Edward Abbey & Friends, University of New Mexico (1954-1955) Ch. 1

“Long live literature and reading!” – Jimbo Forrest
“I’m not afraid to die!” – Ralph Newcomb
“Sure a lot of noise here!” – Edward Abbey

Author’s Note –
In October 2008, I attended Confluence, a Celebration of Reading and Writing in Moab, Utah. As mentors and teachers, Amy Irvine, Craig Childs and Jack Loeffler represented a triumvirate of writing expertise unparalleled in the Four Corners Region. Jack makes New Mexico his home. Amy hails from Utah. Craig has Arizona, and Colorado well covered. For three days, the famous authors shepherded a group of twenty-five budding or wannabe authors through classroom and field studies.

The Bard of Moab, twentieth century author Edward Abbey (1927-1989) was not the supposed focus of the conference. Still, the mystique of “Cactus Ed” hung heavily in Moab’s radioactive air. Craig Child’s 2008 book, “House of Rain” has received favorable contrast to Abbey’s 1968 classic, “Desert Solitaire”. Amy Irvine’s 2008 debut book, “Trespass” was then fresh on the shelves at Moab’s Back of Beyond Book Store. In her 2018 long-form essay titled  “Desert Cabal” (Torrey House 2018), Irvine took on and wrestled with the “privileged white man” legacy of one Edward Abbey.

For his part, Jack Loeffler had been the longtime best friend and chronicler of Edward Abbey’s life. In 2003, fourteen years after Abbey’s death, Loeffler published  “adventures with ED, (a portrait of Abbey)” (UNM 2003). Like ghost stories around a desert campfire, Jack Loeffler’s Confluence stories seemed to rouse the restless spirit of Edward Abbey himself. For the next three days, someone or something kept bringing the subject of Edward Abbey and his writing to the fore. Looking back, Edward Abbey figures in seventeen of my own blog articles, beginning prior to the 2008 Confluence Conference.

In October 2019, eleven years after the original Confluence Conference, I will make my annual trek to Moab, mainly to attend “Book Week”, as I now call it. On October 18, both Amy Irvine and Craig Childs will participate in a panel discussion at Star Hall. On October 22, Jack Loeffler will be signing his new book, “Headed Into the Wind: A Memoir” at the famed Back of Beyond Bookstore in Moab. In the spirit of their generous teaching and encouragement to write, I hope to put a copy of this brief saga in each of their hands.

Like most novice readers, I loved the “naturalist” passages in Abbey’s “Desert Solitaire” (1968). The classic book tells of Abbey’s two seasons spent in the mid-1950s as a ranger at then little-known Arches National Monument. In 2018, over 1.5 million people swarmed over the now Arches National Park. Despite his cranky, bigoted, anachronistic and anarchistic tendencies, Edward Abbey did get at least one thing right. He decried the nascent destruction of wilderness and the creeping industrialization of the Desert Southwest. Now, more than thirty years after his death, rapacious development, mineral extraction and illicit off-road vehicle use have more than made their mark. They have changed, and in many cases, destroyed much of the natural landscape Abbey vainly tried to protect.

Later in life, Abbey denied that he was ever was, acted, thought or wrote like a “naturalist”. In fact, he decried the characterization. He did not deny being a naturist and an anarchist. In 2010, I read Abbey’s most famous novel, “The Monkey Wrench Gang”, for the first time. That was thirty-five years after its original publication. At that time, I accepted its “radical eco-manifesto vibe” as a reflection of the writer and the 20th century, in which he lived. According to my beliefs, consciousness is everlasting, but orneriness in all of its human manifestations is not. The Edward Abbey we knew in life or from his many books is not the beneficent spirit of Moab Abbey we might encounter today.

Over the years, I have read many, but not all of Edward Abbey’s novels and essays. Reflective of his times, his characters often bear an overtly strong resemblance to the man, himself or to his few stalwart friends. By his own admission, Abbey rather “missed it” on the fictional part. This was especially true of the few female characters that he included. Ed may have incorporated them as homage or an apology for his real life interactions with the opposite sex.

In his later books, much of Abbey’s rhetoric stemmed from the fraught environmental politics of the 1970s. Repeatedly, Abbey assailed corporate greed and complicit government in their assault on the natural environment. As he predicted, that unholy alliance has only accelerated the destruction of public lands since his death. Often, Abbey’s polemics were thinly disguised appeals for active “monkey wrenching” of any machinery, infrastructure or development he disagreed with.

Edward Abbey hated reviewers, but always read his own reviews. If he is reading this review, it is from the “Far Side”, I hope he will forgive me my peccadilloes, as I forgive him for using almost every word in his vast vocabulary somewhere in his writing. To read Abbey thoroughly, one needs a dictionary and a thesaurus nearby.

