Overall I've felt that the past salt laydown efforts started in the late 1990's have had a positive effect. Before the laydown was started the course really started to go to hell in the mid 1990's but then seemed to improve as the laydown project was implemented. Now it seems to of reversed that trend again.
I'm wondering if one reason for this is the use of the alluvial fan wells that are used to supply the water to move the salt in the laydown effort.
The diagram above shows the position of those wells just to the west of the BSF. There is a description of the whole laydown here...
http://www.blm.gov/style/medialib/blm/ut/salt_lake_fo/bonneville_salt_flats/salt_laydown_project.Par.91807.File.dat/White_GSL_2002.pdfIf you read the 2012 paper located here and go to page 23 where the paper discusses the "Alluvial Fan Aquifer" ....
https://www.blm.gov/ut/enbb/files/Intrepid_Potash_Final_EA_FONSI_DR.pdf
....From the above it seems clear that the alluvial fan aquifer is connected to the shallow brine aquifer that is under the salt we race on. Normally, the days before the pumping, the alluvial fan aquifer flowed into the shallow brine aquifer. Now with the pumping that flow has been halted and actually reversed as shown by the high salinity that is now present in the alluvial fan wells as described above.
If the shallow brine aquifer is saturated with salt then the salt on the race surface can't migrate into it and will stay there, as it has for eons. If the shallow brine aquifer is allowed to flow into the ditches going to Intrepid or is drawn towards and into the alluvial fan wells and pumped to Intrepid salt will then migrate from the race surface down into the shallow brine aquifer and on to Intrepid in one of the two ways just mentioned.
With that in mind I believe that further pumping of the alluvial fan wells will just add to the removal of salt from the race surface. The report above also validates that, noting that the water from the wells will become saline to the point that the water won't be able to take much salt into solution from the ponds south of the interstate.
The solution as I see it would be obtaining the water for the laydown from another source, possibly alluvial fan wells further to the west or another location to the south of Intrepid if there is water there.
One last comment and it is on reclamation. My reading of the contracts between Intrepid and the BLM does not mention reclaiming the salt flats by returning the salt from south of the highway but only requires them to fill in ditches and plug the alluvial fan wells as mentioned above and remove other evidence of mining. No requirement to move the salt south of the interstate to back north of the interstate.
Take the time and read the two documents mentioned above and here are some other interesting documents that Intrepid puts out. Go to the sections on their Wendover operations...
http://investors.intrepidpotash.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=218952&p=irol-SECText&TEXT=aHR0cDovL2FwaS50ZW5rd2l6YXJkLmNvbS9maWxpbmcueG1sP2lwYWdlPTgwNzU2OTYmRFNFUT0xJlNFUT0zNiZTUURFU0M9U0VDVElPTl9QQUdFJmV4cD0mc3Vic2lkPTU3http://investors.intrepidpotash.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=218952&p=irol-SECText&TEXT=aHR0cDovL2FwaS50ZW5rd2l6YXJkLmNvbS9maWxpbmcueG1sP2lwYWdlPTkzODg1MDUmRFNFUT0xJlNFUT0zNyZTUURFU0M9U0VDVElPTl9QQUdFJmV4cD0mc3Vic2lkPTU3They are pulling product from the ditches that drain the shallow aquifer water. As they do that salt in solution (the salt goes underwater most all winters) carries the race surface salt down into the aquifer and disappears from the surface. The laydown in the past has helped to replace that salt as the papers show but if even more salt is pulled off by the wells in the alluvial fan then we might be back to a net loss,
Sumner
