LUDB: state: AZ

AlliedSignal Aerospace Facility

Sun, 27 Jan 2002 00:00:00 GMT

Honeywell's Aerospace business, with over $10 billion in sales, is headquartered here in Phoenix. Honeywell's activities here grew substantially when they bought AlliedSignal Aerospace recently, and acquired the Phoenix-based assets of that company, a major R&D and defense contractor, with over 40,000 employees, that was headquartered in Torrance, CA. Honeywell occupies several maintenance, assembly, R&D centers and offices on and around Phoenix Sky Harbor airport.

Arcosanti

Fri, 20 Dec 2002 00:00:00 GMT

Arcosanti is an entire city under construction near the town of Mayer, north of Phoenix. It is a city designed by the architect Paolo Soleri, a student of Frank Lloyd Wright.While there is evidence of the influence of Wright's Arizona style in the idealistic architecture of Soleri, the Italian architect's plan, in scale at least, is more like the modernist urban utopia designs of Le Corbusier and Sant'Elia. However, in his principles of design --the ideas that are manifested in the forms of his Great City-- Soleri is unique. He has developed an entire living system based on his concept of Archology (architecture and ecology). Arcosanti (one of numerous Arcologies Soleri has designed, but the only large-scale project he is building) has been under construction since 1970. The builders of the city are also its residents. Since 1970, people have come to Arcosanti to learn from the master architect and craftsman, who is famous for his cast metal bells, and to work on his city of the future. Currently around 50 people live, work, come and go at Arcosanti. Most residents pay for the privilege, with money or work, though usually both. And most seem to value the experience as a training for how to, and how not to, operate an intentional community of their own.

Asarco Mission Mine

Sun, 27 Jan 2002 00:00:00 GMT

One of the largest mining operations in the United States, the Mission Complex is a copper and silver mining network, with an underground mine and two open pits: the Mission pit, and the smaller, adjacent San Xavier North pit. The mine is operated by Asarco (which was purchased by Mexico's largest mining company Grupo Mexico in 1999) producing around 100,000 tons of ore a year, with an expected 510 million tons remaining. The main pit is 2.5 by 1.5 miles, and 1,000 feet deep. In 2000, Mission was the third largest copper mine in Arizona, the state that produces 65% of the nation's raw copper.

Biosphere 2

Fri, 20 Dec 2002 00:00:00 GMT

A large experimental complex built in the late 1980's to explore the possibility of living outside of the earth -- Biosphere 1 --should the earth become uninhabitable. It is part research facility, part tourist attraction. The primary structure consists of a large, mostly glass faced building, enclosing over three acres of land surface. Within this sealed enclosure, five of the earth's biotic zones are represented in condensed form: the rain forest, desert, Savannah, swamp and ocean. In addition there is an intensive agricultural area and a "micro city." Biosphere gained notoriety when, in 1991, eight "biospherians" entered the structure to begin the project's first major experiment: to farm and live in the totally sealed-off, self-contained world for two years. No material was supposed to pass into or out of the facility during that time. During the course of the experiment, however, oxygen levels dropped, and carbon dioxide levels rose to dangerous levels. Some biospherians became sick and spent time outside the structure. Ants from the rainforest invaded the desert, and the one million gallon ocean, complete with a coral reef uprooted from the Yucatan, clouded over into an opaque algael soup. Eventually the owner and original investor, Texas oil billionaire Edward Bass, gained control and entered into an agreement with New York's Columbia University, to restore "real" science to the $200 million plus project. Columbia took over in January of 1996, with a research agenda that mostly explores the effects of a high carbon dioxide atmosphere on plant development.

Black Mesa Coal Mine and Pipeline

Fri, 20 Dec 2002 00:00:00 GMT

A coal mine where the coal is extracted and pulverized and mixed with water to form a slurry which is then transported through a pipeline for 273 miles to the Mojave Generating Station, a power plant in Laughlin, Nevada. The 18-inch diameter pipe is currently the longest coal-slurry pipeline in operation in the country. The process uses a billion gallons of water a year, and towns as far as 50 miles away are noticing a substantial loss of groundwater. The mine is operated by the British-owned Peabody Western Coal Company, and the pipeline is owned by Southern Pacific. Other coal slurry pipelines are under development, including the 1,400 mile Energy Transportation System Inc. line that will bring coal from Wyoming to Louisiana.