OK. That is it for criticism. Now for the story…





Our Cast of Characters:
• Edward Abbey (1927-89), author, essayist, radical environmentalist.
• Jim “Jimbo” Forrest (1932-present), teacher, radio/TV announcer, photographer.
• Ralph W. Newcomb (1925-2011) cowboy, bronco rider, artist, sculptor.
• Malcolm Brown (1925-2003) artist, sculptor, architect, landscape artist.
• Amy Irvine (1953-present) author, feminist, iconoclast, environmentalist.
• Craig Childs (1967-present) author, naturalist, environmentalist.
• John “Jack” Loeffler Jr. (1936-present), aural historian, jazz musician, biographer.
• Kirk Douglas (1916-present) actor, filmmaker, author.
• Edward Lewis (1919-2019) film producer (Lonely are the Brave 1962).
• Dalton Trumbo (1905-1976), blacklisted Hollywood screenwriter (Lonely are the Brave 1962).
• Jim McGillis (1948-present) teacher, writer, photographer (“Author” of this chronicle).

Author’s Note –
Jim Forrest (now Jimbo to me), first met Edward Abbey in 1954, when Jimbo was twenty-two and Ed was a war (and peace) weary World War II veteran, twenty-seven years old. By fate alone, both men had enrolled as graduate students in philosophy at the University of New Mexico (UNM), in Albuquerque. In fact, they were the only two graduate students of philosophy attending UNM that year.

Edward Abbey has been gone from this Earth since March 1989. Jimbo Forrest is alive and well, now living in Southern California. Jimbo recently reconnected with Edward Abbey, the author. Via an internet search, he also discovered my internet ramblings about Edward Abbey, and thus connected with me. From here on out, this will be Jimbo and Ed’s story, with occasional help from their “crazy friend”, Ralph Newcomb. I am just the auto-didactic who types the words.

Jimbo Forrest -
“I am Jim Forrest. When I was sixteen, in 1948, I worked in a “malt shop” in LA, and got 50c/hour. I managed to get in 40-hours, by working on Saturdays. After working five weeks, I had $100, and bought a 1929 Model-A Ford. They told me that the car was older than I was. (So were my parents.) It was a good car. Let me pause here and see if I can find that photo.

I graduated from San Jose State College in June 1954. I spent the summer working at the American Can Company at night, taking a couple more courses, and then working at a used car lot during the day. In September of 1954, I drove my 1947 Plymouth (which I bought from the car lot where I worked) to Albuquerque, New Mexico. I found a cheap, old, small apartment on Edith Street, at the bottom of the hill leading up to the University of New Mexico. It was good exercise pedaling up the hill every morning on my bike, sometimes through the snow.

Why am I writing this now? I met Ed Abbey in 1954. After 1956, I never read even one of his books until 2019. Recently, for reasons unknown, I ordered Jack Loeffler’s book, “adventures with ED, (a portrait of Abbey)”. Many things in those first pages reminded me of Ed. There were the classes we took, the people we knew, and the adventures we shared, I started wondering who the author, Jack Loeffler really was.

He describes so many things about Ed, including our mutual friends and the places we went. I do not remember ever hearing about Jack Loeffler, much less meeting him. Jack must have had a photographic memory, or maybe he took copious notes each time the two met. I doubt this, as Jack writes about the enormous amount of beer they both would consume during their many adventures.

In Loeffler’s book, there are several pages of photos of Ed, his family and his friends. There is a copy of a theater poster for the movie, “Lonely are the Brave”. When I first met Ed, he was beginning to write his 1956 novel, “The Brave Cowboy”, which later became that movie. When Ed and I first met in 1954, he had a manuscript with him, made up of the yellow 8 1/2 x 11 sheets of paper that we all used in our typewriters for its cheapness. I remember Ed, clutching that sheaf of paper telling me all about Ralph Newcomb and the Albuquerque Jail Episode”.


Author’s Note –
According to legend, Edward Abbey, after being arrested in Albuquerque for an unknown offense, landed in the Bernalillo County Jail. There he met a somewhat frequent resident of the jail, Ralph Newcomb. Although neither man broke out of jail that night, Ralph became the inspiration for Jack Burns, the protagonist of Abbey’s 1956 novel, “The Brave Cowboy”. In the novel, protagonist Jack Burns commits a crime and lands in jail, with intentions of helping a friend already incarcerated there. Upon discovering that he faces a long prison sentence, Jack breaks out jail. From there, he saddles his trusty horse and goes on the lam, heading for potential freedom in Mexico.

Jimbo Forrest –
“Visions are going through my head (but not of sugar plum fairies or the like) of experiences in New Mexico from 1954 to 1963. I’m wondering where to start. In Jack Loeffler’s 2002 book, adventures with ED (a portrait of Abbey), there is a photo section. On the second page of pictures, there is a photo of three men standing under a leafless tree (Albuquerque can get very cold in the winter, as I discovered). From left to right, wearing jackets: Julian (Jerry) Palley, Prof. Alfredo Roggiano, and Ed Abbey.

In January 1955, I took that photograph. Then, I handed my camera to Jerry, and he took a similar photo, but with me on the left. Each of these three men helped me learn more about life than I was to learn in the philosophy classes I was taking. Jerry Palley was a graduate student and instructor in the language department. He later became a professor at the newly formed University of California at Irvine. Dr. Alfredo Roggiano, from Argentina, came to Albuquerque as a visiting professor of Spanish literature. On the right is Ed, later known worldwide as the author of many essays and novels.

