Outdoor advocate says geothermal potential at Black Rock limited

The argument that plans to protect the Black Rock Desert would lock up an area with geothermal potential are overblown and incorrect, according to the head of the Nevada Outdoor Recreation Association.

Charlie Watson said there have been several attempts to tap the geothermal springs that lie in the Black Rock and attempts by miners to extract minerals as well.

"They've all had their chance and they didn't come up with anything economically exploitable," said Watson, who supports Bryan's plan to designate Black Rock and the High Rock Canyon area north of Reno as a National Conservation Area.

Watson, a geologist by training, made the statements in response to claims before the Nevada Mineral Resources Commission last week urging the state to oppose Bryan's plan.

Dennis Trexler of Geothermal/Renewable Energy Development said the line of hot springs through the Black Rock has great potential for development as geothermal heat or electric power plants and that Bryan's proposal would prevent that from ever happening.

"It's been tried," said Watson. "Those springs are so full of corrosive salts, it just fouls everything up."

Watson said the last company that tried putting in a power plant at Fly Geyser gave up.

"It's hot enough, but it's just so full of salts it just ruined all their equipment," he said. The company abandoned the project.

He said the same is true of the reports there are huge caches of minerals in the Black Rock.

"These sites and areas have been gone over with a fine toothed comb for mineral resources," said Watson.

He said one was a supposed bonanza of mercury deposits which "went bust when nothing was found but andesite."

The next, he said, was a report by reputable geologists that there should be gold, silver, tungsten and copper near Gerlach.

"That one even had me believing it at one point, but it didn't pan out," he said.

The most recent exploration, he said, was in the 1980s for oil supposedly beneath the Black Rock. Sun Oil, according to Watson, "poured $5 million into a dry hole near Sulphur and, again, it was zilch, nada, nothing."

Watson said there is no commercial potential for either mines or geothermal power plants in the Black Rock and that there is no justification for allowing those claims to stop Congress from protecting the area and its historic immigrant trails.

"They've all had their chance and they didn't come up with any hidden wealth," he said.