Editor's Note: The writer of this letter to the governor asked for a P.S. to be added to the end, which was not in the original letter.

December 5, 2014

Governor Martinez,

My name is Russell Dobkins. I live in the Gila Valley, where the Gila River comes out of the Gila Wilderness. It is a beautiful valley, with the river meandering through cottonwood, willow, sycamore, alder, maple trees, and many others. Green irrigated fields line the river on both sides. We irrigate our fields from ditches that bring water from the river. The valley is nestled between volcanic mountains on all sides. The Gila Wilderness is really a "Super Volcano", which has erupted many times over the last 35 million years. Five large eruptions have been mapped by geologists. James Ratte, working for the USGS, mapped the Gila "Super Volcano Complex". There are at least five giant calderas which erupted more than a thousand cubic kilometers of ash, each time. To give an idea of the scale, Mount St. Helens erupted 300 cubic kilometers of ash when it erupted in 1982. The kind of volcanic material erupted from the Gila is mostly light in color,
white, gray, pink, and composed of lighter elements from the upper levels of the Earth's crust. This kind of rock is called "rhyolite". If you could imagine a magma chamber, say ten miles deep, by thirty miles in diameter, full of molten rock, the lighter elements would float to the top, while the heavier elements, like gold, silver, iron, lead, and copper would settle to the bottom. In geological terms this is called "Magmatic Differentiation". When the volcano erupts, the lighter materials on top, blow first, making a huge and very explosive eruption. The lighter materials on top are full of molten silica, which is what makes glass, along with other light elements like oxygen, sulfur, fluorine, aluminum, sodium, and water vapor. Think of bubbling, boiling hot sulfurous glass, full of little gas bubbles, compressed, underground, with the weight of the overlying rock keeping the pressure on, until the point where the pressure inside the magma
chamber exceeds the weight of the overlying rock. Then it explodes! A huge eruption would blow rocks, ash, and fiery gas, thousands of meters into the air, then as gravity pulls it back to the Earth, it all comes crashing down, forming huge pyroclastic flows of burning hot ash, rocks, and gas, racing out in all directions. Such ash fall and ash flow tuffs form most of the geological deposits of the Gila. Over millions of years, the easily eroded tuff, is washed down off the volcanoes, forming alluvial fans around the base of the volcanic mountains. Some millions of years ago, a volcanic flow blocked the Gila River, and the San Francisco River, damming them up, and a large lake formed at the foot of the Mogollon Mountains. The Gila Valley was underwater for many thousands of years. Eventually, during one of the last "Ice Ages", the increased precipitation, filled the lake to overflowing, and the lava dams were cut through, both on the Gila and San
Francisco Rivers, draining the lake. The soils of the Gila Valley are largely volcanic ash and rock that were washed down into the old lake. Volcanism, over millions of years, pushed molten plumes upward into cracks in the overlying ash deposits, forming "intrusive igneous dikes and sills". These are evident in the canyons of the Gila River at the edge of the Valley. One of the elements that has been concentrated by the volcanism is "Fluorine". Fluorine is a light element. It is slightly heavier than Oxygen. Fluorine is a very unstable and reactive element. Fluorine is highly toxic, a sister element to Chlorine. There is so much Fluorine in the volcanic deposits of the Gila, that "Fluorspar", Calcium Fluoride, CaF2, has been mined in the hills around the valley. Calcium Fluoride, is insoluble, but Fluoride, F-, is soluble in water, and there is so much of it in the rocks and soils that is not bound to Calcium, that it dissolves into the
water. Many wells in the Gila valley are dangerously contaminated with Fluoride. In the 1980's the EPA did a survey of the well water in the Gila Valley and found that many of the wells were "unfit for Human or animal consumption", due to the high Fluoride content. Fluoride is very reactive. Fluoride is used in fire ant poison, rat poison, coyote poison, chemotherapy drugs, fumigant for cockroaches and termites, and as an insecticide on crops. Fluoride is the active agent in "Sarin Nerve Gas". Fluoride is known to poison thyroid hormone, cause cancer, and is neurotoxic. Fluoride binds with Calcium in teeth and bones. "Dental Fluorosis", a discoloration and mottling of the teeth is commonly seen in the Gila area. When Fluoride binds with Calcium in the body, it precipitates into Calcium-Fluoride crystals in the joints and bones causing "Arthritic" symptoms of stiffness, and pain. It ossifies the joints. That means they get
"Calcified". It is called "Osteo-Fluorosis". Even the dogs and horses get "Dental Fluorosis", "Osteo-fluorosis", and "Hypothyroidism" from the fluoride in the well water. Cancer is also a problem in the valley. Many of the hot springs in the area are dangerously high in Fluoride, as well. Bathing in them can be hazardous to your health!

