The End

This was an amazing trip and I was sad that I had to come to an end. I saw so many great things, learn more then I ever thought I could and had an amazing time. I would like to thank Tait for putting this together.

Uranium Tailings

Well the mosquitoes made it a little hard to sleep but I have been through worse things in my life. We tried to hike to the junction of the Green River and the Colorado River but the trail was closed. So we just did a quarter mile hike which was fun. We then headed back to Moab and went to an old uranium mine less than a mile from our campsite. Which had all of its tailings less then 30 feet away from the Colorado River. This is the same uranium that destroyed Japan and the same uranium that turned Chernobyl into a barren waste land. I know its not that serious but I think it is should be a little more protected than a huge pile next to the river. The uranium mine was discovered in 1952 and was in production until 1984. the crazy thing is that all of their radioactive slurry was put in an pond, that was not lined with anything, and a 90 foot high radioactive tailing pile right next to the river. It is believed to be leaching into river, which has lead to high concentrations of ammonia and has caused a negative impact on the fish in the area.

In 2005 the Department of Energy announced that it was going to move 11.9 million tons of the tailings to a lined hole 30 miles away onto public land in Crescent Junction, Utah. At first the relocation was expected cost 300 million dollars, now estimates are over 720 million dollars (Salt Lake Tribune). By March of 2010 1 million tons have already been shipped (DoE).

Citations:

"First Million Tons of Moab Tailings Shipped to Crescent Junction for Disposal." U.S Deparment of Energy, 3 Mar. 2010. Web.

http://www.em.doe.gov/pdfs/1MTons_newsrel.pdf

"Let's Move It: Atlas Tailings Should Be Transported Quickly." The Salt Lake Tribune, 8 Aug. 2008. Web.

http://www.sltrib.com/ci_10144500

Picture Citations:

"Moab Tailings." Tom Till. Associated Press. Web. 2008.

http://www.deseretnews.com/photos/midres/5837965.jpg

Road Trip

Today was a total driving day. We left Reno at 8:00 am and headed to Ely where the groupwould be camping. Along the way were got a nice tour of nothing because we drove down Highway 50, The Loneliest Road in America, but we did eat lunch in Eureka, apparently the friendliest town in America. We got to Ely and stayed for less than 20 minutes and then Tait, Kyle and myself headed to Flagstaff to pick up the Suburban which was getting a new transmission.

I am kind of jealous that I did not get to stay at the campsite and explore because it was beautiful. It was a couple miles down a dirt road tucked into this small canyon. I bet a only a few people have ever been witnessed its glory. The only problem was that the little stream that ran through the campsite had 300% snow pack so it was flooded with pure ice water. So I guess it was good we left. We got

to Flagstaff at 2:00 am and went to sleep after a solid 18 hours of driving.

Finally in the morning were were reunited with Command Center 1, our beloved Chevrolet Suburban. It may have not been as comfortable as the rental but it is what I have called home for the past 3 summers, so I was happy to have it back.

We then drove to Moab where we met up with the rest of the group at the same exact campsite where the geology club almost died 4 years ago. But it seemed like the tamaris was back to shield us from the wind so we should be good. We then headed to Arches National Park, just in time to see the sun setting on Delicate Arch and it was jaw dropping. This is my third time being at Delicate but the first time to witness the sunset. We headed back before it go dark, ate dinner, and stared out at the stars. I thought the stars were amazing before, tonight they were mind blowing. It was a good day.

Picture Citations:

"Eureka." Anthony Sarnoski. 2011.

"Dirt Road Campsite." Anthony Sarnoski. 2011.

"Command Center 1." Anthony Sarnoski. 2011.

"Delicate Arch." Anthony Sarnoski. 2011.

Reno

Reno was awesome. The hotel had awesome breakfast, I ate it twice. Brought some back to my room and I do not think I left the hotel room all day. It was nice to finally have a day to do absolutely nothing. It would have been nice to see Lake Tahoe. I heard it was beautiful but a lot of people did not want to go so we just hung out.

Hetch Hetchy Reservoir

Today we got up early to get a tour of Moccasin Power Plant, which uses water from the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir. Our tour guide brought up the fact that hydropower is one of the most efficient forms of energy production. It is available 24 hours a day whereas solar is only efficient during sunny days and wind is only efficient at night when energy is not needed. The only problem they have is that at night they make too much energy and have to pay people to use it. I think that it would make more sense to build a pump storage facility and use the energy they would normally have to pay people to take and pump water with it and they produce even more power during peak hours. The reason that that has not happened is energy is not the reason the reservoir is there, it can conveniently produce power but the reservoir is there to manage water. The main purpose it to ensure that San Francisco receives between 220 and 290 million gallons of water a day. That number is simply outrageous and San Francisco still needs more water than that. The water is transported more than 140 miles from an elevation of of 900 feet to 325 feet all by gravity. I wonder if adding small turbine inside the pipes to create extra energy would be possible.