Black Mesa Coal Silo

Fri, 20 Dec 2002 00:00:00 GMT

Two coal mines in the nearby hills serve distant power plants. This silo is at the end of a 17-mile-long conveyor connecting to the Kayenta Mine on Black Mesa. From here it is loaded on to electric trains that take it 75 miles on a dedicated track to the Navajo Power Plant near Page. Power from that plant serves Los Angeles and Phoenix. The other mine on Black Mesa is the origin of the Black Mesa Pipeline which travels 273 miles across the desert to the Mohave Power Plant in Nevada.

Central Arizona Project Canal Origin

Sun, 27 Jan 2002 00:00:00 GMT

The point of origin of the Central Arizona Project (CAP) is where the Granite Reef Aqueduct draws water from the Colorado River. CAP is a water supply system for the farms and cities of central Arizona consisting of a 337-mile aqueduct that brings water from this point on Lake Havasu to Phoenix and Tucson. Conceived of in the 1960s, the $4.4 billion project was designed to support development and to help the state use up its allotment of Colorado River water, before California and Nevada took it away. Completed in 1994, the system brings water across the hottest desert in the country in open aqueducts.

Colorado River Relocation Camp

Sun, 27 Jan 2002 00:00:00 GMT

An internment camp in the desert where 17,000 people of Japanese ethnicity were imprisoned during World War Two. The facility consists of three camps in the region. One of ten such relocation camps in the country that imprisoned over 100,000 people during the war.

Cornelia Tailings

Sun, 27 Jan 2002 00:00:00 GMT

One of the largest mine tailings piles in the world: 7.4 billion cubic feet, the New Cornelia Tailings is often cited as the largest dam structure in the country, by volume (the tailings, waste material from the mining process, were heaped into a pile that created a holding structure for future tailings, some of which were deposited in a pumped slurry, thus the tailings pile is an "impoundment" or dam). The mine that produced the tailings, the 1.5 mile wide open pit New Cornelia Mine, is owned by Phelps Dodge, and is presently in limbo (shut down in 1983). A project to mine the tailings has been proposed.

Davis - Monthan Air Force Base

Sun, 27 Jan 2002 00:00:00 GMT

The Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Center at Davis-Monthan operates the largest aircraft "junkyard" in the world, a 2,600-acre site with over 4,500 military aircraft. Some are stored as part of a mothball fleet, while some perfectly good aircraft are destroyed to comply with arms reduction treaties. For example In the early 1990's, 350 flyable B-52 bombers were destroyed at the site. Each aircraft was chopped into four pieces with a blade dropped from a crane, and left out for 90 days so their destruction could be confirmed by Russian satellites. Davis-Monthan is also an active base, that is home to fighter units and other Air Force support units.

Fort Huachuca

Fri, 20 Dec 2002 00:00:00 GMT

Major communications and intelligence center for the military. Located on 73,272 acres (114 square miles) in southern Arizona, Huachuca is home to units such as the Army Intelligence Center, the Army Information Systems Command, and the Joint Interoperability Test Command. More than 12,000 people work at the base. Also at Huachuca are field test facilities and test ranges for communications systems and equipment, including an electronic proving ground complex, associated with White Sands Missile Range and Aberdeen Proving Ground.

Geodesic Sphere House

Fri, 20 Dec 2002 00:00:00 GMT

A multi-story geodesic sphere house on a pole, next to the Interstate south of Kingman, Arizona. Built originally as a restaurant called the Dinesphere, part of a sprawling desert development that never materialized called Lake Havasu Estates (Lake Havasu, much developed, is over 30 miles away). The 40 foot diameter sphere is now a private home, with three levels.

Glen Canyon Dam

Fri, 20 Dec 2002 00:00:00 GMT

Construction of this dam on the Colorado River, upstream from the Grand Canyon, started in 1956 and created Lake Powell when it was finished in 1963. The lake flooded a 186-mile long valley, forming the second largest man-made lake in the country (after Lake Mead, 200 miles downstream), a water storage reservoir meant to, among other things, control flooding downstream. The dam is 710 feet high, above bedrock, and 1,560 feet across.

Grand Canyon Village

Fri, 20 Dec 2002 00:00:00 GMT

Grand Canyon Village is the most developed portion of the national park, right on the edge of the canyon. This is where most of the tourists come. There are some grand old lodges, including those built by Fred Harvey (a western tourism promoter who built depots and lodges across the railroad west, and which included the fabled "Harvey Girls" as servers), and many interesting romantic victorian rustic architecture designed by Mary Colter. The Kolb Brothers photo studio is still perched on the edge of the rim, though it is now a gift shop and gallery owned by the park service. Nearly 5 million people visit the park each year - double the total of a decade ago. In Grand Canyon Village 6,000 cars vie for fewer than 1,500 parking spaces. Major traffic flow and public transportation projects underway, including a light rail system. Outside the park, a few miles south, is a commercial center for the park with the Grand Canyon IMAX Theatre, and the Over the Edge multimedia show at the Community Building.

