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<br />C.J <br />OJ <br />~ <br />N <br />c... <br />Cj <br /> <br />Alternative plans for collecting and disposing of the spring <br />discharges were considered at a conceptual level only. One plan was <br />to desalt the spring flow, return the water to the Virgin River, and <br />dispose of the brine in an evaporation pond. Another was simply to <br />di vert the spri ng fl ow from the ri ver banks and di spose of it in <br />evaporation ponds. However, there was local opposition to diminishing <br />the spring flow because, along with the springs further upstream, it <br />formed the only reliable water supply for downstream irrigation in the <br />Lower Virgin Valley. Subsequent studies on other projects [5] indi- <br />cated that the costs of using lined ponds for evaporation of saline <br />water are so high that the proposed projects would very likely not <br />have been economically justified, particularly when the cost of a <br />replacement water supply is included. Another problem was the <br />potential impact on the endangered woundfin minnow that inhabits the <br />Virgin River and is peculiarly adapted to live in saline water. <br /> <br />As a consequence, the investigation of a project to deal with the <br />salt discharge from the springs was abandoned. The focus of the <br />effort shifted downstream past all the irrigated lands where it was <br />postulated that saline underflow could be extracted from the riverbed <br />for disposal. <br /> <br />13 <br />