I have no idea where Jack Loeffler got that picture. Maybe I gave Ed a copy after I had the film developed. As mentioned earlier, I handed my camera to Jerry, and he took the second picture. In the second photo, I’m the one on the left. Juxtaposing those photos brings back memories of the experiences, thoughts, and adventures I had concerning Ed during my years in The Land of Enchantment.

The above is an explanation of how I came to Albuquerque. I’d like to continue with a mention of our mutual philosophy instructor, Archie Bahm, and our relation to him, and to each other. After that, I will tell when, where and why Ed and I slept together.”

End Part One - To read Part Two, Click HERE.

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A Visit to Seven Mile Canyon, Moab, Utah with Author Craig Childs in October 2008

Recently, I received a message from Dr. Terry Swanson regarding Seven Mile Canyon near Moab, Utah. In part, it said, “Hello: I was trying to find info on the “Snake in the Mouth Pictograph” and came across your blog regarding Seven Mile Canyon and your trip there with Craig Childs.

I am a retired Boeing engineer and spend a few days each year in the Moab area and even more time in the San Rafael Swell, Cedar Mesa areas. I have been to more than 400 rock art sites, belong to the Utah Rock Art Research Association (URARA) (meeting in Moab, October 2013) and the Arizona Archaeological Society, so I respect sites and never touch anything.

Reading your description and seeing you were on the North side of Highway 313 in one of your photos I looked around Google Earth and thought the location might be as depicted on the enclosed image. Best Regards! Dr. Terry Swanson

It has been over four years since I last visited Seven Mile Canyon. I did make one attempted to visit there in April 2012, but the access points had changed and barriers prevented easy access. That day, I had insufficient time to park and hike Seven Mile Canyon on my own. With the new questions raised here by Terry Swanson, I hope to visit Seven Mile Canyon again in 2013.

To answer Terry’s questions about our 2008 Seven Mile Canyon hike, I searched Google Maps for the Utah Highway 313 turnout where we had parked that day. I located it about two miles southeast of the U.S. Highway 191 junction, heading toward Canyonlands and Dead Horse Point.

Prior to 2008, I knew of Utah Highway 313, but not about Seven-Mile Canyon. Not knowing where our driver was heading that morning, I was surprised when he stopped the van at a stub road on the east side of Highway 313. At that point, we were not more than twelve miles from Downtown Moab.

Where we stopped, there were no signs or other markings. In order to find the place again, I photographed the Canyonlands Field Institute Van and our leader Craig Childs, with distinctive natural features in the background. If you search "Craig Childs" on Google, my close-up photo of Craig from that spot appears on the first row of the images results.

That day, we visited two major sets of petroglyphs. The first set was just across the highway, in a small, boulder-strewn canyon. Around the lower edge of the canyon wall, we saw many casual markings on the rocks. It looked like ancient graffiti in a picnic area. Near the end of that brief sojourn, I hiked up on the rock pile and took a photograph looking down on our whole group.

After crossing back over the highway, we followed a path through some tall, reedy plants. Growing as they did on the outside bend of the arroyo, even in October there was sufficient water beneath to leave mud on our boots. It was a tangled mess, with only a limited passageway back and forth between canyon and road.

Later, much to our surprise, a couple of sales reps, out for a joyride in a Chevy drove past us in the arroyo. Somehow, they had driven through the wet and reedy area, not caring about the finish on their company SUV. From there, the two men drove up the sandy wash that comprises much of Seven Mile Canyon. As I learned in 2012, vehicular access from Highway 313 to Seven Mile Canyon is now blocked.

On one side of the watercourse, we found a wooden-rail fence that resembled a long hitching rail for horses. With the lonely fence standing at the base of a small escarpment, its original purpose was no longer obvious to me. In this ancient place, the rail fence became a mysterious, yet recent archeological feature.

In October 2008, the area appeared wracked by drought. We found no flowing or standing water at all. The only surface moisture was in the muddy area at our entrance to the canyon. In the upper reaches of the arroyo, only thorns and tumbleweeds grew. Around the area, large cottonwood trees had died, while others looked stressed, dying-back almost before our eyes. Although the drought around Moab continued since 2008, that one section of cottonwood trees and brush has thrived. The 2012 Google Earth photo of that place shows thick brush and mature trees.

That cottonwood stand is the place where upstream thunderstorms go to die. When flash-floods in the stream-bed are large enough to bring water to the thicket, much of it is absorbed in the alluvium. If you zoom-out on Google Maps, our hiking spot is the largest green space for miles around.

In ancient days that was true, as well. Prior to the Great Disappearance, we know from tree-ring data that the Colorado Plateau enjoyed a wetter environment. Over millennia, this one patch of greenery could have housed and fed people from many cultures. A mix of ancient and newer styles of rock art in Seven Mile Canyon bears out this thesis.

