There is a lot to this.I have been to the Bonneville races14 times through the years.I have witnessed many changes to this sacred place in just that short time.I am also aware of the companies that are involved and have been involved,and I must say that the mining company (Intrepid) seems head over heels better than some of the other companies previously. It is not the salt but the brine they are after for their potash operations.You have to be aware that mining has going on for nearly a century out there.There is a new BLM paper out that I am half way through 45 pages. There are new plans for evaporation ponds etc.Way above my head.I have no personal gain in any of this other than,I want to feel the Racing again
There is zero possibility that this petition will result in Intrepid being shut down, but it may inform the powers that be that a whole lot of people are not happy with the current state of affairs.
Signed up and passed on......The government can spend 30 Mil to save a snail in Cal. but won't do shit about a great place the salt flats.
I tune on a non hamb friendly vehicle on the salt, I have time and money in it. But I can not in good conscious take any action that may lead to closing a US manufacturing facility. I have to believe the mine operates with in the rules and regulations that the bureau of land management laid out for them. To me the bureau of land management is the one that has let this happen. If the mine does close can you imagine how many tax dollars would be spent (blown) by the government to attempt to repair the salt flats? This is simply my honest opinion. JC
I agree with the above posts that caution about going after a legitimate business that employs people especially in rural areas. I think working through Save The Salt Coalition would be more productive than going on a separate campaign to close a business that might be part of the solution. The problem this year was more about too much mud than too little salt. Some of the people involved are now wondering if the potash mining is even part of the problem. In Nevada there is a saying, "If you don't grow it you have to mine it." That also goes to the materials to make the tools we use to grow and make stuff. It is scary that so few people have a clue about where their food, fuel, clothes and everything else they have comes from and how few people provide it.
I have been there a few times, I have watched the salt seem to disappear, I have seen mud flats in one area not be there the next year. As mentioned, the salt is not 'harvested' to sell. It is part of a product that Intreped has no need for, it is a byproduct. For years before Intrepid, there was a mining operation with different owners, and the SOP was get the brine, dry it out to a conceration then remove the Postash, then dump the leftovers into other ponds. And there the tons of salt sits today. There is, sorry, knee jerk opinions to stop the mining. If you close down Intrepid, who will move the salt back to the Flats? A new Government Committee? What is the answer? The salt needs to be moved back and the mining needs to be watched and regulated as require by the rules that were setup by the BLM, that is not following their own rules. How to move the salt? Well the Environmentalist are fighting the move stating damage to the current surface, that is suppose to be in excellent shape. Can 100 years of rape be fixed in one season so we can race in 2016? Not hardly. Maybe this years El Nino will flood Intrepid and move the salt back!
signed the petition... the Whitehouse only considers petitions with over 100,000.00 signatures. Are there that many members here?
Signed. 225K people here, over 8 days since posted I would have expected more than 1259 sigs. I too was there exactly 24 years ago today with my bride on the way back from Pebble Beach. I want to go back next year and celebrate 25 years with her.
Sorry to burst your bubble but the damage to the salt where we race was done by us not by miners. I have been to the track area at different times over the years for various reasons and never seen anyone harvesting from the track, I have seen our cars and bikes chewing the hell out of it. I am not giving you a knee jerk reaction to stop the harvest or to keep the harvest. I know that the current regulations are not enforced, knowing that, I know that new regulations will not make much difference. The truth of the matter is that you cannot "save the salt" and restoration is something that cannot be done. You can't make something from nothing, but you can preserve what is there. Now the balancing act begins, when we say that company X cannot dredge we have to figure a way to word things so that racer X can still chew the salt while trying to prove that he is the fastest in the world. Makes us look a little selfish doesn't it. Our problem winning this has a few hurdles to over come. First of and the easiest is our wording. Save the salt puts us in a position to be ignored, just like save the whales. Makes us sound like bleeding hearts which we are not we are trying to keep our race venue. Preserve the salt makes us sound a little more intelligent. Law makers speak legalese and there are certain words that they just ignore. We need to give off the illusion that we are environmentalists. next aside from an outcry we need to come up with a solution. You cannot expect the powers to be to come up with a solution they are not that motivated. When finding a solution we need to keep in mind that part of our problem is economic. The powers to be are more focused on Economy than saving a resource. So to them it is not just a matter of preserving a natural resource it is a matter of keeping the lights on. If our solution shows them that they can keep the lights on longer they will perhaps listen. There is one last thing that needs to happen. We need action. Having been through this before on more then one occasion I know for a fact that a petition is just a suggestion. What we don't need is a bunch of lame brains chaining themselves to a tree, but we do need feet on the ground. Someone needs to be lobbying and when it comes time for a lobbyist to stand before those who's attention he is trying to get he needs the gallery to be full of people who are of a same mind. To a law maker those are constituents. Enough constituents can make or break any deal, they are the one's who make sure that he will still be gainfully employed in the next session. Ok all this sounds political, it is. This is not a political sight but I think in this instance we are talking about something that hits close to home for us doesn't it. If this sounds too off topic for the sight then it should be deleted. The moderators can handle that easily enough.
