A 1965 Visit With My Father to Old Arches National Monument, Moab, Utah - 2012

 

A 1965 Visit With My Father to

Old Arches National Monument, Moab, Utah

“Wilderness – we scarcely know what we mean by the term, though the sound of it draws all whose nerves and emotions have not yet been irreparably stunned, deadened, numbed by the caterwauling of commerce, the sweating scramble for profit and domination. Why such allure in the very word?” – Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire

During two seasons in the late 1950s, Edward Abbey took up residence in a trailer at the old Arches National Monument. Over fifty-five years later, exactly where Edward Abbey's trailer stood is a subject of controversy. As the least likely government employee ever, Abbey was the park ranger who kept things clean and neat out at the end of the road. There, near Devil’s Garden, Abbey observed the timelessness landforms and a rapidly changing political landscape. The only hint of his future status as a proto-anarcho-communist environmentalist came in this passage from his 1968 book, Desert Solitaire.

Page 59, “For about five miles I followed the course of their survey back toward headquarters, and as I went I pulled up each little wooden stake and threw it away, and cut all the bright ribbons from the bushes and hid them under a rock. A futile effort, in the long run, but it made me feel good.”

In 1965, my father, Dr. Loron N. (Duke) McGillis and I visited many of the places that Abbey was to make famous in Desert Solitaire or in his most famous fiction work, The Monkey Wrench Gang. In Desert Solitaire, Abbey wrote with wry humor about tourists abusing even the sacred walls of a national monument. The somewhat sickening, yet heart-pounding acts of eco-sabotage came later, in The Monkey Wrench Gang and its various sequels. This article, largely in Abbey’s own words focuses on the kinder, gentler author we first met on the pages of Desert Solitaire.

Landscape Arch – In 1965, my father and I hiked the unimproved trail to Landscape Arch. Although far more delicate than the arch named Delicate Arch, we found no fence or other barriers to climbing up the hill and under that gracefully suspended stone slab. Stopping short of the arch itself, our instincts were good. One afternoon, twenty-six years later, picnickers sitting beneath the arch barely scrambled away from a mighty rock fall there.

Near that spot, my father positioned his Nikon camera to show both Landscape Arch and the smaller Partition Arch above and to its right, near the rim. As I reviewed old Kodak Ektachrome slides of our time there, I was not sure if the second arch was real, or just a flaw in the 35-MM film. After pouring over fifteen pages of Google images, I found only two photographs that included Partition Arch in the same shot. I wonder where that photo spot is. It would be nice if Arches National Park could provide a protected path to the spot where those rare photos originated.

Page 37, “I reach the end of the road and walk the deserted trail to Landscape Arch and Double-O Arch, picking up a few candy wrappers left from the weekend, straightening a trail sign which somebody had tried to remove, noting another girdled and bleeding pinion pine, obliterating from a sandstone wall the pathetic scratchings of some imbeciles who had attempted to write their names across the face of the Mesozoic.”

Page 267, “In the government truck I make a final tour of the park, into the Devil’s Garden where I walk for the last time this year out the trail past Tunnel Arch, Pine Tree Arch and Landscape Arch, all the way out to Double-O Arch at the end of the path.”

Book Cliffs – Thirty-five miles north of Moab, Utah stand the majestic Book Cliffs. From Green River to the west, past Crescent Junction in the middle and on to Thompson Springs to the east, they parallel both the Union Pacific Railroad mainline and Interstate I-70. Stark in their appearance, the Book Cliffs angle of repose is too steep and the terrain too dry to support more than sparse vegetation. In broad daylight, as our 1965 image shows, the Cretaceous sandstone capping the cliffs stand tall and unbroken, like the skyline of a major city. In Desert Solitaire, Edward Abbey often mentions the Book Cliffs.

Page 4, “On the north and northwest I see the Roan Cliffs and the Book Cliffs, the two-level face of the Uintah Plateau.”
 
