PRIVATE EYE

In my mind, it only exists in black and white, but I clearly remember watching the first stages of the Glen Canyon Dam being built. It’s in black and white because that’s how my dad preserved the memory with his trusty 8mm camera that recorded so many of our vacations, camping trips and family outings.

I never did figure out how he could even afford it—to be honest—having no other trappings of a middle-class lifestyle in those years from the mid-1950s to mid-1960s. But middle class we were, I suppose. Coulda’ fooled me.

Years prior to our visit to Glen Canyon, back in the 1940s, my dad and other adventurers from Bingham Canyon somehow found their way to the bottom of nearby Marble Canyon, just below Glen Canyon, where they were among the first to explore Marble Cave. According to my dad, the cave held a trove of handwoven figurines that were left behind by the ancestral Puebloan people (sometimes called Anasazi) when that civilization departed the area a thousand years prior— likely thanks to a great drought that begat climate change in the region and which made life unsustainable for them. The figurines, then, were a sort of 8mm reckoning of that era, proof that people once lived there.

The men left Marble Canyon the same way they arrived— via rope. My dad wasn’t a mountain climber, but in his trade at the Kennecott Copper Mine at Bingham Canyon, he worked in the powder department. That job meant that he and other expendable men doing the dangerous work—mostly Greeks and Mexicans—would shimmy down a rope at a mine level, drill or pound a hole into the rock face, fill it with explosive powder and TNT, light the fuse and then climb the rope back up to safety as fast as they could.

It made for some very strong men and, be assured, my dad was one of those. Only fools messed with him. I was a fool now and then, as I painfully discovered.

Dad’s arm muscles came in pretty handy on one trip down to Marble Canyon when one of his crew became terribly blistered and could no longer stand. No problem. My dad just put him on his back and carried him up the rope where he could and hoisted him up where he couldn’t. Also hoisted and pulled along with him were the figurines from Marble Cave. Back then, it was not uncommon for such discoveries to be turned over to credible curators, which they did.

Upon returning to Bingham Canyon, the figurines were delivered to Dr. Russell Frazier, the town physician and the person who directed them to Marble Canyon. Frazier was an explorer himself—including along the Colorado River environs with the Hatch and Swain river runners—and two decades prior had been the attending physician on the Admiral Byrd expedition to Antarctica. Dr. Frazier then transported the figurines to the Natural History Museum at the University of Utah and to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C. An old Smithsonian book in our house thanked the men for their efforts.

Now when we visit those museums, we learn that men and women lived and thrived along the Colorado River and throughout the entire Four Corners region. Around 1,200 AD, the ancestral Puebloans’ civilization simply disappeared. No one really knows for certain where the people went or if they partly remain among certain indigenous cultures today. But the civilization itself—exemplified in impressive structures like those at Mesa Verde, for example—and the many valves of society that kept it alive, from irrigation modes to travel paths, all ceased to function.

Today’s scientists attribute all or part of that anthropological shift to a mega-drought that lasted many years and led to deforestation, erosion and the withering of the very life spring of the ancestral Puebloan existence—the waters that fed them. No water. No crops. No food. Time to flee.

My black-and-white memories of those huge buckets of cement being transported hundreds of feet down to the bottom of Glen Canyon—I remember the mighty Colorado amazingly diverted right there—reflect the endpoint of what is likely to come. Looking south, to the right, was Marble Canyon, where parts of a once strong and stable desert civilization thrived but thusly disappeared. To the north was Glen Canyon, soon to be filled with a reservoir of water that vain men claimed would not only help avert a similar fate as the ancestral Puebloans but would allow for exponential “civilized” growth all over the American Southwest.

By the looks of things, those vain men were wrong. Start with the fact that neither Phoenix nor Las Vegas contribute much of anything worthy to modern society—one area became a haven for conspiratorial numbnuts and the other for conspiratorial gamblers. Yet, we feed those desert towns our precious water resources. Neither give society or the U.S. a reasonable return on that water investment.

Not only are the waters of Glen Canyon down to historic lows, the same is also true of Lake Mead downstream along the Arizona and Nevada border. People bemoan the fact that when the water runs dry, rationing may ensue. They don’t often talk about what will happen when the water levels drop so much that the dam’s power generators cannot produce electricity. It’s one thing to live in Vegas or Phoenix with rationed water. It’s another to live in either city without reliable air conditioning.

But that may be what is coming. If you listen to right-wing media or watch the talking heads on Fox News, you may hear talk of a pending civil war in this culturally divided America. Well, it’s one thing to fight over whether Joe Biden can ride a bike or not, and entirely another to fight over a perishable, limited resource.

