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Mystery power plant
Google Maps ^ | 4 July 2015 | Steely

Posted on 07/04/2015 10:00:39 AM PDT by Steely Tom

Can anyone identify this somewhat mysterious installation?

It is located about twenty miles south of Farmington, New Mexico, in an area identified as "Navajo Nation Off-Reservation Trust Land."

It is connected to a great deal of electric power transmission capacity, has no visible chimney, but has a supply of cooling water brought to it by means of a canal from Morgan Lake.

I was not able to find it on any list of power plants in the state of New Mexico.

The nearest listed power plant is the Four Corners generating station in Fruitland New Mexico. Morgan Lake supplies cooling water for that power station as well. The installation I'm curious about is about 24 miles southeast of the Four Corners plant.

It's Google Map coordinates are 36.523530, -108.154687


TOPICS: Heated Discussion
KEYWORDS: desertmystery
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To: Steely Tom

If it’s New Mexico then this involves aliens.
Must be a processing plant rendering humans into taffy and human jerky.


21 posted on 07/04/2015 10:51:02 AM PDT by minnesota_bound
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To: UCANSEE2
It offers windsurfing and fishing in 75 degree water year-round .

I think will take a pass on the warm water thingy.....

A 21-year-old woman died recently after contracting a rare infection caused by a brain-eating amoeba that thrives in warm bodies of water.

The woman, whose identity has not been released, came into contact with the amoeba on private property.

The organisms, known as Naegleria fowleri, are commonly found in warm freshwater such as lakes, ponds and hot springs. Humans are infected when water containing the amoeba travels through the nose and migrate to the brain, destroying the tissue.

22 posted on 07/04/2015 11:13:24 AM PDT by spokeshave
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To: Steely Tom

Probably totally above board but be aware that for many decades the intel ops of this country have had special relationships with Indian reservations:

beca

Legally speaking they are different countries and legal discover regarding what’s going on there is difficult or impossible, so if you want to store weapons or build something very covert, often parts of that have taken place on Indian Reservations.

I have often said if I wanted to try a pilot Plant for some new form of alternative energy then I would definitely first try it on an Indian reservation because covering up the failure would be much easier from a legal perspective.


23 posted on 07/04/2015 11:22:54 AM PDT by gaijin
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To: ProtectOurFreedom; az_gila; All
Thanks to all of you for your help. The information provided by freeper ProtectOurFreedom was particularly helpful.

The installation I originally asked about seems to be the Gallegos Pumping Plant of the Navajo Indian Irrigation Project, or NIIP. It is possible that I am wrong about that, and it is the Kutz Pumping Plant, but it is quite difficult to tell for sure. The plant entrance is completely unmarked, as is evident from using the Google Maps street view on the nearby Highway 302, from which you can see the various power lines going to the pumping plant, as well as just the top of the large white tank that's adjacent to the north end of the pump building.

After some perusal of various PDF documents available on line, it would appear that the NIIP is something the United Stated Government did for the Navajo Nation in return for their agreeing to share their water resources with non-nation users. This initiative looks to have been started in the early 1960s, and may go back further than that. The NIIP was apparently the first large-scale project of the BLM (Bureau of Land Management) initiated during the Kennedy administration.

The plant I located may indeed lift water up so that it can flow west through an underground pipe, which emerges to an above-ground canal at a point about three miles to the west of the plant, as suggested by freeper az_gila (very good eye there, az_gila).

The scale of this NIIP project is really astonishing. The system comprises about 70 miles of main canals, and more than three hundred miles of "lateral" canals. The main canal is conducted underground in ten separate tunnels at various intervals along its length. Pumping stations that move water through the system consume about 50 MW of electricity. The system is entitled to draw 508,000 acre-feet of water from the San Juan river every year; that's about 0.15 cubic miles of water!

As I examine the size and scope of this project, I am in awe of the incredible wealth of the United States, that can make such a project possible. Also of the value of a commitment of the United States Government, which has steadily worked on this project for more than fifty years.

Thanks again to all those who helped figure this out.

24 posted on 07/04/2015 12:15:43 PM PDT by Steely Tom (Vote GOP: A Slower Handbasket)
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To: UCANSEE2

No. That is clearly a power plant.


25 posted on 07/04/2015 12:29:24 PM PDT by Sequoyah101
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To: UCANSEE2
If you click on the link Google Maps that is just under the title of this thread, it will take you right to the installation in question. I've tested it several times.
26 posted on 07/04/2015 12:42:32 PM PDT by Steely Tom (Vote GOP: A Slower Handbasket)
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To: Chode

Back in the day before GPS or sat maps, worked at field service on power plants all over. Had a co-worker that claimed he could tell how to find a power plant by the way the high wires leaned. It was funny then, and now.


27 posted on 07/04/2015 2:07:48 PM PDT by X-spurt (CRUZ missile - armed and ready.)
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To: Steely Tom

Might it be Moncisco Wash pumping station?


28 posted on 07/04/2015 2:25:49 PM PDT by Ray76 (Obama says, "Unlike my mum, Ruth has all the documents needed to prove who Mark's father was.")
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To: Ray76
Might it be Moncisco Wash pumping station?

Yes, you could be right.

It is either Moncisco or Gallegos, it seems to me.

According to literature I've been able to find on line, Gallegos was to feed the "Burnham Lateral Canal," and Monciso was to feed "Burnham Lateral Stage II."

The NIIS is divided into blocks. You can see the blocks quite clearly in the Google map image of the area.

There are three groups of center-pivot irrigation farms. The western one contains blocks 1, 2, 3, 6, 7 and 8. The (large) north-eastern one contains blocks 4 and 5.

The small one that's south of the pumping station is Block 9. There are to be two more large blocks - Block 10 and Block 11 - still farther south of Block 9. These will be fed by the "Burnham Lateral Stage II," which is to receive water from the Moncisco pumping station.

This is why I think the one I was asking about is Gallegos.

The map I'm referring to is on page 6 of this document.

29 posted on 07/04/2015 3:05:04 PM PDT by Steely Tom (Vote GOP: A Slower Handbasket)
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To: Steely Tom

I think you’re right. That’s a good map.


30 posted on 07/04/2015 4:09:38 PM PDT by Ray76 (Obama says, "Unlike my mum, Ruth has all the documents needed to prove who Mark's father was.")
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To: UCANSEE2

My brother in law used to windsurf there year round. I thought he was crazy. Windsurfing at 10 below?


31 posted on 07/07/2015 8:03:55 PM PDT by Sherman Logan
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