A 1965 Visit to Edward Abbey's old Glen Canyon and Rainbow Bridge National Monument
In 1965, when I was seventeen years old, my father and I embarked on a Four Corners States Grand Circle Tour. After our visit to Moab, Utah, including old Arches National Monument, the Book Cliffs and Dead Horse Point, we traveled south. I shall save our stops at the Goosenecks of the San Juan River and Monument Valley for later. First, I shall discuss our visit to Lake Powell and Rainbow Bridge National Monument.
Although Edward Abbey’s seminal book, Desert Solitaire did not appear in print until 1968, I shall quote from that book regarding Glen Canyon and Rainbow Bridge. Construction of the Glen Canyon Dam topped out in late 1963. When
we visited in 1965, the lake appeared to be about half full. Years earlier, Edward Abbey and his friend, Ralph Newcomb, had rafted down the yet untamed Colorado River through Glen Canyon. Leaving Newcomb at the river, Abbey had hiked to Rainbow Bridge. Abbey’s visit there was an early 1960’s whitewater, wilderness experience. Ours visit was a mid-1960’s powerboat cruise on a placid lake.
Glen Canyon – Like no other occurrence in Edward Abbey’s life, the inundation of Glen Canyon created a psychic scar in the man. He knew that Glen Canyon Dam was the first of three new dams then planned for the Lower Colorado Basin. His determination not to let another Colorado River dam arise became
the meta-theme of his book, The Monkey Wrench Gang. Using various characters in that book as a thinly veiled foil, Abbey expressed his own latent desire to eradicate Glen Canyon Dam.
Years before, in Desert Solitaire, Abbey wrote eloquently about a wilderness now submerged, hundreds of feet below the Lake Powell we know today. Following are his words.
Page 122, “We were exploring a deep dungeonlike defile off Glen Canyon one time (before the dam). The defile turned and twisted like a snake under overhangs and interlocking walls so high, so close, that for most of the way I could not see the sky.”
Page 152, “I know, because I was one of the lucky few (there could have been thousands more) who saw Glen Canyon before it was drowned, In fact I saw only a part of it but enough to realize that here was an Eden, a portion of the earth’s original paradise.”

Page 156, “That must be where Trachyte Creek comes in,” I explain; “if we had life jackets with us it might be a good idea to put them on now.” Actually our ignorance and carelessness are more deliberate than accidental; we are entering Glen Canyon…”
Page 157, “If this is the worst Glen Canyon has to offer, we agree, give us more of the same. In a few minutes the river obliges; a second group of rapids appears, wild as the first. Forewarned and overcautious this time, despite ourselves, we paddle too far…”
Page 185, “Farther still into the visionary world of Glen Canyon, talking somewhat less than before - for what is there to say? I think we have said it all – we communicate less in words and more in direct denotations, the glance, the pointing hand, the subtle nuances of pipe smoke, the tilt of a wilted hat brim.”
Page 188, “The sun, close to the horizon, shines through the clear air beneath the cloud layers, illuminating the soft variations of rose, vermilion, umber, slate blue, the complex features and details, defined sharply by shadow, of the Glen Canyon Landscape.”
Rainbow Bridge – By definition, a “natural arch” spans an area of dry land. In contrast, a “natural bridge” spans a watercourse. At remote Rainbow Bridge National Monument, a stone torus known as Rainbow Bridge is the most celebrated landform. Before Glen Canyon Dam and Lake Powell, the only way to see Rainbow Bridge was on a river raft expedition. A visit there involved a long wet trip up or down the Colorado River, followed by a tedious, uphill hike at the end. Located almost fifty water-miles upstream from Glen Canyon Dam, Rainbow Bridge now resides in a short side canyon, off Lake Powell.
After our long boat ride from Wahweap Marina, near Page, Arizona, our skipper tied up at a floating dock. When the lake was full, the story went;
lake water would rise almost to the base of Rainbow Bridge. In 1965, however, we had over two miles of hiking before cresting a ridge and seeing the immutable stone arch called Rainbow Bridge.
