Abstract
Mines and water are intertwined in an asymmetrically exploitative and historied fabric that forms the foundation of the American West. In the quest to overcome our appetite for hydrocarbons, extraction of raw materials is not slowing down, but speeding up as we hedge our bets on technological redemption.
In Eastern Nevada, the people of Ruth and Ely rely on the Robinson Open Pit Copper Mine, and Murry Springs for survival. All three, the people, the land, and the water remember this legacy. Residents have mined copper at the site since the early 1800s, and they curate their history with care. The land bears a 6-mile-long scar, carved out slowly over decades. The water carries pollutants, chemical byproducts of the mining process.
Robinson Mine will eventually be depleted and abandoned, but may provide an opportunity for mines and water to operate not as adversaries, but in concert as a closed-loop pumped hydro energy storage system for excess renewable energy.
Fog nets, woven from copper strands and supported by wooden piles, will stand over the reservoirs that this system creates, protecting against evaporation, and creating ecological islands –ambassadors of a more biophilic, and less extractive transition toward green energy.
Land
Open pit mines in their enormity are dramatic reminders of the ways that humans can have a direct and destructive impact on the earth.
Viewing the mines in both plan and section presents a kind of truth that we as beneficiaries of these sites rarely think about.
Land
The town of Ruth and city of Ely lie in central-east Nevada. Ruth was founded as a company town for the White Pine Copper Company, and Ely was originally an outpost on the Pony Express, later becoming a settlement when copper and other minerals were found in the surrounding foothills.
The Robinson Copper Mine has been in nearly constant operation since 1907 and now stretches nearly six miles long. The company that currently owns the mine, KGHM, says the mine will run, “well into the 2030’s.” In 2018 the mine produced 48,000 tonnes of copper, with reserves estimated at around 256,000 tones.
Water
Ruth and Ely’s water comes from Murry Spring. Groundwater testing sites around the municipality reveal levels of chemicals which far exceed safe levels.
The levels in blue represent the estimated concentrations that would result in a person having a 1 in 1 million chance to develop cancer from drinking the water, and the levels in white represent the
ARSENIC RADON
measured level around Ruth and Ely. Even though the measured concentrations are still within EPA-issued safety guidelines, that does not necessarily mean they are acceptable.
Data from the Environmental Working Group.
HALOACETIC ACIDS CHROMIUM
People
The people of Ruth and Ely carefully maintain and curate their history as mining towns.
Ely’s Nevada Northern Railway Museum boasts that their locomotive is so well preserved, “it’s as if the workers went to lunch and never came back. [...] Time stopped here.”
Ruth and Ely went through the usual cycles of boom and bust, and are still closely tethered to the mining industry, with 13% of employed persons working in the mining and quarrying sector.
Data from Data USA.
Energy
After the Robinson Mine has been abandoned groundwater will slowly infiltrate the pits over a period of 30 years. The water here can be used to store excess energy from solar and wind power. During times when energy production outstrips demand, the generated energy can be used to pump water from the lower to the upper reservoir. During times where demand spikes, water can flow from the upper to the lower reservoir, driving a turbine, generating energy.
One of the major benefits of a system like this is that it doesn’t feed from or outlet into a preexisting system so it can’t easily disturb larger watershed ecosystems. It also stores energy indefinitely, without any loss, unlike chemical, mechanical, or heat based batteries which all loose energy over time.
A system of buoys equipped with sensors will monitor the condition of the water through metrics like temperature, turbidity, ph, and dissolved oxygen content.
Ecology
Fog nets woven from copper filament and supported by wooden piles will be installed over portions of the reservoirs. The copper mesh will slowly capture water as it evaporates, and as droplets condense, they will run down the mesh toward the piles. Spiraling channels carved into the piles will further guide the water downward, irrigating plants and eventually rejoining the reservoir.
This system will be entirely passive, and will serve as an index of life and memory.
Each net will eventually host life as the piles grow algae, biofilms, and climbing plants. Zooplankton and small insects that may feed on them will follow. Birds will perch on the piles to rest, rehydrate, and feed.
The copper mesh and fittings, crafted with expertise from the local residents, will patina over time. They will serve as an additional reminder of the century and a half of extraction that the land, the water and the people perpetrated and bore witness to.
People
The legacy of mining is still prevalent in the contemporary lives of those living in Ely and Ruth, and the residents can provide the expertise and equipment needed to fabricate the copper filament and fittings.
Ecology
Some time in the 2060’s Robinson mine might look like this - a reminder of our appetite for consumption, a physical embodiment of the energy that we now need as surely as water, and an attempt at finding a less extractive, more responsible way forward.