Upstream from the green space, a small side canyon juts away from the arroyo. Next, we visited that dry grotto. In the rainy season, or during a thunderstorm, water pours over the edge of the mesa above, creating a Garden of Eden in the protected alcove below. When we were there, the pool at the bottom was dry and only one stressed out plant of any size was alive in the immediate area. Imagine that space in ancient times. Was it a bathing spot for early residents and visitors? With the profusion of the ancient rock art on the walls of the grotto, I could see that it was once a well-populated place.

That day, we spent our time looking, listening and writing, all in the lower reaches of Seven Mile Canyon. At one point, Craig Childs asked us take off our shoes and walk barefoot in the bottom of the sandy wash. “Just feel the Earth beneath your feet”, he said. My field notes from that day read as follows. “As I walk up canyon, I feel hard sand beneath my bare feet. Rather than enjoying my journey, I think about my destination. Will I know it when I find it, or should I just walk on? Now I look up from my writing place and realize that it is here, in this canyon, among these shimmering cottonwood trees that I do belong”.

Soon it will be time for me to look again upon Seven Mile Canyon. I plan to do so in May 2013. If you go, be prepared to spend three or four hours in the canyon. Even if you hike no farther up canyon than we did in 2008, your encounter with the Spirit of the Ancients will be well worth the effort.

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An Evening in Moab with Author, Adventurer, Naturalist and Poet, Craig Childs - 2012

 

An Evening in Moab with Author, Adventurer, Naturalist and Poet, Craig Childs

Each year since 2005, I have visited Moab Utah in the fall. For my taste, the summers in Moab are too hot and the winters too cold. In the spring, the wind blows and the dust kicks up. In October 2006, I experienced almost fifteen inches of rain, but this fall the weather was as dry as a bone.

In October 2007, I was in Moab for a week and wanted to learn more about the town and its culture. Checking the events calendar, I saw that Craig Childs was in town, introducing his then new book, “House of Rain”. Until then, my only connection to Craig Childs was hearing him speak on the NPR program, Morning Edition. Not having read any of his books, I decided to go and hear him speak.

That evening, I arrived early at the Moab Information Center. With an auditorium that holds no more than seventy-five people, I was happy to sit in the front row. In the left-front corner of the room stood a stocky man dressed in clothing from the trail. As the attendees filed in and took their places on chairs or the floor, the man softly played a wooden flute. Only when he moved to the podium did I discover Craig Childs was the flautist we had just heard. Craig’s lyrical flute had created a mood for the slideshow and discussion to follow.

Demonstrating how important the book, “House of Rain” was to the career of Craig Childs, his personal website still goes by that name. Never using the phrase, “Great Disappearance” in that seminal book, his subject was the displacement Native American cultures from the Colorado Plateau around 1200 CE.

With painstaking academic research and fieldwork, alone or with paleo-scientists, Craig charted a course of migration that defined the culmination of the pre-Puebloan era. With Craig’s written guidance, I later visited and wrote about many of the places mentioned in that book. From Homolovi to Hovenweep and Mesa Verde beyond, Craig painted word-pictures of each sacred place.

In October 2008, I had the privilege of attending Confluence: A Celebration of Reading and Writing in Moab. Among the many guest authors, Amy Irvine, Jack Loeffler and Craig Childs each taught classroom and field seminars. The class was limited to forty budding authors, each paying $450 for the honor of close work with three authors. For his part, Craig Childs took our group a few miles north of Moab to a place called Seven Mile Canyon. There, among petroglyphs and sacred sandstone grottos, Craig encouraged each of us to feel the canyon sands barefoot before writing that day.

In October 2012, Craig Child’s latest book, Apocalyptic Planet: Field Guide to the Everending Earth arrived at Back of Beyond Bookstore in Moab. With a crowd of about 250 at Moab’s Starr Hall that opening night, Craig Childs proceeded to electrify the audience with stories of catastrophe and redemption. From a campsite on the rapidly melting Greenland Ice Sheet to the still warm lava flows of Mauna Loa Volcano in Hawaii, Craig elucidated the constancy of violent change occurring all over the Earth.

Not wanting to use an electronic flash that night, I tried to photograph Craig Childs in a still moment. Gesturing to his own image on the screen behind him, I watched as Craig’s animated motions transported him into his own photography. Craig on the stage merged into Craig, sitting on the front porch of the doomed Greenland camp. Later, as he swept his arm toward a small patch of island greenery surrounded by an active lava flow, Craig Childs could have been Moses, pinpointing the place where he had found the stone tablets.

Although I had videotaped parts of the presentation, I later erased all of my video from that evening. Electronic media cannot do justice to the poetry of Craig's words and voice. Standing barefoot on stage that night, reading excerpts from his new book, I saw and heard the essence of author and naturalist Craig Childs.

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The Little Colorado River Basin - Pre-ancestral Memories - 2011

 

 

The Little Colorado River Basin - Pre-ancestral Memories  

In his 2007 book House of Rain, author Craig Childs describes the Little Colorado River, as follows. “It is hardly a river. A death rattle of water, more like it. Barely wet enough to be called a river, it is named the Little Colorado. During the few weeks it runs high; it is a bloody froth of silt.”

