The Majestic La Sal Range Overshadows the Desolation of "Poverty Flat" - 2012

 

The Majestic La Sal Range Overshadows the Desolation of "Poverty Flat"

On April 15, 2012, I spent my day to revisiting special locations in and around the Spanish Valley, near Moab, Utah. By midday, I had completed an ecological survey of Behind the Rocks, ten miles south of Moab. After lunch, I depart the Moab Rim Campark, heading south on U.S. Highway 191. Although I did not know exactly where I might find it, I was looking for an unobstructed view of the La Sal Range.

Near the eastern end of the Spanish Valley, I turned left on to a rough gravel road that leads to Pack Creek. With jagged gravel the size of golf balls, the road was not favorable to travel with my fully inflated road tires. Limping along at a slow pace, I finally found an unobstructed view of the La Sal Range. There, in mid afternoon, the sun shone down on the mountains and reflected off fresh snow that fell the previous night.

After pausing to photograph the mountains, I turned my attention to the power lines that hung overhead. From earlier discussions with Moab residents, I knew that these high voltage lines originated at a coal fired power plant near Price, Utah to the north. From where I stood, I could see what looked like a series of energy beings carrying the electrical cables up the valley from Moab. After passing overhead, the lines continued their climb up the Spanish Valley and then over the mountains of San Juan County. Where they ended, I had no idea.

Here I shall explain the difference between the Moab Valley and the Spanish Valley. Other than there being a name change near the San Juan County line, there is no geographical difference between the two valleys. Anywhere near Moab, residents call the drainage the Moab Valley. To the east, in its upper reaches, most people call it the Spanish Valley. The most beleaguered area of the valley, around Ken’s Lake also carries the historical name, “Poverty Flat”.

Having experienced the most prolonged overgrazing of any area near Moab, Poverty Flat is apt moniker for that area. Today, it supports only sparse seasonal grasses and a particularly thorny species of cactus. With a large swath of the valley teeming with cactus spikes, no one would dare to graze cattle there now.

Even for a hiker the Poverty Flat landscape is like an ankle-high low forest of knife blades. Consequently, the area just west of the Ken’s Lake Dam is now a no man’s land, bereft of greenery and populated only by the hardiest desert dwelling species. In the 1890’s, grass in the Moab and Spanish Valleys grew so high that it hid from view horseback riders who approached town on the Old Spanish Trail. Current visitors to the Spanish Valley realize that the area near Ken's Lake is an inhospitable place, but most have no idea that just over one hundred years ago, this was a Garden of Eden, not the current rock and cactus garden.

Since it once held the Old Spanish Trail, I believe that early visitors, ranchers and miners referred to the entire valley as the Spanish Valley. Later, as Moab became a more prominent feature, residents and outsiders alike began calling the lower, western reaches the Moab Valley. Today,  the Google Map of the Spanish Valley as the portion of the greater valley inside the border of San, Juan County. Given the importance of Moab and the remoteness of the eastern part of the valley, Google’s dual designation of the Moab Valley and the Spanish Valley seems like a good one to me.

After viewing the extreme environmental destruction in the Spanish Valley, I headed for the human made creation called Ken’s Lake. You may read about that visit in my next article.

Email James McGillis

 

By James McGillis at 05:08 PM | | Comments (0) | Link

The Farmer and the Cowboy Should Be Friends (of the Environment) - 2011

 

The Farmer and the Cowboy Should Be Friends (of the Environment)

   

In early October 2011, I made my annual fall pilgrimage to Moab, Utah. Having lived there for three months in the fall of 2005, I knew that October weather in Moab was unpredictable. After the first cold front of the season blew in with me, I was surprised at how quickly weather in the Spanish Valley returned to its default position, which is Indian summer.

 

On October 6, 2011, it was sunny in the valley, yet storm clouds still hung on the peaks of the La Sal Range. What better day could I find to visit Ken’s Lake, out on Poverty Flat, near the head of the Spanish Valley?

 

When I arrived, I saw a few campers in the campground, yet on only one boat floating upon the lake. As I watched, I could see the oarsman rowing his pontoon-style fishing boat towards shore. Although I stood no further than thirty feet from where he made landfall, the old angler never looked up or acknowledged my presence.

 

Only when I asked him why the lake was so high this year did he speak. He gave me a few matter-of-fact sentences, telling me all that I needed to know. “It was a good snow year. There was still snow on the north-facing slopes until August. The slower snowmelt this year kept filling the lake, even as irrigation water flowed from the dam. Still, it hasn’t rained much lately and the lake is a lot lower than it was just a few weeks ago.” After I thanked him for the information, he returned to his silent mode, placed his boat on a small trailer and drove away without another word.