When those wells run dry, dust is gonna fly. Whose side will you be on? Team Rocky Mountains or Team Dry Desert? Get your cameras out. CW

Send comments to john@cityweekly.net

What if the Legislature was trying to pull a fast one on you? Like, they already know what they want and what the outcome will be, but they really, really want you to think they’ve thought this through. That’s what’s happening during interim hearings of the Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment Committee. Let’s start with a presentation by Rep. Ken Ivory, R-West Jordan, who has led the state’s fight against public lands. Ivory would have you believe he is very concerned about Utah’s “grid reliability.” The committee heard all the horrors of “decarbonization” from an expert from Texas. Yes, the state whose intentionally isolated power grid failed in 2011 and again, catastrophically, last year. Many experts say it was due to equipment failures and a lack of preparation. But keep watching this committee as they march not only against the federal government’s attempt to save the environment, but also to keep the failing fossil fuel industry on perpetual life support.

It’s good to hear Gov. Spencer Cox is “open” to gun control. But it’s obvious that no one’s thinking this through. Maybe you’re willing to depend on other people to flag a person as a threat, or maybe you’re willing to wait on the mental health community to identify a threat and then treat it over years or a lifetime. The Guns-R-Us advocates would have you believe we should arm teachers who never wanted to be near a gun, barricade schools like they’re prisons, or even teach kids to stop the bleeding of their injured classmates. Rep. Walt Brooks, R-St. George, sponsored Utah’s no-permit-necessary concealed carry law and thinks it’s all too complicated, and that limiting gun access will have no effect on gun violence, according to The Salt Lake Tribune. Social media or bullying, he says, are the real culprits. Utah and the nation need to get over their abusive love affair with assault weapons, which can indeed catch varmints in the wild, but can also clean out a classroom just as easily.

Let’s get everyone to get rid of their grass. Salt Lake County is moving in that direction, according to the Deseret News, which estimates the county saving 11 million gallons of water a year. It’s not the full solution, but it’s a good start. The county is switching its Murray playing fields to artificial turf and it will swap out grass with water wise plantings on 100 parking strips and islands. There are both upsides and downsides to the plan. Golf courses and other water-drains continue, and all we can do is “encourage” homeowners to get rid of their thirsty lawns. And then there’s the less-than-ideal environmental impact of artificial turf, which takes a toll on soil and can contribute to microplastics in waterways. There are lots of sites that talk about alternatives to grass and artificial turf. Now may be a time to check them out.

There’s been plenty of controversy, a lot of noise and many big buildings going up, but what is really happening with the Utah inland port? The Port Authority is less than transparent, but apparently has the ears of the Legislature. “Four years since its founding, over $200 million in taxpayer dollars spent, and no shovel in the ground. Nothing to show for this, “Utah’s largest economic development project” in decades.” Join What’s Going On With The #*@* Inland Port?, a discussion about the port’s promises. Oh, and what about affordable housing? “No studies have been done, no data collected … so the Port Authority has not been held accountable for worsening our air, contaminating the Great Salt Lake, damaging the health of thousands of westside children, decimating the sanctuary for 10 million migratory birds and eroding our precarious water supply.” Panelists include architect David Scheer; Rep. Elizabeth Weight, D-West Valley; and Salt Lake City Councilwoman Victoria Petro-Eschler. First Unitarian Church, 569 S. 1300 East, Sunday, June 26, 10 a.m., free. https://bit.ly/3xuNdeK

Utah renters had some relief from evictions during COVID, but the CDC moratorium ended in August 2021. Now, renters are facing inflation, the lingering threat of pandemic and jobs that don’t pay a living wage. The Eviction Crisis Act (S.2182) is a bipartisan act introduced by Sens. Michael Bennet (D-CO) and Rob Portman (R-OH). Along with New York Rep. Ritchie Torres’ Stable Families Act, the two would create a permanent emergency rental assistance program for low-income households facing an unexpected economic shock. If you’ve ever wanted Congress to act and actually do something positive, now is the time to tell them to Enact the Bipartisan “Eviction Crisis Act.” The Utah Housing Coalition is looking for organizations to join the fight. Online, by Friday, June 24, free.

It’s not enough to spend one day a year to highlight the emancipation of enslaved African Americans. All Americans need to understand their history—good and bad. Brooke Smart’s murals of four Black American women who lived and worked in Salt Lake’s Central City neighborhood stand as daily reminders. The Richmond Park Mural Unveiling is an event that includes food, “storytellers and displays honoring the women who have shaped the place we call home.” This Juneteenth celebration is led by the Project Success Coalition and inspired by the African American Heritage and Culture Foundation. Richmond Park