Page 23, “I refer to the garden which lies all around me, extending from here to the mountains, from here to the Book Cliffs, from here to Robbers’ Roost and Land’s End, an area about the size of the Negev.”

Page 118, “Mornings begin clear and dazzling bright, the sky as blue as the Virgin’s cloak, unflawed by a trace of cloud in all of that emptiness bounded on the North by the Book Cliffs.”

Page 269, “For a few minutes the whole region from the canyon of the Colorado to the Book Cliffs – crag, mesa, turret, dome, canyon wall, plain swale and dune – glows with a vivid amber light against the darkness on the east.”

Dead Horse Point – If you have seen the Movie Cars, you know Dead Horse Point. After visiting Moab while on vacation, Pixar director John Lasseter copied whole scenes from that place and etched them into the minds of millions. What those movie viewers may not realize is that Lasseter got it right. The view from Dead Horse Point to the Shafer Trail and beyond to the Colorado River looks impossible in its depth, yet you can recognize it in the movie.

In 1965, the landscape did look different than it does today. Below, in a place called Potash, the Texas Gulf Sulphur Company was only two years into conventional mining of Potash salts. With its processing facility hidden upstream, the Paradox Basin anticline still looked pristine. Readers will also note that my father had a penchant for tempting fate, standing within only a few feet of the precipice. A few times on our trip, he convinced me to do the same. Today, I would chalk that up to youthful exuberance.

Not until 1970, five years after our visit, did the now famous blue settling ponds appear on bench land above the Colorado River. From then on, solution mining, or hydraulic fracking of the anticline salt beds continued in earnest. In Desert Solitaire, Abbey focuses on several aspects of Dead Horse Mesa, but not the potash mine or its future risk to the environment.

Page 11, “…of Dead Horse Mesa, a flat-topped uninhabited island in the sky which extends for thirty miles north and south between the convergent canyons of the Green and Colorado rivers. Public domain. Above the mesa the sun hangs behind streaks and streamers of wind-whipped clouds.”

Page 66, “Finally he was discovered ten days after the search began near an abandoned miner’s shack below Dead Horse Point. They found him sitting on the ground hammering feebly at an ancient can of beans, trying to open the can with a stone.”

Page 209, “…for the diversion, I throw canteens and rucksack into the government pickup and take off. I go west to the highway, south for three miles, and turn off on another dirt road leading southwest across Dead Horse Mesa toward the rendezvous.

Page 219, “Getting late; the sun is down beyond Back-of-the-Rocks, beyond the escarpment of Dead Horse Point. A soft pink mist of light, the alpenglow, lies on the (La Sal) mountains above timberline. I hurry on, south of Moab, off the highway on the gravel…”

Page 223, “There is no trail and many dead and fallen trees make progress difficult… Dead Horse Point and Grandview Point, and farther away, farthest of all, wonderfully remote, the Orange Cliffs, Lands’ End and the Maze, an exhilarating vastness…”

Page 265, “Enough of Land’s End, Dead Horse Point, Tukuhnikivats, and the other high resolves; I want to see somebody jump out of a window or off a roof. I grow weary of nobody’s company but my own – let me hear the wit and wisdom of the subway…”

While on our 1965 Grand Tour of the Four Corners states, my father and I had many adventures. As a teenager from California, I did not expect ever to see such exotic desert and mountain landscapes again. Not until 2006, over thirty years later did I again visit Moab, Arches, Canyonlands and Dead Horse Point. Although the political and demographic landscape had changed, the timeless beauty of Edward Abbey’s realm had not.

In Part 2 of my 1965 saga, my father, Duke McGillis and I visit Lake Powell and Rainbow Bridge. To read that next chapter, please click HERE.

Email James McGillis

By James McGillis at 01:25 PM | | Comments (0) | Link

A Resident of Crescent Junction, Utah Tells the History of the Place - 2012

 

A Resident of Crescent Junction, Utah Tells the History of the Place

In 1955, if you pulled into Crescent Junction, Utah, the following is what you would see. The neon tower sign read; “CJunct. Café – Good Steaks – Lunches”. The “C” in the sign had a purposeful tilt, looking like a crescent moon. Across the top face of the building, a painted “Crescent Junction” left no mistake as to where you were. A lighted neon clock stood on the front face of the building.

