Utah's SITLA/BLM Land Swap Does Not Benefit the People or the Land

This section Courtesy KCPW News,  July 09, 2009

"U.S. House Unanimously Approves SITLA Land Swap", by Elizabeth Ziegler

(KCPW News)  The U.S. House of Representatives unanimously approved a land swap with the Utah School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration (SITLA) yesterday.  If approved by the Senate, it will authorize a patchwork assortment of more than 40,000 acres of SITLA lands to be transferred to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in exchange for a similar amount of land in the oil and gas-rich Uintah Basin.  However, Congressman Jim Matheson, who sponsored the legislation, says it does more than that.

 

"It acknowledged that there's recreational value to this area right along the Colorado River corridor and taking that out of potential development had value," Matheson says.  "And in return, the state got some oil and gas properties for that type of development instead."

SITLA believes oil and gas development on the Uintah Basin land could add tens of millions of dollars to the school trust fund.  A portion of the interest from the fund is distributed to Utah schools each year.

 

Matheson says this is the first time that recreational value was taken into consideration for such a federal land swap.  The value of public land has traditionally been based on the value of potential development or resource extraction.  He believes the bill will set a precedent for future legislation.  Liz Thomas with the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance in Moab hopes it will.

 

"We do hope it can serve as a model because this land exchange bill, honestly, it's been years in the making and it was in the end supported by pretty much all sides," Thomas says.  "And that's pretty unheard of."

Thomas says the land swap would represent a significant step toward protecting many scenic areas around Moab, including one of the largest red rock formations in the region, Corona Arch. - (End of KCPW Story)

 

July 2009 Author's Note: On a higher level, it is sad to see that we shall concentrate our destructive and extractive forces in one area.  If we were Uintah Basin Native Americans, we might think that this is not such a good idea.

 

Look south to Black Mesa, Arizona, near Navajo National Monument and you will find the best-hidden strip mine in the West.  Utilizing the Black Mesa and Lake Powell (Electric) Railroad, the aptly named Black Mesa provides relatively dirty western coal to the Navajo Generating Station, which overlooks Lake Powell and the Glen Canyon Dam.  

 

Today, there is a growing consensus that the dam itself was an unnecessary environmental tragedy.  During the increasingly hot summers, the oversubscribed Colorado River cannot supply enough water to spin a sufficient number of turbines at Glen Canyon Dam to meet peak electric power demand.  At such times, additional coal-smoke haze issues forth from the tall stacks of the Navajo Generating Station.  These smoke signals send a message of environmental degradation to each of the Four Corners states.  Fickle winds roundabout the canyons of the Colorado Plateau may contribute to such far-flung phenomena as Uintah Basin’s summer haze

 

Compromising our environment in favor of increased old-energy extraction and production will only hasten the day of our demise.  Each new scar that we place upon the land has local, regional and worldwide environmental consequences.  With this knowledge to guide us, can we still afford to create new environmental ghettos; overdeveloped, over-extracted, overgrazed and prone to 1930s-style dust storms? 

 

Ask the current residents of Giza, Egypt if they would support a new round of pyramid building in their once-lush valley.  In ancient times, over-development there initiated what we now call the Sahara Desert.  Yes, current dwellers of the desert southwest, it can happen here.

 

January 2012 Author's Note: According to The Salt Lake Tribune newspaper, "Utah is weary of waiting for federal funds to complete a heralded swap of recreational lands near Moab in exchange for energy swaths in the Uintah Basin, so state school trust officials plan to start paying appraisers themselves to seal the deal."

 

(Some) Environmentalists like the swap, and worked for its passage in Congress, because it protects “remarkable places along the Colorado River,” said Bill Hedden, executive director of the Grand Canyon Trust.

“The schoolkids come out ahead and the natural places come out ahead,” Hedden said. “It’s a great exchange.”

 

I wonder if the Native American school kids living among natural gas wells and breathing polluted air in the Uintah Basin will be as sanguine.

