Thoughts on the present lay-down project.....

[velocity]

We - the Utah Alliance and Save the Salt - members have spent considerable time studying the salt lay-down program effectiveness and failings.

Without getting too scientific, the short answer is that in recent years the overall tonnage of salt brine flowed back onto the northern side of Interstate 80 (aka the International Speedway), has simply been less since intrepid bought the operation from Reilly Industries. How much less? Most years less than half, other a bit less than half but NEVER as much as Reilly pumped back over the winter months.

Combine that with back-to-back wet summers and you have little or no salt crust regeneration.

Without question, brine reflow is the best, most cost effective method to restore the International Speedway. Not only is it a cohesive process, but it has now been integrated into the potash mining production processes and it behooves the operation to put the salt waste product back from whence it came. Dry salt lay down is a short-term, adhesive process that is best suited to hole patching and temporary stop-gap remedies of low spots collecting water. Tenuous at best, useless if vying for solid surface fidelity.

[crawford]

Now that makes sense.

[stay`tee]

Now that makes sense.

x2, no pissin in the wind, just facts, 

[Dakin Engineering]

Velocity,
  Have you and your learned cohort considered allowing the brine to evaporate in-situ?
It is, after all, the process used by Reilly and Intrepid to form a cohesive surface.

Sam

[WOODY@DDLLC]

Looks like this but on a bigger scale! 

Or use the ones that currently exist? 

[Speed Limit 1000]

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jp412073c

[velocity]

Don't believe that current sea salt evap process and BSF salt brine cut off from the ocean for more than 14,000 years and who knows how many climatological shifts plays the same way anymore. A brief look tells me the chemical characteristics are rather different.

On the surface a lot of this stuff looks good, but 11 months of study have shown me detailed analysis of BSF is very special ecosystem.

[Sumner]

....Without question, brine reflow is the best, most cost effective method to restore the International Speedway....

I totally support 'brine reflow' as the best viable option to restore the salt.  The reason for this thread is I was wondering if the use of the Alluvial Fan wells as a source of water was beginning to have a negative impact on how it was working.  Maybe another source of water is needed, see my initial posts on the first page of this thread where BLM reports are quoted.

Sumner

[John Burk]

I'm surprised that Sumner's discovery hasn't gotten more attention . To pumping a gallon of to the racing surface the mining company first withdraws a gallon of brine from it . The pumping is doing nothing but wasting electricity .

[velocity]

Sumner

I read your original post with interest and while I understand most of what you postulate, I am not geologically qualified to comment authoritatively on its usefulness in the salt problem.
However, I did ask Dr. Brenda Bowen for her thoughts.
Stand by.

[maj]

Looks like this but on a bigger scale! 

Or use the ones that currently exist? 

Woody put a couple of holes in the bottom and add water to the top 

[WOODY@DDLLC]

Maj, it started as a max saline solution full to the top. Inside the house it evaporated very slowly out in the sun it was back to salt in a few hours. With a lined pond you get all the salt back. If the bottom is soil aka a sponge you end up with a thin(ner) crust. Wayward dust particles aside, me thinks the salt flat chemistry operates somewhere in between these extremes. The salt ponds on the other side of the tracks is closer to my example, that's why it is still there. Let's just race there until the mutually derived plan is completed! Is "mutually derived plan" an oxymoron? 

[Steve Cole]

Combine that with back-to-back wet summers and you have little or no salt crust regeneration.

Without question, brine reflow is the best, most cost effective method to restore the International Speedway. Not only is it a cohesive process, but it has now been integrated into the potash mining production processes and it behooves the operation to put the salt waste product back from whence it came. Dry salt lay down is a short-term, adhesive process that is best suited to hole patching and temporary stop-gap remedies of low spots collecting water. Tenuous at best, useless if vying for solid surface fidelity.

The above is just why it needs some MORE help. While moving the salt back isn't going to be cheap the mining has taken it for the past 60 or so years, moved it to the south side and has not returned it, those are cold hard facts. Since mother nature is going to do what it is going to do, the only thing that can help it, is going to cost. So it all boils down to who is going to pay for getting the salt back to the northside where it came from and what is going to be done, in the future, to keep it there. All the studies in the world are not going to change it and brine reflow hasn't been getting the job done by itself. If it had, the salt would be showing it, and we ALL know that is not the case.

The mine is only going to do what there are forced to do, its in there best interest to spend no more than they have too. So they are going to say brine reflow is it, only because they are already doing it now and we all know that's not good enough. So if they were to double the reflow rate now, it's still not going to be a drop in the bucket. They have allowed it to get to far behind, and it's not going to be able to catch up on it's own. If all the salt was removed from there ponds and moved back along with the reflow it will take a couple of years to see the impact of it on the salt flats. Then, they can make another study after that and try to figure it out what to do next. For along time now all they have been doing is kicking the can down the road for someone else to take over. That has to stop now if there is going to be any chance of saving BSF as we have known it.

[salt]

I wonder about the actual cost of the annual pumping of the brine back to the flats - electricity, maintenance of the equipment, man hours - how much?

[velocity]

Sumner

Dr. Bowen was intrigued but your population and is reviewing the supplied points.