In addition, hand-painted on the front of the building were the words, “Cold Pop, Beer and Lunch (in larger letters). A Pepsi “button sign” hung near the front door. On the left side of the building, a large painted “Lunch” appeared near the top of the wall. “Cold Drinks” and a Coke “button sign” gave the façade a classy look. Added more recently, at window height were, “Candy, Cigarettes and Beer”. Apparently, the liquor laws in Utah were more lenient in 1955.

To the left and behind the original store rose a new and larger concrete block building. In front of it were two AMOCO fuel pumps, each with a lighted glass globe on top. On one of the two pumps a sign reads, “Diesel Fuel”. Between the two pumps is another sign, which reads, “ATLAS” in vertical letters, with “Tires, Batteries and Accessories” listed below. Partially hidden by the two fuel pumps is a new gas-island, with new fuel pumps still in their crates. A recently strung high voltage electrical line is visible in the background. Between the two buildings, there is a glimpse of the majestic Book Cliffs.

Thank you to Lani Lange Asay for providing these historical photographs of her “hometown”, Crescent Junction, Utah. Following is Lani’s recent letter to me:

Jim,
My name is Lani Lange Asay and I am one of three current residents of Crescent Junction, Utah. I would like to give you a little history you do not have about Crescent Junction.

Brendel is the railroad siding at Crescent. I think Brendel was the name of one of the railroad officials or engineers.

The name Crescent Junction came when my Grandfather and family moved from SLC to Crescent to build the business. The original business was one building with ten bar stools inside and two gas pumps outside. In 1955, the current two buildings were built.

The name Crescent Junction came from the junction of the roads there, originally US 6 & 50 and US 160, (now I-70 and U.S. 191) and the original narrow gauge railroad, which formed an arc along the Book Cliffs above the junction. I could go on and on with the history. The private land held around the junction was an original homestead by my two great aunts.

Lani (Lee Anne Lange Asay)
Mother: Bette Wimmer Lange
Grandfather: Edwin Wimmer

Although I will not be in Crescent Junction again until spring 2013, I have plans to visit with Lani and her sister, Keven Lange at that time. At that time, I also hope to meet Kerry, their brother. I am sure that each of them will have many stories about Crescent Junction and Brendel, Utah.

Email James McGillis

By James McGillis at 04:34 PM | Travel | Comments (1) | Link

Brendel, Utah - Still Moving Around on the Map - 2012

 

Brendel, Utah - Still Moving Around on the Map

In April 2012, I visited Crescent Junction (pop. 0), and Brendel, Utah (pop. 0). Although the derivation of the name Crescent Junction requires some research, today it designates the intersection of Interstate I-70 (Dinosaur Diamond Highway) and U.S. Highway 191. Although there is no obvious crescent at Crescent Junction, it is the main I-70 exit to Moab, Utah, which lies thirty-one miles to the south.

Since my previous visit in 2010, not much has changed in Crescent Junction. The big transformation in “town” since then is a fresh paint job on Papa Joe’s Stop & Go gas station and convenience store. I have never met Papa Joe, but his name appears on the only business at Crescent Junction. Unless someone is living in the back of the gas station, the permanent population of Crescent Junction remains zero. In my 2010 photo of the place, regular gas was a nostalgic $2.95 per gallon. According to another source, in 1946, a service station opened at that site. Based on the architecture of the Stop & Go, it appears that little has changed there except for signage and the price of fuel.

By convention, most people assume that Crescent Junction and Brendel are one-in-the-same. Many sources, including some official government documents use Crescent Junction and Brendel interchangeably. In December 2010, I first wrote about this case of conflated identity.

