Wall Street Journal Article

The Wall Street Journal sent Barry Newman, a reporter, out to write an article about the debate surrounding the salt flat depletion. The Journalist was meant to meet up with the pre-trip crew and interview among others Russ Eyres, Mike Waters and Larry Volk. He had also arrange appointments with Intrepid and the BLM. As the pre-trip was posponed, because the salt was covered with water, he only met with Larry Volk and the oposing side. It was interesting how he could draw some of his conclusions about the thickness of the salt, seeing as he could not get out there. Russ Dean provided Barry Newman with 15 pages of notes detailing our point of view - very little of which he seemeds to have read or used (I know this cause I have the same notes). The link to the article can be found below. From our perspective, the article was very disappointing. It made the racers out to be alarmists and downplayed the damage that is occuring to the salt flats.

Rod Rider, Doug Macmillan replied to Barry Newman....

Link to article here

Doug's first reply:

Hi Barry,

Great to see you bringing the depletion of the Bonneville salt flats into the public eye. I have a couple of questions about the numbers in your article and wonder if you could check my math please.

Intrepid pumps 5 billion gallons of brine per year. (http://www.intrepidpotash.com/loc/wendover.html)

- Density of water is 8.3 pounds per gallon. If we assume 25 % brine density that makes about 2 pounds per gallon for a total of about 10 billion pounds of salt or 5 million tons.
- The raceable salt area is stated at 35 square miles.
- The density of salt is 72 pounds per cubic feet

Therefore the volume of salt removed is 10 billion/72 = 139 million cubic feet.

- 35 square miles is 977 million square feet.
- 139 million cubic feet of salt spread over a raceable area of 35 square miles makes a layer 0.14 feet high or 1.7 inches.

Lets assume all the brine is being removed from the raceable area for the moment.

Therefore Intrepid has removed 1.7 inches of salt per year for 19 years for a total of 32 inches and has restored 8 million tons for a total of 2.7 inches. The remainder is being deposited on the south side of the interstate.

Do you concur?

Your article mentions the removal of 100,000 tons of potash, which is a factor of 50 times smaller than Intrepid's published removal of material when you factor in sodium chloride. Why was the actual removal rate not mentioned in your article?

Your article mentions also mentions a crust 2 feet thick. Would you be able to indicate where and how that was measured?
Could I draw your attention to a 2007 picture of several stuck vehicles beside one of the landspeed racing courses? I would estimate the thickness of the salt crust over the mud to be less than 2 inches.

Could I also draw your attention to an article by the USGS - http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/1997/fs135-97/ on Investigation of Salt Loss from the Bonneville Salt Flats in which it is stated " that brine withdrawal is a major cause of salt loss from the crust." Did you read this geological report before you published your article? The article estimated the salt crust lost 55 million tons and 1.5 feet in thickness over 28 years. That works out to 2 million tons per year which surprisingly close to the current brine withdrawal rate.

I would appreciate your feedback.

Regards,

Doug

Doug Macmillan
doug@hondata.com
2840 Columbia St
Torrance
CA 90503
Ph 310 782 8278 x 105
Fax 310 782 6383

Barry Newman's reply..

On Jul 29, 2011, at 11:59 AM, Newman, Barry wrote:

> Doug, I'm no scientist, but I believe you are assuming that the mine removes salt directly from the crust. My understanding is that the brine is pumped out from the aquifer under the crust, and that there is no direct correlation between the thickness of the crust and the amount of brine removed. By the same token, there's no necessary correlation between the amount pumped back onto the flats and the crust thickness. I read the USGS paper but I also read closely all the other papers on the BLM website and interviewed the geologists who wrote them at length. Of course the article had to be a summary, but all I can recommend is that you read all that material yourself. If the racers had consulted an independent geologist who might have challenged the results of the BLM geologists, the story certainly would have been about differences among experts. But no independent geologists have been consulted. In any case, I hope the BLM decision about maintaining "mass balance" in the aquifer will make everybody involved happy.
>
> Cheers
> Barry
> Barry Newman
> Wall Street Journal
> +1-212-416-4902
>
> +1-917-373-9447 (cell/blackberry)

Doug's Second reply

Thanks for taking the time to reply Barry,

I realize that with the enormous amount of information you collected, that your article would have needed to be a summary. I have read the extensive papers by Mr White. Excellent and very detailed information. They took me several days to get through.

Yes - I am assuming the mine removes salt directly from the crust. Please find enclosed an aerial photo and a closeup of the brine collection ditches which you will find are just to the east of the racing surface - which as you can see, collect brine from the surface and not from the aquifer. I am surprised that you were not shown them in your trip there. They are mentioned in the USGS article http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/1997/fs135-97 on page 4 (in small type). My reading of this USGS article is that it supports the viewpoint of the racers.

- "more than 55 million tons are estimated to have been lost during the 28 year period" (1960-1988)
- "that brine withdrawal is a major cause of salt loss from the crust."

In one of Bill White's papers - the geologist you interviewed, he states:
"By preserving the ion mass balance and adding additional salt to the shallow-brine aquifer, the Salt Laydown Project has helped contribute to maintenance of the existing salt-crust volume" So a layman's interpretation of this is while it not might be making it better the Salt Laydown project is preventing the problem from getting worse.

I am not a geologist, but I do have a degree in physics and a reasonable understanding of the processes involved. Let me run a little common sense logic past you.

- During winter the salt flats are covered in water / brine.
- During winter the salt layer cannot increase in thickness as no evaporation resulting in the formation of salt crystals can take place.
- During the winter months the fresh water rainfall / runoff will dissolve a little of the top layer of salt so the salt crust will decrease in thickness.
- See page 27 http://www.blm.gov/pgdata/etc/medialib/blm/ut/salt_lake_fo/bonneville_salt_flats/salt_laydown_project.Par.87663.File.dat/UGA2006_White&Terrazas.pdf)
- Evaporation of the brine at the surface during summer is a result of the subsurface brine being wicked through the top few inches of salt, forming whiskers / new crystals (see my photo).
- The draining of the subsurface brine layer through the collection ditches during the summer months lowers the subsurface brine level and volume reducing the rate formation of new salt crystals.
- The maximum rate of crystal formation is likely to be when the brine layer is just below the exposed salt.
- Yet the summer / dry season is the only time the salt layer can increase in thickness.

So we have two processes affecting the rate of salt crystal formation:

1) Reduction in mass of brine.
2) Reduction in subsurface levels of brine

Which results in interference in the salt crystal formation process during the summer months.

So I put it to you that you cannot remove 5 billion gallons (= 5 million tons of salt) per year of surface brine (that has come in part from winter rain dissolving the top layer of salt ) from the north side of the I80 during the summer months and deposit it on the lower and southern side of the I80 in the form of salt crystals without negatively affecting the processes that create salt crystals on the northern side.

Regards,

Doug

Doug Macmillan
doug@hondata.com
2840 Columbia St
Torrance
CA 90503
Ph 310 782 8278 x 105
Fax 310 782 6383