar fashion to pre-Katrina New Orleans, something as simple as a coolant-pump failure could result in loss of both the crew and their quarters. Effective engineering, planning and resupply are essential to maintaining human habitation in space. New Orleans, on the other hand, currently sits in a dry bowl, free from flooding. Since simulations do not work well on a grand scale, we cannot properly assess the efficacy of defenses at New Orleans. Instead, we must wait for the next great storm in order to find out. By then it might be too late for both New Orleans and the federal deficit. Yet today, we maintain the fiction that New Orleans can continue its long-term defiance of the laws of Nature.

 

NASA provided the ISS with spare coolant pumps beyond the number of anticipated failures. Will their planning be sufficient? I believe that the ISS has a better chance of surviving intact for the next ten years than does the City of New Orleans. If New Orleans, Louisiana were to flood again, the cost to revive the city would easily surpass the estimated $160 billion lifetime cost of the ISS.

 

This is not a personal prediction of death, doom and despair, but floods, fire an famine are not out of the question. Humankind has the ability use both its collective memory and its collective consciousness. If we allow a shift in consciousness, newly awakened humankind could change the future of Planet Earth. With both the profit motive and politics at play, it is hard to determine if our current plans are sound. If each stakeholder could reflect upon our overall relationship with the laws of Nature, they might see themselves as part of a larger whole. With a touch of gnost, we can understand Nature and help guide humanity’s relationship with Gaia, our Mother Earth.

 

Centuries ago, at a bend in the Mississippi River, settlers created New Orleans. From that time, forward, humans continued to build structures there with little regard for attendant environmental consequences. As hard and fast as many stakeholder positions seem to be, Nature can lift those stakes and carry them away like driftwood, to the Gulf of Mexico. Since Earth is the only permanent habitat known to humans, it behooves us to acknowledge and accommodate the laws of Nature as supreme to any laws of our own making.

 

Taking the laws of Nature into account, we should study alternate weather and flood scenarios for New Orleans and its environs. Without regard for corporate profits, property values or political gain, independent studies and their recommendations should again see the light of day. Once we understand the likelihood of various weather events, we can then proceed with plans to protect only that which is reasonable to protect. If the hubris and ignorance of our ancestors continues in New Orleans, we risk human-aided devastation and destruction unlike any seen on Earth since the last days of Atlantis.

 

 

 

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By James McGillis at 11:38 PM | Environment | Comments (0) | Link

Sea of Atlantis - The Future City of New Orleans - 2011

 

 

Sea of Atlantis

The Future City of New Orleans 

A characteristic lesson from the fall of Atlantis is that humans can manipulate matter. Furthermore, humans can appear to bend Nature to their needs. However, neither the Atlantean culture nor our own can control the laws of Nature.

 

To demonstrate that human control of nature is an illusion, look no further than the perceived permanence of the Old River Control Structure, 135 miles upriver from New Orleans, Louisiana. Atlantean elite labels and slogans are often so audacious, that their unrealistic goals sound heroic or mythical. Imagine the audacity of using poles stuck in the mud to control the largest river in North America. In anticipation that their designated mounds of earth would stay where expected, the Army Core of Engineers (COE) named it a “river control structure”. Prefacing that moniker, should be the word “temporary”.

 

After the experiences of Hurricane Katrina and the 2010 flooding in Pakistan, it is reasonable to believe that New Orleans might yet experience simultaneous floods of each type. The scenario goes like this:

 

• When a Katrinaesque hurricane makes landfall at New Orleans, resultant storm surge and overflow from Lake Pontchartrain floods much of the city.
• As the storm travels north, it stalls and dumps unprecedented rainfall on the Middle and Upper Mississippi River Valleys.
• When the resulting flood crests at the Old River Control Structure, catastrophic failure ensues, sending one uncontrolled torrent down the Mississippi River Channel and another down the Atchafalaya River.
• As an unprecedented flow reaches New Orleans, the city floods yet again, only this time there are few if any levees still standing to protect it.

 

In the aftermath of a simultaneous Katrina-style storm surge and a Pakistan-style river flood, New Orleans could well be unsalvageable. After such a super flood, the Mississippi River Channel through New Orleans would become a silt-clogged riverbed, rather than the deep channel of today. Unless stakeholders plan now for decreased reliance on river and port traffic for economic vitality, New Orleans faces the possibility of a flood-induced economic collapse.

