Chaco Canyon, New Mexico

Seeking the Miracle of Water Near Kin Klizhin Ruin

The Colorado Plateau Province is a physiographic region roughly centered on the Four Corner States. On its southeastern periphery lies what we call Chaco Canyon, New Mexico. In May 2011, I visited the Kin Klizhin Ruin at Chaco Culture National Historic Park. Kin Klizhin is the southernmost outlier of Chacoan Culture, and some say the ancient welcome center for Chaco Canyon itself.
 
It has been a millennium since the Great Disappearance, or demise of Pre-Puebloan culture on the Colorado Plateau. In the two years since my last visit, I wondered, had anything changed? As I soon discovered, the landscape had changed. In my brief absence, the sands of time had begun their march. The wheel ruts along the access road were a bit deeper, as were the sand drifts at their edges. Some might believe that this is natural evolution here on Earth. Others might see blowing sand as a significant threat to our environment.
 
If there is one defining physical feature on the Colorado Plateau, it is sand. During a visit to the Four Corners, one might see loose sand, quicksand, blowing sand, sand dunes, sandstone and tar sand. Human activities such as road building, motorized sports, cattle grazing and sheep herding all contribute to soil erosion. As frequent regional dust storms stir further soil erosion, we experience a drier, sandier High Southwest. In the two years since my last visit, the approach to Kin Klizhin was scoured of soil in some places and sandier than ever in others. Either way, the sands of the Colorado Plateau were moving once again.
 
Although I did not feel any rain the afternoon of my visit, a large thunderstorm was sweeping majestically away to the northeast. There was a breathtaking contrast between bright sunshine on the land and dark clouds in the sky. Turning from that spectacle, I saw yet another wonder of nature. It was the Chaco Canyon elk herd, or at least seven members of its southern contingent.
 
During my 2008 visit, I had startled an elk herd near Kin Klizhin. At the time, I had taken a picture of five bucks running at top speed. If there was a bull among the 2011 herd, it showed no antlers at all. This led me to believe that there may be more than one Chaco Canyon elk herd. Some visitors have heard their bellows from Gallo Campground, fourteen miles away. Could their voices carry that far, or were there two separate herds? Perhaps there is a greater Chaco Canyon elk herd, with a smaller group at Kin Klizhin. The extent and range of Chaco Canyon elk herds would be a good subject for zoological study.
 
During my previous visit, I had surprised the herd near an open water source, which was on the east side of the double-track. The 2011 herd, however, was on the west side of the road, standing below an old windmill, and its cast iron water tank. After photographing the elk, I drove slowly along the road. At several points, I stopped again to take pictures of the small herd. Wary of both my vehicle and me, they tightened their ranks and then slowly walked away. As long as I could still see them, they continued to look back and observe me, as well.
 
During my 2008 Kin Klizhin tour, I had visited Windmill Hill. At the time, the old Aermotor windmill was ragged and derelict, with barely enough structure remaining to suggest the water pump it once had been. Over the past eighty or more years, it had done its job all too well, sucking dry the aquifer over which it stood. The dry and rusty cast-iron tank, with its poorly patched leak holes told a story of profligate water use in earlier and wetter times. For much of the twentieth century, the Aermotor windmill ran continuously from atop this windy hill. Before seizing up, it pumped the last drop of ancient water from the Kin Klizhin aquifer. In my 2008 story, the old windmill symbolized the drying and disappearance of two cultures at Kin Klizhin.
 
In about 1100 CE, those who had tended the irrigation dam and milpas at Kin Klizhin departed, never to return. The Pre-Puebloan Chaco people had diverted surface runoff, sequestering it behind their hand-built dam. The large amount of ancient water that soaked into the sandy soil later became a target for twentieth century extraction technologies. After centuries of accumulation and a millennium of rest below the surface, that irreplaceable aquifer disappeared in less than a century. Although leakage from the water tank was extensive, the primary usage was even more wasteful. In the high and dry desert, ranchers piped the water to cattle troughs at the site. Exemplifying a lesson of unsustainability, when the well went dry, the ranchers and cattle herds of Chaco Canyon experienced their own Great Disappearance.
 
As I drove west up the short road to Windmill Hill, sunlight on the Kin Klizhin windmill reflected into my eyes. As if it were a heliostat standing in focused light, the object appeared even brighter than the sun. Before the advent of new energy, all reflected light was weaker than its source. Since the Quantum Leap in energy, reflected light may shine with greater intensity than its light source. Some may pass this phenomenon off as a simple lensing effect. It is, I believe, a local confirmation of Einstein’s larger curved-space theory.
 
With few intact blades, how could the windmill shine with such brilliance? To my amazement, I son discovered a shiny new windmill atop the old steel tower. Its many galvanized steel blades acted like a Fourth Order Fresnel Lens, refracting and concentrating the light. In Miguel Cervantes book, “Don Quixote of La Mancha”, the inept hero does battle with a windmill that he mistakes for an unfriendly giant. Unfriendly or not, Don Quixote’s windmill at least served a literal purpose.
 
