Follow the Water 1

Picture this; swollen streams cascading out of the east face of a recently glaciated range, rolling down into lush wetlands, verdant grasslands as high as the belly of a Buffalo.  Imagine meadows incised with numerous meandering streams lined with Willows and clustered with Cottonwoods.  Envision floods over-flowing banks and beaver dams, spilling into a wide and undefined floodplain, saturating the natural sponge of wetland organics and alluvial deposits, recharging near surface and deep aquifers that slowly bleed their stored volumes to keep streams flowing all year round.  This was the Wasatch back, Park City, Parley’s Park, the Snyderville Meadow, a mere 10,000 year ago, a hydrologic system in balance.

Then came Parley Pratt with his toll booth, Sam Snyder with his lumber mill, H. C. Kimball with his junction, the US Army, the miners and eventually the farmers.  The trees were cut for mines, homes and heat, the mines drained ground and surface water, and the meadows were grazed and farmed.  The streams were diverted to better irrigate the meadows, Water Rights were claimed and shared, divided and decreed.  From Thayne’s Canyon and McLeod Creek, to White Pine, Willow Creek and Spring Creek, the upper reaches of East Canyon were developed.  Water was distributed according to need, for beneficial use, first come first served.  Disputes about flooding and drought were handled after Church, in the bars or at the ditches and head gates with swinging fists and shovels.  Everyone took their share of the surplus and the scarcity.  The meadow still flooded, the streams still flowed.

 

Flash to the present; the boomers have taken over, Trophy homes cluster the meadows and Mc Mansions dot the hillside.  Shallow and deep wells mine ancient waters to slake the unquenchable thirst, like a commodity.  Water disputes are not handled with reason and respect but are dragged vindictively through the courts - wasting time, money, energy and water.  Ski resorts and Sundance, subsistence agriculture and snowmaking, empty golf courses and vacant lawns, growing demand and shrinking supply, change the hydrologic regime from beneficial use to best-bang-for-the-buck.

 

A massive sewer pipe surreptitiously moves waste water away and provides a giant gravel under drain for its entire length.  Pavement and pumps, under drains and pipes protect the subdivisions in the wetlands.  Ski resorts and snowmaking, mountain grazing and global warming change the hydrologic cycle to water, energy, food, people, money.  It rains in January, it snows in July, snowmelt starts in March or ends in August.  Streams are put in pipes, ditches are abandoned and natural channels are made into plazas and parking lots.  Spring floods are a nuisance, to whisk quickly away downstream or just divert nefariously towards neighbors. 

 

Summer drought is solved, not with conservation and cooperation but with a checkbook.  Water flows towards money, yet entitled farmers use thousands of dollars’ worth of water to grow hundreds of dollars of crops, just to protect their rights and speculate on this new commodity, this old dichotomy.  Disputes are not handled with reason and respect but are dragged vindictively through the courts - wasting time, money, energy and water. It is said, however, that it is better to live at the headwaters of a system with a shovel than at the bottom end with all the water rights in the world. The water has been subdued, the meadow no longer fills in the spring, and the streams no longer flow in the summer, and the Great Salt Lake at the bottom of the system is dangerously drying up.  Is this evolution towards a better world for all or is it lifestyle entropy trending towards a more random and chaotic state of self-absorption.  Choose to be kind, be cool, evolve.