Running east and west, and parallel to I-70 at that location is the current Union Pacific Railroad (UPRR) Central Corridor between Grand Junction, Colorado and Ogden, Utah. Once owned by the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railway (D&RGWR), many current maps still identify that now defunct railroad as owning the tracks. Without its long association with the railroad, the nearby place called Brendel would have disappeared into history.

In 2010, I challenged the editors at Wikipedia to do their due diligence and identify Brendel and Crescent Junction as two different places. The Wikipedia 2012 entry for Crescent Junction uses the phrase “or Brendel” to identify the place. In Wikipedia, there is no separate entry for Brendel, itself. Wikipedia now indicates that Brendel appears on most railroad maps and that Crescent Junction appears on most highway maps. However, a Wikipedia reader might assume that both places are indeed the same.

Geographically, Brendel can be difficult to pin down. Wikipedia says that “Brendel is the name of the rail siding and junction at the same location” as Crescent Junction. Different mapping authorities place Brendel in slightly different places, none of which physically overlaps with Crescent Junction. Bing.com places Brendel where the UPRR Potash Branch line crosses the Old Cisco Highway (Frontage Road). Google Maps places "Brendel, Thompson, Grand, UT" on what they call “Railroad Road”, about two hundred feet north of the UPRR Central Corridor. In my DeLorme Utah Atlas, that same road is designated Floy Canyon Road. MapQuest.com erroneously calls the road "Foy Canyon" and Google Maps designates only the first hundred yards of Floy Canyon Road as “Railroad Road”, which seems dubious, at best.

In the early days, the railroads gave names only to landmarks or facilities that had something to do with railroad operations. In the D&RGWR route maps dating from 1899 to 1904, only “Little Grand” and “Solitude” stood between Thompson Springs and Green River. A 1930 route map deleted Little Grand and Solitude, replacing them with “Crescent” and “Floy”. From other sources, we know that the former construction camp of Little Grand later became Floy (Floy Station). Solitude, as it has in so many places, disappeared completely from later maps.

Prior to 1930, U.S. Highway 50 followed a more southerly, crescent shaped route between Green River and Thompson Springs. Around 1930, realignment of U.S. 50 relocated the Moab turn-off farther north, at the current Crescent Junction. With the disappearance of Valley City, the longer route through there was no longer necessary. Although that crescent shaped route disappeared, the new intersection received the name, Crescent Junction. According to a 1990 book of Utah place names, "the name comes from the crescent-shaped configuration of the Book Cliffs near the junction".

Also in 1930, D&RGWR mapmakers put “Crescent” on an updated railroad route map. The main function of railroad route maps was to help passengers identify whistle stops and stations. With the advent of Crescent Junction, it was logical for the railroad to use “Crescent” for its whistle stop near there. The 1930 D&RGWR route map is the latest one published on the internet. After that, I do not know what happened to the railroad’s “Crescent” designation. The town of Crescent, Utah (near Salt Lake City), had appeared in a 1908 national directory of railroad stations. To avoid confusion between identical place names, it is likely that the D&RGWR later dropped the “Crescent” in Grand County, Utah. Perhaps it was then that the railroad designated the place as Brendel.

A 1940 U.S. Department of the Interior book lists “Brendel (Crescent), D. & R. G. W. R. R.” at an elevation of 4908 feet. A 1964 Interstate Commerce Commission Report indicates that the Texas-Zinc Minerals Corporation planned to ship copper ore concentrates in bulk from Mexican Hat to “Brendel, Utah, the railhead at or near Crescent Junction, Utah”. Apparently, Texas-Zinc prevailed, since a railroad spur still stands near the consensus location for Brendel, Utah.

From the scant documentary evidence above, we see that Crescent Junction was not an official place name until about 1930. By 1940, we see Brendel having its own place name, but with reference made to “Crescent”. By 1964, we see the clear distinction between Brendel, as the railhead and Crescent Junction as the highway intersection. With its “at or near” designation for Brendel, even the Interstate Commerce Commission equivocated.

