This will give whoever, UNIMPEDED access to continue to "extract" the resource, without significant financial return to the taxpayer.
Mark - I gave this one some thought, and I'm becoming a bit less "pollyannish" - in short, my view is changing.
We won't be able to get away from the study - there's too much at stake to make a decision based on what can still be argued on a political level as "non-conclusive" evidence. Imagine the poor Senator of Congressman going before the budget committee with a proposal to move salt to the salt flats . . . the ridicule would be overwhelming.
But in a study of this magnitude - and we will be stuck with the conclusions of this study for years to come, regardless of the results - in order to gain a solid, credible baseline of evidence, as with a patient in an emergency room, or a problematic engine on a dyno, the affected area needs to first be stabilized.
While the Alliance has in its sites the involvement of the mining company - and let's face it, they're the only ones with anything close to the capacity to return salt from south of I-80 to the racing surface - in order to stabilize the environment, I've come to the conclusion that a moratorium on all mining in the area - and that would include any additional lay-down - is necessary in order to properly validate any conclusions this study is attempting to reach.
There are clearly too many variables occurring with respect to water sources, use of current infrastructure, mineral content, weather and engineered aspects of the environment. That experts in the field can't really determine what's happening further indicates that any mathematical controls used to validate or produce any conclusions will be suspect, regardless of what they indicate.
If this study is to have any credibility, the pumps will have to be silenced during the period of the study.
