SOUTH BASE WENDOVER

View from South Base, Wendover.


Simparch Research Facility.


Capped bullet holes in the exterior to the facility.


Interior Simparch research facility.


Plants in the geodesic dome, Simparch facility.


Munitions bunker now rented by the casino to store financial records for IRS purposes.


Target Hall (and "Con Air" film prop tower) in background.


Army maneuvers.


Sunset at South Base.

CON AIR

This plane was used as a prop in the 1997 film "Con Air" (John Cusack / Nicolas Cage / John Malkovich). It collapsed during filming, killing a crew member. The plane now resides on the airfield at Wendover. There have been a number of films that have used Wendover air base, including "Birds of Prey," (1973) in which the chase scene involved helicopters that flew in and out of the hangers.

CLUI WENDOVER

The view from the CLUI tower overlooks the Engola Gay hanger from where pilot Paul Tibbets departed to drop the first atomic bomb named the "Engola Gay" (code-named "Little Boy") on Hiroshima. Tibbets named the bomb after his mother Engola Gay Tibbets.

INTREPID POTASH

Intrepid Potash is a domestic producer of muriate of potash ("potassium chloride" or "potash") and langbeinite ("sulfate of potash magnesia"), another mineral that contains potassium. Intrepid owns five active potash production facilities—three in New Mexico and two in Utah — and has a current estimated productive capacity to produce 910,000 tons of potash and 210,000 tons of langbeinite annually.

GRASSY MOUNTAIN WASTE DUMP

 
This 640 acre site for hazardous and toxic materials opened in 1982 and employs about 100 people. Laidlaw operated this facility until recently, and it served as a dump site for the toxic ash from Laidlaw's incinerator, 15 miles away at Clive. It is one of three waste sites Laidlaw acquired when it bought U.S. Pollution Control Inc. (USPCI), a Union Pacific corporation, in 1994. Grassy Mountain is now operated by Clean Harbors.

MAGCORP MAGNESIUM CHLORIDE PLANT

According to the EPA, on several recent occasions, this magnesium chloride plant 70 miles east of Wendover has been the nation's worst air polluter. MagCorp has released close to a hundred tons of chlorine per day from its stacks, in a cloud that can be seen from as far away as Nevada, the majority of total chlorine gas emitted into the air nationwide. Magnesium chloride is one of those versatile "in-between" industrial chemicals, like borax. It is used, for example, as a fire retardant in wood, as a dust-inhibitor for dirt roads, as a lubricant for wool, and as a supplement in cattle feed. Owned by the Magnesium Corporation of America (whose CEO, a few years ago, was building what was called "the largest private home in America, on Long Island, NY).

THE ROAD TO SKULL VALLEY

The road to Skull Valley leads to the Tekoi Test Range, a rocket test facility built by Hercules Inc. in 1976, on the Gosuite Indian Reservation, in remote Skull Valley in northern Utah. Later operated by Alliant Tech Systems (ATK), which bought Hercules, along with its primary rocket facility near Magna, Utah, in the early 1990's. Activity at Tekoi has decreased since the 1980's, with some of the testing moved to the Thiokol plant near Promontory. However, Chief Leon Bear is now actively attempting to establish the Gosuite Res. as a repository for high-level nuclear waste, in a controversial move to revitalize his community. As he sees it, he is surrounded on all sides by high-level toxicity, and though they didn't ask for it, this is now what his people are living with.

Russian signage on the perimeter of the Tekoi Range (and at the U.T.T.R.) is due to the fact that this site was designated as "inspectable" for Russian inspectors as part of the START Treaty (as were other sites in Utah that were used for the development and storage of submarine launched ballistic missiles, at Oasis, Hill AFB, and ATK at Magna). This Russian prefab was one of the units shipped from Russia for the inspectors. All units were imported complete with Russian furnishings, kitchenware, literature, and even electricity scrubbers, reflecting the political climate of mistrust during the cold war. The units now reside in Wendover, Utah.