Who was Brendel? In all of my research about this, I found no historical reference to any such person in twentieth century Utah. The person or circumstances that inspired “Brendel” as the place name for this lonely railroad spur remain unknown. Unless someone can bring the mysterious “Brendel” into the light, that place shall remain an historical footnote to Crescent Junction. If any reader knows who Brendel was, please comment below or send an email. I would be happy to set the record straight, giving Brendel a firmer place in Utah history.

On November 2, 2012, a local resident of Crescent Junction helped me set the record straight.

Hi Jim:
If you get to Crescent in April, my story is that Brendel is NOT north and east of Crescent Junction, but north and a bit WEST.  If you walk the railroad track and look at the tiny silver buildings from the track side you will find one named Brendel where the rail crosses a large wash.  I will verify this next chance I get. Crescent is in our blood.
Later, Keven Lange. 

Email James McGillis

By James McGillis at 04:01 PM | | Comments (1) | Link

Envisioning A New Moab Mountain Landform - 2009

 

Envisioning A New Moab Mountain Landform

In May 2009, we departed Los Angeles, California, and then traveled Interstate Highways I-15 and I-70 to our destination in Moab, Utah.  After two days and 700 miles (1125 k) of mountain and desert driving, we neared our goal.

 

As the late afternoon sunlight slanted across a desolate stretch of desert, we spotted a forest of billboards and an oasis of trees to the north of I-70.  With its unexpected splash of greenery, the City of Green River, Utah lay hidden amidst that foliage. The former railroad and mining town became famous in the 1930’s with an anti-peddler law that some say was a thinly disguised anti-vagrancy law.  Henceforth, many Western town blatantly the "get out of town before sundown" law henceforth known as The Green River Ordinance.  Well into the 1960s, official roadsigns at the entrance of many Utah towns boasted, "Green River Ordinance Enforced Here".  It was like saying that the town had "no parking", even if one did not have an automobile. Today, Green River is home to nearly one thousand people, almost twenty percent of whom call themselves Hispanic or Latino.  With "prior rights" determining senioity in western water rights, Green River's acequis (water ditches) dated back to the 1830s, when it was a shallow-water crossing along the Old Spanish Trail.  Today, Green River appears to be the most well watered town in the deserts of the West.

 

Twenty-one miles east of Green River, we reached Crescent Junction, which was our turn-off to Moab, via US Highway 191 South.  Although designated by census takers as “a populated place”, we found no population figures for this dusty crossroads.  The place supported little more than a combination gas station and convenience store.  Over the years, we have passed through Crescent Junction many times.  Although the main building has stood throughout, sometimes we find a business operating there and sometimes we do not.  On this visit, the “Stop & Go” appeared to be open for business.  Its sagging banners and many hand-painted signs gave out a halfhearted plea for recognition and recompense.  Its painted plywood cut-out characters evoke an ersatz tourist attraction.

 

As with many other highway routes in the West, a narrow strip of flat terrain determined the location of Crescent Junction.  During the 1830s, Spanish Americans pioneered the Old Spanish Trail through here.  In the 1850’s, Captain John W. Gunnison surveyed a rail line through here and to the west.  In 1883, Gunnison’s dream became a reality when the Denver & Rio Grande Western Railway laid tracks through here.  During the twentieth century, US Highways 6 & 191 intersected and shared routes through Crescent Junction, followed in the 1960s by Interstate Highway I-70.  Natural gas pipelines and fiber optic communications cables now share that route, as well.  Despite the crowding of transportation and utilities through the junction, it retains the look of a sparcely populated place.

 

In contemporary American culture, we consider any place in the West with two hundred or more years of European-stock settlement to be old, if not ancient.  With its raw, dry landscape, current day travelers may have difficulty believing that this area was once inhabited by what we can legitimately call "the Ancients".  As proof of Ancient habitation, abundant Indian rockart at the nearby Book Cliffs dates from between 2000 BCE and the 1800s CE.  That span of continuous culture was almost twenty times longer than the continuum of White men in the West.

