utah salt flats racing association interview

(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) University of Utah professor Brenda Bowen examines salt samples on the Bonneville Salt Flats, where she is researching the effects human activity has had on the salt crust.

She would like to see the program move forward but with some safeguards. “This is an untested, interesting experiment on a really unique landscape.” “There is a lot about what it does that we don't know, and there are consequences of moving around water and salt at a scale that has never been done anywhere else,” said research leader Brenda Bowen, who heads the U.’s Global Change and Sustainability Center. The researchers determined that past pumping has helped keep the flats intact, but it remains unclear whether additional pumping would make a difference. The proposal comes on the heels of new reports by University of Utah geologists who have spent several years drilling and examining cores extracted from the salt flats in an effort to understand how and why the area has changed. It cannot be replaced, but it can be protected.” A changing landscape “It’s a bucket-list visit for millions of people across the world. The project is worth the price, racer Russ Deane, president of the Save the Salt Coalition, told lawmakers, noting the racing community will raise $2.5 million.

Swenson said proponents are working out a memorandum of understanding with the BLM, outlining how the plan would work. Backers are lobbying the Legislature for a $5 million appropriation to help persuade the federal government to foot the rest of the bill. The proposal would require construction of new ponds and ditches and installation of pipelines and pumps at a cost of $50 million. To reverse the problem, we need to scale a project that already exists,” said Swenson, speaking for the Specialty Equipment Market Association, a trade group that represents makers and distributors of speed-racing gear and has a strong interest in preserving the place that gave birth to the sport. “We have lost so many millions of tons that it is not possible to keep up at the current scale.

(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Slowed down by parachute a car finishes a run during Speed Week at the Bonneville Salt Flats outside Wendover on Monday, Aug.

Utah salt flats racing association interview