Hall of Flame

Sun, 20 Mar 2005 13:19:30 GMT

Museum housing the world's largest display of firefighting gear. Most of the exhibits are of a historic nature: hand and horse-drawn pumpers, hose carriers, and hook-and-ladder wagons from the 18th and 19th centuries, antique motorized fire trucks, historic fire-alarm systems, and a fire safety exhibit.

Hayden Smelter

Fri, 20 Dec 2002 00:00:00 GMT

Part of Asarco's "Ray Complex," this copper smelter processes ore from the company's copper mines in the region (the Ray Mine, Silver Bell Mine, and Mission Mine). Copper concentrate arrives from the mines, the nearest being 20 miles away, by rail, and is processed into 99% pure copper anodes, each weighing 750 pounds. The anodes are shipped to the company's refinery in Amarillo, Texas for further finishing. The first part of the Hayden Plant was built in 1912, and the plant now covers 200 built-up acres, dominated by the huge 1,000-foot-tall stack.

Hoover Dam

Fri, 20 Dec 2002 00:00:00 GMT

Art Deco wonder of the west, which created the largest man-made lake in the country, Lake Mead. It was built primarily to control flooding and provide a stable supply of water downstream, secondarily to produce electricity, and tertiarily to employ people, and to prove that it could be done. Completed in 1935, it is still the highest concrete dam in the Western Hemisphere. The Hoover Dam and the reservoir it formed can hold back two years of the flow of the Colorado River, changing the river, in the words of a Bureau of Reclamation brochure, "from a natural menace to a national resource."

Kingman Airport

Fri, 20 Dec 2002 00:00:00 GMT

Unusual desert airport, with some aircraft maintenance facilities, and large airliners in storage. Originally called "Storage Depot #41," Kingman was a major storage airport for airplanes returning from WWII.

Kingman Scrap Steel Mill

Sun, 27 Jan 2002 00:00:00 GMT

Looming on Interstate 40 west of Kingman, this steel mini mill was built by North Star Steel in1996, the seventh of several mini mills built by the company. This facility makes rebar and wire core rod, with waste metal imported from the scrap yards of Las Vegas and Los Angeles. Employs about 250 people. North Star Steel is owned by Cargill.

Kitt Peak Observatory

Sun, 27 Jan 2002 00:00:00 GMT

More than 20 telescopes are clustered at the summit of Kitt Peak, from radio telescopes to solar telescopes. It is the location of the 3.8 meter National Optical Astronomy Observatory Mayall telescope, one of the world's largest, and the unusual McMath solar telescope, which projects an image of the sun using a 500-foot long shaft that extends deep underground. Kitt Peak is funded by the National Science Foundation and operated by a consortium of Universities.

Lake Havasu

Sun, 27 Jan 2002 00:00:00 GMT

Lake Havasu is a lot of things. It is a reservoir on the Colorado River created by the Parker Dam, and it is a point of origin for the Colorado Aqueduct and Central Arizona Project, which bring water to Los Angeles and Phoenix, respectively. It has become a major resort area, with green golf courses and Tudor-style resorts in one of the hottest places in the country, and is visited by hundreds of thousands of recreational boaters annually. It is also the home of the London Bridge, which was shipped over from England when it was purchased by Robert McCulloch, the first to develop the area. McCullough first came to the lake in 1958, at a time when it was still undeveloped. He used it to test outboard engines that his company made, and established a company town on the shores, on some of the 26 square miles of land he purchased on the Arizona side. He slowly developed this property into Havasu City, built resorts, and the London Bridge (in 1968). Havasu City now has around 50,000 residents.

