Dilophosaurus and Phosphorus

 We hiked in a mile and a half through beautiful rock outcroppings of red and cream colored smooth and jagged rock formations to the edge of Fleet Reservoir to see the dinosaur treadways of numerous dilophosauri, three toed dinosaurs that lived at this place 193 million years ago. In the photo below you can see the red cracked rock where these prints are scattered.

 On BLM land near there Michael processed veggie oil while I wandered in the cliffs where there is a bicycle path. I thought of the crone's wanderings-- noting tracks, stones, flowers, birds... everything a joy and a simple sweet discovery. Meanwhile Michael got only 17 useable gallons of veggie oil out of 30 we had picked up. (It is so wonderful to be back in Veggie Voyagers mode instead of using up more stinky finite dinosaur carbon.) You have to click on the photo to see the V.V....

 As we were headed down the grade from Flaming Gorge (from a pass of over 8000 feet) we came upon this site (11 miles north of Vernal as the crow flies.) It is now owned by Simplot but is called the Stauffer Chemical Tailings Pond. They open pit mine for phosphate which is shipped by pipeline as slurry to Rock Springs to make into fertilizer. The "pond" is 326 acres and in an unlined reservoir almost 6000 feet high. Some of the effluent contains uranium, manganese, chromium and thallium. Brush Creek, which appears to run off this area, drains directly into Fleet Reservoir... During the high winds we encountered yesterday you can see the airborne cloud coming off the tailing ponds. I couldn't find a single bit of info about monitoring other than ground water. Alarming what passes for being o.k. (You have to click on this one too.) I tried to find data on health issues in Vernal but couldn't find anything specific.