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Salinity tour examines ways to combat salt <br />The Pueblo Chieftain Online <br />Select file then print to print this article. <br />Publish Date Sunday July 08, 2001 <br />Salinity tour examines ways to combat salt <br />By MATT NESLAND <br />The Pueblo Chieftain <br />http://www.chieftain.com/print.php3?story=8 <br />ROCKY FORD - Salt might be good on salad, but too much in rivers and farms can turn lush land to <br />barren wasteland. <br />"Salt problems are always waiting for us to sit back and take a don't - worry, do- nothing attitude because <br />time is on their side," said Jim Valliant, a regional irrigation specialist with Colorado State University <br />Cooperative Extension. "That's why we need to be working on ways to reduce salinity in the soil and <br />water in the Arkansas River in southeast Colorado." <br />In fact, Iraq and Iran, according to Valliant, used to be lush with vegetation until salts destroyed the land <br />and made it virtually barren. "Believe me," he said, "it was the salts that killed the land." <br />Specific practices to battle these problems are currently being demonstrated in Otero County, Valliant <br />said. These techniques will be shown during a salinity tour Tuesday beginning with registration and <br />refreshments at 9:30 a.m. at the Natural Resources Conservation Service office at 318 Lacey Ave. in La <br />Junta. <br />The tour will leave at 10 a.m. with the first stop taking place at a local farm where drip irrigation and <br />plastic mulch is being practiced, Valliant said. Drip irrigation involves the control over how much and <br />where water is dispersed on crops, he explained. According to Valiant, a producer practicing drip <br />irrigation likely will be 99 percent efficient while the average producer is only 44 percent effective. <br />Another stop will be the Fort Lyons Canal where PAM (Polyacrylamide) is being applied, Valliant said. <br />PAM, he explained, is a synthetic material made of natural gas and is used to stabilize soil and reduce <br />erosion. <br />The tour will then stop at two farms, one north and one south of Rocky Ford, to observe white, salty <br />fields planted to salt - tolerant grasses, Valliant said. Each of these fields has been relatively useless <br />before the grass- planting, costing the producer money as he or she must make payments on land that is <br />yielding essentially nothing. <br />One of these fields, planted in 1998, produced a good harvest of grass in 2000 while the other field was <br />just planted, Valliant said. "For an area that hasn't produced in eight years, that's good," he said of the <br />first field and added, "I try to go to a real bad place; if I can do something successful there then I've <br />really accomplished something." <br />The tour will conclude at 12:30 p.m. at Library Park at 10th and Maple with a sack lunch (to be <br />provided) and a presentation on water quality and salinity by Pat Edelmann of the United States <br />Geological Survey (USGS), Valliant said. Edelmann will discuss the amounts of salts being transported <br />throughout the Arkansas River irrigation system. <br />1 of 2 7/9/01 12:45 PM <br />