Other than a flood in the summer of 1983, Lake Powell has never been full. There are few 1983 photos showing lake water lapping near the base of Rainbow Bridge. Today, perennially lower lake levels call into question the dam’s main reason for being, which is to generate electricity. In late 2012, the U.S. Department of the Interior admitted what longtime observers of the Glen Canyon Dam have known for decades – that drought, climate change
and over-subscription of available water will result in permanently lower water levels in Lake Powell and throughout the Colorado River Basin.
In 1965, when I asked our skipper if he preferred the ease of lake travel to a rafting trip, he tactfully said that each method of conveyance had its advantages. He went on to say, he would have preferred that Glen Canyon stay as it had been before the dam. As it was, on our visit, we hiked to Rainbow Bridge over hot, dry land, just as Edward Abbey had done years before. Following are passages from Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire, describing his raft trip down the Colorado River to Rainbow Bridge.

Page 186, “We pass the mouth of a large river entering the Colorado River from the east – the San Juan River. Somewhere not far beyond this confluence, if I recall my Powell rightly, is the opening to what he named Music Temple. “When ‘Old Shady’ sings us a song at night,” wrote Powell in 1869, “we are pleased to find that this hollow in the rock is filled with sweet sounds”.”
Page 188, “The river carries us past more side canyons, each of which I inspect for signs of a trail, a clue to Rainbow Bridge. But I find nothing, so far, though we know we are getting close.

Page 192, “Rainbow Bridge seems neither less nor greater than what I had foreseen. My second sensation is the feeling of guilt. Newcomb. Why had I not insisted on his coming? Why did I not grab him by the long strands of his savage beard and haul him up the trail, bearing him when necessary like Christopher would across the stream, stumbling from stone to stone, and dump him finally under the bridge, leaving him…
Page 193, “But I am diverted by a faint pathway which looks as if it might lead up out of the canyon, above Rainbow Bridge. Late afternoon, the canyon filling with shadows – I should not try it. I take it anyway, climbing a
talus slope.
Page 193, “From up here Rainbow Bridge, a thousand feet below, is only a curving ridge of sandstone of no undue importance, a tiny object lost in the vastness and intricacy of the canyon systems which radiate from the base of Navajo Mountain.
Page 239, “Through twilight and moonlight I climb down to the rope, down to the ledge, down to the canyon floor below Rainbow Bridge. Bats flicker through the air. Fireflies sparkle by the water-seeps and miniature toads with enormous voices clank and grunt and chant at me as I tramp past their ponds down the long trail back to the
river, back to the campfire and companionship and a midnight supper.
From Wahweap Marina, near Glen Canyon Dam, to Rainbow Bridge is about sixteen miles, as the crow flies. On the lake, our circuitous canyon route was nearly three times as long. As we drank Cokes from steel cans along the way, the cognoscenti told us that we should punch a hole in the bottom of each can before throwing it in the lake. That way, the cans could sink, rather than bobbing half-full on the surface for years to come. Although a nationwide ethic of recycling was still decades away, I pictured snags of drowned trees far below, each festooned with Coke and beer can ornaments.
From 1965, it would be over a decade before Abbey’s motley cast of fictional characters wreaked havoc with infrastructure and land development throughout San Juan County, Utah. To read about those queasily exciting adventures in incipient eco-activism (some say eco-terrorism), please watch
for my upcoming treatise on Edward Abbey's book, The Monkey Wrench Gang. When posted, you will find it HERE.
By
James McGillis
at 05:27 PM |
Colorado River | Link
Wet Potash Salt Tailings Threaten Colorado River Water Resources
In October 2010, I had an opportunity to view the Intrepid Potash Cane Creek Facility from the air. After a Redtail Aviation scenic flight over Canyonlands National Park, we turned back towards the Moab airport at Canyonlands Field. As we flew north along the Colorado River, our pilot banked the airplane around the place called Potash. Since the sky was hazy, my near-vertical shots turned out the best. If my earlier ground-level views had been disturbing, they did not prepare me for what I saw from the air.