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By James McGillis at 11:44 PM | Environment | Comments (0) | Link

When "Moderate" Fire Danger Turns "Extreme" At Pack Creek - 2009

 

When "Moderate" Fire Danger Turns "Extreme" At Pack Creek

On June 24, 2009, we departed Moab, Utah, heading for Navajo National Monument, about 225 miles south.  After viewing the Pueblo Verde Ranchettes, at Moab Ranch, we noticed smoke reaching skyward to our east.  A fire of recent origin appeared to burn across a steep ridge, just below the slopes of the La Sal Range.

 

We motored up Spanish Valley Drive to where it becomes Geyser Pass Road, in Northern  San Juan County.  Since we were towing a travel trailer, it did not seem prudent get any closer.  Noting that it was 1:45 PM MDT, we snapped a few pictures from there, and then headed south on U.S. Highway 191, towards Monticello, Utah. 

 

During our brief viewing period, we saw neither aircraft nor ground crews heading towards the fire.  Around us, everything was "busines as usual".  To us it seemed that a fast-moving fire was not a problem to anyone in the area.

 

When we wrote this article on July 7, 2009, we searched for any news regarding the fire, but no articles surfaced on the subject.  Although we still do not know exactly what happened that day, here are the pictures to prove that it is a dry summer in Moab and Spanish Valley, Utah.

 

As smoke continued to billow, we thought that perhaps it was time for local fire officials to change their signs from “moderate” to "extreme" fire danger.

 

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Images of New Energy Plasma Torus at Moab Ranch - 2009

 

Images of New Energy Plasma Torus at Moab Ranch

On Monday, June 29, 2009, an unprecedented influx of new energy showered down on Spanish Valley, Utah.  Here on Earth, the point of presence appeared to be the Pueblo Verde Ranchettes at Moab Ranch. 

 

A Navajo-worthy image of the rising sun captured from several miles away by the Moab RV webcam, demonstrates the focused power of the Sun as it crests the La Sal Range.  Later that morning, the Moab Ranch webcam caught three images of an otherwise undocumented plasma-flow.  From Moab Ranch, it appeared in the sky above the La Sals, seeming to light all of the world from there. During the event, virtual wildflowers appeared, as seen in the residential yards and along the curb of Rancho Verde Drive.

 

In the first frame, a new energy comet descends, its yellow hallow and blue-coma flashing down past Redrocks rimming the Spanish Valley.  In the second frame, new energy encircles the homes then under construction in the Pueblo Verde neighborhood.  In the final frame, remnants of new energy cling like melting snow to the homes and along the edge of the road.  In that frame, the plasma flow reverses direction and its new energy torus retreats skyward and into the distance.

 

Although it was unique and beautiful, this unprecedented energy event disabled the image-sensor on the Moab Ranch webcam.  Until we can replace it, please enjoy these first-ever images of a super-colliding, new-energy, plasma-flow in open air.  When events of this nature appear before our eyes, we wonder why scientists spend so much effort trying to contain and harness plasma-flow events in high-energy particle accelerators.  If we allow it, new energy from the Sun is always free. 

 

We are happy to announce that a new energy bridge to Moab Ranch and Spanish Valley is now open.  As you read this article, you are the other terminus of that energy bridge.  If you are interested in allowing new energy, please join us and “set a spell” at Moab Ranch.

 

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Hiking With Peaceful Spirits - Mill Creek Canyon, Moab, Utah - 2009

 

Hiking With Peaceful Spirits - Mill Creek Canyon, Moab, Utah

 

Continuing our spring 2009 hike through the middle reaches of Mill Creek Canyon in Moab, Utah, we approached the farthest point on our route.  Soon, it would be time to turn back and retrace our steps towards the point where we came in.

 

Wildflowers in the desert offer us a rare look at how ephemeral life can be.  Even a solitary example of a desert flower in the spring can make our heart leap.  What species of plant is it?  Is it a healthy specimen?  What color and shape are its flowers?  Does it show any signs of trailside abuse?  If the plant is healthy, we always stop and take a photo for our files. 