 

In June 2008, I visited the “Little C.” at Homolovi State Park, Arizona. As I approached the river, runoff from winter snows and spring rains had ceased. Ducking under a floodplain safety fence ravaged by the river, I walked out on to the rapidly drying floodplain. The remaining surface water in the riverbed collected in pools near the banks. While lingering at the edge of a large pool, I realized that I was standing in quicksand.

 

Without warning, my sandaled feet sank up to the ankles. As I lurched to get away, gravity pulled me deeper into the liquefied sand. The viscosity of the quicksand made it difficult to move. In fright I pulled harder, lifting one foot, only to find my other foot sinking deeper into a bottomless goo. Driven by fear, I began my version of an Indian dance, rhythmically lifting and then driving each foot into the quicksand. As my dance step quickened, I arose from that hole in the Earth. Not stopping the rhythm, I padding across the shaky surface until I reached the riverbank.

 

Looking back on that episode, I now realize new things. One is that quicksand can be deep enough to conjure pre-ancestral memories of death and rebirth. Unexpectedly, I had reenacted my own version of the Hopi Indian Creation Myth. Although firsthand versions of the myth are sacred to the Hopi, there are as many translations of that myth as there are Hopi willing to tell a story to an outsider. Still, at the center of each version of the myth is a vision of the ancient Hopi people arising from a water-filled hole in the Earth.

 

To this day, the Hopi protect their knowledge of creation both for themselves and for all of humankind. Whether one considers the Hopi story of creation to be myth or truth is not important. Either way, the Hopi, who are native to the lands and aquifers at the heart of the Little Colorado Basin, knew the power of water to confer both life and death. I for one was happy to be reborn that day on the banks of the Little Colorado River.

 

After my bottomless quicksand scare, I vowed to keep moving while exploring the riverbed. As I moved and observed, the lack of surface water led me to perceive that the Little C’s flow was opposite from its actual direction. Proving the power of our belief systems, three years later, I still tend to believe that the river flows back toward its source, in the White Mountains of Arizona. Scientists tell us that only prior to the Late Triassic Period, 250 million years ago did this system of rivers and aquifers flow as my mind’s eye still perceives. Such is the power of the landscape in the desert that it brings forth pre-ancestral memories for us to ponder.

 

The northern flank of the Little Colorado River Plateau basin ends at Navajo National Monument, near the Arizona-Utah border. Its eastern flank is near the Arizona-New Mexico state line. On the south the up-tilt of the Mogollon Rim constrains it. In the west, U.S. Highway 89 North traces its periphery. Even with its watershed of 27,000 square miles, few places within the Little Colorado River Basin offer year-round sources of surface water.

 

According to the Arizona Department of Water Resources, aquifers of the Little Colorado River Plateau basin contain large quantities of groundwater in storage. However, they are in a sensitive relationship with the Little Colorado River and its few perennial tributaries. Lowering of hydrostatic heads by excessive groundwater withdrawals may cause some perennial reaches of the streams to dry up (Mann, 1976). After thirty-five years, it seems time for an update on that research.

 

When last surveyed, almost two decades ago, the two southern regional aquifers were still in hydrostatic equilibrium, or ‘steady-state’. However, local groundwater sinks or cones of depression were already developing in areas of heavy pumpage (Arizona Department of Water Resources, 1991) such as the paper mill near Snowflake and three of the power plants: Springerville Generating Station, Coronado Generating Station (St. Johns), and Cholla Generating Station (Joseph City/Holbrook). Of those top-four users of water in the southern aquifers, three are coal-fired power plants.

 

According to the Food & Agriculture Organization (FAO) at the United Nations, the Little Colorado River Watershed qualifies as a Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System (GIAHS) – Following is the FAO's description of the area.

 

“On the Colorado Plateau (including the Little Colorado River Basin) farming has been an unbroken cultural tradition for at least 4200 years. The Navajo, Zuni, Apache, Hopi, Paiute and Tewa have cultivated the most diverse annual crop assemblage in the New World north of the Tropic of Cancer. The landscapes of this ecologically diverse but arid region have been shaped by a variety of traditional land and water use practices. Farmers have managed the same fields and terrace gardens for centuries, in a way well adapted to the arid climate and the altitudes from 3350 to 4000 meters. Their traditional ecological knowledge has been transmitted orally in at least six indigenous and three European languages. In addition to tending pre-Columbian crops, residents adopted and further adapted some sheep herding, ranching and orchard keeping traditions of Hispanic, Basque and Anglo immigrants. More recently, these rural communities have developed a multicultural food system with extensive cross cultural exchange and mutual support.”

 

In a recent report, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) said, “A system-wide management approach is needed to achieve cost-effective floodplain and sediment management, while enhancing environmental aspects of the Little Colorado River watershed.”