Disclaimer - Aerial photos are often difficult to interpret. From the distortion of the window glass, to the interplay of light and shadow, the viewer might mistake one thing for another. The following conclusions are mine alone, and are based on the various visits and perspective views that I have experienced at Potash. If Intrepid Potash, Inc., the State of Utah Division of Oil, Gas and Mining or the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (Moab Field Office) disagrees with my conclusions, they might still want to verify the facts for themselves.
When viewed as a unit, an in-situ recovery (ISR) potash mine, the evaporation ponds and the processing and storage structures comprise the Cane Creek Facility. Sitting on what looks like the central bulge of the ancient Cane Creek Anticline, the facility encompasses hundreds of acres. At its highest elevation are the injection sites. While many in-situ mines require both injection and pumping, the salt structures beneath Potash appear to spontaneously eject brine at the surface. From there, wet potash salt tailings run freely to the evaporation ponds. Terraced across the bench land is a set of eighteen large ponds. A smaller set of six ponds extends almost to the edge of a precipice. Surrounding those ponds on both sides are side canyons that empty into the Colorado River.
If all goes well, the produced water and fine tailings are retained by the evaporation ponds. A plastic lining on the bottom of each pond is designed to prevent groundwater seepage. However, several of my photos showed what appeared to be brine running down from the evaporation ponds. It was most clearly visible in the stream beds leading to the Colorado River. My first thought was that concentrated brine was somehow leaking from the evaporation ponds. As likely as that scenario might be, I quickly thought of an alternative. Perhaps forty years of hydraulic injection mining in this complex of fractured rock had created springs that flow with brine-laden water. If water has interpenetrated subsurface rock formations, it could undermine the ponds or cause a sinkhole. If the underlying structure of the rock is compromised, a large seismic or weather event could destroy the integrity of the earthen dikes that retain the concentrated brine within the ponds. Could the current seepage of brine re-manifest as a salt and fertilizer flood? Directly below that mesa, unprotected by any catch basin lies the Colorado River.
Looking down at the processing and storage structures from the airplane, I saw potash spilled around it like recent snowfall. Along the roadways surrounding the structures and at the loading area, finished potash and salt spill freely. From there, wind, water and gravity move it down toward the river. When properly applied, potash is an excellent fertilizer. If millions of gallons of concentrated salt and potash were to enter the Colorado river, it could threaten the agricultural and drinking water supply for over fourteen million people.
If the Intrepid Potash Cane Creek Facility represents the current state of the art in potash mining, what can we expect from the upcoming Passport Potash, Inc. mine in Arizona's Holbrook Basin? If the proposed Holbrook Basin ISR potash mine goes into operation, it would immediately become one of the top ten water users within the Little Colorado River Basin. Today, it is rare to
find wind-powered water wells anywhere in the Four Corners. Historical use of wind-driven pumps for cattle watering and cattle fodder was pumping enough to dry out most Four Corners aquifers. With regional water tables at historical lows, most water sources are now too deep to tap with wind power. No one knows exactly how much the Holbrook Basin aquifer may hold. One can only hope that it is enough.
Most of the water used at the Cane Creek Facility soaks into the ground as brine-laden slurry or evaporates from the settling ponds. In this desert-style solution mining, there appears to be little recycling or reuse of produced water. If not for a steady supply of Colorado River water, the Cane Creek
Facility would not be sustainable. If the proposed Passport Potash Holbrook, Arizona Project utilizes solar energy to dry fine tailings, there will be little remaining surface water there to recycle. A gallon pumped from the Holbrook Basin aquifers could be a gallon gone forever.
Before potash mining is approved at the Holbrook Basin play, the public deserves straightforward, honest and complete answers regarding the intentions of Passport Potash and its partners. Here are my questions:
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Is Passport Potash proposing a conventional mine or an in-situ recovery (ISR) mine in the Holbrook Basin?
