About Time

In 2006 my sister and I booked a house boat on Lake Powell for eight days. We did this because at the time the lake created by the much protested Glen Canyon Dam was 130 below optimal level. And it had been that low for long enough that the "bathtub ring" has largely washed off. It was as close to a photographer's dream as it would get since the dam was built. Unless of course the dam was removed.

Water levels had plummeted in 2005 and the Bureau of Reclamation reported the reservoir could not sustain itself if current levels of out pour were continued. The word drought was not even whispered in those days, but a decline in the rainfall from the 1960's when the dam was designed and built had substantially declined. The Glen Canyon Dam was a farce within four decades of its construction.

When the dam was built it was supposedly to supply water and power to California. With somewhat vague promises of ending the spring flooding and providing water and power to the Ute and Navajo reservations. Its construction spawned the Sierra Club and was the inspiration for the book Monkey Wrench Gang by Edward Abbey. I first became aware of the dam and its effect on the west in the 1970's when I rafted the Colorado River for the first time and the guides talked of Sunday water or Monday water as a determinate of the level of water in the river and the difficulty of rapids. Release of water from Lake Powell was determined by the need for electricity in Los Angeles.

The Utes and the Navajos never received the promised benefits of the great white wall of concrete. No water and no electricity. And as almost all the spring flooding are in tributaries below the dam it didn't do a lot for that either. The great gods of government wanted three more dams between Glen Canyon and Hoover. And all for electricity in the growing cities of California. Nor was the low my sister and I took advantage of reversed in the following years. In May 2014 Lake Powell was 42% of capacity and whole side canyons once navigable were cut off and dry. Earth Observatory by NASA has an alarming set of satellite photographs of the ever declining Lake Powell and a great write up.

Dams are not about water. They are about power. They are not about conservation. They are about abuse. Los Angeles has never reduced its need for power generated by Glen Canyon Dam even while the four western states which supply its water have cried about the worsening drought. California keeps on its lights and Phoenix still mists its sidewalks with water coming from the Colorado river after passing through Glen Canyon Dam and Hoover Dam. For decades the water taken out to green the deserts of California and Arizona and keep golf courses green, and light all the night up with lights prevented the Colorado reaching the sea. Canals were built to take its water hundreds of miles from its natural river bed.

Now at last Mexico is enforcing the treaty which says they should get some of this precious water that has been wasted. And California is talking conservation of water. REALLY? Now, when there almost no water left all because you wanted to light up office towers all night long? Only of the wasteful practices of Sodom of the west where fields are turning saline from water pumped from diminishing aquifers once filled by the Colorado River system when it was allowed to run free in its own basin instead of being routed in concrete canals.

 The Monkey Wrench Gang was right. Too bad we could not blow it up before it was finished. But the outcry from the building of the Glen Canyon dam did stop the other three planned dams. Though I hear undercurrents of talk that they are back on the drawing board to end the water crisis.

Note to world: You cannot save in dams what does not fall from the sky. And you cannot release water for your lights if there isn't any there.

A Funny Thing Happened on the way to the Forum

I noticed yesterday that my intense interest in the outcome of the Democratic primary had not merely waned but vanished.

Perhaps due to our total technocratic world we are all suffering from attention deficit disorder. Make it march. If you cannot sum it up in the opening paragraph you have to at least made me want to search for your conclusions by reading the next paragraph or listening to the next pundit or catching the next speech.

Sorry but you lost me. This has taken entirely too long. And I don't like the direction it is taking because it seems to be veering back to the same old dirty politics I have come to hate. I was with a few friends last night who I generally like to discuss politics with. They are libertarians and while I don't always agree with them I like their ability to openly discuss the issues with some intelligence (unlike Republicans with their catch phrases). But last night we all did the token sentence or two and moved on to other subjects.

Mud was big. It is spring here in the high country and that means melting snow and lots of mud. Not the slinging kind which seems to still be going on out there in the political world. Oh, speaking of mud, we did discuss Spitzer but because everyone seems to have missed the point and seems to think it is a sex scandal. Everyone seems to have missed that he was committing fraud by setting up dummy accounts to funnel money into so he could pay for those $4,500 per hour sessions.

And we discussed water. That is a really big issue here out west and not a single political candidate for President has addressed it. Seems St. Georges, Utah wants water out of Lake Powell which is getting even lower than it was before because of the amount of water which has to be released to generate electricity for that energy hog Los Angeles. Seems everyone thinks snow levels this year will suddenly make up for four years of drought which brought the lake level to below 1967 when they were filling it. But snow is not that easy. It depends on which side of the mountain it falls. It didn't fall on that side.

On the good news the levels in the Rio Grande will be much higher but we had that declared a wild river and there are no dams on it for Los Angeles and Las Vegas to use to get electricity. And its water is so legislated with compacts and treaties that even if they want to build the pipeline Las Vegas cannot use its water for their fountains.

In short I think there is such a disconnect between the real world out here and politics as usual as to generate a chasm which I don't know that any party or any candidate is going to be able to bridge. Oh, and by the way, I love this definition of insanity: Continuing to do the same thing and expecting different results. There was a point at which I had hope that it was going to be different this year. Wrong. Sorry folks.

Little State, Big State

I have done Red State/Blue State but now I would like to do Big State/Little State. Hillary is making the case repeatedly that while she has gotten fewer states than Obama she has gotten the big states which makes her more electable in the Presidential race. So what about us little states? What about our issues?

They never seem to be covered by any candidate on a national level because they do not have enough electoral punch. So our issues like flooding and the state of the levees on the Mississippi which runs through a bunch of little states is ignored. Or the drought which has plagued the west where I live and its effect on the level of the lakes like Powell and Mead which is used to generate power for power leeches like Los Angeles and Las Vegas. All the states that contribute to that future hydroelectric source are small states. We want a national referendum on water and power but we get out voted by the big states that waste both.

Everyone is talking about Pennsylvania being the bell-weather state at the moment. I don't live in Pennsylvania. It has its issues and I have mine. I want someone to address a few of my issues for a moment. I want gas prices lower so people will travel this summer. As a beautiful small state we depend a lot on tourism. And how about addressing the state of our infrastructure while at it. The winter has done a number on the aging Interstate system. We have three that transverse our state with trucks going from one big state to another big state and incredible speeds (and no doubt on speed).

I also want to keep our water. And what we just must send to Arizona I don't want to see wasted on another single golf course. They only get 6 inches of rain a year so live with that. (Incidentally since McCain is an Arizona senator and never addressed this issue of Phoenix taking water from the Colorado which is a half state away I doubt he is getting my vote.) And I want all the other states to keep their low-level nuclear waste. Us little states will no longer be a dumping ground. You want nuclear energy so you can keep the power on then you handle your own waste.

Which goes for dams. No more building them on our rivers with promises you are helping save water for our use and generate power for us and then go back on all those promises. Dam your own damn rivers. And I do not care if jet noise is the sound of freedom. If the base for the supersonic bomber is in Texas than you do your low level flybys in Texas. Leave our mountains for us and our wild life. Don't wake us up at 2 a.m. to practice for the mountains of Pakistan.

If you big states don't start playing nice us little states just may ban together and pick up our marbles and start our own game. We may be inconsequential when it comes to counting electoral college votes but I promise you will miss our natural resources and our natural beauty when you have to have a passport to visit.