In a past life it flowed north into the Snake and on to the Pacific through the Columbia Basin. But 34,000 years ago, a few mere ticks in the Earth’s geologic clock, volcanic intrusions blocked its northward path and turned the river around at a place called Soda Point, creating a new river as it cut its way south to what was then the great inland sea known as Lake Bonneville.
This astonishing geomorphology, as well as the Bear River’s other natural attributes and human uses, is captured in “Bear River: Last Chance to Change Course,” a photography exhibit by University of Utah communications professor Craig Denton.
According to Denton, it’s time for a change of course of another kind for the Bear, which is being overtapped and tainted by agricultural run-off. The latest damming scheme entails storing Bear River water in a reservoir on the Malad at a site called Washakie.
“The subtitle is purposefully apocalyptic,” Denton says. “It’s important for people to connect the dots. Our impending water crisis is part of an interconnecting web of problems. It’s time to recognize the limits of our natural resources to provide for our needs.”
The Bear’s water resources have been divided by compact among the three states it drains. Already five major dams exist on the river, and at least 300 lesser dams and diversions disrupt the tributaries in its 4.8 million-acre drainage. The watershed has long been used for irrigation and hydroelectric generation, but it is now firmly in the crosshairs for municipal water development to feed Utah’s urban growth machine. Denton contends any more withdrawals could have serious consequences for the river, as well as the Great Salt Lake, where the river drains into the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge.
This is because much of the Wasatch Mountains’ abundance of snowfall comes from the famous “lake band effect” in which northwestern storm systems pick up vast quantities of moisture as they pass over the lake, which presents a great deal of surface area on a northwest-southeast alignment. If the lake shrinks, less moisture would be transferred, Denton surmises.
Sixteen years ago, the Utah Legislature decreed the development of most of the 275,000 acre-feet of water promised Utah under the three-state Bear River Compact. The water would supply municipal and industrial uses in Salt Lake, Weber, Cache and Box Elder counties.
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