CLEAN HARBORS/ENERGY SOLUTIONS

To the left of this sign is Energy Solutions' nuclear waste site, formerly known as the Envirocare nuclear waste facility. It is one of only a handful of commercial nuclear waste disposal sites, and the only commercial facility in the nation that can accept mixed radioactive and hazardous wastes. Since 1986, when it was opened by the Department of Energy for the disposal of uranium mill tailings, this facility has greatly expanded and now accepts radioactive material from most of the DOE's major industrial sites, from commercial generators, and numerous military sites. To the right of the sign is the Clean Harbors Incineration facility, formerly known as the Clive Incineration Facility. A relatively new $125 million hazardous waste incinerator, fully operational until recently, is one of the largest in the USA. Designed to burn up to 130,000 tons of toxic chemical wastes per year, mostly from petroleum and chemical industries.

Energy Solutions Nuclear Waste Site

Green Harbors Incineration Facility

APTUS HAZARDOUS WASTE INCINERATOR

This major hazardous waste incinerator burns a minimum of 30,000 tons of solvents, paints, old chemicals, contaminated soils, and PCBs every year. It is owned by Safety Kleen, which owns another major chemical waste incinerator a few miles west at Clive. Safety Kleen is one of the largest hazardous waste companies in the world. Former operators of Aptus include Rollins Environmental Services, which recently bought it from Westinghouse.

ATK THIOKOL PROMOTORY

 
Thiokol builds the NASA space shuttle rocket motors at this sprawling isolated facility near the Promontory Mountains. Other defense and propulsions systems are developed, built, and tested here including ICBM rocket engines. The plant, once designated as "Air Force Plant 78" employs over three thousand people, who work in 450 buildings, clustered in the various industrial and test areas that are scattered throughout the bare hills of the 30 square mile complex. In 2001 Thiokol's propulsion division was acquired by Alliant Techsystems, a weapons and explosives manufacturer that operates a large plant outside Salt Lake City, the Bacchus Works.

TOOLE ARMY DEPOT, SOUTH

 
The South Area of the Tooele Depot, also called the Deseret Chemical Depot, is an ammunition storage facility that is home to 42.3% of the nation's chemical weapons. The nearly 30 million pounds of aging mustard and nerve agents are stored in 208 igloos at the facility, awaiting disposal, according to international treaties. Near the igloo field is the Tooele Chemical Agent Disposal Facility incinerator, completed in 1994 at a cost of several hundred million dollars. The controversial disposal plant started burning the chemical weapons at the depot in August, 1996. The incinerator is operated by the EG&G corporation, and it is the first of several incinerators the Army proposes to construct at military facilities across the country, wherever chemical weapons are stored.

TOOLE ARMY DEPOT, NORTH

 
The Tooele Depot is a 44,000 acre Army facility that was the primary ammunition storage facility for the Army's western district. The Depot consists of two areas, with different functions, separated by 15 miles of state highway. The 24,000 acre North Area has the headquarters, administrative offices, and acres of storage facilities. Until 1992, the North Depot was a major wheeled vehicle maintenance facility, where every kind of wheeled vehicle up to approximately 5 tons, as well as generators, refrigeration units and other field equipment, were repaired or remanufactured for reuse and resale. This function of Tooele has been now moved and much of the North Area is a ghost town, though it remains an active depot for the storage and disposal of conventional weapons. Over 900 munitions storage igloos, spread out across the valley floor, make up two million square feet of this secured munitions storage space. Also in the North Area is an open burn area for the disposal of surplus and unstable munitions, where open detonations occur as much as two major blasts per day. The North Area employs around 650 people today, nearly all civilian contractors.

MORTON SALT PLANT

 
The firm was originally incorporated as the Morton Salt Company in 1910. Plant acquisitions have continued to this day. Concurrent with this growth has been the development of more sophisticated products and grades of salt for various purposes. Special salt grades were developed for food processing and used in the manufacture of gasoline, pharmaceuticals, plastics, paints, dyes, tires, detergents, insecticides and many other items. The firm is also involved in the chemical processing industry as a major supplier of basic inorganic chemicals derived from salt. This has led to the formation of a separate chemical division that now produces organic chemicals, polymers and chemical formulations used in industry and agriculture.