 

In general, the outer boundaries of the Navajo Indian Reservation coincide with the outer reaches of the Little Colorado River Basin. There are two major exceptions. The southern boundary of Navajo reservation coincides with the northern boundary of Petrified Forest National Park. From there, west to Flagstaff and south to the Mogollon Rim, the land is Forest Service controlled or privately held. The other exception to Navajo hegemony over the basin is the Hopi Indian Reservation. Despite their independent tribal status, the Hopi reservation is landlocked within the larger Navajo reservation.

 

 

Surface and ground waters flow between the two reservations without regard for political boundaries. Although the Navajo and Hopi stress cooperation where they can, competing claims on water rights can be a contentious issue. Among other issues, the 1996 Navajo-Hopi Land Dispute Settlement Act identified and funded the purchase of up to 500,000 acres of new Hopi Trust Lands. These 'New Lands', including attendant water rights were to come from Arizona State holdings, beyond the borders of either reservation.

 

In exercising their rights, the Hopi subsequently purchased land and water rights within the southern reaches of the Little Colorado River Basin. Little did anyone know at the time, but Hopi Trust Lands and their concomitant water rights would soon make news again. In March 2011, the Ringbolt/Passport/Karlsson Group potash consortium obtained agreement from the Hopi Lands Trust to conduct exploratory operations on their Holbrook Basin holdings. Through that agreement, Passport Potash will have access to Hopi water rights in the southern reaches of the Little Colorado River Basin.

 

Author's Note: Clarification on the Passport/Ringbolt/Karlsson Potash "Consortium". Article Updated 9/2/2017

 

Read Chapter Two – The Holbrook Basin Potash Project 

Read Chapter Three - Holbrook Basin Water Crisis

Read Chapter Four - Colorado River Watershed At Risk

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By James McGillis at 02:35 PM | Environment | Comments (1) | Link

A Place Called Potash, Utah, USA - 2009

 

A Place Called Potash, Utah, USA

After skirting the Moab Pile, Potash Road then flows in close proximity to the Colorado River, hugging its right bank for most of the seventeen-miles to the place called Potash. There, at pavement's end, Intrepid Potash-Moab, LLC operates its “Cane Creek Plant”. Although a rocky road continues on, Utah Route 279, the Potash Road ends there.

 

The fact that Kane Creek (with a “K”) enters the Colorado River upstream from the plant and on the opposite bank made us wonder if the plant was misnamed. Further research indicated that raw potash deposits are contained within a geological structure known as the “Cane Creek Anticline”, which is part of the broader Paradox Basin. Thus, the plant name reflects its geological underpinnings, not a fanciful geographical location adjacent to Kane Creek.

 

Watch the Video, "Potash Utah, USA"  

 

For a number of miles between Moab and Potash, the canyon accommodates both the river and two wide banks. Thick stands of tamarisk trees lined each bank, often blocking our view of the river. After its excursion through a deep road-cut and tunnel near Corona Arch, the Union Pacific Railroad’s Potash spur line joins Potash Road for the second half of the run to Potash. In the 1960’s the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad built the line to service the then-new potash mine. Reflecting its support for the mining industry, the State of Utah provided access to the mine by constructing State Route 279. Although now used mainly for recreational purposes, the route is still the only paved access road to Potash. The rail line and the highway opened in the early 1960s, just in time for the first shipments of processed calcium carbonate, commonly known as potash.

 

While driving along the riverbank, we saw rock spires, buttes and many distant views. Often showing barely a ripple on its surface, the river here runs fifty or sixty feet deep in its bedrock channel. In William Faulkner’s novel, “As I Lay Dying”, Darl says, “Before us the thick dark current runs”. Before us, the thick dark Colorado River ran like a solid mass. Looking tame within its banks, an undercurrent produced its silent power. On the way to Potash, we had no way of knowing that the river would soon enter the dramatic Colorado River Gorge. Looking up at the escalating height of the canyon walls brought back our premonition about the Perfect Flood.  Our vision of the future included a flood so large that it spanned from one canyon wall to the other. Its immense volume swept away everything in its path, including any sign of man or road.

 

At one time, there were plans to continue the paved highway to the top of the high mesa, near Dead Horse Point State Park. Because of the difficult terrain along that former cattle path, Utah abandoned the route-extension in the 1970s. In the late 1970s, the longer and less arduous State Route 313 became the primary route from Moab to Dead Horse Point and Canyonlands National Park.

 

The Cane Creek Potash plant operates on a grand scale, including sprawling settling ponds, a processing plant and loading facilities for both rail cars and trucks. As we approached the plant, its mid-century-modern industrial architecture dominated the tranquil riverside setting. More than fifty years old, the facilities still served their intended purpose. As we traveled past the plant that afternoon, we neither saw nor heard another human. With nothing moving at the area, Potash had the feel of a 1950’s ghost town.

