Southwest Sustainability Notes Day 2

Eureka to Moab

The morning began with a walk down the main street in Eureka, Nevada. It shares its name with Hwy 50. There are a few historic buildings that I learned about with the help of the walking tour pamphlet I picked up at the local gas station. Russ found a small diner/deli that serves espresso drinks and huge breakfast burritos. The man behind the counter joined us at our table for a friendly conversation. He mentioned that he is a recent transplant from Pennsylvania. He is in Eureka because his daughters are involved in church work. It become clear to us, because of the free King James Bible and the head dress from his dutiful wife, that they are Pennsylvania Dutch. What we notice about the deli was the fair prices (3 sweet rolls and a coffee for $4) and their desire to make a decent living in a frontier town.

Our gracious host described the local economy. He states that it is mainly gold mining and alfalfa farming that keeps the town alive. The state of Nevada has a vested interest in preserving the town because of the vein of gold that stretches from Elko to Eureka. The town was originally formed by silver prospectors and it became a major producer charcoal. Our host described how all the trees within a 50 mile radius were cut down for the production of the coal. When the trees were gone and the price of gold dropped, the town fell into decline. There is new life in Eureka as there are reports that 150 people may move here to work the new mines.

The gold mining will be performed using cyanide leeching. The mines are pumped into an open bed dug into the ground. The gold is extracted from the soil using the cyanide which dissolves the rock from the minerals. The environmentalist and the farmers are in conflict over this method because the mining will require drilling down into the underground aquifer. The water must be pumped and the cyanide dumped but there is no agreement on where the waste will go. The farmers rely on the water in order to maintain the irrigation for the alfalfa farms. The irrigation systems use up to 1000 gallons of water a minute. Although this seems high, our host mentioned that the aquifer was receding at the rate of 40 feet per year. I’m not sure of the precision in these amounts but what was clear is that farming, as well as gold mining, are a battle between extraction economies. The farmer and the miner have not learned a lesson from the charcoal production days. There is a complete lack of sustainability in these practices. It might be one generation until this place will dissolve into a ghost town.

I looked at the table next to ours and noticed an old farmer with deep set eyes. Fragments of dried alfalfa dusted his sweat lined cap. He looked to be greatly overweigt from the many rich meals at our host's establishment. We could see his ears perk a bit at our conversation. After finishing his biscuits and gravy, the farmer hobbled his way out the door and into his air-conditioned pickup truck.

As I got on my bike for my 80 mile ride to Ely, I had time to think about the barrenness of Nevada and what hope remains in the towns like Eureka. Our host stated, “If you think it is bad here, it’s always worse in Austin.” Austin was the town 70 miles up the road. It’s higher in the range and has less access to gold and irrigable land. The stretch between Eureka and Ely was just as barren as the stretch from Austin. Austin has a bike shop and an espresso bar but there is little hope for a tourism boom. The same fate holds for Eureka.

Is there hope for sustainable economies in this dry and weary land? One thought is to build prisons in the area to “outsource” inmates from other states. Another plan might be to build large waste management sights. Prisons are sustainable and realistic but they do not provide healing or redemptive business practices to small towns like Eureka. Prisons would provide stable government jobs. Waste management provides initial income but there is little hope of sustainability through garbage retention.

Back in the car for another long stretch, I continued through Thomas Friedman’s The World is Flat. The premise of the book is finding a niche in an increasingly global economy. I read about housewives in Salt Lake City who book reservations for JetBlue from their home office. There are signs of hope for rural economies. However, the people must me energetic and educated. They must want to participate in sustainable activity.

The conclusion that I reached on this day is that their is a need to free people internally to make a moral contribution. Moral contributions are necessary for redemptive efforts within local communities. Many people are talking this way but finding it increasingly difficult to mount the courage and stamina necessary to live differently.