ALLIANT TECHSYSTEMS BACCHUS WORKS

A munitions, propulsion, composites, and explosives development and manufacturing complex located on a hill surrounded by the suburbs of southwest Salt Lake City. Alliant Tech Systems, based in Minnesota, acquired the large and diversified facility, which makes up most of the town of Bacchus, when it purchased Hercules Aerospace in 1995. Among the products produced here are propulsion systems for many types of long-range missiles in the US arsenal. In 2000, the company also acquired the remote Thiokol rocket plant at Promontory, the other large explosives and propellant plant in northern Utah.

BINGHAM CANYON MINE

This is one of the largest copper mines in the world. After the profitable metals have been removed from the ore, the tailings are transported 14 miles as a slurry in a 60" concrete pipe from the Copperton Concentrator to the tailings impoundment located near Magna, Utah. Tailings are processed through two cyclone stations that separate the coarse grained material (underflow) from the finer grained material (overflow). The underflow is used to construct the outer embankment of the impoundment and the overflow is deposited into the interior of the impoundment where the solids drop out forming a beach and the water pools in a pond in the center of the impoundment. To accommodate the approximately 60 million tons of tailings deposited annually, the impoundment height is raised approximately 8-10 feet per year. The impoundment has been receiving tailings since 1906. Since then, more than 1.5 billion tons of tailings have been stored. Copper, like silver and gold, can be produced directly from naturally occurring minerals by heating and oxidation. Smelting began on the south shore of the Great Salt Lake in 1906 to process ore from Utah Copper's Bingham Canyon Mine. In 1992, Kennecott Utah Copper began construction of an $880-million modernization of the Smelter and the Refinery. This project was the largest privately financed construction project in the history of Utah.

GREAT SALT LAKE MINERALS COMPANY

 
This large salt producer has two major evaporation pond areas: 19,000 acres at Little Mountain (where this plant is located) and a 17,000 acre field of ponds 21 miles across the lake, near Lakeside. The brine from the Lakeside field flows in an open canal underneath the lake surface, taking as long as 10 days to arrive at this plant. The facility produces potassium sulfate (for fertilizers), sodium chloride (for industrial salt applications), sodium sulfate (used in laundry detergent and glass), and magnesium chloride.

SPIRAL JETTY

 
A proposal to drill for oil in the Great Salt Lake could threaten artist Robert Smithson’s monumental 1970 earthwork Spiral Jetty. The Canadian firm Pearl Montana Exploration and Production holds three leases, dating to 2003, to drill exploratory boreholes near the iconic sculpture. The Spiral Jetty is usually invisible (Smithson built the piece in 1970 at a time when the lake was at a particularly low level), lying a few feet under the fluctuating surface level of the lake, but at this time has been above surface level for 4 years. Spiral Jetty is located at Rozel Point, Great Salt Lake, 15 miles SW of Promontory, Utah. The site is pretty remote, 16 miles from Golden Spike park hrough private ranch land on a gravel road. Unless you have a 4-wheel drive, hike in the last 4 miles as the road gets more volcanic and less hospitable, and if you get stuck, you really will get stuck (no traffic / no cell reception). I suggest hiking up and over the mountain so the first view you have is from above, the most impressive way to see the Jetty.

LITTLE MOUNTAIN TEST ANNEX

 
This secret and remote military facility is managed by Hill AFB. Located on the eastern shore of the Great Salt Lake at the end of an unmarked road in Little Mountain, it uses propellants and radioactive material in its research and development. I was escorted off the edge of the site by Homeland Security that had followed me from the Zirconium Plant to the perimeter.

WESTERN ZIRCONIUM PLANT

Several restricted sites are located on the east side of the Great Salt Lake near Ogden, Utah. One of these is the Zirconium Plant owned by Westinghouse - the world's leading supplier of nuclear fuel products and services. The zirconium plant produces high-quality zirconium, hafnium and zircaloy for commercial nuclear power and other industrial applications. Since 1980, the 420,000 square-foot facility has produced more than 47 million pounds of zirconium-based products. The plant's primary products are Zircaloy-4, fuel for Pressurized Water Reactors (PWRs); Zircaloy-2, for Boiling Water Reactors (BWRs); and ZIRLO, a corrosion-resistant material developed to meet the long operating cycles and high burnups needed by nuclear power producers. Westinghouse Nuclear Fuel has six manufacturing locations around the world.