Was the new Kin Klizhin windmill a flight of fancy or did someone actually think that there was water down there yet to be pumped? Either way, individuals that are more rational had banked the new windmill, so it could not spin to destruction in the wind. In the future, if anyone sees this windmill pumping water, please let me know. I would consider that a miracle of the desert.

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

A Visit With Lizard Man, The Spirit of Pueblo Bonito - 2011

 

A Visit With Lizard Man, The Spirit of Pueblo Bonito

When I arrived at Chaco Canyon in May 2011, it had been two years since my previous visit. That two-year hiatus represented one five-hundredth of the time since the crash of Chaco’s Pre-Puebloan culture. From the perspective of Chaco Canyon history, my time away was insignificant.

Arriving at the park after nightfall, I had searched the visitor’s area for water to fill the tank on my RV. To my chagrin, the old water tap lay capped-off and hidden behind the temporary park headquarters. After searching for a while, I found the new water tap in a far corner of the parking lot. Whoever placed it there was not thinking about RV service. The only way to use the faucet was to fill containers and then transport them by hand. The new manual system encouraged conservation, but mainly through inconvenience.

After investigating Gallo Campground, I visited a large yurt that serves as the temporary visitor’s center. Across the parking lot, the old center had disappeared, almost without a trace. Early that morning, I had seen a large cement truck rolling in. Where the old center had stood, construction workers were busy pouring a concrete slab for the new one. Based on the remoteness of the worksite and progress to date, I estimated summer of 2012 for the opening of the new center.

After paying my park entry fee, I purchased the book, “ Finders Keepers: A Tale of Archaeological Plunder and Obsession”, by author and naturalist Craig Childs. Early twentieth century archeological exploitation at Chaco Canyon had left it barren of in-situ artifacts. In the name of twentieth century archeological science, every human-made object found at Chaco Canyon disappeared into private or institutional collections. Today, many of those treasures linger on dusty shelves at various museums and universities. That void leaves Chaco Canyon as a place with insufficient context. For current visitors, putting the ancient puzzle together from only its architectural ruins can be daunting.

At the northwest end of Chaco Canyon lies Pueblo Bonito, the largest and most elaborate of the park’s great houses. At its zenith, as a gathering place of the ancient world, Pueblo Bonito was still centuries away from European contact. Seeing its similarity to historical Hopi, Zuni and Pueblo Indian dwellings, early Spanish visitors named it as such.

Early European visitors found Chaco Canyon deserted and destroyed by its ancient inhabitants. It was that event, about 1100 CE that we now call the Great Disappearance. Within less than one hundred years, Chaco Canyon, Hovenweep and Mesa Verde all fell to disuse and abandonment. Until the ancestral Navajos arrived centuries later, most of the Colorado Plateau remained uninhabited.

Why did the Pre-Puebloan residents of Chaco Canyon build their grandest structure in the shadow of “Threatening Rock”, or tse biyaa anii'ahi (leaning rock gap) in Navajo? Archeologists say that early reinforcement of that fractured sandstone slab indicates ancient knowledge of its peril. Was their choice of location an example of ancient risk-taking behavior, or was something else involved?

Seeking answers to this ancient mystery, we may wish to look at contemporary human behavior. If you visit Pueblo Bonito in the late afternoon, you will find others awaiting sundown from within its walls. With few exceptions, those pilgrims wait in reverent silence. Was ancient Pueblo Bonito also a place of silence? Once twentieth century archeologists began studying and excavating the ruins at Chaco Canyon, automobile traffic became ubiquitous in that area. Accompanying those vehicles were new and louder sonic vibrations, thus ending one thousand years of silence in that place.

In January 1941, Threatening Rock, which stood 97 feet (30 m) high and weighed approximately 30,000 tons crumbled on to the northern section of Pueblo Bonito. As it fell, the once intact slab broke into untold numbers of jagged boulders, both large and small. Like a flood of stone fragments, the rock fall released its energy over a large part of the great house ruin. Since the fallen rock and the building blocks of the great house are similar in color and texture, only their haphazard angles of repose help an observer to differentiate the natural elements from the constructed ones.

Threatening Rock stood both before, during, and for a millennium after habitation at Pueblo Bonito. Why, within forty years of modern rediscovery did the great stone slab crash down upon the ruin? Did the sound of human voices, the vibrations from their machines, or time alone topple and shatter that monolith?

During my recent visit to Pueblo Bonito, I made a clockwise circuit of the ruins, observing in turn, the south, west, north (rock fall area) and finally the east. Although there is much to see and feel within the walls of the great house, I was intent upon finding and visiting with an old friend that day. With any luck, I would find him hiding among the broken boulders of the rock fall. Was he still there, or had he vanished in the two years since my last visit?

As I walked along the path leading to the rock fall, there was no trace of my friend. Then, at a sharp left turn, I saw him under the overhang of a large boulder. He stood in profile, as if part of a natural frieze, sculpted and then released from ageless bondage in stone. Freed from his bondage in stone after one thousand years of silence, I offered my silent words of greeting to Lizard Man, the spirit of Pueblo Bonito. Although his wise countenance stared back at me, he remained silent.