The Calcium-Fluoride mined here was used to make the Atom Bomb. They converted the Calcium-Fluoride into Fluorine gas, reacted it with Uranium to make Uranium-hexa-Fluoride. Then they spun the UF6 in centrifuges, to concentrate the fissionable U235, which was and is used to make nuclear weapons.

The reason I am writing this paper for you to read, is that there is a proposal to capture water from the Gila River, put it underground, store it, and then pump it out and run it through pipes to supply distant housing projects and cities in southwest New Mexico. There are several problems with such a project.

First, the area where such a water storage project is proposed is surrounded by old fluoride mines. The ground is so full of fluoride, that it will dissolve into the water, contaminating the water. All the wells in the area where the storage project is proposed are already dangerously high in fluoride, and putting more water into that area, would dissolve more fluoride out of the rock and volcanic ash, and contaminate the infiltrated water. There are areas in the Gila Valley, where the water is already so high in fluoride, that people cannot grow trees or gardens because the fluoride kills the plants! People cannot safely drink such water. The Gila River has 1.3 mg/Liter of Fluoride in it. The well waters in the area run as high as 12mg/L! To put this into perspective, it is known that it only takes 0.8 mg of fluoride consumption a day to poison thyroid hormone. I read this in the "Toxicological Profile For Fluorides" published by the US Public
Health Service. The EPA has recently lowered the maximum contaminate level, the "MCL" for Fluoride in drinking water from 4mg/L down to 1.2mg/L, and they are proposing to lower it to 0.8mg/L. Recent studies in China have found that children drinking well water with 1mg/L Fluoride, had 5-10 points lower IQ, than children drinking well water with low Fluoride levels.

So, you can see this proposal to put relatively uncontaminated river water, underground, for storage, in an area known to be very high in Fluoride, is a bad idea. Where are the studies of feasibility? The water underground in the Gila Valley comes from the river, which at the surface, runs 1.3mg/L Fluoride. The water infiltrates down through the riverbed, into the underlying ground composed of volcanic ash, and rocks. There the water dissolves the Fluoride, and when it is pumped back out in domestic and agricultural wells, the Fluoride levels can be from 1.3-12 mg/L. The wells in the area proposed for this project already have dangerously high levels of Fluoride. Putting additional water into the underground aquifer could dissolve more Fluoride, and spread it to contaminate more or maybe all the wells in the valley! Think about it. Is it worth taking such a risk? And, spending a Billion Dollars of Taxpayer money, to do it?

Another problem I have with the proposal is that it would raise the cost of irrigation water, for all of us farmers, who use it. The projected increase is from about $10 per acre per year, to over $300 an acre per year. That would make a $30,000 a year water bill for a 100 acre farm. Who could afford that? It would put all of us farmers out of business. Or, to stay in business, we would have to raise the cost of food. That pound of beef that costs $3.00/lb now would go up to $90/lb.

Then the other problem with the diversion project is that it couldn't be built! The Gila River gets big in flood. And, it gets very muddy, and full of silt, with trees, rocks, and all kinds of debris coming down the river. The Gila Volcanic Complex is still eroding, and after the Baldy/Whitewater fire that burned 325,000 acres last year, it is extremely flood prone, with very high sediment loads. We had a flood last year, after the fire. It devastated a huge section of the Gila River, tearing out the trees, bridges, roads, irrigation ditches, fences, fields, and deepened the channel by five feet in the Gila Valley. Many miles of the Middle fork of the Gila River above the Gila Cliff Dwellings have been turned into a boulder field with log jams. The trails are gone! The trees are broken and piled up in huge log jams, all over the river bed. Floods can happen any month of the year, here. Big floods! Any construction work happening in the bed of the river
would be washed away, along with all the machinery, before such a project, which would take years, could be completed!

So, Governor Martinez, you can now see why I am against the Gila River Diversion Project. Please don't let it happen. It would be a huge mistake! I hope you will do the right thing, and cancel that project, for good.

Thank you,

Russell Dobkins

Gila, New Mexico

P.S. The proposal on the table won't help us farmers at all. It'll raise our water costs, and we'll still have flood damage to our ditches and fields. The only solution that I think is feasable is a real dam, like Abiqui dam on the Chama River. It stores water, generates power, prevents flooding downriver, and provides a beautiful recreation site. RD