Dear Editor,
I am surprised to note just how many outside interests are drawn to our county solely for access to the Red Lake Playa for their (very un-apologetic) monetary gain.
Then there are the corporate farms that are, right now, unashamedly pumping water as fast as they can to water their crops which are exported from Mohave County to only God knows where.
Also happening now is a separate effort to suck water from the dry lake’s aquifers, at twice the yearly consumption rate of the entire City of Kingman. This scheme is to generate electric power to be sold outside our County and State. Where is the benefit to Mohave County, the city of Kingman and our fellow citizens?
In the last 25 years I have witnessed proposals for Natural gas caverns storage under the lakebed and other dangerous plans.
The newest scam I am aware of is (once again) gas storage in caverns beneath Red Lake. This time the pipe dream is that of storing Hydrogen Gas in (as yet, non-existent) caverns beneath the lakebed. A massive drawback to this plan is the creation of the caverns. That would require the dissolution by high pressure water of the solids now present down there, then those materials must be pumped up to the surface. Where do you suppose all that water is going to come from? Right out of the Red Lake aquifer. Now guess what. All that stuff has to be disposed of or stored somewhere. How would the Red Lake Playa look with a few million cubic yards of brine and muck look, sitting on the surface waiting for the sun and wind to dry it. and for the dust to blow away. So it comes to this, these folks want to use your water to make caverns beneath the lakebed, then what will they do with all the effluent?
Just imagine many hundreds of acres covered in mud. Not a pretty sight.
The foregoing doesn’t even touch on the catastrophic drawdown of the water table beneath Red Lake, nor does it touch on the drying up of the private household wells in the valley.
Is any corporation or individual person going to guarantee the future of potable water under your property? Are your wells drying up yet?
I suggest that if you are reading this and you feel that you will be adversely affected by any of these points, you should write, visit in-person , or call every government agency in Mohave County or in Arizona or within the federal government. Tell them all your concerns and worries and demand that they help you avoid the damage these various projects would cause you and Mohave County.
Jack Hommel
