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Utah Desalinization Plant Causes Earthquake
mknewman writes "A Utah desalinization plant which removes 260 gallons of salty brine from a river which feeds the Colorado river has caused a 3.9 on the Richter Scale earthquake, noticeable by people 60 miles away in Grand Junction. More information at http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/science/11/15/earthqu ake.wellpumpin.ap/index.html"
Well, in the interests of refecting what the article actually said, mknewman might have posted:, "A Utah desalinization plant which pumps 260 gallons per minute of salty brine to a depth of 14,000 feet underground, is probably associated with an earthquake measuring 3.9 on the Richter Scale, and noticeable by people 60 miles away in Grand Junction. More information at CNN.com
Three Squirrels
removing 261 gallons of brine would have caused!
A fine is a tax you pay for doing wrong and a tax is a fine you pay for doing all right.
Hmm.. Something's doesn't seem right about this measurement. I wonder what it could be!
Reminds me of something I heard about a geothermal generator near Cloverdale, CA. They have at least one earthquake a week because the station pumps water down into the ground to create steam to power their turbines. Take a look at this earthquake map. It's a map of all earthquakes in the California/Nevada area for the past week. Check out the area around Cloverdale. There will ALWAYS be at least one quake per week in that area.
stuff
Boy, you sure don't ask for much, do you?
www.eFax.com are spammers
Just don't think it would make a good James Bond movie. "Ah yes Mister Bond I see you managed to find my secret water pump!".
On a more serious note, it is known that taking gas or oil from the earth causes the ground above to sink. In the netherlands this is happening up north although the effects are of course very small according to those in power (and living above sea level).
It also causes some small earth quakes. Nothing major. Last one had all the news channels trying to make a story out of some rooftiles that slid off. We don't get good disasters here anymore.
If this causes a lot of earthquakes because it lubricates the faults might it not be used to untension high risk areas? Put some lubricant in the ground wich causes a lot of small earth quakes to take energy away from the ground so there is not enough left for a big one?
I have no idea how lethal a 3.9 is but it must be a hell of a lot better for places like LA then a 8.
What do you mean this is potentially very dangerous. You are talking about a city that got nuclear reactors in an earthquake zone. They like danger over there.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
. . . but I didn't realize that Mormons also got all shook up over plain old salt.
The theory is that the water essentially lubricates the fault, making it easier for it to move. The pumping does nothing to create pressure. Instead, it reduces the amount of pressure that has to build up before an earthquake hits. This means we get a bunch of small quakes relatively frequently instead of a big bad one when we least expect it.
So perhaps they should start similar pumping actions in California to allow for more smaller quakes to reduce the pressure buildup?
Wired had an article the other day regarding the environmental impacts of another desalination plant, this one in Arizona.
Back in the late 1960s or early 1970s, there was some injection of water into wells in the Denver area (I forget if it was at the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant or at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal nerve gas/pesticide site). It resulted in the same types of low level earthquakes. I recall one morning, while I was carrying my full bowl of cereal into the living room to watch the cartoons, a magnitude 4 (or thereabouts) earthquake struck. I had to stop to prevent my cereal bowl from spilling milk onto the floor. The water injection was stopped, but I don't recall if it was to prevent further earthquakes or some other reason.
What is the purpose of this desalinization plant? The article says "The process is intended to decrease the salt content of the Colorado River downstream..." but why would we want to do that? If the purpose was to remove it for human consumption, I would understand. But that doesn't seem to be the case if it is just removing the salt for the downstream river.
This whole thing reminds me of the Rhine River which was straightened so it flowed faster, causing massive erosion and removing the natural process of detoxifing the water. Eventually, the river had to be un-straightened to fix the problem.
We better hurry up and give up some rights before the terrorists start pumping water underground and causing earthquakes.
Trying to use sarcasm in text-based forums does not work.
The salt in the Dolores River comes from natural underground salt formations. Ground water passes through a collapsed salt anticline and becomes brine. You can read the technical report at http://water.usgs.gov/pubs/wri/wri02-4275/ and see photos at http://www.geo.mtu.edu/~jeh/Photos/Captions/capday 4.html.
Natural salt water is not uncommon in this region. The Great Salt Lake formed long before the Industrial Age.
a Salt Shaker.
Weeks of coding saves hours of planning.
Your argument whilst superficially attractive seems to be based on jealousy greed and ignorance.
a ntenna.nl/wise/570/5419.html
For example, in related geographical, geological and political news
http://www.antenna.nl/wise/index.html?http://www.
It seems that the final cost of your national nuclear weapons defence program also offers you the choice of drinking radioactive water or paying your tax dollars to keep the Colorado river clean.
To summarise
"U.S. DOE announces plan to relocate Atlas Moab uranium mill tailings
During a ceremony, held on January 14, 2000, high on a cliffside bench above the tailings, Energy Secretary Bill Richardson announced a sweeping plan for relocating the Atlas Moab tailings away from the bank of the Colorado River. With this plan, Richardson is addressing the fears of Los Angeles water officials that the water supply for millions of Southern Californians would be threatened if the 10.5 million short tons of radioactive dirt were left on the flood plain of the Colorado River.
Two big hurdles remain in the drive to clear away the pile, left near Moab by Atlas when it went bankrupt: funding the multi-year project, which the DOE estimates would cost $300 million, and transferring authority from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to the DOE. (Deseret News / Salt Lake Tribune Jan 15, 2000)"
"A bill ordering the Atlas uranium mill tailings dug up and moved from the flood plain of the Colorado River near Moab was approved Oct. 12, 2000 by the U.S. Senate. The measure, which passed the House on Oct. 11, now goes to the president for his signature. (Salt Lake Tribune, Oct. 13, 2000)
President Clinton signed the bill on Oct. 30, 2000."
"President Bush has included no money in his 2002 budget to clean up the abandoned uranium mill tailings site near Moab, Utah, where federal officials have estimated 16,000 gallons of water containing radioactive uranium tailings are leaking into the Colorado River each day. Despite legislation passed by Congress last year giving the Department of Energy authority to begin cleaning up the site, the department has set aside no specific funding to get started. (Las Vegas Review-Journal, April 24, 2001)"
So your deffinition of private property rights includes opting out of being an American - presumably developing nuclear weapons in your garage capable of persuading the Soviet Union to surrender in the cold war. What you are suggesting is that you want to opt out of your own society. You may have perfectly good reasons to do so but I think you will find that you are in a minority of one - or maybe I'm wrong and you can persuade everybody that drinking radioactive water is good for you.
Whilst you consider your options, here is a beautifull view of the waste heap to watch whilst you think about it.
http://www.crh.noaa.gov/gjt/Moab.html
Facts are history now plebs have politics for religion on social media.
...is that this is a cheap way of causing earth quakes. Why would you want to do that, you ask? Well, besides the obvious reason of being an evil villain in a Bond-movie, you could also do this to make small earthquakes to disperse the tension in the crust, thereby averting big buildups that evetually get released in big, disastrous earthquakes.
Of course this would need to be tested somewhere safe. Are there any major fault lines in the antarctic?