Westinghouse does not appreciate visitors or allow photography. After leaving the site I was followed and stopped by security from the facility who questioned me in regard to 'Homeland Security', and escorted me away from the area.

HILL AFB

I left Santa Fe for CLUI Wendover on Labor Day weekend. My first stop in the region was the 6,698 acre Hill AFB on the east side of the Great Salt Lake. The base employs over 20,000 personnel and has one of the busiest single runways in the Air Force with over 85,000 aircraft operations annually. It coordinates training missions on the 19,000 square mile Utah Test and Training Range.

FUTURE IMAGINARY

In this project, installed at the Ben Maltz gallery in OTIS, in Los Angeles, I focus on our attempts to control and dominate natural systems. In the two kaleidoscopes that are installed in the ‘Future Imaginary’, we see fragmentations of two natural systems – that of a bee colony; and of human cells. Both these organic systems have been compromised by efforts to dominate and manipulate nature.

In this work, I consider the series micro-organism-plant-animal-human. Should we draw a line limiting genetic manipulation at some point? If so where, and on what grounds?
Which potential benefits, if any (e.g. therapeutic medicines), might be thought to justify biochemical manipulation, which would not? What criteria might we apply?
What constitutes proper and improper human use of animals? Should we eat foodstuffs which had been genetically manipulated using human genes? Should anyone be able to patent a genetically modified animal or plant? Is the profit motive too dominant a driving force in research in biotechnology? Are we reducing animals, and nature in general, to the status of just commodities? How great are the potential risks involved in releasing genetically modified organisms into the biosphere without knowing all the possible consequences? Is genetic engineering to make a staple crop more resist in marginal conditions (e.g. drought, cold) a potential boon for Third World agriculture, or another danger of increased system collapse, as with the bee colonies? How should we handle an emotive issue about which opinions are apt to be polarised at a very fundamental level? How do we make "expert technologies" accountable to society? How should the public be represented in what goes on? How do we handle issues of information and misinformation, the media and lobbying? How far should commercial secrecy be allowed, and how far should a firm be obliged to publish? What are our motives in genetic engineering? - commercial, humanitarian, curiosity, professional kudos, national interests, to improve mankind, ...? Are there better medical or biotechnical things to be doing with our research money than genetic engineering?

Honey Bees and Landmine Detection

People and bees have a long and mutually beneficial history. Ancient cave paintings in Spain depict a woman harvesting honey. The Egyptians moved bees on barges up and down the Nile. Originating near current-day Afghanistan, one species of honey bee, Apis mellifera, now lives all over the world, with the exception of the Antarctic and far Arctic regions. In every community and country, bees are kept for the honey and wax that they produce, and for the crops that they pollinate. Honey bees have recently received considerable attention as an innovative method to detect a variety of explosives, landmines and UXO.



Passive Sampling
More than 30 years ago, we at the University of Montana (UM) began sending out bees to explore and sample environments of interest, as a way of collecting and mapping data over large areas within a two-to-four-km radius of the hive.



A honey bee’s body has branched hairs that develop a static electricity charge, making them an extremely effective collector of chemical and biological particles, including pollutants, biological warfare agents and explosives. They also inhale large quantities of air and bring back water for evaporative cooling of the hive. As such, bees sample all media (air, soil, water and vegetation) and all chemical forms (gaseous, liquid and particulate).



With proper colony placement and sampling, gradient maps of the distribution of chemical or biological materials can be produced. This approach has been described in numerous studies and publications, with statistical mapping of large areas first described in Science, 1985.

Time of year, spatial distribution of the colonies, and component of the hive to be sampled all must be considered before an appropriate sampling plan can be developed and carried out.

Given an appropriate sampling design, bees can quickly provide samples of materials in the vicinity of each hive, since the foragers from each colony will make tens to hundreds of thousands of foraging forays or flights each day, with each forager returning to its home hive by nightfall. This passive collection to determine environmental presence of chemical and biological threats can provide an initial survey of landscapes. It generally identifies regions where materials of concern can be found and, with appropriate re-location of hives and re-sampling, can help narrow down the search to areas of a few hundred meters.