It was not until I edited the photos that accompany this article that I noticed a vertical slab of stone framed in my first photo of Lizard Man. In the gap between boulders, behind where he stands a tall fin of sandstone stands away from the canyon wall. Was Lizard Man nonchalantly asking us to observe more of this scene than just him? Indirectly, was he pointing to the new Threatening Rock?

After taking several photos of my friend, I continued on my circuit of Pueblo Bonito. While taking the longer, temporary path to the parking area, I turned to look back. From there I could see the wavelike pattern of broken stone left by the 1941 rock fall. Turning my gaze to the canyon wall, I realized that I was now on the far side of the rock fin that Lizard Man had pointed out to me. It was indeed a new Threatening Rock, which had sliced away from the canyon wall. Narrow at the bottom and wide at the top, this slab was far smaller than the original Threatening Rock. How much longer that second Pillar of Hercules might stand, I cannot say. Only Lizard Man knows, but he is not talking.

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By James McGillis at 05:44 PM | Travel | Comments (0) | Link

The Gallo Campground at Chaco Canyon, New Mexico - 2011

 

The Gallo Campground at Chaco Canyon, New Mexico

Late on May 21, 2011, I arrived at Chaco Culture National Historic Park. Known colloquially as Chaco Canyon, the place is almost equidistant from Nageezi and Crownpoint, New Mexico. For Interstate Highway reference, Chaco Canyon is about fifty miles northeast of I-40, if exiting at Thoreau, New Mexico. Although situated at what once was the crossroads of the Pre-Puebloan world, Chaco Canyon slipped into obscurity after the Great Disappearance, one thousand years ago.
 
Today, the larger Navajo Reservation encompasses over sixty percent of San Juan County, New Mexico. Of the county’s 130,000 residents, about thirty-five percent are Navajo. Seventy percent of county population resides in the Farmington Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA), including Aztec and Shiprock. Sparsely populated Indian lands dominate the balance of the county. Finding Chaco Canyon, sequestered as it is among high desert mesas can be difficult, unless you are Navajo.
 
Even in this era of GPS navigation, the Magellan map database is woefully inadequate in Navajo Country, which surrounds Chaco Canyon on three sides. At least twice during my southern approach from Crownpoint, Magellan instructed me to turn at erroneous locations. The first road resembled a dirt track; the second existed only in the minds of early Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) surveyors. Between my late start toward Chaco Canyon and Magellan’s sweet-voiced siren luring me toward sandy tracks across New Mexico and the high desert plateau, it was after 9:30 PM when I arrived at Gallo Campground in Chaco Canyon.
 
There, as I scanned the bulletin board for information, the campground host emerged from her coach. That kind soul, living in the middle of nowhere, had held back two RV spaces for late arrivals like me. Had she not done so, there would be no other legal RV camping within twenty miles, via treacherous, washboard roads. That night, I had tempted fate and fate had smiled on me. It came in the form of the volunteer host who saved my camping bacon.
 
While conducting research for this article, I found the “Gallo” name attached to many features in New Mexico. After I had no luck discovering who “Senor Gallo” might have been, I recalled that in Spanish “gallo” translates as “rooster”. Is the derivation of the local place name as simple as, “Rooster Wash”? Either way, its adjacency to the Gallo Wash, makes “Gallo Campground” an appropriate name. On the mesa north of Chaco Canyon, three “Gallo Wells” stand among the few other human-constructed landmarks. Every drop of fresh water used in Chaco Canyon originates in that sandstone aquifer.
 
Early in the past decade, the Gallo Wash flooded a portion of the campground. During my September 2007 visit, several low-lying campsites sported yellow tape and barricades. Floods along this Chaco River tributary had damaged the septic system, requiring extensive repairs. If you look at a satellite photo of the campground, long, geometrical berms associated with the new septic system are evident. Used as causeways during wet weather, one of the flattop berms ends at the communal campfire circle.
 
To their detriment and possible demise, Anasazi visitors and residents stripped the San Juan Plateau of all its timber. Deforestation eliminated extensive root structures, which had long held the soil. Later, cattle and sheep that grazed around Chaco Canyon exacerbated the erosion begun during the Ancestral Puebloan era. Undammed and wild, the Gallo Wash became a twentieth century focus for erosion control projects.
 
Beginning in the 1930s, the Civilian Conservation Corp (CCC) conducted extensive tree planting in the lower reaches of Gallo Wash. By that time, it was too late to save the meandering stream of yesteryear. Today, most of Gallo Wash is a deeply eroded, if somewhat stabilized ravine. Although only treetops are visible from the Main Loop Road, cottonwood trees planted there eighty years ago still flourish. At either end of Chaco Canyon, highway bridges span Gallo Wash. At the eastern bridge, near the confluence of Gallo Wash and the smaller Fajada Wash, you may stop and view full sized trees growing up from the streambed, far below.
 
