Last week a summit of sorts was held in Utah to discuss the condition and future of the Bonneville Salt Flats, not just for racing but as an entity. People from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), land speed racing community, state, and local government were present and the net result was that while everyone agrees with the fact that the salt is thinner and seemingly weaker than it ever has been, no one agrees as to why it is happening.
Furthermore, the racer contingent left the meeting pretty angry and basically vowed to circumvent the BLM with another route and work on getting legislation passed that defends the property. The major problem with all of this? No one actually knows what is causing the salt layer reduction and whether or not it is s a weather thing or some other natural force.
Of course the entity that has been really been made the villain in the program is Intrepid Potash a mineral extraction company that has been processing salt from the flats for decades on end. The company does pump brine water back onto the salt flats in an effort to replace what they are taking away but the land speed representatives did not believe that the company was pumping enough and should be made to pump more.
The major frustration for the racers was that the original meeting agenda had apparently included some verbiage to indicate that there would be a path forward chosen at the meeting and that would be the direction of the BLM on the recovery of the salt flats. That did not happen and many felt that they had made an expensive and unnecessary trip to attend a meeting that ended with more questions than it started with. One racer who was unnamed in a Salt Lake Tribune story actually used the the term “war” to describe what the relationship would be between the racing community and the BLM if a direction was not chosen soon. That does not seem productive nor does it seem like a fight the racing community has any chance of winning.
We want to go back to Bonneville this year. We want to have fun on the salt and see all the cool stuff. We want all of that but we also want a currently proceeding comprehensive study on the Salt Flats to be turned in to see what an objective study group can find.
Click here to read the full article about the BLM Bonneville meeting
This government will not be satisfied until they outlaw every single adventuresome, risky and classically American hobby and pursuit.
The thing about pumping brine water, and then even pumping more brine water, is the last several years have been above average precipitation and adding “more water” is only going to make it struggle more to dry out.
As for thicknesses of the salt, that could be a variety of factors, from the potash operation removing it to an overall increase in water saturation of the muds below the salt line. I haven’t seen, or looked for, the water table data for the salt flats. Assuming someone even tracks it, could tell a lot.
#1 problem? BLM is involved.
The government doesn’t believe in any natural force causing anything. They don’t even believe natural force exists. Man causes everything bad. Man changes the weather. Man warms the globe. Man changes the climate. ETC.
So until sanity returns the zealots are forced out of government they will continue to blame YOU!