Water, water, everywhere: Craig Denton's study of 'The Bear River'

0 Comments | Deseret News (Salt Lake City), Sep 16, 2007 | by Susan Whitney Deseret Morning News

The more time he spent on the Bear River and the better he came to know it, the more Craig Denton wished we could all just take a step back.

If those of us who live on the Wasatch Front could cut our water use by 35 percent, Denton says, then we might give ourselves enough time to study the Bear. If we don't do enough research, if we rush to build another dam, he believes we might end up destroying land we don't need to destroy.

Denton's book of photos, poems and reportage is called "Bear River: Last Chance to Change Course." It came out this month, published by Utah State University Press.

To expand upon Denton's work, the Utah Museum of Natural History exhibit designers created displays and activities around his photos. The UMNH exhibit opened Saturday and runs through Dec. 30.

Denton, who teaches in the communications department at the University of Utah, readily admits his bias. It is this: Denton loves rivers. He fishes -- and he'd rather fish in a river than in a lake. He says rivers are more challenging, harder to read. He loves trying to figure out why a river tumbles and ebbs and braids the way it does.

He'd rather take photos of a river than of a canal. Yet his book does include a photo of the Bear being channeled near Evanston, Wyo. Then, too, there are some rather nice photos of hydroelectric plants and power lines at sunset and farmers in their irrigated fields and a trapper at work on the shore.

His photos are not all of wild water and pretty ponds. In order to tell the whole story, Denton photographed all the Bear's "stakeholders," he explains.

Denton grew up in Salt Lake, graduating from Highland High in 1965. He went off to Brown University and later was drafted and sent to Texas. He didn't discover photography until he came home to the University of Utah for a master's degree in journalism. He learned photography from Borg Anderson and Bob Avery and Bob Tiemens, whom Denton counts as a mentor and a leader in the field of visual communications.

This book got its start as Denton researched his 1999 book, "The Peoples of the West Desert." As he met those desert dwellers, Denton learned about the importance of water in an arid state. He began to pay more attention when lawmakers and city planners talked about rivers. Over time, he began to feel a bit sick about it, about the way a wild and coursing natural phenomena was seen, increasingly, as a piece of plumbing used to carry water to faucets and sprinklers.

Denton actually set out to write this book in the first-person voice of the Bear River. But pretending to be a river soon became cumbersome, he says. Describing hydrology is difficult enough. In the end, he had to write about the Bear River from a human point of view. He writes of the Bear's history and ecology and of the stakeholders.

As he set about doing his research and interviewing scientists, lawmakers, ranchers and kayakers he found more balanced and reasoned opinions than he might have expected. People seem to recognize each other's point of view. The scientists, especially, take a measured approach, he says. They want their hypothesis to be tested, Denton says. They don't go out on a limb.

Denton went to the river with two cameras. With his 35 millimeter, he shot black and white for the book. With a large- format field camera, he shot color -- and those oversize prints are being featured at the UMNH.

He said he feels lucky to have gotten grants, which allowed for printing the book's photos as double-dot black duotones. He is pleased with how rich they look.

The book went to press a year ago (it was printed in China). It ends with chapters on mitigation and on the future of the Bear River.

Within the final chapters, there are some hopeful parts. Denton describes how PacifiCorp is planting buffer strips between river banks and nearby fields. Farmers are signing new leases that prohibit tree-cutting and herbicide spraying in wildlife areas. Box Elder County has a master plan for wetlands.

Denton also reports that Utah is the second driest state in the nation -- but it is second-highest in use of water per capita. In a way, he says, being second-highest in use is good news because it means Utahns can easily find models if they want to conserve. (So many Americans are already doing so much more.)

However, Denton writes, "The problem of water in the West in the twenty-first century dwarfs our energy problem. With energy, we can nervously reassure ourselves that one day we'll discover and harness new, clean, abundant and renewable sources. There is no substitute for water."

In the year it took for the book to be printed, there have been a few new developments. University of Utah meteorologists are doing a study on the effects of global warming within the state. Denton's front-end studies, such as this one, will help Utahns be more wise with water policies.

Then, too, the cost estimate for the Lake Powell pipeline is shooting higher. Denton feels increasingly confident that it will be a while before there is enough money for a new dam on the Bear River.