 

Operated as a deep mine at its inception, an August 1963 mine explosion killed eighteen miners. With its human toll placing it in the top five U.S. mining disasters since 1940, the mine operators opted to change over to a water injection process. The subsequent use of deep water injection required conveying large amounts of scarce Colorado River water to the mines and ponds, there to evaporate in the desert sunlight. With water accomplishing all of the underground work, there are now both fewer miners and a reduced threat to their lives. Mining engineers now pump Colorado River water uphill to the mining sites, where they inject it three thousand feet down and into the Cane Creek Anticline. Once inside, the water loosens the raw calcium carbonate, creating a plastic flow, which migrates back to the surface. Once the minerals are at the surface, huge pipes conduct the brine to the settling ponds below. For reasons of efficiency, gravity conducts the minerals downward, in a series of steps that end at the processing plant near the riverbank.

 

Intrepid Potash’s predecessors created the settling ponds in the late 1970s. Terraced into anticline bench lands above the river, the settling ponds cover hundreds of acres. Large enough to show as geographical features on our Utah Atlas, the settling ponds created for us a striking blue and white oasis in the desert.  Because their location covers two sides of a bulge on the Cane Creek Anticline, the ponds are visible from many locations around the area. With the blue and white pools appearing in so many photographs, taken from so many different angles, even some Moab locals think that there are several different settling pond facilities in the area.

 

Although we are not aware of any declared seismic risks within the anticline, its geological history suggests large-scale upheaval and subsidence. With that as background, common sense tells us that the diminutive and elegant earthworks at Potash might not survive even a moderate seismic event. In our mind, we pictured continued injection of water into the Cane Creek Anticline precipitating such a seismic event. If the resulting earthquake were large enough, it could liquefy or slump the earthworks at the settling ponds. If breached, highly concentrated brine could cascade down-slope toward the Colorado River.

 

Apparently, there is not a centralized website that covers issues regarding the Potash entire settling pond system.  Although we did find individual pages that indicated the size and depth of some ponds, there was no way for us to understand the overall size and scope of those operations. The scant documentation provided by State of Utah web pages classifies individual pools as “low risk”. Since there is no unified reporting system regarding settling pond issues, we wondered if there have been any recent inspections of the earthworks at Potash. If not, how can mine operators and the state declare that individual parts of the system are "low risk"?

 

With the decades-long drama taking place at the the Moab Pile, only a few miles upstream, identification and remediation of other potential threats to the Colorado River have taken a back seat. It would be a shame to save the Colorado River from nuclear peril, only to witness an accident at Potash. Collapse of the settling pond system could pollute the river with untold amounts of potash, which is primarily used as crop fertilizer. Although placing poor second to the danger of radiation entering the Lower Colorado Basin, surely a large dose of industrial strength fertilizer would not help water quality.

 

According to legal documents available on the internet, Intrepid Potash uses both temporary and permanent pipelines to conduct potash brine from their mining sites to the settling ponds. A second set of pipes conducts the chemicals from the ponds to the plant for processing. During our own drive past the settling ponds, we saw evidence that raw potash slurry had recently cascaded down a streambed and into the ponds. Although little was growing along that streambed prior to its flooding, the heavy coating of crystalized brine will prevent new plant growth there any time soon.

 

At the Moab Confluence Festival in October 2008, author and naturalist Craig Childs signed for us a copy of his classic book, "The Desert Cries".  The subtitle of Craig's book is, "A Season of Flash Floods in a Dry Land". On the title page of our copy, Craig wrote, "Put your hand on the ground.  Feel for the flood. It is coming, always".

 

In December 2008, three million gallons of toxic fly ash and water cascaded downstream from a Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) power plant. Once its retention pond failed, there was no way to save the valley below. A river of toxic chemical-sludge obliterated the local landscape, ruining it forever as a place to live. If nothing else, the senseless destruction at the TVA facility tells us that old, earth-dam retention ponds like the ones at Potash require periodic, independent inspection and public disclosure of their current risk. 

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By James McGillis at 06:05 PM | | Comments (2) | Link

Experiencing Seven Mile Canyon Petroglyphs with Author and Naturalist Craig Childs - 2008

Experiencing Seven Mile Canyon Petroglyphs with Author and Naturalist Craig Childs

On October 15, 2008, I was up early enough in the morning to see the full moon, as it descended behind the Moab Rim.  In anticipation of my first day at "Confluence – A Celebration of Reading and Writing in Moab", I drove to the Moab Arts and Recreation Center.  Unlike the many public activities at Confluence, the intensive writing seminar was limited to only twenty-four individuals.

 

Moments after finding my group of seven fellow writers, we loaded ourselves into a passenger van provided by the Canyonlands Field Institute.  None of us knew our destination for a day of hiking and writing.  Having renowned author and expert on the desert southwest, Craig Childs as our personal guide for the day made those prospects even more exciting.

 

Heading north on U.S. Highway 191, we crossed the Colorado River, then drove through the notch of the Moab Fault, a deep gorge that features the main entrance to Arches National Park.  Five more miles up the road, we turned west on State Highway 313, which leads to Canyonlands National Park and Dead Horse Point, a Utah State Park.

 

Only a mile or two from that junction, our van slowed and then our driver turned on to an unmarked road-stub.  We all piled out of the van, and then surveyed the surrounding area.  Knowing that Craig Childs had spent many months of his life hiking in and around the Moab area, we were curious why he would choose what appeared to be such an undistinguished spot to start our day.