Only upstream from the campground does the wash retain the look of a broad arroyo. With scrubby growth stretching from bank to bank, the water table there is closer to the surface. With less soil or sand below that section, floodwaters spread, rather than cutting deeply into the soil. In satellite photos, the larger Gallo Wash stands out as the most highly eroded canyon in San Juan County. Did early exhaustion of timberlands and arable land doom Chaco Canyon to depopulation and eventual abandonment?  Today, the grassy wasteland that we see in and around Chaco Canyon tends to say, “Yes”.
 
The following afternoon, I spent time walking south along a nearby canyon wall. Other than the contemporary toilet facilities, the most prominent permanent feature at Gallo Campground is a humble Chacoan rock house. Unlike the multi-roomed and multi-storied great houses found elsewhere at Chaco Canyon, this structure contains only two small rooms. Tucked under the canyon overhang, most of the structure has stood the test of time. In its heyday, around 1050 CE, what function did this structure serve?
 
The Chacoan rock house sits near the seasonal stream at Gallo Wash. Perhaps the structure was a granary, overlooking a stream fed cornfield or milpas. Maybe it served as a welcome center or port of entry to Chaco Canyon itself. Northbound, Chacoan visitors had the unique round kiva at Kin Klizhin to welcome them. For southbound visitors, the campground may have served much the same purpose that it does today. Then, as now, the site provided a final rest before viewing the great houses at Chaco Canyon.
 
As I continued my campground tour, I felt and then saw the spirit of the ancients on the walls around me. Whether decorating the canyon walls with pictographs and petroglyphs or building a small granary, the ancients imbued their outdoor areas with sacred art. As with many of the structures at Chaco Canyon, the rock house at Gallo Campground displayed an anthropoid image to me. Using its windows, air vents and roof beam holes, this little structure exhibited a face with character equal to its age.
 
As I approached the canyon wall, a variety of rock art images leapt out at me. One of the more obvious examples was a red ochre painting of a man. A pair of slim antennae emanated from the top of his head and a male organ pointed downward. Standing spread-eagle, this ancient Vitruvian Man predated Leonardo Da Vinci’s by five hundred years. As with so many ancient spirits, he had evolved over the past 1000 years. With two small rivers of gold flowing over his body, I noted that his stone cranium was proportionally larger than that of current humans. Perhaps the longer a spirit lingers on a Chaco Canyon wall, the greater consciousness he or she attracts.
 
My next stop was under the overhanging wall. There, water and minerals have seeped through porous sandstone, leaving their unique mark. If you study the Gallo Campground, you will find that both wind and water play a continuing role in the shaping the local landscape. Since the ancients last viewed it, this perennially damp wall has been sand blasted by one thousand years of storms.
 
As I stepped back, the erosional rock formation (image above) revealed its ancient essence to me. With the profile of a Mayan warrior in headdress, a face appeared. His large left eye seemed to spy me at the same time that I saw him. We both looked startled, I am sure. Regaining our respective composure, I asked if I could photograph him and share his story with the world. In silent ascent, he posed ferociously, if a bit comically for my lens. Oh, the stories he might tell of campfires and revelry at Gallo Campground, both past and present.
 
Soon, I reached the end of the cliff wall, where I discovered a cave large enough to shelter a family from the elements. When a freestanding slab of sandstone tilted, and then came to rest against the canyon rim, the cave established itself. Not knowing what wildlife might be lurking inside the cave; I remained outside.
 
As I completed my circuit of the campground, I could see Fajada Butte rising in the distance. The lowering angle of the sun reminded me of other plans. By then, there were less than three hours before sunset. My planned trip around the Main Loop Road at Chaco Canyon would take most of that time. Although the loop contains only nine miles of paved road, I hoped to stop and visit other Ancestral Puebloan spirits along the way. During a previous visit to Pueblo Bonito, I had discovered a cleft-rock frieze that I called “Lizard Man”. Had Lizard Man sloughed off in a recent rock slide, or did he patiently wait there for my return? I could not wait to find out.

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By James McGillis at 05:16 PM | Travel | Comments (0) | Link

Native American Civilization Bites the Nuclear Dust at White Mesa, Utah - 2011

 

Native American Civilization Bites the Nuclear Dust at White Mesa, Utah

The settlement of White Mesa, Utah is located twelve miles south of Blanding, Utah on U.S. Highway 191. As the Utah component of the Ute Mountain Ute Reservation, its 2000 census data indicated a population of 277 people. Over ninety-eight percent of the population was Native American. By the 2010 census, the population at White Mesa had fallen over twelve percent to 242 people. By then, the population had aged, with fewer children and young people living there. In 2000, over fifty percent of the population lived below the poverty line. The only retail business at White Mesa is the reservation-owned White Mesa Travel Center, which includes as gas station and convenience store.

About halfway between White Mesa and Blanding, Utah, sits the Denison Mines White Mesa Mill. First opened in 1980 by Energy Fuels Corporation, White Mesa Mill went bankrupt in 1997. At that time, International Uranium (USA) Corp. purchased the mill. Later, Denison Mines purchased the mill and now operates it as a wholly owned subsidiary. The White Mesa Mill has the distinction of being the only conventional uranium ore-processing mill in the United States. Unobtrusive, when viewed from the highway, the facility covers 3840 acres of land. In addition to the mill itself are huge earthworks and retention ponds. In 2002, The Canyon Country Zephyr named the White Mesa Mill its “#1 Secret Place of Canyon Country”.