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If it is to be a solution mine, what water sources do they plan to tap?
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How much water will their one-to-two million tons per year (1-2 mtpy) mine require?
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If produced brine is injected back into rock strata below, could it raise the salinity of the aquifer?
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Is there sufficient seasonal inflow to the aquifer, or will the mine require a net annual withdrawal from the aquifer?
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If there will be a water deficit, what environmental impact will there be on the Holbrook Basin and the Little Colorado River Basin at large?
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Is the economic development created by ISR potash mines in the Holbrook Basin worth the risk of environmental degradation?
Before full-scale ISR mining accelerates all over the Four Corners, we need an honest and independent appraisal of its environmental impact. Not bothering to conduct an environmental impact study, the Utah BLM Office recently downplayed the impact of potash mining in the Sevier Valley, Utah. In fact, they published a statement that mining there would have "no impact". With solution mining in the Four Corners, there is always an impact, not the least of which is a trade-off between mineral yield and water usage. Plans are currently underway by both Ringbolt Ventures and Mesa Exploration for ISR potash mines in the Lisbon Valley, Utah. Uranium Resources, Inc. has approval for an ISR uranium mine on the Navajo Reservation in Arizona. Although still contested in court, plans go forward for extraction of oil sands from the Uintah Basin, Utah. With so many plans underway to divert or pump water into mineral processing, we can no longer ignore the issue of regional water usage. There is not, after all, an unlimited supply.
As a child, I would often share a milkshake with a friend. From the word, “Go”, we would each suck on our straw as fast as we could until the glass was empty. Shall we now stand by and watch as the quest for oil sands, uranium and potash production dries every aquifer in the Colorado River Basin? Continuing on our current heedless path guarantees a future with water shortages for all.
Author's Note: Article updated 9/2/2017.
Read a conversation with a Potash Investor
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By
James McGillis
at 01:16 PM |
Colorado River | Link
Potash, Utah - That Sinkhole Feeling, Again
During a visit to the Intrepid Potash - Moab, Utah website we were pleased to see new safety related information regarding the mining and processing of potash (potassium chloride) and salt (sodium chloride) crystals at their Cane Creek potash plant. In an earlier article, we had criticized the company for not providing holding ponds designed to catch leaks or overflow from settling ponds at a higher elevation.
Their website now states that, “the solar ponds are lined with heavy vinyl to
prevent valuable brine from leaking into the ground and the Colorado River. A series of holding ponds have been constructed to catch any spills and return potassium-rich brine to the ponds.” Whether these safety features existed all along, or are recent additions, we do not know. Either way, Intrepid's release of more information about their operation, rather than less is laudable.
In the event of a catastrophic failure at the upper ponds, what percentage of the brine might the holding ponds catch and retain? With the continued absence of information regarding holding pond capacity, we can only guess and hope that it is adequate. “Adequate for what?” you might ask. We can think of at least two scenarios in which a catastrophic failure might test Intrepid's holding pond design and capacity.
First is weather. What is the expected level of water flow into the settling ponds during a “one hundred year flood”? What about the "one thousand year flood"? In order to determine the size of a one hundred or one thousand year flood within the Shafer Basin and Potash, researchers must consider both historical data and paleoflood records.
Now that a drier climate in the Four Corners region is an established fact, we can expect storm and flood activities to increase in intensity, if not in number. Lack of an historical record does not preclude the formation of larger storms there in the future. In that regard, we would not be happy with a holding pond system that provides less than full containment of all settling pond brine.
A second threat at the Cane Creek Plant and its ponds results from the solution mining of potash itself. The Intrepid Potash - Moab Utah website indicates that, “water from the nearby Colorado River is pumped through injection wells into the underground mine. The water dissolves the potash from layers buried approximately 3,000 feet below the surface.” Missing from the company’s website is information on injection well locations, and their proximity to the fragile holding ponds.