Active Training and Search
For several years, researchers at the University of Montana been refining the ability to condition or train bees to go to “odors of interest.” Bees have an acute sense of smell and can be trained to find explosives, bombs and landmines, as well as other chemicals of interest, including drugs and even decomposing bodies.



Defense Advanced Research Project Agency’s (DARPA’s) Controlled Biological and Biomimetic Systems Program commissioned researchers at the University of Montana to develop the methods and equipment necessary to condition bees to pass rigorous blind field trials. This research was conducted at Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas. Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) and the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) collaborated, providing specific expertise in explosives and signal processing, respectively.

The researchers observed that bees behaved like a very fine-tuned, nearly ideal detector at vapor levels higher than 10 pptr (parts per trillion) from 2.4-dinitrotoulene (2.4-DNT) mixed in sand. Bees consistently detected DNT targets generating 50–80 pptr vapor. Under moist conditions, this dropped to about 30 pptr. AFRL predicted that with sufficient numbers of bees, the detection threshold could go even lower.

Bees are trained in much the same way as dogs, using traditional operant conditioning methods. The reward is food, which is associated with the odor of the chemical of interest.

Bees indicate the presence of an odor by the numbers of bees following vapor plumes toward and over the source or target. We have observed that bees detect the vapor plume several meters from the source, then navigate up the plume to the source. Numbers of bees over odor sources are integrated over time and compared to those over the rest of the area.

There is convincing evidence that bees can reliably find explosives’ vapors at levels reported to occur in landmine fields. Tests were conducted to determine whether conditioned honey bees can be used to locate buried landmines and explosives. MSU and NOAA joined in with the Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) technology in further trials.

UM’s earlier trials had demonstrated that honey bees can be trained to efficiently and accurately locate explosives signatures in the environment. However, it was difficult to track bees and determine precisely where the targets are located. Video equipment is not practical due to its limited resolution and range. In addition, it is often unsafe to set up cameras within a minefield.



LIDAR is a remote sensing technique that uses laser light in much the same way that sonar uses sound or radar uses radio waves. Laser light pulses are transmitted over the area where bees are trained to fly. Some of the laser light that strikes the bees is scattered back to a detector collocated with the laser. The time between the outgoing laser pulse and the return signal is used to measure the distance from the bees to the LIDAR. By using a narrow laser beam and scanning this beam over time, one can produce an accurate map of the location of the bees. Since LIDAR can provide both the range and the coordinates of the bees over targets, the location of buried munitions can be mapped for subsequent removal.

Bees, dust and hard objects produce a back-scatter signal that is larger than the typical atmosphere. It is possible to discriminate different objects with fluorescence LIDAR, but the bees for these tests, the density of bees over the minefield were compared to an adjacent control area. Other insects may have been detected, but their numbers were small compared to those of the bees.

SNL also conducted vapor plume and soil sampling, followed by chemical analysis for explosives, to verify bee localization of mined areas. A NOAA LIDAR system that swept the field every 26 seconds. Bee conditioning was accomplished using a new, pressurized, digitally-controlled (hands-off) bee conditioning system.

The objectives for the Ft. Leonard Wood tests were to:

1. Show that area reduction (i.e., discrimination of mined versus unmined areas) can be performed by conditioned bees
2. Show that bees can locate individual mines or at least small clusters of mines
3. Demonstrate that LIDAR can be used as an effective tool for mapping density (numbers) of conditioned bees focused on explosive vapors emitted from buried mines

Results of Ft. Leonard Wood Bee Trials

All of the data forms (LIDAR, video, visual counts) indicate that area reduction, identification, and ranking (strength of the plume source) could be determined using bees.

The following are some results of the trials:

1. LIDAR was able to detect individual bees at long ranges of hundreds of meters. Fixed and scan modes were tested and proved capable of providing bee location and range data within a few centimeters’ resolution.

2. Video and visual counts showed that bees found both individual mines and clusters of mines within the test area.

3. Preliminary chemical analyses results indicate that numbers of bees correlate with plume concentrations. Ten of 12 vapor sources identified by the initial chemical analysis have already been detected by a partial data set of bee counts (based on only four days of the data). The contour maps of the landmine field, based on the visual and partial video counts of bees and on the cumulative results of three different chemical sampling methods illustrate the degree of localization that was achieved.

