The Utah Alliance has partnered with the Coalition to provide expertise and governmental connections at the state and local levels. The Coalition is an international group of businesses and organizations with a vested interest in Bonneville. The community is represented by the Save the Salt Coalition, of which SEMA is a partner, and the Utah Alliance. The racing community has issued a comprehensive plan for restoring Bonneville. However, the pumping has been severely limited in recent years. When pumped at average levels of 1.2 million tons per year, the program stabilized Bonneville’s crust and demonstrated small increases. The racing community and the mine owner created a salt brine return program in the ’90s that was implemented with BLM approval. In fact, much of the salt is currently located in a huge mine evaporative processing pond that sits on land controlled by the BLM. The BLM allowed an estimated 50 to 75 million tons of salt to be removed from Bonneville and not returned. Until 1997, the salt transfer was a one-way street. Potash is extracted from the salt through solar evaporation, and the salt is a waste product of the process. The two activities existed in harmony until the ’60s, when the BLM began issuing leases allowing salt to be transferred south through miles of ditches north of the highway without scientific proof that there would be no damage to Bonneville. Land speed racing began in 1914, and the racetracks have been located on the north side and a potash processing plant on the south side since 1932. The Bonneville Salt Flats is more than 60 miles long and is divided in half by railroad tracks and highways. Frankly, Bonneville has been studied to death. At least six studies have been completed over the decades, and a seventh is underway. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has been the land’s custodian since 1946, and the agency’s traditional response to the racers’ concerns has been to call for geologic studies. BWS streamliner on Bonneville Salt Flats starting line, photo courtesy of SEMA.įor more than 50 years, the land speed racing community has sounded the alarm that Bonneville is being destroyed by government mismanagement and neglect.
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