In order to understand the importance of proximity, we need look no further than the City of Carlsbad, New Mexico. According to a recent Los Angeles
Times article, New Mexico mines used a solution-mining technique similar to that of Intrepid, at Moab. Over the years, six million cubic feet of brine solution mining has been extracted from a salt deposit located directly beneath Carlsbad.
Although there has not yet been a collapse at the Carlsbad mine, in 2008 two similar mines north of the city experienced catastrophic failures. With the collapse of the overlying rock, each of those mines became a sinkhole four hundred feet across and one hundred feet deep. Since the mines operated within state and federal guidelines, there does not appear to be easy recourse against them. The state and the mine operators can simply call these unexpected events “Acts of God” and then proceed to disown any further liability.
In the case of Carlsbad, New Mexico, a collapse under the busiest intersection in town is a real possibility. Rail lines, an irrigation ditch and a mobile home park are now under threat of collapse. In the case of Intrepid Potash – Moab, Utah, no one knows how likely a catastrophic mine collapse might be. In an event similar to the Carlsbad scenario, might the solar ponds disappear into a sinkhole? Worse yet, could gravity cause the brine to cascade downhill towards the holding ponds and the Colorado River below?
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By
James McGillis
at 06:36 PM |
Colorado River | Link
When It's Dry, You Can't Swim The River
At Midnight MDT on September 17 - 18, 2009, we honored the second anniversary of the Quantum Leap. With that and the equinox of September 22, 2009 now past, it is a good time to take stock, and write about our feelings.
Today, we wandered around our backyard, using a garden hose and nozzle to water the dry spots. If not everyone yet knows, the Western U.S. is experiencing a long-term drought, with no end in sight. How little water can one household use and still have green lawns? With a twenty-five percent price hike in local water prices here in 2010, we shall find out. Moreover, the drying of the Earth continues apace.
Do two giant dust storms hitting Sydney, Australia this week foretell of Mars-like, planet-wide dust storms here? Yes, but do not let that bother you. As you travel on your local freeway, go ahead and “floor” the gas pedal of your hybrid automobile. If you think you are getting a real bang for your hydrocarbon buck, remember that in the end, we can fool ourselves, but we cannot fool Mother Nature.
Just this week, scientists discovered that Mars has a large subterranean ice sheet, holding as much pure, crystallized water as our Greenland Ice Sheet. Whether ice or water is basking in the sun, as it does here on Earth or it is hiding cartoon-like, beneath the surface of Mars, by human standards that is a large amount of water.
Last night, as we drove our 400+ horsepower Nissan Titan truck several miles to pick up a pizza, we rolled down the windows and listened to the evening wind whip around the inside of the cab. Since squirrels and children often appear in our headlights at dusk, we allowed the heavy truck to roll slowly down the hill. There, on our left, was a man with his garden hose gushing water into the street. After hand watering our yard for several weeks, his artificial deluge seemed out of place.
“You can’t do that anymore”, we called as we rolled past his position. In our town, you can drive a gasoline-powered truck several miles to pick up pizza, but you cannot open a spigot and let water gush out the end of your garden hose.
Effects on the environment are cumulative, but not always obvious. The marshes in Iraq’s once Fertile Crescent region are dry now, blowing away as dust. As far from our home as that may be, is there cause for alarm? Historians and scientists believe that the Fertile Crescent was the original model for the biblical Garden of Eden. Some say that the area was the cradle of human civilization.
Our climatic conundrum reminds us of an old cartoon about two natives, shown running away from a ferocious lion. One turns to the other and says, “At least I only have to run faster than you.” Many on this Earth have yet to learn that we share this place with many life forms, including a newly discovered one, which is water, itself.