 

Other than the few flowering plants that make their home in rare natural nurseries, most desert wildflowers lead a near-solitary existence.  If one finds three or more examples of one species congregated together, the place takes on the feeling of a stand or perhaps a grove. 

 

In contemporary society, we toss words together, like “desert garden”, as if there is a simple meaning to that phrase.  If you ask most readers what that phrase means, they will tell you that a “desert garden” is a residential or botanical garden that features examples of desert-dwelling species.  This prevalence of thought stems from the rarity of natural desert gardens.

 

Perhaps it is fitting that we reached the turning point of our hike in a desert garden, surrounded by steep canyon walls and several waterfalls along the creek.  Interspersed throughout this oasis were about ten people, including the four of us.  The place felt used, but not over-utilized.  Each visitor was responsible for his or her own conduct and enjoyment of the place.  Throughout our hike, we saw not one example of litter or defacement.

 

As I photographed a flowering desert paintbrush, a woman stepped forward and introduced herself to us as a local Moab resident.  In the way typical of Moab locals, she asked if we would like her to take a group picture of us four friends.  Of course, we accepted.  The standing portrait you see on these pages is proof that nature inspires humans.  While out on a hike like this, one tends to smile almost all the time.  Although we did not string our hands together in a daisy chain, like the Ancients, we felt the camaraderie of being with friends, both old and new.

 

Many Moab rock art sites are undocumented.  If you go to the Moab Information Center, they will provide you with a free self-guided tour map to Indian rock art sites, both in and around Moab.  Since the panels on the self-guided tour are the easiest to spot, they are also the easiest to deface.  Entire panels have been lost to vandalism and up to ninety percent of the remaining artifacts have been looted over the past century.  For most visitors today, personal ethics preclude the defacing of rockart or removing artifacts as small as an arrowhead.  As such, we are happy to report that rock art panel defacement in and around Moab are rare.

 

The Moab Visitors Center is also a great resource for hikers.  If you visit Moab, be sure to ask there about public hiking trails, including those with active streams.  After taking the normal precautions, like having plenty of water and telling a responsible party where you are going, then get going, out of Moab and into a redrock canyon.

 

Unlike Mill Creek Canyon, which we accessed midstream, most canyon hikes start at the mouth of a given stream bed and then proceed up-canyon.  As you walk slowly up the floodplain of your canyon, note if there are any cottonwood trees alongside.  Cottonwood trees are analogous to canaries in coalmines.  If the canary dies, the air in the mine is unfit for humans.  If a stand of cottonwoods dies, it is an indication that the water table in the area has sunk below the level of a cottonwood taproot.

 

After assessing the health and beauty of your immediate environment, keep walking, but now look for side-canyons, rocky overhangs and dry watercourses.  Pick any one and follow it to its source.  Often the source of a canyon watercourse is the remains of a waterfall pool.  Since many side streams run only after heavy rains, you will probably discover a dry story about a formerly wet existence.  It is in such relatively well-watered spots that the Ancients camped.  To such places, they brought their Stone Age incising tools.  In the spirit of their pictographs, they practiced the art of storytelling. 

 

Because of their relative remoteness from paved roads, few seek out or visit these sacred sites.  Although easily overlooked, Indian rock art sites are rich in their abundance.  Whether it is near a watercourse as large as the Colorado River or as small as Mill Creek, you will find undocumented and undamaged Indian rock art, some of it created at least 4000 years ago.

 

The Clovis Culture, (named for distinctive stone spear points first found near Clovis, New Mexico) may have visited the Canyonlands around 11,000 BCE.  Since they were hunter-gatherers, without permanent homes the evidence is spotty.  Over the past century, systematic looting of almost all Ancient artifacts leaves an empty legacy for the area's earliest visitors.  If they did visit here, the only remaining evidence would likely be some form of rock carving.  After all, they were the undisputed kings of stone spear-point manufacturing and usage.  Did they use their hard points to carve the relatively soft sandstone walls of Mill Creek Canyon?  If we look, is the evidence still there? 