The main controversy with Hetch Hetchy is that it is in Yosemite National Park. The park is suppose to protect and preserve but it has an unnatural reservoir in it. I would rather the reservoir not be there to make Yosemite as pristine as it could possibly be, but I understand that it is not possible to remove it. The ecosystem is adapting to the reservoir and removing it would leave an uglier scar then what the reservoir is now. It is crazy to think about how beautiful Yosemite Valley is and Hetch Hetchy is the exact thing filled in with water. So it is kind of sad to think about what beautiful landforms are buried under all of that water.

There is a positive though, since the headwaters of Hetch Hetchy are in the National Park they are pristine. That means that they are very clean and have a low sediment load. So they are able to have a filtration avoidance which is good because the water will be pure and cheap but is a little scary. That means from the spring to your tap the water is only chlorinated. There are a lot of harmful things that are not killed by chlorine but would be removed by a filtration system. So far it has not been a problem but it would not take a terrorist very much to poison the entire San Francisco water supply and by the time it is caught 2.5 million people could be dead.

Picture Citations:

"O'Shaughnessy Dam." Anthony Sarnoski. 2011.

"Hetch Hetchy Reservoir." Anthony Sarnoski. 2011.

Yosemite

This was the second time I have been at Yosemite and it was just as beautiful as the last time I went there. We did the Vernal Falls hike again and this time it was absolutely breath taking. This year there was a 300% snow pack so the volume of water flowing over the falls was three times as much as normal. The spray from the water fall was more like a monsoon than a mist. The valley is absolutely beautiful as well. The only problem is there is a lot of traffic. I wish that Yosemite would try to be more like Zion. In Zion cars are only allowed to travel so far and then you can only take the bus to most stops. This means there is no traffic and a lot less pollution. This would be a smart thing for all National Parks to do and it would be very easy and cheap to implement. Hopefully one day that will happen.

Picture Citation:

"Vernal Falls." Anthony Sarnoski. 2011.

Hilmar Cheese, Irrigation Canal + Methane Digester

The tour of the Hilmar Cheese Factory was less exciting then I expected it to be. It was again a tour more deemed for an elementary school group them college kids. It was pretty much the exact talk that Mike gave us the night before. It was cool to be in the countries largest cheese factory but thats about as good as it got. They did not even make very cool cheeses. Just normal cheese like cheddar, colby and pepper jack. It was still crazy to hear that they produce over 1.5 million pounds of cheese a day. I was confused at why I have never heard of Hilmar, and that was because they do not sell their cheese in supermarkets. They sell itin bulk, only putting their name on it for the factories gift store. I do not know why but I never connected whey protein powder as the same thing as whey from milk. But they say that they do not only make cheese here they also use to the whey to make supplements and they use the extra water to clean the plant and to irrigate the property, which I thought was pretty smart. We then stopped at the gift store sampled some cheese and head out.

The next stop was a quick stop to talk about the irrigation canals that they have been using for hundreds of years. A lot of the land in the midwest is irrigated using these irrigation canals. They are cement line canals that flow along the property and have pumps which the farmers can use to irrigate their property. The problem is that they are highly inefficient, they are cement lined so that no warm can seep back into the soil but they are not covered so the blistered 120 degree temperatures out there evaporate off a lot of the water. Also with any open body of water animals can fall in an die or chemicals can be spilled into it and contaminate the entire water supply. The main problem with this canals is more with water management. Each farmer is allocated a certain amount of water. If they use it they are fine, but if they use less water, in the future they will be allocated less. The problem with that is in dry years where less water is available those people that did not waste water will have they water supply limited and it may not be enough water to support their crops but the people that have been wasting their water have plenty of water to support themselves. So a large amount of the water is wasted each year because farmer use flood irrigation instead of practicing efficient irrigation techniques. This is frustrating because a lot of people complain about water shortages and the farmers are wasting countless amounts of water each year.

Last stop of the day was to a dairy farm with a methane digester on the property. This was very interesting to see but had a terrible stench. It was cool to see so many different ways to make electricity. This facility produces about 500 kilowatts of power, which is enough to power his whole farm and sells some back to the power company, but is limited. Right now he uses animal manure and any organic waste from the farm, he is not allowed to use waste from other farms yet because of regulations but he says that with new parts and the extra waste he could easily produce 2 megawatts of power. That would make the facility cost effective because right now it still costs him money to run and has been operational for about 2 years. With the amount of electricity he is making his farm his is regulated as a utility company.

The digester works but taking the fresh cow manure and keeping it heated to between 100 and 102 degrees to make it the same temperature as the inside of the cow. This temperature keeps the bacteria inside under natural conditions so that they continue to produce methane. The methane is then trapped and then burned in a generator, creating electricity.

Picture Citations:

"Hilmar Cheese." Hilmar Cheese Company. Our products. Web. 2011.

http://www.hilmarcheese.com/uploadedImages/Content/Section_Content_Units/Products/products1.jpg

"Irrigation Canal." James S. Alber. Emporia State University. Web. 2009.

http://academic.emporia.edu/aberjame/wetland/canal/sand1.jpg

"Methane Digester." The Encyclopedia of Alternative Energy and Sustainable Living. Anaerobic digester. Web. 2011.

http://www.daviddarling.info/images/anaerobic_digester_diagram.jpg