 

After he departed, I marveled at the differences I could see from just one year earlier, in October 2010. When I wrote an article about that visit, I called it “Ken’s Puddle”, which is what it looked like to me. At that time, I suggested that farmers and others who shared in Ken’s Lake water might want to look towards conservation of this resource, rather than exploitation. Did my words and wishes have some positive effect on water levels in the lake? On the other hand, did fewer regional dust storms this year keep more snow in the higher reaches of the La Sal Range watershed until later in the season?

 

Cynics would say that those entitled to shares of Ken’s Lake Water took every drop that they could get this year. Redemption came only when Mother Nature replenished the water faster than the outfall pipe carried it away to crops and cattle. I prefer to think that even those who are “entitled” are conserving more and using less of those sacred waters. By his demeanor, I would guess that the lone angler I saw that day was a longtime Moab rancher or farmer. By not drawing his full share of Ken’s Lake water this year; did he help Ken’s Lake to remain one of the few cold-water fisheries in Southeastern Utah?

Email James McGillis

 

 

By James McGillis at 08:16 PM | | Comments (0) | Link

Help Save Ken's Lake Moab, Utah - 2010

 

 

Help Save Ken's Lake

Moab, Utah 

After writing about Spanish Valley water issues during 2009, I realized that I had never seen Ken’s Lake up close. On a clear afternoon in October 2010, I set out to remedy that situation. Heading south from Moab on Spanish Valley Drive (The Old Spanish Trail), I turned left on San Juan County Road 175 (better known as Ken’s Lake Road). Soon, I could see the inside of the dam to my left, but could see no water impounded behind it.

 

 

Watch the Video - Ken's Lake, Moab, Utah

 

 

After arriving at the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) parking lot on the south side of the lake, I finally spied Ken’s Lake itself. In the distance, and well below the level of a weed-choked gravel beach, I saw a large puddle, down near the base of the earthen dam. Although I had read about overuse of the Ken’s Lake Reservoir, I did not expect to see such a sorry sight. Other than as a curiosity, there was little to attract visitors or campers to Ken’s Lake that fall.

 

Who allowed Ken’s Lake to almost disappear and why? To answer that question one must look at two seminal issues that continue to shape politics on the Colorado Plateau – “water rights” and “grazing rights”. Although these are complex issues with no easy solutions, suffice to say that “entitlement thinking” on both issues has led to a long-term degradation of the environment in Southeastern Utah. With appropriate will, the greater community could reverse some of the damage done. In order to do so, all concerned must join to reevaluate and redistribute “water rights” and “grazing rights” under terms that our now drier environment can sustain.

 

Moab historian Faun McConkie Tanner exemplified the traditional view of cattle grazing in the area, both then and now. In her 1976 work, “The Far Country, - A Regional History of Moab and La Sal, Utah” she wrote, “The grazing of cattle and sheep has been a principal industry since the settlement of the region. Supervised and limited grazing under Forest Service regulation protects the plant growth and in some measure saves soil erosion caused by overgrazing.” Almost forty years later, her rosy picture of what is now a deeply degraded environment prevails.

 

In his 1994, “Coyote’s History of Moab”, Jose’ Knighton states that, “Corporate cattle operations abandoned Moab (in 1896) because the land could no longer support their huge herds. Hit-and-run exploitation of resources would eventually become an established pattern of abuse for Moab. But a century ago, decades of overgrazing took their toll. Flash floods roared down Mill Creek and Pack Creek, silting up dams, carving deep gullies and destroying homesteads.”

 

In 1981, after tireless promotion by Kenneth McDougald and others in Moab, engineers first filled Ken’s Lake with water diverted from Upper Mill Creek. From its inception, water use at Ken’s Lake reflected Faun McConkie’s old Moab, not the more environmentally aware approach of Jose’ Knighton. In my research, I could find no references to which agency decided who would receive shares of Ken’s Lake water. Today, however the Grand Water and Sewer Service Agency (GWSSA) delivers the vast majority of Ken’s Lake water to alfalfa farmers in the southern Spanish Valley.

 

Here we can see the grand circle that started with Moab’s cattle raising origins. Since the 1880s, the biodiversity and availability of natural forage in the area have steadily declined. One hundred and forty years after cattle first roamed the Moab Valley; current residents live in a significantly degraded environment. Making an emphatic point, McConkie Tanner states that, "All of those interviewed stated that sagebrush grew tall enough for a man on horseback to ride hidden through brush, and that grass grew to a horse's belly in Moab, but at La Sal this was almost reversed." No such microenvironment exists today in Grand or San Juan Counties, as every inch of usable land had at least once seen cattle hooves breaking through the crust of ancient soils.

 

Some would say that Moab exists in a desert, which has always been a desert and those who wish it to be otherwise should forget about it. Rather than a desert, early accounts tell us that the Spanish Valley resembled a Garden of Eden. I, for one believe that it can be so once again, but only if a portion of the available water supply goes toward reestablishment of native plants and natural habitats in what post cattle-boom settlers called Poverty Flat.