 

Have we learned our Atlantean lessons? For the most part, the answer is, “No”. We prefer the nostalgia of the French Quarter; a streetcar named Desire and a wonderful cultural history to prudent post-Atlantean and post-Katrina planning. Mythical thinking will not end global warming, higher sea levels or stronger storm surges. Regardless of who or what caused global warming, reputable scientists agree that future weather trends include higher average surface temperatures. From Venice, Italy to Bangladesh, to the Seychelles Islands, the accelerated pace of coastal and island flooding worldwide shows no signs of abating. If the Greenland ice shelf melts away, we may not be discussing the prospects of saving any of those places, as they may already be slipping beneath the waves.

 

Since Katrina in 2005, the federal government has spent an estimated $125 billion in and around New Orleans. As a citizenry, we should now determine how much we plan to spend on any flood prone region. More important, what we wish to accomplish with those funds? As long as the option for rebuilding a full-sized, old style New Orleans is on the table, the cost may well be too high to bear. Currently, few of the local, state or federal stakeholders are willing to downscale their ambitions. Instead, they attempt to resolve the issue with public proclamations, featuring new and soon to be inadequate levees. Dubbed “The Great Wall”, one new storm surge barrier reminds me of the original Great Wall of China. Astronauts report that the original Great Wall is the only manmade structure easily visible from the International Space Station. History showed that those massive bulwarks did little to prevent nomadic groups from entering the Chinese Empire. Likewise, the new Great Walls will not fully protect New Orleans from category-five hurricanes.

 

Extensive dredging and reworking of the watercourses throughout the Mississippi River Delta have made defending New Orleans more difficult. After it snakes through the city, the Mississippi River deposits almost none of its silt in shallow water. Instead, the river rushes past New Orleans on a fast trip to the Gulf of Mexico. Bypassing any remaining wetlands, the silt plunges deep into the Gulf. On its descent to the seafloor, the silt releases a toxic mixture of fertilizer and chemicals. Suspended in the water column above the silt beds is a vast hypoxic dead zone. Not even bacteria can survive in its oxygen-depleted environment.

 

In June 2010, the federal government dedicated over $14 billion to rehabilitation of Louisiana wetlands. At the same time, rumor had it that President Obama supported a redirection of the Mississippi River as a mechanism for providing silt to those wetlands. To accomplish that goal, he might order the COE to flip-flop the water delivery ratios at the Old River Control Structure. New Orleans would henceforth receive huge amounts of silt, but far less water. Concurrently, the Atchafalaya River would take its place as the terminal distributary of the Mississippi River. Upon settling downstream from New Orleans, the newly redirected silt would naturally rebuild fisheries, bayous and marshes. In turn, the larger wetlands would form a natural storm surge barrier for the city.

 

Only the Mississippi River can discharge the silt volume required to rebuild the wetlands. If humans or Nature can slow the velocity of the river, soils from more than a dozen states might begin to precipitate out near New Orleans. Only then would the river become a useful tool for rebuilding the wetlands of the Mississippi River Delta. If ever there was a good argument for letting Nature take her course, this may be it.

 

As a cultural landmark and a great historical city, I love New Orleans. Sadly, it has now become a poster child for Atlantean mythical thinking. As a society, we must be willing to create an infrastructure and investment strategy for New Orleans that has finite goals and limits. What budgetary amount we agree upon is less important than being realistic about our attempts to control Nature. Once realism returns to the process, scientists and engineers can combine efforts and create appropriate defenses for core locations and critical functions throughout the region.

 

Although almost no one wants to hear it, New Orleans should utilize its lowest lying and most vulnerable areas as storm surge basins. After relocating low-income residents to safer areas, the city could afford to sacrifice low-lying areas to flooding, while protecting and preserving a more defensible city core. Ultimately, it will be less expensive to provide a Brad Pitt House in a new neighborhood for each low-lying family than to leave entire neighborhoods in peril. Once the lowest lying residents move out, those areas could become parks or urban farms. With no fulltime residents in harm’s way, the cost of future flood protection and reconstruction would be far lower.

 

Any legitimate plan for New Orleans must recognize the near inevitability of storm surge and river related flooding. Even with a pragmatic plan, rather than a political one, there is no guarantee that a great flood will not inundate New Orleans. The strategy that I suggest would allow a smaller city to survive longer than the current “full city” strategy, while saving both money and the environment in the process.

 

 Read Chapter One

Read Chapter Two

Read Chapter Four

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By James McGillis at 01:43 PM | Environment | Comments (0) | Link