 

Before commencing the forty-mile drive south to Moab, we paused to reflect on the stark beauty of the surrounding desert.  As the setting sun illuminated the Book Cliffs to the north, we wondered what artifacts of our contemporary culture might endure at Crescent Junction several thousand years hence.  Extending our consciousness to a group of future desert trekkers, we heard them conjecture that we, who would be their “Ancients” were the creators of a then extant sandstone-clad pyramid, jutting skyward from behind the Stop & Go at Crescent Junction. 

 

Recently, U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) project managers and engineers began relocating 135 acres of uranium tailings from Moab, Utah to Crescent Junction.  If they and the public have a sense of history and a sense of humor, desert travelers of the future may well see that pyramid in the desert. 

 

After decades of delay, five trainloads of nuclear-contaminated soil now move each week across the desert.  The train travels back and forth, from the fragile depository by the Colorado River at Moab to a fully-lined hardpan disposal site at Crescent Junction. 

 

If lack of imagination and traditional landfill techniques prevail, the new uranium pile will look much like the old one, which is so nondescript that it barely shows in photographs taken a mile or two away.  With its flat top and natural red-dirt camoflage, the pile is out of sight and too often out of mind.  If anyone has a mountain that they would like to hide, they should come to Moab and see if they can even locate the uranium pile.  However, if the DOE staff uses its collective imagination, they could construct a Crescent Junction Pyramid to rival the Great Pyramid of Giza, in Egypt.  With a raw material stockpile covering one hundred thirty-five acres, buried up to 200 ft (61 m) deep, they should have an easy time.  If they construct a new pyramid at least 455 ft (135 m) high, Moab, Utah, or perhaps Crescent Junction could claim bragging rights over the tallest organic, nuclear-powered pyramid in the world.

 

Why create a pyramid in the desert?  The single word, “tourism” should be enough to get residents of Grand County, Utah interested.  Imagine that place, twenty or thirty years in the future, let alone two thousand years hence.  If the DOE can mitigate radiation danger at the new site, “See the New Seventh Wonder of the World”, could become a long-term motto for the site. 

 

In order to transport materials from the existing uranium pile, the Union Pacific Railroad recently rebuilt the roadbed and upgraded the rails on the Cane Creek Subdivision between Moab and Crescent Junction.  By limiting future pyramid-access to sanctioned rail visits, Moab could create a railway excursion business, similar in scope to the long running one in Durango, Colorado.  Tourists could leave their automobiles in Moab, visit the pyramid at midday and return to Moab in time for dinner.  Although more tourists would visit Moab, highway miles driven would decline.  Since the new uranium pile is a necessity, it behooves planners to make it every bit as attractive to tourists as the natural wonders so abundant in the surrounding Canyonlands area. 

 

Currently, there are few pyramids of any consequence in the U.S.  The only stone-faced pyramid we are aware of is the Ames Brothers Pyramid, near the town of Buford, which is a bit west of Cheyenne, Wyoming.  Standing at the highest point on the first transcontinental railroad in 1869, the pyramid is of modest height.  Located less than a mile from current Interstate I-80, the pyramid's location on a grassy knoll allows it to stand out against the Wyoming sky.  Forgotten by all except locals, curious passers-bye and those who study railroad history, we note that the brothers’ teamwork in the public and private sectors made the words “Union Pacific Railroad” part of American history.  Imagine the goodwill that the current incarnation of the Union Pacific Railroad would garner if it were to cooperate once again in the building of an All American Pyramid.

 

The City of Moab, Utah’s Grand County, the Union Pacific, the State of Utah and the United States DOE together have the opportunity to transform a nuclear pariah into a beautiful and sacred place.  By studying and using as models, other remote, spiritual sites, DOE planners could borrow the best aspects of each and create a monument to peace and nuclear safety that would endure beyond our time. 