Currently, the mill accepts radioactive and toxic wastes from around the nation, and then stores them onsite. When the gathered stockpiles of nuclear tailings and residues are sufficient, the mill goes into operation and processes them. With the addition of newly mined ores, the mill has seen continuous operation since 2005. Since there is no rail access to the mill, all materials arrive at the site by truck. When you are sitting at an open-air café in Moab, Utah watching huge multi-axel tractor-trailer rigs roll through town, they may be loaded with nuclear contaminated materials destined for White Mesa. It is interesting that those huge, covered trailers display no hazardous or nuclear placards.

Although the processing plant has a separate vanadium-processing loop, the main product of the White Mesa Mill is triuranium octoxide (U3O8), which is a compound of uranium. Despite its olive green color, U3O8 is a form of yellowcake, which may contain up to eighty percent uranium oxide. Triuranium octoxide manufactured at White Mesa Mill is transported offsite for further enrichment. Its ultimate use is as fuel for nuclear power plants. With further enrichment, it could become weapons-grade material.

In May 2008, the Division of Air Quality (DAQ), within the Utah Division of Environmental Quality conducted an inspection and issued a report regarding air quality compliance at White Mesa Mill. Among other things, the DAQ inspection looked at how much ten-micron particulate matter (PM10) went up the stacks and into the atmosphere. Although permitted for up to .4 pounds of PM10 per hour, during inspection each yellowcake scrubber/dryer onsite emitted “only” .12 pounds per hour. If operated continuously for one year, those two dryer/scrubbers alone would emit over one ton of unknown, possibly radioactive particulates into the air. Other sources claim that the mill annually emits 62 tons of sulfur dioxide, 109 tons of nitrogen oxides, and 254 tons of particulates. Propane usage onsite is several million gallons per year.

Also discovered during the 2008 inspection was a non-compliant baghouse (air filtration facility) associated with lab operations at the site. After notification of non-compliance, Denison Mines estimated that the baghouse emitted one hundred ten pounds of PM10 particulates per year. Although there was no corroboration of those estimates, the Utah DAQ did not challenge company findings. Because of the supposedly small amount of released particulates, the DAQ did not fine Denison Mines for non-compliance.

After thirty years of operation, much of the mill’s original equipment is still in use, or disuse, as the case may be. For example, the 2008 DAQ inspection determined that the emergency electrical generator onsite had last operated in 1996. Despite the requirement that an emergency generator be available during power interruptions, DAQ did not fine Denison Mines for lack of compliance. Ironically, the DAQ inspection report used inoperability as a reason to not penalize the operator. In the inspection report, there is no mention of the need to fix or replace the derelict emergency generator. Under the circumstances, we can only hope that future power interruptions will not result in site contamination or release of airborne particulates.

Also missing, misplaced or misidentified during the inspection was a Bartlett-Snow rotary calciner. The DAQ report indicated, “Company contacts were not aware of where the rotary calciner and control equipment were located.” That surprised me, since a rotary calciner shown at the Bartlett-Snow website required a three-axel flatbed trailer to carry it. I checked eBay, and as of this writing, the only used rotary calciner listed there carried a price of $35,000. If I were interested in that unit, I would bring a dosimeter with me during the inspection.

If you Google “White Mesa Uranium Mill”, you will find a host of articles decrying large-scale trucking of nuclear waste to the mill, as well as its spotty environmental record. In 2008, the Utah DAQ found missing, inoperable and unpermitted equipment at the mill. In their final report, DAQ’s lack of urgency and enforcement reminded me of lax oversight at the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plant prior to March 2011. When the tsunami flooded all of the emergency generators at the plant, a cascade of failures began, leading to a nuclear fuel meltdown on May 13, 2011.

The Denison Mines White Mesa Mill is not in danger of a nuclear meltdown. The yellowcake produced there is not fissionable. Still, in its final recommendations for their next inspection, the Utah DAQ report suggested in typical understated fashion, “Bring a respirator – It may be needed in certain areas of the facility”.

On June 3, 2011, I rolled up the front gate at White Mesa Mill, which appeared to be in full operation. Visible smoke issued from two large exhaust stacks on the east side of the mill. Although the 2008 DAQ report indicated that no single source of particulates at the mill should exceed twenty percent opacity, to me the visible smoke completely obscured the blue sky beyond it. Admittedly, I did not have proper optical measuring equipment that day. Still, a simple webcam pointing at the stacks from a position that shows a solid background should solve that problem. If asked, I would be happy to supply a free webcam system to the Utah DAQ. With the installation of a solid black “billboard” behind each stack, DAQ compliance officers could remotely monitor the opacity of released particulates. If the mill were in compliance, Denison Mines could use the calibrated webcam images to prove it.