 

If one looks at any well-watered desert canyon with an eye for evidence of Ancient activity, tracings and gouging in the rocks may hint at prior human visitation.  Even Tiger tended to discount human activity as the origins of the two panels depicted immediately above.  During brief warm-ups during the Pleistocene, did humans carve these images?  The presence of desert varnish across the top layer of some “carvings” might indicate that it was so.  On the other hand, did the erosive powers of wind and water create these fantastical images?

 

Some examples look like crosshatch patterns on the rocks.  Others look like galleries of figures that we might see in a museum of contemporary art.  As we looked above the Ancient fresco, we spied a lone cedar, standing atop a rocky monolith.  Later, when we inspected the image, we noticed figures carved on the upper flanks of the monolith, several hundred feet above the canyon floor.  Were the carvings of human origin, or did nature create them on the eroding fin of that escarpment?

 

At our farthest point downstream, we turned to hear the sound of running water.  On the sunny side of the canyon, we saw a waterfall, pouring from one sandstone ledge to another.  As we stepped back to take a picture of the happy little waterfall, we noticed that the shadow of the Other had acquired a new friend.  Both spirits stood and watched the waterfall together.

 

Our return trip was along the same path that we had so recently descended.  From the canyon bottom, we had a view up the creek towards its source, high in the La Sal Range.  As the first European visitors, the Dominguez-Escalante Expedition passed by here in the summer of 1776.  On their way from Santa Fe, New Mexico towards their unachievable destination of Monterrey, California, they forded the Colorado River near here.  Although they did not reach their California dream, they did pioneer a trail that later became known as the Old Spanish Trail.

 

Overwhelmed by the September heat in the Spanish Valley below, Fathers Dominguez and Escalante gazed up in wonder at snow capped mountains.  Unable to reconcile the snowy mountains and desert heat, they assumed that these were mountains capped with salt.  In honor of the “Mountain of the Salt”, they gave the range the Spanish name, Sierra La Sal.

 

A range of mountains isolated from its brethren tends to collect any weather that streams by.  Some say that updrafts along their western slopes create the frequent storms that shroud these peaks.  Between the 1776 European discovery of the La Sal Mountains and the 1848 European dischttp://www.planetware.com/picture/mount-kilimanjaro-national-park-tza-tza426.htm">Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, Africa, seventy-two years would pass.  With no industrial pollution or dust from broken soil to mar the whiteness of the snow, we can imagine that Escalante and Dominguez saw on the Manti la Sals an American equivalent to the fabled snows of Kilimanjaro.

 

As we looked at the La Sal Mountains that day, a shiver went up our spine.  Escalante’s “Mountains of Salt” lay under a wrapping of reddish dirt, laid down by a recent dust storm of unprecedented size and power.  Was it the Spirit of Father Escalante or was it the wisdom and experience of our friend Leo telling us that something was wrong here? Where was the purity of white snowfields that we had witnessed only one year before?  Was this heavy coating of pink dust an anomaly, or were even larger dust storms coming?  Were the snows of the La Sal Mountains soon to disappear, as have the snows of Kilimanjaro?

 

Our final effort that day entailed scaling a low point along the wall of Mill Creek Canyon, then over the ridge to our truck, where our keys lay locked inside the cab.  Upon returning to our parking spot, friends Tiger and Terry gently conspired to get a locksmith to our location, half a mile off the nearest paved road.  Since we had no way of controlling the situation, we let the wizards of Moab work their ways.  In less than thirty minutes, our truck was unlocked and we were safely on our way back to town for dinner.

 

Read Part 1 of my Mill Creek hike.

 

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Mill Creek, Moab, Utah How Old is Ancient? - 2009

 

Mill Creek, Moab, Utah

 How Old is Ancient?

While in Moab, Utah during April 2009, I had the pleasure of hiking with my friends, Tiger, Terry and Leo.  After taking an unmarked turnoff from the paved road, we proceeded uphill for another half mile.  Later, when AAA came to retrieve our keys, which we had locked in our truck, Tiger described the turnoff to our locksmith as follows:  “You know, up on the north side, where the Hanson boys used to live.  Look for six poplar trees and then turn between the two houses.  You will see us at the top”.

