Bob, let's run with the "official" evidence as offered, and assume the salt is still there, somehow sequestered under a layer of clay and gypsum.
What are the forces that are causing it to stratify in a manner that causes apparent loss of surface area? Are these observations consistent with geological history? If Intrepid is causing the problem, what precisely is happening, and what, if anything, can be done to restratify the halite layer we race on?
And if the salt is still there, after a year an a half of extraordinary rainfall, why is it not percolating back to the surface as it did after '82-83?
I'm looking for an understanding of the geology that seems to be masked rather than illuminated by the reading material the Utah Alliance is offering up.
But after reading those materials, it's my sense that STS's three position checklist - racing, mining, and reclamation - is going to prove to be incompatible at best. If the studies indicate no appreciable loss of salt, you've lost any political support and enforcement authority. If laydown is showing little if any improvement, then, of course, it's a "failed policy", which can no longer be supported.
Imagine the political ad - possibly funded by share holders of Intrepid - berating a politician for supporting "a failed environmental policy of returning salt to the salt flats", and "threatening hundreds of family supporting jobs in Utah". That's the political implications of this.