 

Hotel and casino planners created the pyramidal Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada.  Why should we not create a real pyramid in Southeastern Utah?  By combining the windswept, solitary feeling of the Ames Brothers Pyramid with the remote magnificence of Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, contemporary planners could create a monument of lasting value.  When completed, the Moab/Crescent Junction Pyramid should stand-alone, with nothing more than a railroad siding, an interpretive center and a footpath near its base. 

 

Imagine a post-nuclear age when schoolchildren from all over the world might visit the pyramid.  Docents familiar with the history of “Moab Mountain” could tell the story. 

 

The story would begin with man’s lust for power, in the form of nuclear weapons.  After World War II, nuclear frenzy was so strong that men and machines moved mountains of uranium ore to Moab Utah.  There, they extracted the Earth’s most dangerous and unstable elements.  During the course of its operation, the not-ironically named Atlas Uranium Mill utilized over 420,000 tons of sulfuric acid and unknown amounts of caustic soda to leach radioactive isotopes out of the raw ore.  When the mill shut down in the 1980s, all of the chemicals, buildings and equipment utilized during its thirty-year operating life were buried at the site.  Although extraction wells later dotted the site, a natural stream running beneath the pile continued to conduct unknown quantities of radioactive material, chemicals and heavy metals into the adjacent Colorado River. 

 

Over the following twenty-five years, group consciousness slowly shifted from fear of the “Other” to fear of our own powers of self-destruction.  As consciousness continued to evolve, fear of immanent nuclear disasters became stronger than the ephemeral security possession of the nuclear weapons offered us in the first place.  Beginning in the late 1980s, a coalition of government agencies, private citizens, environmental groups and the press identified and publicized the scope of the nuclear dangers at Moab.

 

In 2005, we learned more about ancient, paleofloods on the Upper Colorado River near Moab, Utah.  A DOE study determined that “the geometry and position of ancient Colorado River gravels buried under the surface of Moab Valley show(ed) that the river has shifted back and forth across the mill and tailings site in the recent geologic past”.

 

Our future docents' parable would include both historical and ancient information.  If a flood the size of at least one that hit the Moab Valley since 2000 BCE were to occur in the near future, much if not all of the uranium pile could wash downstream towards Lake Powell.  As we know, Las Vegas, Phoenix and Los Angeles all rely on Colorado River water for a significant percentage of their water supplies.  If a megaflood were to hit Moab prior to the removal and relocation of the uranium pile, release of its carcinogens and mutagens could render much of Utah, Arizona, Nevada and California uninhabitable.

 

As the docents said to their future visitors, the megaflood held off until early spring 2015.  By then, DOE engineers had protected the pile with a riprap rock casing, similar in construction to the Castaic Dam in Southern California.  At the time of its construction, Castaic Dam's conservative design was considered to be a "overkill" solution to contain Castaic Reservoir.  After the 1928 collapse of the nearby St. Francis Dam, engineers and the public alike demanded that the Castaic Dam be built to the highest seismic standards.  Tested soon after completion by the nearby 1971 Sylmar Earthquake, Castaic Dam stood undamaged.  Not ironically, the cross-section of Castaic Dam is similar to the profile of the Great Pyramid at Gisa, Egypt.  Both are expected to last for a long time into the future. 

 

In 2018, the Colorado River tested the uranium pile’s temporary encasement, but it held fast against the flood.  By 2035, when the original pile was gone, workers who had started their careers moving the uranium pile used their final working years to remove the old Moab containment dam.  As their final contribution, they reused all of its boulders as cladding for the new Crescent Junction Pyramid.  If that stone encasement could withstand the force of a megaflood along the Colorado River, they felt confident that its reuse at pyramid could shelter that new mountain for millennia to come.

 

As the docents of the future ended their tale of fear and hope, students reflected on how we humans had used and abused Mother Earth.  Old Moab Mountain was a monument to ignorance, greed and fear.  New "Moab Mountain" stood as proof that the wisdom of the Ancients revealed itself to mankind in the early twenty-first century and that we listened.

Email James McGillis

By James McGillis at 05:23 PM | Environment | Comments (0) | Link