 

Tiger Keogh is a native of Moab.  In her youth, she and her friends ran free in this area.  Each summer, she and her friends scaled the same ridge on which we stood, then camped out for a week along Mill Creek, in the canyon below.  It was camping at its finest.  If they wanted something, like blueberries for their pancakes, Tiger could run the two miles home, get what was needed and be back at camp before her girlfriends began cooking without her.  Only locals and a few Moab aficionados know the area where we planned to hike.  Until this late-afternoon hike, we knew Mill Creek only by the Mill Creek Parkway, which passes under Main Street within a concrete culvert. 

 

After consulting our topographical maps, we discovered that Mill Creek has its origins deep in the La Sal Range, to the east of Moab.  The stream originates high on the western col of Manns Peak, near Mt. Mellenthin and Mt. Tukuhnikivatz.  Chilled by snow-melt at that time of year, the creek water ran cold through our canyon, half way to its confluence with the Colorado River.

 

At our location, behind the slickrock ridges, we found a peaceful canyon containing the best of what Moab has to offer in hiking trails.  After a short, steep climb down to Mill Creek, we set off downstream to locate some of Tiger’s favorite Indian rock art sites, waterfalls and swimming holes.

 

Late afternoon is always a good time for a hike in Canyonlands.  With its unique energy and light, the afternoon sun enhances any Moab hiking experience.  As the Sun’s rays glance in from a lower angle, spirits unseen at noon, show themselves as light and shadow. 

 

In quick succession, Tiger located several previously undocumented rock art panels.  Our first stop featured several individual images of what we might call “little people”.  Were these images of children, with cute, pudgy bodies or did they represent how the Ancients viewed themselves in the reflected light of Mill Creek?

 

Next, Tiger pointed out a lone character that we call “Starman”, for each of his appendages ends in a star burst shape.  Did his maker etch a man in stone or did the artist wish to document the image of a constellation, visible in the night sky?  We assume that star-hands and star-feet do not indicate that the Ancients had webbed feet.  But then again, one man's lizard is another man's extraterrestrial.

 

Next, we came to a prominent image, set close to the trail.  It was of a man and two dogs, out for a hike in Mill Creek Canyon.  A lone Ancient relieves himself from the canyon rim.  His depicted stream of urine arcs gracefully toward the bottom of the canyon.  The dogs appear to frolic nearby.  Apparently, the Ancients had a whimsical side, presaging comic book art and humor by thousands of years.

 

Next, we encountered images so ancient and unusual that we could not determine if they were human made or of natural origin.  Petroglyphs or not, desert varnish had re-glazed them since the time of their inception.  As with so many images that we come across in the area, it is often difficult to determine the age or origin of what we see incised in stone.  As with beauty, this art was is in the eye of the beholder.

 

Our next rock art visitor was a snake, showing himself on a sunny wall.  He appeared to be watching over his own little Garden of Eden.  His maker designed his ziggurat shape to stand out along the trail.  Was this an early signpost that warned of rattlesnakes, or was it a celebration of nature, right down to the serpent’s tongue, still wagging after all these years?

 

Our final rock art visitors on our downstream leg were striking and unique.  Like a child’s daisy chain of cutout paper dolls, this group of Ancient friends posed, hand in hand.  As striking as their ageless gesture of friendship was to us, their setting was even more awe-inspiring.  Above their heads was a perfect image of the La Sal Mountains, from which this stream arises.  With its sun rays showering down above our rock art friends, we asked ourselves again, did humans create this part of the tableau, or did Mother Nature add the mountains and sun rays in the intervening years?  Either way, it is a shrine to both nature and friendship.

 

After only a decade or two of cattle grazing, many stream beds in the West have gone from pastoral to arroyo, meaning "dry canyon".  Kanab Arroyo, near Kanab, Utah is a perfect example.  After only a few years grazing and wood gathering along Kanab Creek, an 1885 flash-flood created stream terraces along the formerly flat canyon bottom.  Once a stream becomes a gully, it cannot repair itself.