Lavender Pit

Fri, 20 Dec 2002 00:00:00 GMT

The Lavender Pit is part of the Copper Queen Mine, run by the Phelps Dodge Corporation from 1879 to 1975. Mining took place in underground tunnels and shafts until 1951 when it was determined by Harrison Lavender, the then-manager of the Copper Queen Branch of Phelps Dodge, that an open pit mine would be an economical way to increase ore yield. The resulting Lavender Pit was mined in 50 foot benches created by loading holes drilled to a 60-foot depth with 1,200 pounds of powder charge. Blasts commonly broke 75,000 tons of rock and were usually shot at 3:25 each afternoon. Mining in the pit stopped in 1974 and all mining operation ceased in the Copper Queen Mine in 1975 when the price of copper plummeted. The abandoned pit covers 300 acres, is 950 feet deep, and is a result of the removal of 351 million tons of material. Since mining operations ceased, the town of Bisbee reinvented itself as an artist community and historical tourist destination. During this reinvention, the Lavender Pit became a tourist destination with rim viewing platforms and guided tours.

London Bridge

Sun, 27 Jan 2002 00:00:00 GMT

The actual London Bridge was purchased by the president of the McCullough Corporation and rebuilt at this location, in artificial Lake Havasu, in the middle of the desert, on the Colorado River. The relocated bridge was originally built spanning dry land, then a channel was dug so that the bridge was spanning some water. According to masons who packed the bridge in England, less than 10% of the stones in the structure actually came from the original bridge. The visionary developer and CEO of the small engine company that bears his name, Robert McCullough submitted the winning bid for the bridge ($2,460,000) in 1968, when the city of London was having it removed to build a new bridge. It cost another $7 million to move it to Lake Havasu (by ship to Long Beach, then trucked to Lake Havasu). It was re-dedicated when assembly was complete in 1971.

Lowell Observatory

Sun, 27 Jan 2002 00:00:00 GMT

A collection of eight observatories on Mars Hill, Anderson Mesa (10 miles away), and other hills in the Flagstaff area, comprising the Lowell Observatory. This observatory is known for its observations of the Solar System and of asteroids, though it also explores objects in deeper space. Extensive educational displays in the visitors center.

Luke Air Force Base

Sun, 20 Mar 2005 13:18:52 GMT

Luke AFB calls itself the largest fighter training base in the world, which it may be, though Nevada's Nellis Air Force Base is also big. With 215 aircraft, mostly F-16's, and over 8,000 personnel, the base uses the 2.7 million acre Barry M. Goldwater Range in southwestern Arizona for training. Luke itself is about 4,200 acres.

Meteor Crater

Mon, 15 Apr 2002 00:00:00 GMT

A 4,150 foot wide crater, formed by the impact of a meteorite (estimated to have been 200-260 feet in diameter) 49,000 years ago. The well-preserved crater has been used by NASA as a training site for Apollo program astronauts because of its resemblance to the moon's surface. There is a platform overlooking the 575 foot deep crater, and a large visitor's center and museum with information on space exploration and astrogeology, including an Apollo space capsule on display, as well as a sample meteorite. The trail into the crater is off limits to visitors, but there is a trail around the rim. The crater is also known as Coon Butte Crater, and Barringer Crater.

Miami Mine

Mon, 15 Apr 2002 00:00:00 GMT

The Miami Mine has an open pit, a smelter, and an electrolytic refinery that produces the final product: copper rod. The facilities are operated by Phelps Dodge, the largest copper company in the United States. The Miami/Globe area is an old mining district, and a heavily industrialized remote area in Arizona. There are several active and inactive mines, slag piles, and tailings piles in the area, some of which are mined by BHP and other copper companies. Operations start and stop according to fluctuations in the market for copper.

Monument Valley Uranium Tailings Site

Sun, 27 Jan 2002 00:00:00 GMT

Tailings from a uranium mine, currently undergoing clean-up as part of the Uranium Mill Tailings Remediation Act Project. The site covers approximately 90 acres, on Navajo Nation land.

Morenci Copper Mine

Mon, 15 Apr 2002 00:00:00 GMT

Phelps Dodge operates this large, open pit copper mine and processing facility, currently the largest copper mine in North America (measured in total output -- Kennecott's Bingham Pit in Utah is larger in size). The mine has produced over 1 billion pounds of copper annually in some recent years. The Morenci Complex consists of three adjacent open pits and associated refining plants.

Palo Verde Nuclear Power Complex

Fri, 20 Dec 2002 00:00:00 GMT

Largest nuclear power complex in the country and the 12th largest in the world. The facility cost nearly $6 billion, and took twelve years to build, with the last reactor completed in 1988. With a net capacity of 3,663 megawatts, the three reactor units generate power for nearly 4 million people, and the complex is a major source of power for Phoenix and Southern California. It is operated by the Arizona Public Service Company, which also operates the Cholla and Four Corners coal-fired plants.