 

Not knowing what to expect, we crossed the highway and walked west toward a canyon wall, where the sunshine had begun to warm the morning air.  Once we reached a suitable place for our group to sit and listen, we quieted down and Craig Childs, the master of the canyons, spoke.

 

In talking about the area surrounding the spot where we sat, Craig did not mention the sporadic traffic along the highway, only fifty yards away.  Instead, he began a lesson in perception, inviting us to see these canyons as he sees them.  Juxtaposing Craig’s intimate description of that landscape with the impersonality of what I saw as an unremarkable roadside made me feel uneasy.  I felt like he could see things that I could not.

 

After cautiously placing myself into Craig’s perceptual landscape, it became easier to see the uniqueness of that place, which was one of an infinite number of potential stops along that road.  Having driven Highway 313 many times before, I knew that the landscape along that road was itself a paradox.  On one hand, the highway meets our human needs to get somewhere.  After passing photo spots of drama and beauty, the road ends at the equally dramatic Dead Horse Point.  No one would dispute the beauty of the famous visual attractions near the end of the road.  Yet, if one stops along the lower portion of the road, he or she will also find an abundance of unique and beautiful micro-environments.

 

After completing our first small writing exercise, Craig stood and invited us to follow him around the far side of a large boulder.  There, only a few yards away, were many examples of Native American rock art incised into the desert varnish of the canyon walls.  Unlike many of the pictographs and petroglyphs that are visible from local roads, this great art had remained untouched since its creation.  According to the style of that rock art, members of the Fremont Culture created it sometime between 600 and 1250 CE.  If one needed a better example of Craig Child’s contention that there is unimaginable beauty available throughout the Canyonlands area, this art gallery, created by grand and ancient masters humbled me into recognition and belief.

 

Soon, it was time to start our trek up the broad, flat wash of Seven Mile Canyon.  Again crossing the road, we gathered beneath a cottonwood tree.  Although Seven Mile Canyon is open to both hikers and motorized vehicles, that morning we saw no one other than our group for the first two hours of our hike.  With non-native bulrushes partially overgrowing the entrance to the canyon, the driver of a full-sized vehicle would scrape off a lot of paint in order to run that gauntlet and pass through into the canyon itself.

 

While walking up-canyon, we began to feel the warmth and dryness of the desert environment.  Frequent breaks for water helped facilitate our passage along the soft sands of the canyon bottom.  Stopping in the shade of a cottonwood grove, Craig asked us to take off our shoes and feel the canyon sands beneath our feet.  Once barefoot, each of us took off in our own direction.  Our assignment was to find a place to sit and write about the feeling of being in touch with the canyon on that bright October morning.

 

After a trailside lunch, Craig directed us towards a nearby, but partially hidden canyon wall.  After a scramble over some boulders, we arrived at an intimate alcove, hidden from the sun by a massive overhang of Navajo Sandstone.  In such places, one intuitively accesses a faith in geologic time.  If, in eons of time, this stone overhang had not crashed down in a pile of rubble, why should let go as we walked into this stone sanctuary?

 

When seasonal rains visit, the spot where we stood becomes a waterfall and receiving pool of a size and power that would drive any human back to a safe distance.  On this day, there was no water pitching over the precipice and the receiving pool was dry.

 

As with our previous stop, we found one wall of our secret canyon alcove covered with both Fremont Culture and Archaic Era rock art.  Once again, we found no sign that anyone had visited this sacred spot since the last of the pre-Puebloan Indians chipped and painted their artwork into these walls.

 

If you were to take the stone-age tools available to the ancients and attempt to make your own mark upon these walls, it is likely that you would quit before you created anything of note.  Scientists estimate that each incised figure might take several weeks to complete.  For that reason, the defacement of more accessible rock art is often in the form of bullet holes or surface scratches across the face of the artwork.  How and why did members of these ancient cultures take the time and put forth the incredible effort necessary to decorate their home canyons?

 

Our theory is that before European contact, there were times of lush abundance in the Canyonlands.  Being efficient hunters and gatherers, good years allowed the ancients to fill their granaries with enough food to take them through the harshest of winters.  In the best of years, their larders might be full by summer’s end, leaving leisure time sufficient for the ancients to pursue an activity that motivates almost every human culture.  That is a desire to tell their story to other humans and other cultures who might later visit these canyons. 

 

On a beautiful fall day, not unlike the one we spent among their galleries, the ancients may have carved and painted the story of their lives, their hunts and their spirit guides into these sacred canyon walls.  To me, it felt like they had just been there, suspending their chipping and carving as we approached.  Hearing our voices, had they retreated to be with their ancestors, waiting patiently for us to leave before returning to their timeless work?

 

Thank you to Craig Childs and the Confluence Organization for transporting our group to a special place, where our contemporary world and the Canyonlands of our pre-Puebloan Indian ancestors converge.  As with so many lessons in human life, we found that the similarities between them and us are far greater than the differences we so easily perceive.

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