CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

The End of Hansel Valley and the Beginning of a Post-Industrial Dark Age

Somewhere in Box Elder County, Utah. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair.

I first camped out in Hansel Valley at age twelve.  That was over sixty years ago.  On a fly that I had tied myself, I hooked and lost a huge, perhaps four-pound, Rainbow Trout from one of the many oasis springs collectively known as the Salt Wells complex or Locomotive Springs.[1]  I have never forgotten the moment when that powerful creature leaped from the water and its sky-born form, like Moses’ burning bush, flashed a reflection of the fiery desert sunset. Nor how it fell, snapped my line and regained its freedom.  That evening, over a Greasewood fire and an ocean of stars, I fell asleep enchanted and completely in love with this magical place.  That romance has continued my entire life.  I shared my love for the place with friends and took my family camping there often.  I shared the valley with scout troops and school groups of children. I delighted in how they felt the same wonder of place that I did.

Decades of degradation; dewatering of the oases from deep-well pivot alfalfa irrigation, ill-advised BLM Sagebrush/Juniper removal, the utter disappearance of the once ubiquitous Blacktail Jackrabbits, the increase of cows and subsequent overgrazing, militia groups who used the open landscape for well-armed, semi-automatic fueled, weekend war play, legions of land eating four wheelers, tight four strand barb wire fences and new, shiny “No Trespass” signs.  The open space, the great lake, the stars, wonder and peace and hope the place offered me never left.  Despite the increasing scars, the Hansel Valley landscape and what remained of its waters brought forth in me a feeling that I call love.

Now, the final blow for this beloved landscape came with news of a fast-tracked 40,000-acre industrial AI park to be built in the very heart of a place that had become a part of me.  The Boxelder County Commission had been given but two weeks by the State of Utah to give final approval.  Our good governor assured us that we were no longer safe in our own land and this was good for our........

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