 

Along our hiking path, Mill Creek has a slickrock underpinning of hard Kayenta Sandstone.  That solid foundation makes it less likely that the inevitable flash-floods will dig any deeper into the canyon floor.  Thus, Mill Creek retains a timeless and idyllic look, despite many years of cattle grazing in the area.   

 

In terms of geologic time, the overlaying Navajo Sandstone that forms the canyon walls in this area may erode quickly, but during the lifetime of the average human, little changes along the middle stretch of Mill Creek.  Unlike Kanab Creek, which once had rich deposits of alluvial soil, the stone floor of Mill Creek Canyon is too tough to rip up and wash away.

 

Especially during each year's monsoon, flash-floods do visit Mill Creek.  The larger floods can wash away soil and plants, but in this a desert watershed, mature plant communities coexist in deep pockets of soil that often overhang the stream-bed, itself.  In March or April, snow-melt in the upper reaches of Mill Creek adds to the lighter winter flow, yet our group easily forded the stream at several points along the trail.

 

For us, this visit included views of cottonwood trees leafing-out and wildflowers growing in sunny spots along the trail.  In the summer, Tiger told us, the snow melt increases and creates natural water-slides, some of which become many yards long.  One natural water-slide ends near a swimming hole that would soon be five feet deep.  The warmer temperature of both the air and the water during the summer, made this the natural place for Moab kids to play and swim.

 

The energy exuding from Mill Creek Canyon is of tranquility and peace.  It is a place to nurture the spirit and the soul.  If one stops there for a moment in the afternoon sun, new energy coalesces.  Sunlight refracts in the lens of our camera and through the lenses of our eyes.  Perhaps because of the glare, these energies are difficult to see in nature, but easy to see in a photographic image. 

 

Having previously experienced such anomalies near Moab, we were not surprised to see Tiger, Terry and Leo each bathed in new energy at Mill Creek Canyon.  Intuition tells us that running water facilitates the rejuvenation of many life forms, including humans.  Whether it is the crashing of the surf in Kaua’i, Hawaii or the burbling stream that we call Mill Creek, the sound of running water is primal to us all.  If we allow the sun, wind, water and spirit to travel with us, they will guide us on our path, as they did on that late spring day.

 

After scaling a talus slope within the canyon, we stood at least fifty feetabove the stream-bed.  Looking down, we saw only Leo.  Tiger and Terry had disappeared.  Smiling,  Leo looked back up at us.  With his vast experience in life, Leo’s look combined curiosity, concern and awareness of his environment.  Without words, he seemed to say, “How are you doing up there?  Could you take a picture so that we can remember our presence here?”  Since Leo asked so much with just a look, here in words and pictures, I gladly document our visit to Mill Creek Canyon.

 

Read Part 2 of my Mill Creek hike.

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Dedication of Larry L. Maxam Memorial Park - 2009

 

Memorial Day 2009 - Burbank, California

Dedication of Larry L. Maxam Memorial Park

 

On Monday May 25, 2009, we attended a Memorial Day Ceremony at McCambridge Park, in Burbank, California.  The City of Burbank and its Veterans Commemorative Committee jointly sponsored the event, which attracted over five hundred people.  This year, the theme of the event was, “A time of song, word, remembrance and celebration”.

 

After a stirring prelude by the Burbank Community Band, the Condor Squadron, based in Van Nuys, California, conducted a flyover, with a squadron of their fully restored North American AT-6/SNJ World War II vintage aircraft.  A frequent sight over such events in Southern California, the Condor Squadron’s flyover saluted the men and women of our armed forces, and honored the sacrifices they have made.  With their powerful radial engines thrumming a heartfelt beat, the flyover added excitement and drama to the day’s events.