Finally, what shall become of the poorest, least represented and closest proximity residents to the White Mesa Mill? If trends identified in the 2000 and 2010 census prevail, the Ute Mountain Ute Reservation at White Mesa will continue its decline. Once a thriving settlement that featured paved roads, utilities and framed houses, the neighborhood at White Mesa is now derelict and decaying. A quick drive through “town” shows many abandoned homes. With six square miles of nuclear and chemical waste nearby, the resale market for property at White Mesa, let alone Blanding, Utah is fading like the smoke from White Mesa Mill.

Since the dry climate in Southeastern Utah slows decay, these relics of Native American culture might well be standing at White Mesa one thousand years from now. What will future archeologists think when they discover an abandoned ruin near an abandoned uranium mill and a large pile of nuclear contaminated waste?

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By James McGillis at 05:00 PM | Environment | Comments (0) | Link

Neither Soy Diesel nor Ethanol are an "Alternative Fuel" Panacea - 2011

 

Neither Soy Diesel nor Ethanol are an "Alternative Fuel" Panacea

   

Whether by choice or mandate, the past fifteen years have brought changes to the formulas of our two most popular liquid fuels. In the century-old market for diesel fuel, soy based alternatives became available. Reasons for offering non-hydrocarbon diesel alternatives were several. Soy fuels promised equal or better engine performance, fuel economy, reductions in soot, smell, nitrogen oxide and carbon dioxide emissions. Since my only diesel engine was in WindSong, our 1970 Ericson sailboat, I began adding about one-third bio-diesel during each fill up. Later in this article, I will discuss my results.
 
In the U.S. gasoline market, ten percent alcohol, derived from corn became mandatory.  Today, the liquid fuel we put in our automotive and small engine fuel tanks barely resembles the gasoline of the 1960s. Since then, we have eliminated lead, added and then removed MTBE, added and retained up to ten percent corn alcohol to the blend. In order to distance "corn alcohol" from "demon rum", it was re-positioned as "ethanol". The ostensible reasons for adding ethanol to our gasoline are similar to the arguments for biodiesel. On several accounts, that story falls short.
 
On the engine performance side, alcohol burns more cleanly, but is highly corrosive, while attracting  both dirt and water. It does not have higher octane, and therefore it does not provide better performance. Since it carries less energy per gallon, it robs, rather than improves fuel economy. With two strikes against ethanol, how did our farm-state legislators pass a mandate to put their produce in our fuel tanks? Simply put, they played the “foreign oil card”. After all, we grow the corn here in America, so a ten percent reduction of foreign oil input to our gasoline could help decrease our dependency on unreliable or expensive producers, like the Middle East.
 
The only problem with using corn to create “homegrown fuel” is that it takes more energy input to deliver it than we get out of it when we burn it. When you figure the cost of growing, processing and transporting corn, and the alcohol thus derived, it becomes clear that the corn-fueling program is nothing more than a farm subsidy. Even at $5.00 per gallon, it is still less expensive to import and refine oil than it is to create corn fuel. Since consumers pay that extra tariff at the pump, they do not perceive it as a tax. Hello, Tea Party... If you are looking for a tax to eliminate, how about the Midwest corn fuel tax?
 
Of all the plants suited for alcohol production, corn is one of the lowest on the list. When the G.W. Bush Administration started talking about “switch grass” as a better alternative to corn, I knew something is fishy. Of all available plants, the dreaded and ill-fated hemp plant may have the greatest potential. Since the federal government classifies the more esoteric forms of that "weed" as a narcotic, it may be a while before we positive developments there. In the biofuel market, corn is cute but hemp is just plain ugly. Sometimes ugly can be more effective than cute.
 
Speaking of ugly, what corn fuel can do to a small gasoline engine is definitely not cute. If you let gasoline sit in the tank of an outboard motor or lawn mower, it will transform, leaving a varnish that will permanently plug any fuel system. With the ongoing American love affair with automobiles, we drive enough for the corn alcohol to cycle through our engines before it can gum up the works. With a small engine, lack of use leads to clogged fuel systems.
 
My 1980's Honda EX1000 generator is a perfect example. Several years ago, I allowed gasoline to sit in its tank for months. After that, I could start the engine, but it surged constantly as it ran. After servicing it, a local mechanic simply told me to start the engine every couple of months. Later, I again let the generator sit unused for several months. After that, I could get it to start using ether as a starting fluid, but only for a few moments.
 
A visit to Moab Small Engines & Welding yielded the answer to my question. “It’s the ethanol”, the proprietor told me. After he cleaned the carburetor and fuel line, I was on my way, but with a better set of instructions. He told me to keep a minimum of fuel in the Honda EX1000.  After an RV trip, I was to drain the tank and then run the engine dry. As extra insurance against ethanol residue, I was to loosen the gas cap. That way, any remaining fuel would evaporate before it varnished the fuel lines or carburetor.
 