Actually I believe the salt can be restored, but then I am not a geologist or mineralist or a miner. The salt removed does exist and it can be put back SCTA Board meeting, of which Save the Salt is part of, is this Friday check the web site for location and stop typing on keyboards and show up and give support to a bunch of dirty racers that just want to race and not save the World.
Beaner, you're nearly right, but since the 30s that salt track has been rejuvenating itself as the seasons change. It takes until late summer to dry runoff and rain which becomes another layer of salt. The brine fields have been left unregulated and the water on the race area has nowhere to go. This is what I gained from the BLM study in the link provided, and it took me a couple reads in order to get that. It's a natl treasure and an historic site registered dedicated in 75. It can be changed to what has already worked for a generation or more. Not too much to ask of our "servants", no?
Sorry HRP, but how do you base your support? Have you raced on the salt? Benno brings up good issues. Like many writers on this Board. But sorry, step up to the plate and tell me what you have done in the last five years to help the Salt. Anybody?
I'll admit that I haven't done shit. I do vote, I try to keep an eye on what matters to communities like this one here, but the only thing I've been saving in the last few years is my own ass. Legally and clinically disabled which I can't abide, personal obligations that sometimes tax me to my limit, contractual ones now too which I brought into a 4300 sqft shop with 2 employees and enough work to now allow a peaceful night's sleep. Not a bad save and nowhere near done. Signing a nat'l petition isn't a bad start. But no, I can't attend their meeting and also, no, I don't have a few grand to throw at the efforts to save it, or at least go back to what has worked for a long time, but yes I believe "We The People", including the power of this community, can indeed do what we can to voice the issue. Your servants in DC thought that RACING was important enough to be included in the nat'l register of historic places and important enough to be included in their options. Something is working but rest assured it won't happen overnight. Can we wait a couple years for it to come back? Probably... Sorry to rant but reality kicks everyone's ass. I'm happy to see this petition.
The salt could be "put back" but without the rest of the minerals that have been removed you haven't saved anything. it is the combination which needs to remain in balance that makes it what it is. Lets see this is Wednesday, I am a very wealthy man ( ) but even at that 3 days is a little short notice for me to make a 1500 mile trip to go to a meeting and be an outsider. But let me check with my manager and see if my calendar is open. Ok foolishness aside if anyone is actually serious and not just a petition signer this is a good cause, selfish but good. if you can make it and become part of it then you should.
For those that don't understand the dynamic of the Bonneville Salt Flats. The Salt Flats are part of a former salt lake, just like The Great Salt Lake near Slat Lake City. The Bonneville Salt Falts sits on top of a wet mud plain and in the mud is concentrated salt, there is a name for it. In the summer SCTA and others race on the surface and "tear it up". Have you ever wondered how it is possible to tear up a surface but every year we go back and it looks brand new? Because it is. Every winter the rains from the surrounding area collect at the Bonneville Salt Flats and it becomes Bonneville Salt Lake with a depth of water from 24 to 7 inches depending on the underlayment of mud. The salt has now dissolved into the upper water and down into the mud flats. In the spring and summer the lake, as long as it is not a El Nino, evaporates and leaves a brand new surface to race upon and depending on wind conditions and temperatures the surface will either be smooth with a few pressure ridges or bumpy as a washboard. That is the beauty of the Salt Flats, a renewed surface every year
Beaner, I have to take exception with your assertion that the racers are responsible for the damage to the salt, because you never saw anyone harvesting from the race course area. You can't see it because it takes place in brine being pumped under US 80 and the UP tracks to the drying pounds. Apparently millions of tons. The left over salt can certainly be returned to the salt flat surface. Will that really help? Not sure. Also it is my understanding that water draining onto the salt surface from near by hills, contains salt dissolved from the same ocean that the flats are from. Will the petition help? I doubt it, but it shouldn't hurt. The Save the Salt people have been trying to do something in order that I and others can continue to run our cars where I have been going for some time. First SpeedWeek for me was '66. I have contributed a very small amount since around 1980 when the damage was first brought to my attention. Others have donated lots and lots of hours, and money to the cause. If you feel it's hopeless and not worth your attention, so be it. But I don't think is is seemingly to criticize the effort. Your friend-Rich Fox
