It seems the state of Utah is considering a proposal that would allow oil drilling near Robert Smithson's famous Spiral Jetty earthwork sculpture in the Great Salt Lake.
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Jetty in Jeopardy
30 Jan 2008 03:42 pm
Comments (17)
Imagine Spiral Jetty filled in with an oil slick...now imagine that oil slick on fire. Kewl! Now we're getting somewhere!
I went to spiral jetty this summer...and to get to it, you have to pass an abandoned oil exploration pier, about half a mile away (the pier is curved, and I'm pretty sure some people see it and figure it's spiral jetty and stop. either that or two different groups decided to have picnics on an abandoned oil exploration pier out in the middle of nowhere the day I was there). So I dunno. New drilling, further away? hard for me to care much; I'd be much more amenable to environmental arguments.
Oh gee, what a tragedy. The poor spiral.
At least the oil drilling equipment is generally removed after the oil is extracted.
The Spiral Jetty may mar the lake for centuries.
No, it is opposed: art sees trade's opposition.
p.s. Smithson deliberately went out of his way to choose an incredibly difficult place to visit. It really is in the middle of nowhere, by which I mean you have to cross from an unpaved road into some working farm and travel by essentially unmarked cow paths for several miles before you get to a spot where the cow paths end and you have to hike (still on private property) for about a mile to get there. And even then, it's at a part of the lake where the shore slopes gently up and away from the jetty, so you can't really get over it to get a good look at it without a helicopter. This is a guy who went to great lengths to make it difficult to see his art. And in my opinion, it wasn't nearly worth it (I built a vacation around this trip, so it's not like I'm temperamentally hostile to the guy). So as far as I'm concerned, his widow's entreaties for me to care about preserving it fall flat. This is art that is openly hostile to art fans. Why should they be particularly protective of it?
live wins at the Internet
/bows, scrapes
The one with the big picture of a crips $20? southpaw, you better give that crip his $20's back or there will be blood.
dan: This is art that is openly hostile to art fans. Why should they be particularly protective of it? So Daniel Plainview doesn't find it and start pumping oil. Oh wait, dan posted this.
How does drilling for oil near this jetty risk destroying it? It's not like they're going to use tactical nukes to drill the hole.
Kinda ugly. Oil pumps might improve it.
Looking at the drilling application, there appears to be miles between the Jetty and the drilling.
How does drilling for oil near this jetty risk destroying it? It's not like they're going to use tactical nukes to drill the hole.
Posted by Brett Bellmore
Matt and many elitists are CONVINCED oil exploration and production are the equivalent of using nukes on gay baby whales.
That 8 boreholes active in 100 square miles of land, from between 3 months and 40 years in a Federal Reserve mean "Pristine Wilderness Forever Lost and mass death of endangered species"???
Urban Lefties believe so. But out of ignorance. Oil and gas rigs are used, then gone without permanent damage - unlike building The footprint is all but unoticable. Same with National Parks - tourists walking the "pristine" spaces of Yosemite and Yellowstone are absolutely unaware they were once full of mines, ranches, logging operations, and farms.
And worth noting that the highest wintertime concentration of manatees in the northern hemisphere is in the waste heat discharge canal of a nuclear power plant.
"Matt and many elitists are CONVINCED oil exploration and production are the equivalent of using nukes on gay baby whales."
Like Homer Simpson said once, "It's funny 'cause it's true". Are we the only country on earth too stupid to make use of our own oil resources?
Oh, the humanity!
Does anybody care about 1960s art?
Wow, three posts in a row by Chris Ford, Fred and Steve Sailer, massaging each other's lack of self-awareness.
At least the photos of the Spiral Jetty are cool. Utah needs something besides salt and pixie dust underwear.
I work in environmental review (not in Utah) and visited Spiral Jetty last year. It's really an amazing work, but it's not clear to me if there would be any significant impact on it from this project. If this were in my jurisdiction, I would probably require an initial study to at least review the environmental impacts, but on its face I don't see that this will necessarily mar the site. Note that there's an old oil jetty already a half mile or so south of the Spiral Jetty, on your way there. The site is isolated and remote, but it's not a pristine wilderness; the area has already been altered by cattle ranching, oil exploration, and the artwork itself. The proposed oil drilling looks like it would be a few miles away, anyway.
Comments closed February 13, 2008.
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Heads in the Sand
That's a lovely sculpture.
Uh, Matt, what happened to that post about Wasserstein? The one with the big picture of a crips $20?
Posted by southpaw | January 30, 2008 3:56 PM