List,
I made my first ever trip to the salt for WOS 2000, as a fan. I wish to
continue to be involved as I really loved what I saw, heard, smelled, and
felt. I feel that anything we can do to intelligently contribute to the
preservation of Bonneville is critical whether it be letters, e-mails, phone
calls, etc.
Just an opinion.
Steve Pitt
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-land-speed@autox.team.net
> [mailto:owner-land-speed@autox.team.net]On Behalf Of Wester S Potter
> Sent: Friday, December 29, 2000 7:42 AM
> To: Cris Shearer; Dan Wright; EllenGary Wilkinson
> Cc: land-speed@autox.team.net
> Subject: Re: Salt Flats are DRY
>
>
> List members and concerned racers,
>
> The following is my opinion.
>
> The heading "Salt Flats are Dry" should send chills up the spine
> of everyone
> who cares about the Bonneville Salt Flats. Thanks to Cris and Ed
> Shearer we
> have an accurate, off-season, on-the-spot report to those who
> only go to the
> salt in the summer.
>
> This is an occasion where everyone who cares about the future of the
> Bonneville Salt Flats needs to start pushing for Reilly Industries to get
> the brine pumping going again.
>
> Larry Volk who is Save the Salt Chairman and Mary West, the Secretary,
> should be on top of this. The money that has been paid to the
> Save the Salt
> Fund is supposed to be going to a watchdog effort. At Speed Week
> there was
> a lot of talk about supporting that cause with additional money. Larry's
> phone number is (801) 292-5425.
>
> The combined USFRA, SCTA/BNI leadership/membership needs to put
> up a howl to
> the BLM asking why there has been no pumping for over six weeks. This
> pumping is part of an agreement between three parties,
> racers/Save the Salt
> who use the race course area, the BLM who has Federal control of the area
> and Reilly who actually owns part of the area (including the south end of
> the race course) and has leases for mining on virtually the whole basin.
> The target amount is 1,500,000 tons of salt returned to the racing surface
> each winter. The last two years the amount returned has been over a
> million, eight hundred thousand tons. That's well over the target amount
> but obviously a do-able amount to pump and the facilities are in place for
> it to continue. There are seventy three million tons on the south side of
> I-80 that belong on the north side. The Reilly mining leases are due for
> renewal in the next two years. The BLM Salt Lake office number is (801)
> 977-4300.
>
> If this down time were costing Reilly anything you can be sure they would
> have solved the problems involved many weeks ago. The fact that
> they pumped
> a very high brine content last April could have damaged the pumps and
> probably did, but they had all summer to repair any problems there. Their
> main offices are in Indianapolis, IN.
>
> The former, as of this month, BLM Director, Tom Fry, was on the salt at
> World of Speed in September and voiced the opinion, at that time, that the
> pumping project should continue until there was a good thirteen
> mile course
> again. He was a Democrat appointee ... campaign type promises?
>
> If this is an example of how well Reilly performs when the
> pressure is off,
> look out for the future of the pumping/restoration project at the
> end of the
> first five years. You have all seen how much two really good
> pumping years
> helped the salt after a less than sterling first year, BUT WE ARE
> LOOKING AT
> NET GAIN, and all that and more could all be lost in another two
> bad years.
>
> I was on the salt the first time for Speed Week in 1951 and I remember how
> much salt there was out there and how hard, thick, endless and deep it
> seemed ... and how safe the racers felt running there. I'd like to see it
> that way again in my lifetime. How can we assure it?
>
> Wes Potter
>
>
>
>
> on 12/26/00 10:25 AM, Cris Shearer at cshearer@tacisp.com wrote:
>
> > Ed and I drove to the salt flats Sat via: Lakepoint, across the UP
> > railroad and over to Lucin.
> > When we got to the end of the access road, the flats were dry. There
> > were cars doing burn-outs and laying rubber. We called Gary Allen from
> > the end of the access road and let him know. He said the pumps were
> > still down and were suppose to begin pumping again this week. We then
> > drove over to the pumps and could see one pump was running. Gary said
> > he and Larry talked about what Reilly would do to make up for the 1 -1/2
> > months of down time. We also heard one or two of Reilly's big boys
> > retired. Don't know what/if any impact this might cause. Just wanted
> > to give you a quick update. I'm home all week if anything comes up.
> > Hope you all had a great Christmas. Cris
|