Bro. Curtis said:
So neither one of you has been to Utah ?
I missed the Utah caveat in God's command to subdue the Earth. And if you think you can destroy the Wasatch range with a few oil rigs, then you've never been to Utah.
You are so right, Brother Curtis!
The only time I got to 'see' Utah was from the driver's seat of a condo tractor-trailer rig. But the company had a terminal off the I-215 so was routed through several times, mostly from east-west-east directions. I did get loads and had either pick-ups, deliveries, or swaps which took me to around Plain City...north; Vernal .....to the east; and once dropped down through Moab ....to the south -southeast heading to Farmington, New Mexico. Fortunately those trips were in day light and the landscape was awesome.
The mountains in Utah are so vaiable as I recall. On the I-80 there's a difference in the colors and the sides of the mountain on the north side from the south side. Some rise next to each other and side by side, even the rock formations differ and, sometimes, the colors. In the south the Mountains are also mixed but less grays and blues. Its more like harden clays and sands, some beige and tan, but most in hues of red, some rising like monoliths of hard rock stubborn and rigid against the landscape and others looking like hugmongous dumps of clay and sand, with sheered sides and giving a false but impression from the distance of softness and imaginary submission to the landscape.
Traveling through Moab, it looked like a festival was taking place. The town is on either side of the road and one sees few routes off the main route.... and that is narrow. The day I passed through was mid-afternoon, and it looked like every restuarant was filled, there were vehicles parked barely off the road and people mulling about on both sides of the road. It looked to me like hundreds, maybe a thousand..... but where did they come from? I had no idea! I had not seen farms or villages, or developments suggesting of a community near by and once through this town ..... there were very few communities through which to pass or see people before I crossed into Colorado and on into New Mexico. It was dark by this time but I think I had seen the best which could be seen from the road while passing.
I've seen oil wells down here within 30 miles of my home; Some built in the marsh lands in the 50's and 60's, and some built in the middle of farmers fields in the late 70's and pumping through the 80's and 90's. I think my 20x30 shed takes up as much room as does a well, fenced off and completed with working pump. The farmers' cattle graze on grass grown right up to the well site, or they plant their cotton, corn and soybeans all around it. The service 'road' to the site is nothing more than a dirt path, very narrow, such as a farmer uses to access the back of a field. Most of the people in this area have no access to public water but their deep wells keep workign and there's been no problems which I've heard of. Community water has finally moved into the country and those wells are checked for pollutants and none have been found...... and the water taste great like it did to me as a child drinking from a well.
I think many people, when they think of oil wells... they have that classic picture of an oil well standing in the middle of barren land, with a tower of metal for the drill and heavy equipment parked around, flat beds, dumps of pipes and people in hard hats. The acerage seems excessively occupied, the staging area and trafficked area a large circumference framing in its largess, the importance of this one small and solitary rig in the middle of 'nowhere'. This is the picture which even the oil companies want us to have of their industry..... and it may be the reality allowed in other countries which restrict them less than we do. But drilling for oil is so highly regulated even before the test wells go in and the environmentalist are on top of everything from the very start that dammage to the landscape is minimalized and also that to the environment. Once oil is struck and the pump placed in, everything else which might have been distrubed is returned to its preconditions as much as possible, but the well keeps on supplying for years and years.
We have too many people that have seen little of the vastness of our country, who only have pictures in their minds from travel magazines, National Geographics, National Parks magazines and books and brochuers. So many live in or near big cities and imagine that is all they'll ever see but hope for a dream vacation when they shake loose the dust and gather the courage to adventure and discover some of the wilderness they have so actively participated in protecting.... or that their grandchildren will do it for them and bring back the stories. We just have no idea of the abundance we do have in this country....... so much so...... that it would almost take an act of the will to purposely destroy it, and definitely more than a few oil wells!