Like you I am entitled to my opinion,and I know how to read. Beeno makes extremely well thought out observations. And as for what I have done ,no I have never raced on the salt but have participated in the first East Coast Timing Association when it was in Moultire,Georgia and Maxton,North Carolina. I haven't done anything to help save the salt except to sign the petition which in my opinion is futile,then again chastising members with smart ass remarks here don't help your cause. HRP
I'll give you an example of something a few people could and did do to save the salt for the rest of us. Toward the end of the '70s some of the Salt Lake City racers became concerned about just this issue. They went to BLM with their concerns. BLM told them that for just the one rather poorly attended meet held there yearly, it wasn't sure the flats were worth their time and effort. Larry Volk and others made the effort to form the USFRA and start running short course, no records, pretty loose meets as early as May. Monthly. And I dragged my coupe to those meets sometimes three times a year. Sometimes only 10 or 15 people running on pretty sloppy salt. But their effort grew to the USFRA of today, and since the Fastest Indian movie we have thousands of fans. And the bike only meet. The Cook meet. 2 meets each for the USFRA and SCTA. 550 entrants to SpeedWeek. If Larry and the others had not done what little they could do the whole current LSR boom may not have happened.
I am sorry for being a smart ass, Making it possible to race on the Bonneville Salt Flat and doing our best to preserve the Flats (Save the Salt is a lot easier to type) is what Land Speed Racers, most of them, live and breathe. So sometimes I get excited and concerned when there is miss information, or I see a direction of a group that does not see the whole picture. Again sorry I hope you noticed that I did like all that Benno had to say.
I never said it was hopeless, what I am saying is that signing a petition is nothing to a politician I have been jousting with windmills as long as anyone. I know how it works. I guess if I need a pedigree it would be of note that I was a major player on the First Earth Day. It didn't happen by petition. It started out as save a tree in the NW and it didn't happen until the scope was broadened to the entire world. I am not criticizing or even saying that "Save the Salt" is a lost cause, I am saying that if you took time to sign a petition and it was not a frivolous act then get off your dead ass and do something. We will remain friends by the way. Unless you decide otherwise. We don't have to agree for that to happen. Benno I did if no one else did. heated debate is the best way to find real answers in my experience. Now if no one reports us we can continue.
savethesalt.org is a good place to learn more info on conditions and what you can do to help improve them.
The way the petition is worded and what it's asking for have me thinking it wouldn't be a solution that would fully solve the problem. If anything, I would look to the BLM to protect the interest of all parties. The land, the people that enjoy the land and the businesses that have permission to mine. I'd love to see some caveat that states the mining may take place with the condition that the salt flats ability to increase in salt levels is restored. It's easier to write/hypothesize. When it comes to Wendover, the city really counts on the money from the mining operations. More so, I'm betting/assuming than what the racers (and other users film industry, etc.) bring in. So, I really believe it's an integrity issue more than the focus on the monetary impact of what the flats in good condition could bring in. BUT... when the mines are tapped out, Wendover will become a ghost town - especially without a raceable salt bed if it's not preserved and able to restore itself. I don't think there's enough money in those casinos to thrive. They'll deteriorate the same way that other small Nevada towns have.
After reading some of the comments, It's clear not many people know what type of mining is being done on / under the salt flats. JC
Brent contrary to everyone's understanding of what I have written I do care about the salt. I am not sure that Wendover's income is the big picture but it is part of the big picture so what they want will help in the long run. The salt flats being what they are is the key to the whole problem, they are more then a place for us to race, they are a national treasure, and land speed racing is part of the history, a greater part then industry. I think that harvest of minerals could move away from the flats and save a treasure as well as keep them in business. I think that we have more then shown that we can race responsibly and not completely destroy the flats, it is a matter of showing good stewardship which from what I can tell is being done and done well. Looking at the flats as a national treasure opens up a whole new avenue to saving or preserving the salt. Maybe it would limit the amount of racing that gets done but limited racing on good salt is way better then no racing on no salt.
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