 

The source for all Spanish Valley aquifers, reservoirs such as Ken’s Lake and streams is the Sierra La Sal, southeast of Moab. Over the years, cattle and sheep ranching in Southern Utah and Northern Arizona have denuded much of the land. Now, each spring, dust storms arise on the Navajo Reservation, north of Kayenta, Arizona. Prevailing winds carry the dust north, through Bluff, Blanding and Monticello, Utah. As the storms intensify, their vortices vacuum the land of soil. As the storms lift into the cool air surrounding the La Sal Range, they dump their blanket of soil in muddy rainstorms reminiscent of biblical disasters.

 

In the spring of 2009, one such storm hit both the La Sal Range and Moab. Starting as a dust storm more powerful than any current resident of Moab could recall, the accompanying deluge of muddy rain painted every car in Moab with the red and brown colors of desert soil. After the storm, the remaining snowpack in the high country glowed pink in the afternoon light. With the pink snow having a higher albedo, solar energy rapidly melted what remained. This gave Ken’s Lake only a quick shot of water, which was not enough to satisfy the demand for irrigation water. During the resultant draining of the lake, recreational and environmental interests received no consideration at all.

 

Many streams in the La Sal Range converge at Upper Mill Creek, from which a 650-foot unlined tunnel diverts part of the natural flow to Ken’s Lake. In decades past, the inflow to the lake came gradually and continued throughout the spring and into the summer. In recent years, Ken’s Lake receives one rapid shot of water during spring snowmelt, and then must rely on rainfall for replenishment throughout the summer and fall. With a combination of decreased snowpack, rapid snowmelt and over-subscription of water rights, Ken’s Lake becomes another symbol of the degraded environment around Moab.

 

Officially, the Utah Department of Environmental Quality/Division of Water Quality has washed its hands of the environmental issues at Ken’s Lake. Their written statement is, “Temperature impairment is a result of natural causes. The energy input is a direct result of heating by the sun”. To anyone who visits Ken’s Lake in the fall or winter, it is obvious that a lack of stored water causes wild swings in lake water temperatures. Neglect, abuse and overuse of grazing lands and water sources upstream and upwind of Ken’s Lake have creating a mud puddle in the fall and a frozen ice sheet in the winter.

 

When first built, authorities assumed that Ken’s Lake would be a warm water fishery. In the days before agricultural interests routinely drained the lake dry each summer, a diverse cold-water fishery established itself there. While casting a blind eye toward the end of cold-water fisheries in the area, the Utah Division of Water Quality plans to designate the lake as a warm water fishery. To the state, it to be a question of, “Warm water, cold water; who cares?” Ironically, the minuscule size of the lake during fall and winter allows it to freeze solid. As the BLM puts on its blinders and looks the other way, some local residents use the frozen pond for ice-skating. How even the most callous bureaucrats could designate an oft frozen pond as a warm-water fishery defies my imagination.

 

The number of cattle in the Ken’s lake watershed and nearby dry areas such as Behind the Rocks is lower today than it was in the 1890s and perhaps even lower than in the 1990s. Still, damage done over more than a century of abuse will not repair itself while the trampling and overgrazing continue. Only by fencing off the most sensitive and degraded areas from all grazing will the land regenerate itself. On demonstration plots, volunteers could replant native species of ground cover. With permission from those who “own” shares, maybe a squirt or two of Ken’s Lake water would facilitate re-vegetation at those sites.

 

It is time for independent-minded farmers in the Spanish Valley to forgo a small portion of their Ken's Lake water allotments. Do farmers need up to six cuttings of alfalfa in a single season, or could they get by with three or four? In the summer, a trip south on Spanish Valley Drive is like an obstacle course. Each day, profligately wasted water showers vehicles at several places along the road. If you need a quick car wash, it only takes a few minutes for complete inundation. One needs to look no farther than the permanent water stains on the roadway to see who is at fault. In a better world, farmers would relinquish a small portion of their sacrosanct entitlements in favor of the greater good. If so, Ken’s Lake might live up to Ken McDougald’s vision of an agricultural reservoir that also provides year-round recreational opportunities to residents and visitors alike.

 

In their state of denial, the BLM, the state of Utah and the GWSSA cannot see or admit that Ken’s Lake is a serial disaster, which might fit easily into the plot of the movie, Groundhog Day. Only when ranchers, farmers and government officials admit that the environment can no longer sustain a mid-twentieth century approach to water and grazing entitlements, will there be change.

 

I see a day in the not too distant future when all the stakeholders in this environmental, economic and political conundrum will rise to the occasion. When they do, they shall discover a process whereby we can save Ken’s Lake from its current state of repetitive annual destruction.

Article updated 08/23/18

Comment from a friend: You are so right! One item not mentioned (DOG POLLUTION). No one picks up after their dog. THANKS - Scott Taylor

Email James McGillis

By James McGillis at 03:34 PM | Environment | Comments (1) | Link