Regarding the biodiesel on WindSong, I wish that the solution were as simple. When I last ran the engine, a molasses-like sludge from the fuel tank pumped all the way through the system, stopping just short of the delicate fuel injectors. The sludge was like nothing that my fuel specialist, Mr. Dwyn Hendrickson of Marina del Rey, California had ever seen. With ten dollars per gallon disposal fee, that alone cost one hundred dollars. His total bill was $850, but well worth it. With a broken electric fuel pump, two clogged fuel filters and sludge in the fuel lines, my spotty engine usage and delayed oil change turned into a complete cleaning and rebuilding of the fuel delivery system.
 
I do not wish to demonize either ethanol or biodiesel. Each has its place, although I would rather pay Midwest farmers their ransom via my taxes than in my engine maintenance costs. To this day, no one has the nerve to suggest that we mix ethanol into our aviation fuel. Airplanes falling from the sky might make this problem obvious to all. If each of us burned quickly through our supply of biodiesel, rather than letting it rot in our tanks, it could be a good fuel. With regular usage, it is an environmentally friendly alternative to old-fashioned hydrocarbon diesel. If there were greater transparency about hidden costs, motorists and casual boaters might demand better alternatives to the “alternative fuels” now available.  I wonder if clean coal or tar sands might hold the answers that we seek.

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By James McGillis at 01:04 AM | Environment | Comments (0) | Link

Will the Salt Valley Drill Rig Topple Landscape Arch - A Symbol of Moab, Utah? - 2011

 

Will the Salt Valley Drill Rig Topple Landscape Arch - A Symbol of Moab, Utah?

   

In July 1965, my father and I visited the old Arches National Monument. Dutifully, we drove the newly paved road, which ended in a circle at the Devil’s Garden. My DeLorme Utah Atlas & Gazetteer says of the place, “Area containing most of the park’s rock formations. Landscape Arch, at over 300 feet, one of the world’s longest known natural spans…” Although there are plenty of other rock formations in the park, including the grand Courthouse area, the Devil’s Garden does have a high concentration of the rock fins and arches that visitors like to see.

Saving his valuable Ektachrome film for the important vistas, that day my father splurged and took three shots of Landscape Arch. With an reflex camera, judging the light was always an issue. After development, only one of three slides “came out”. Since it predates massive rock falls in 1991 and 1995, that 35-MM slide is now an historical artifact. Viewing the first image of the arch on this page, you will see the famed arch in 1965. In the second image, you will see evidence of water seepage on the fresh rock face. This may be an indication that the freeze-thaw cycle had loosened a layer of stone, which fell from the right-underside of the arch.

Forty-three years later, in May 2008, I made my second pilgrimage to Landscape Arch. Ironically, the afternoon light that day again made it difficult to get a good picture of the arch. The western sky was so bright, that that it overwhelmed the contrast ratios available to my Sony digital camera. Of my many Landscape Arch photos that day, only one “came out”.

Until the 1991 rock fall, access for hikers below the arch was unfettered. During the rock fall itself, an amateur videographer caught scenes of picnickers scrambling to avoid burial under tons of rock. Since that time, we have learned that sound waves generated by normal human activity may contribute to spontaneous destruction of both natural arches and ancient Indian structures. Anywhere that there is a stone amphitheater large enough to concentrate sound waves, there is potential for destruction. According to the Old Testament, during the Israelites’ conquest of Canaan, the trumpeters in Joshua’s army alone brought down the walls of Jericho.

In the waning days of 2008, the George W. Bush administrations announced the largest ever auction of oil and gas leases on federal government land. Around Moab, Utah, many people were incensed. Through a series of gaffs and blunders, the land above the Spanish Valley Aquifer was included in the proposed sale. Residents just outside the city limits discovered that the federal government owned their mineral rights and was about to sell them to the highest bidder.

For several years, the G.W. Bush Administration had granted near-unrestricted drilling rights throughout the West. However, their inclusion of BLM land within view of Arches National Park was the Coup de Grace. Doing so put every remaining arch at Devil’s Garden in jeopardy. Disturbed by the administration’s cavalier proposal, I created a YouTube video titled, “Drilling Rigs Could Topple Landscape Arch”.

Soon after the November 2008 elections, President Obama appointed Ken Salazar, formerly a Senator from Colorado to be his Secretary of Interior. Initially, environmentalists were skeptical of Salazar. Almost immediately, he blocked the most egregious of the Bush oil and gas leases, including any within sight of Arches National Park.  “Case closed”, I thought. The arches at Arches were safe.

In October 2011, I again visited Arches National Park, accessing the Devil’s Garden area via the dirt and gravel of the Salt Valley Road. From U.S. Highway 191, north of Canyonlands Field, I exited on to the unmarked “Valley City Road”. Although there is no "Valley City", I soon saw an industrial drilling rig big enough to qualify. Although the drilling location is not within view of Arches National Park, it is clearly visible from U.S. 191. According to my map, the new drilling operation is less than twelve miles from Landscape Arch. Upon seeing the rig, its size and scale reminded me of huge exploration rigs used on the North Slope in Alaska. Standing alone near the entrance to the Salt Valley, the rig dominated the view of the Book Cliffs to the north. Immediately, I felt the implied threat to Landscape Arch.