 

Ms. Pat Walmisley then led the crowd in a rendition of “God Bless America” that would have made Kate Smith proud.  Next was the Presentation of Colors, by the Second Battalion 23^rd Marines, a reserve infantry battalion under the command of the 23rd Marine Regiment and the 4th Marine Division.  After the National Anthem, Flag Salute and Invocation, the ceremony paid tribute to every Burbank-related service person that lost their life during World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Iraq War and the War in Afghanistan.  While the crowd listened to the reading of names of those lost in war, we watched the Ceremony of the Rose. 

During the ceremony, a group of Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts placed a single rose for each of the deceased on a monument in that special corner of the park.

 

Following the remarks of the city’s mayor, state and congressional legislators, Mr. Mickey DePalo, the head of the Burbank Veterans Commemorative Committee stepped forward to re-name Pacific Park in honor and memory of United States Marine Corporal Larry L. Maxam, a posthumous recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor.  Corporal Maxam died February 2, 1968, at Cam Lo District, Quang Tri Province, Vietnam. 

 

It pleased us when Mr. DePalo read some of the words that we and other classmates had composed in memory of our classmate and friend, Larry Maxam.  However, the moment of greatest drama came when Staff Sergeant Rosal, of the Second Battalion 23^rd Marines stepped forward to read Corporal Maxam’s Medal of Honor citation, attributed to then President Richard M. Nixon. 

 

As we listened in rapt attention, Larry Maxam’s spiritual brother-in-arms read the full text of the citation.  Sergeant Rosal’s voice did not falter as he described how Corporal Maxam singlehandedly protected his unit from enemy fire.  Attendees who did not already know the full story, learned that Corporal Maxam succumbed to his wounds on the battlefield.  As he departed the podium, Sergeant Rosal’s military bearing was in keeping with the respect and honor he bestowed upon his fellow Marine.  Only his eyes betrayed his emotions.

 

In fitting honor of his service to the United States of America, the City of Burbank then rededicated old Pacific Park as the new Larry L. Maxam Memorial Park.  In Larry's honor, the City of Burbank included $25,000 in its 2009-2010 capital budget for installation of appropriate memorial signage and landscaping. 

 

We hope that Larry Maxam, the man and the soldier will live on in the memories of all who cherish freedom and love these United States.  If good planning and good fortune prevail, we hope to attend festivities associated with the park’s official opening on Veteran’s Day, 2009.

 

After recent publicity about the Larry Maxam story, two more of Larry's classmates at Burbank High School have stepped forward.  Here are their thoughts about Larry Maxam.

 

Classmate Deanne Adams said, "I knew Larry Maxam very well.  In fact, he took it upon himself to be sure I was safe.  He went to the same church as I did and whenever we had a dance, he was close by to be sure the young men treated me kindly.  He was always kind to me and made me feel very special.  I felt badly that I was not more attentive to him, as a friend.  He was just a good person.  When I read about his heroic deeds during the Vietnam War, I was so proud of him.  He had a big heart and cared deeply about other people."

 

Classmate Eddie Morton added an air of mystery to the events surrounding Larry’s death, when he said, "I knew Larry had been killed in action because I had read about it in the Burbank Review back in '68.  It happened around Tet of '68.  About ten years ago, I was in Washington, D.C. and read in something at the Library of Congress that he (Larry Maxam) died at "Monkey Mountain", a little west of Da Nang.  I spent time in both places.  I'm glad he's getting the recognition he deserves."

 

Recently, we asked a former classmate, “Is it a cliché to say that they just don't make heroes like Larry Maxam anymore?  Rather than encouraging our children to adulate the next comic book sensation, would we not be better served by honoring real people, both living and dead, who served our country and sacrificed on our behalf?”

• Updated Comment - July 1, 2009 - By Eddie Morton, BHS Class of '66
  
  
  • I recently returned to the Viet Nam Memorial and rechecked the info on Larry Maxam. It said that he died at Cam Lo, which is west of Dong Ha and near the DMZ. I went back to the Library of Congress to try and locate whatever it was I read back in ’99, but could not find it. Whatever it was I read back then, it was wrong or I am remembering it wrong.
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By James McGillis at 01:35 PM | Personal Articles | 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.

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