Once we realize that every fractal drop of water is precious, our attitudes toward it will change. During his October 2003 exhibition, Dr. Masaru Emoto, of Japan, ushered in a new age in water crystal photographic techniques. Recognized as the originator of the international Hado water research program and movement, Dr. Emoto’s water crystals “showed the imprint of energy signatures on water”. To produce his beautiful images, Dr Emoto uses DPE (Direct Photo Etching) technology, introduced to him by Doi Photo (now Doi Technical Photo of Yurakucho, Japan). What we divine from Dr. Emoto’s photographic lens is that water is alive.
If you were to ask the average person which natural resource issue has the greatest potential impact on our economy and society, many would say, “Global Warming", followed closely by "Future shortages and the increasing price of oil”. How many of us would say, “Global drought and the end of surface water on Earth?” As valuable as liquefied fossil fuels have been to our recent economic and cultural past, we cannot drink any combustion fuel.
When Midwestern corn states had an opportunity to insinuate ethanol, distilled corn into our gasoline supply, they leapt at the chance. Few motorists today know how much corn-fuel they are burning in their hybrids. Fewer still have contemplated how much water, diesel fuel, coal and natural gas are used in concocting that fuel. Our political system allows corporate farming interests to sell us a stealth fuel at a subsidized and hidden cost. Ill-conceived plans such as that, which neglect the realities of life on Earth, cannot long stand.
Now, the West faces a fuel vs. water challenge far greater than the corn-to-fuel decisions made in the past thirty years. The economies of shale mining and fuel-conversion processing require both water and fuel on an unprecedentedly large scale. Individuals and corporations who promote such plans continue to avoid the issue of water usage. If the American public is not made aware of the oil-shale water use issue, we may all be in peril.
After blasting and crushing the oil-laden rock at their 15,000 acres of approved mining sites, old-energy giants such as Royal Dutch Shell plan to mix the crushed rock with water, and then transport the resulting toxic chemical slurry to their processing plants. Those plants will find it too expensive to detoxify the slurry, so the watery residue will meet its demise in vast settling ponds. During processing, more water will vanish from cooling towers, for dust suppression and for other industrial uses.
What water source in the West is large enough to allow such a withdrawal without any commensurate return? Since it will spoil their argument in favor of shale-fuel, “oil-shale conversionists” avoid answering that question. Neither above nor below ground in the Four Corners states does such a volume of water exist, other than in the Colorado River. With continued declining annual flows, both the Upper and the Lower Colorado Basin are already “over subscribed”. Regardless, oil-shale advocates continue to ignore the arguments against using Colorado River water, all the while pretending that there is some other untapped water source available to them. There is not.
Therefore, a great people will soon have a choice to make. The choice is – are we ready to give up the Colorado River and its living water in exchange for obsolete, yet somehow seductive liquid fuels? To do so, would be to accept a rape of the land not seen since strip mines overran and destroyed much of Appalachia.
Crossroads are interesting things. When we reach one, we can continue forward, or we can divert to another course. Often unrecognized, we can also make a conscious choice to turn around and go back the way we came. In our current case, "going back” implies that we might see water as a beautiful living thing. If we are able to do so, we might save its life on Earth and our own.
As we conclude this article, the LA Times has several new and interesting facts. Scientists confirm that where ocean water abuts either Greenland ice or Antarctic ice, the glaciers are thinning faster than previously expected. In another story, two large western power providers (Pacific Gas & Electric of California and Public Service Co. of New Mexico) are quitting the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The reason for their withdrawal is the Chamber’s hard line stance against any new climate legislation.
This proves that a change of consciousness can happen in America. As we watch the polar ice caps slip like water through our fingers, decision makers at some greenhouse gas-emitters realize that they and their children must live in the same world that they are helping to create.
Before all liquid water evaporates from the surface of the Earth, we might yet turn around and “go back”. If not, perhaps some future, far-flung culture will use Dr. Emoto’s DPE techniques to detect and document subterranean ice sheets on an otherwise desolate and empty Planet Earth. Will they conclude that Earth once supported life forms more diverse than water itself?
Together or divided, our collective consciousness will determine our future.
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By
James McGillis
at 03:16 PM |
Colorado River | Link
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