4. In the designated, unmined, blank or control area, the LIDAR detected a concentration of bees over a spot in front of the minefield. When that spot was later sampled, it was found to be contaminated with TNT, 2.4-DNT and 4-amino DNT.

5. The pressurized conditioning system worked flawlessly, and Missouri bees conditioned as readily as any of the bees that we have previously worked with in Montana and Texas.

The bees also made a surprise detection of a contaminated site where none was expected. This example proves the importance of combining a high-resolution tracking system such as LIDAR with properly conditioned bees as a system for detecting explosives or residues.



Limitations and Agricultural Benefits
Bees do not fly at night, during heavy rain or wind, or when temperatures drop to near or below freezing. As such, the use of bees is seasonal in temperate climates. Bees are active year-round in tropical regions.

Bees have several advantages in addition to their keen sense of smell and wide area coverage:

1. Bees can be conditioned and put into use in one to two days.
2. Local bees and beekeepers are used.
3. Overall costs are far lower than for dog teams.
4. Bees are essential to re-vitalizing agriculture in war-torn countries.



Whether the beekeeper uses sophisticated equipment or keeps bees in a hollow log is of little consequence. It is the knowledge of the beekeeper about his or her bees and area that is important. Beekeepers can be trained to use micro-processor controlled food delivery and conditioning systems or a decidedly simpler system, using mine-contaminated soils, conditioning syrup and a squirt bottle. If necessary, binoculars or simple video cameras suspended from a boom or wire can provide short-distance (within yards) observations of bees.



A critical humanitarian demining issue is the amount of arable land that has been mined; putting agricultural fields back into production is a major objective. War often disrupts and sometimes destroys bees, beehives and beekeeping. The first step in economic development often focuses on re-establishing beekeeping, since bees are essential to the pollination of many crops and agricultural productivity. Use of honey bees for humanitarian demining addresses both issues—clearing of croplands and restoring of beekeeping and agriculture.

Acknowledgements:
Science, 1985, Issue 1
DARPA
Space and Naval Systems Center, San Diego, CA.

Special thanks to Lee Spangler, MSU; Jim Wilson, NOAA; and Larry Hall and Joe Browning, SKE

References

“Pollution Monitoring of Puget Sound with Honey Bees.” Science. 227:632–634, 1995.

“Honey Bees: Estimating the Environmental Impact of Chemicals.” Taylor and Francis, New York, 2002.

“Vehicle Bomb Detection Video.” Online video: http://beekeeper.dbs.umt.edu/bees/videos. September 2001.

“Alternatives for Landmine Detection.” MacDonald, et al. Online document: http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR1608/. January 2003.

A Complex Continent

During most of the ‘90s I photographed life as it revolved around me – travels in Asia, portraits of relationships with people there, my immediate living conditions.

I lived in unusual communities to achieve a sense of direction at a time when I was fully receptive to bold exploration of Asia’s underbelly. My body of photographic work during that period of cultural ferment offers a glimpse into the chaos of this complex continent we call Asia.

I do miss it sometimes.

Changing Landscapes

In our bold move to leave New York City after more than a decade, to explore the natural and built environments in and around Santa Fe, New Mexico, has proven to be a wonderful experience thus far. In thinking about the programming at the Center for Contemporary Arts, where I've accepted a job as Executive Director, the need to seriously engage contemporary thinking about New Mexico's endangered landscapes through the creation of art is of paramount importance. New Mexico is a prime example of a territory that is rapidly losing its water resource, as well as a prime example of untapped solar energy. I envision this as a powerful context for the exploration of critical thinking, the development of new ideas and strategies, and using the creative process as a catalyst for social change and alternative energy implementation. I would like to establish CCA as a center for dialogue about environmental issues with a commitment to seeking and plowing new ground in this field of artistic / scientific expression.

Bricolage

Combining and overlaying audio and visual recordings, photographs and texts, the art of assemblage [and its relation to ethnographic practice in my work] relates to anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss and the conceptualizing notion of bricolage. In verbal-visual juxtapositions, my work relies heavily on the power and possibility of mixing media. I juxtapose text and image, combining audio and super-8 film, journals, photography, and found texts. The fragments inform one another, creating a whole that is more than the sum of its parts.