Upon returning home from Moab, I was amazed to read about a swarm of earthquakes in Oklahoma. After the devastating Long Beach Earthquake of 1933, California outlawed unreinforced masonry buildings. During the intervening years, Oklahoma was so geologically stable that new brick buildings were common. In November 2011, with twenty-three earthquakes occurring over a two-day period, it looked like more than a swarm. After thirty years without any significant seismic activity, why was Oklahoma fracturing like a dry biscuit? It may be instructive to remember that in 1933, the Signal Hill oilfield, near Long Beach was at the height of an oil boom.

As of this writing, there is no definitive answer to the earthquake issue in Oklahoma. Anecdotal evidence points at increased exploration and production of oil and gas throughout the state. Oil and gas companies immediately issued denials that their activity could or had caused the series of seismic events. It would be nice if there was scientific evidence to corroborate their claims, but such evidence is lacking. In the search for new deposits of oil and gas, the extractors have perfected the art of hydraulic fracturing (fracking), or so they say. A recent documentary showed fracking-caused water well contamination in Pennsylvania. In some places, it was so bad that that affected residents could ignite the gas emanating from their water taps.

While I was living in Denver in the late 1980s, the Rocky Mountain Arsenal used water-injection to dispose of plutonium-contaminated fluids. After a few years, earthquakes in and around the nearby city of Broomfield showed a marked increase. Whether it was spontaneous nuclear fission or simple lubrication of the underlying rock structures, no one knows. Suffice to say that when large-scale water injection at that site ended, so too did the earthquakes. Since hydraulic fracturing includes both injection and extraction of various fluids, it is audacious for extractors to deny any responsibility for the consequences of their actions.

Here is what I do not know. I do not know the owner of the Salt Valley rig. I do not know if their slant drilling extends to the border of Arches National Park or beyond. I do not know if vibrations from exploratory drilling will affect the national park. I do not know if any future hydraulic fracturing or gas extraction could cause earthquakes within Arches National Park.

Here is what I do know. Scientists usually discount any hypothesis until it is proven, one way or the other. Therefore, proof that my “drilling, fracking and earthquake hypothesis” is true will have to wait until the arches start to fall. On the other hand, maybe they already have. On August 5, 2008, Wall Arch fell at Devil’s Garden. At the time, smaller, mobile exploration rigs were at work in the Salt Valley.  Until we know all of the facts, I shall rest my case on the evidence at hand.

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By James McGillis at 11:06 PM | Environment | Comments (0) | Link

The Union Pacific Railroad's Potash Local Train - 2011

 

The Union Pacific Railroad's

Potash Local Train

   

In mid-October 2011, I drove U.S. Highway 191 North, from Moab towards Crescent Junction. About half a mile south of Utah Highway 313 (to Canyonlands National Park and Dead Horse Point State Park), I saw the unmistakable glare of locomotive headlights, heading south toward Moab and Potash, Utah. With two powerful headlights lights stacked above and two more spread out below, their brightness on the landscape was second only to the light of the sun.

Across from the Bar-M Chuckwagon site, U.S. 191 intersected a gravel road leading west. As soon as I turned on to that road, I found an uncontrolled railroad grade crossing only a few yards away. Parking my truck, I grabbed my camera and ran toward the tracks. When I looked again at the approaching engine, it appeared stopped in a road cut, north of Highway 313. Had time stood still, was the train stopped on the tracks or was it moving too slowly for me to see?

Soon, I could see that the locomotive was accelerating toward me on level ground. From that distance, I knew that my old Sony digital camera would not show much detail. Impatiently, I waited for the train to approach. As it closed on my position, I started taking snapshots of the action. While composing my shots on the LCD screen, I did not realize how quickly the train approached.

  Watch the video, "The Union Pacific Potash Local"

When I walked across the tracks to get a different perspective, I heard a deafening blast from the Union Pacific locomotive's air horn. The engineer seemed to be saying, “Watch out. Here I come”. With a five-second delay for image processing, I had to wait for each shot to clear before I could again depress the shutter. As the lead engine passed my position, I swung the camera up to capture the power and size of the Potash Local. From earthquakes to hurricanes and tornadoes, eye witnesses will invariable say, “It sounded like a freight train coming towards me”. After standing my ground just yards from the passing engines, I understood exactly what they meant.  

With a clickety-clack on the joints of the hand-laid tracks, the Potash Local soon traveled around a bend and out of sight. In a few more miles, it would pass the “Train of Pain”, parked on a siding overlooking the Moab UMTRA Site. The Train of Pain hauls radio nucleotide-contaminated soil thirty miles from the Moab Pile to a disposal site near Brendel, Utah.

After passing through the Moab Rim within the mile-long Bootlegger Tunnel, the Potash Local enters a road cut that bisects many layers of solid rock. After emerging from those two engineering marvels, the tracks then parallel Utah Highway 279 (The Potash Road). Downstream, along the scenic Colorado River, the destination of the Potash Local is only a few more miles ahead. The end of the line and terminus of the Cane Creek Subdivision (Potash Branch line) is the Intrepid Potash Cane Creek Plant.

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By James McGillis at 11:24 PM | | Comments (0) | Link