Transcript for the Piece Audio version of Monticello Story, Drought in Southern Utah, prt1

Monticello Story
Drought in Southern Utah
Part 1 of 2
Ross Chambless

HOST: PEOPLE WHO LIVE IN DESERT CLIMATES PROBABLY KNOW BETTER THAN MOST OF US THE IMPORTANCE OF CONSERVING WATER. YET DROUGHTS, LIKE OTHER NATURAL DISASTERS, CAN TAKE PEOPLE BY SURPRISE. TWO SUMMERS AGO UTAH WAS ENDURING ITS 5TH CONSECUTIVE YEAR OF DROUGHT. AREAS IN THE SOUTHERN PART OF THE STATE, THAT ARE ALWAYS DRY, WERE HIT HARDEST. PRODUCER ROSS CHAMBLESS WENT TO THE TOWN OF MONTICELLO AND SPOKE WITH PEOPLE TRYING TO KEEP THEIR COMMUNITYVIBRANT.

[INTRODUCTION: MUSIC PLAYING ON CAR RADIO]

ROSS: DRIVING SOUTH ON UTAH’S HIGHWAY 191… CAN SEEM LIKE DRIVING ON THE PLANET MARS. THERE’S LOTS OF RED SOIL AND LITTLE WATER…SAN JUAN COUNTY IS AMONG THE LEAST POPULATED AND POOREST COUNTIES IN THE STATE… YET… FOLLOWING ONE OF UTAH’S DRIEST YEARS IN RECORDED HISTORY… PEOPLE HERE HAVE A CERTAIN REALIZATION IN THEIR EYES.

Bill Boyle: This is beyond anything… I hope no one else in Utah is facing, the situation we faced this winter…My name is Bill Boyle, born and raised in Monticello, Utah, my great-grandfather was the first mayor of this town, my roots go very deep in this community…

THIS PLACE WAS HOMESTEADED BY MORMON SETTLERS IN 1887… SENT DOWN BY BRIGHAM YOUNG AND TOLD TO MAKE THE DESERT “BLOSSOM AS A ROSE.” BUT INCREASINGLY THE DESERT SEEMS TO BE OVERTAKING ITS NEIGHBORHOODS…

[running water behind]

TO THE WEST… A MOUND OF EARTH THAT IS THE ABAJO MOUNTAINS CAPTURES THE LIFEBLOOD OF THIS TOWN. MONTICELLO: POPULATION 2,000… DEPENDS ON SNOW-RUN-OFF EVERY SPRING FOR SURVIVAL. BUT AS SNOWFALL BECAME SPARSE… WELLS WERE DUG TO KEEP THE TOWN FUNCTIONING.

Jan Boncrot: We’re on water restriction right now. We’re asked to not use very much water in the household… My name is Jan Boncrot... my husband is the postmaster here in town…

(BONE-CROT) SAYS BEFORE THE DROUGHT… SHE’D OCCASSIONALLY SEE PEOPLE DRIVING WITH BIG TANKS ON THEIR TRUCKS FOR HAULING WATER. … LINING UP AT THIS CITY WELL… 75 CENTS GETS YOU A WHOLE BATHTUB FULL…

[Sound of well]

Jan Boncrot: Since the drought has hit, and the water restrictions have hit, we have noticed every other truck now has a water tank, and everyone is hauling water, which still comes out of the same aquifer that we’re using to get our drinking water from… To watch this emerge, and see how people covet their green lawns, and … don’t want to give them up even if it means we may run out of drinking water…

IN ONE DRIED-UP NEIGHBORHOOD… A HOUSE STANDS ALONE WITH A GREEN, WELL-MANICURED LAWN. A POSTED SIGN ANNOUNCES THAT IT’S HIS OWN “WELL WATER” TO THE NEIGHBORS. … A JUSTIFICATION… OF SORTS… FOR THIS EMERALD PATCH OF GRASS.

Bob Newberry: We put the sign out just let everyone know it is a well… My name is Bob Newberry… it’s your well… you can do what you want to with it.

NEWBERRY SAYS HE SPENT 17 THOUSAND DOLLARS FOR THE WELL.

[sprinkler sounds]

Bob Newberry: I don’t really waste it, but the city… you can’t wash cars, you can’t wash your driveway down or anything… and so with this country you get a lot of mud and stuff. So I keep mine washed down. I don’t really abuse it, but I keep things clean…

BUT NEARLY EVERYONE ELSE IS BOGGED DOWN IN DIRT AND DUST…
FOLKS HERE ARE SHAKEN… AND ANGRY ABOUT THE NEAR DISASTER THIS PAST YEAR. …IT ALL STARTED WITH AN 8 MILLION DOLLAR GOLF COURSE – PARTIALLY BUILT WITH FEDERAL FUNDS GIVEN TO THE TOWN FOR CLEANING AN OLD, ABANDONED URANIUM MINING SITE.

JAN BONCROT

Jan Boncrot: So they spent a chunk of that to take our little nine whole golf course and make it a great big 18 hole course, with a golf pro and golf shop…. And now with the drought… last year they watered because it was brand new, and the w hole town was in outrage that they were watering it. But they said, ‘we put all this money into it we can’t just let it go.’

(Fade to black)

Angry Cattleman: The drought’s inside that damn city limits where that city council sold our water off, wasted our water… we haven’t got any water in town… that golf course caused the whole son-of-a-bitchin’ thing…

[sound of well]

ON THE EDGE OF TOWN AT A PUBLIC WATER WELL…A CATTLEMAN WEARING A BROWN STETSON… FILLS A WATER TANK STRAPPED TO THE BACK OF HIS PICKUP.

(Ross: “So you think it’s not smart to build a golf course when we’re in the middle of a drought?)

Angry Cattleman: “ah shit… they had a 9 hole golf course and they had to subsidize that thing all the time… to keep it open…. Then they put up an 18-holer because a half a dozen guys wanted to golf there… wasted all their water on it… they had enough water in storage for another year we wouldn’t have noticed a thing… they poured it all out on that golf course…

TOWN LEADERS SAY IF THIS DROUGHT DOESN’T KILL THE TOWN, THEN THE ECONOMY EVENTUALLY WILL… WHICH IS WHY THEY BUILT THE COURSE IN THE FIRST PLACE. STILL…MANY FOLKS HERE SAY THEY’VE NEVER SEEN IT THIS DRY FOR SO LONG. IT’S CAUSED SOME TO TAKE A MOMENT TO PAUSE… AND REFLECT ON THEIR LIVES… AND THE LIVES OF THOSE BEFORE THEM.

Larry Davis: Disc 2: Track 1: “Here’s a little double-walled masonry dam…. this is one of the more sophisticated irrigation systems that I saw with the Anasazi…

(fade voice under)

LARRY DAVIS SHOWS EXPLAINS SOME BLACK AND WHITE SURVEY PICTURES OF MUD AND STONE RUINS… HE’S A RETIRED ARCHEOLOGIST WHOSE PRIMARY INTEREST IS STUDYING THE ANASAZI… THE MYSTERIOUS NATIVE AMERICAN CIVILIZATION THAT LIVED IN, AND AROUND, SAN JUAN COUNTY… ONE THOUSAND YEARS AGO.

Larry Davis: Someone said history repeats itself because no one listened the first time… and you can see people making the same mistakes…

Trent Schafer: As I remember growing up, there were years of drought, but they were only single years of drought, we would always be replenished that fall and winter…
I’m Trent Schafer, city manager of Monticello, born and raised here…Maybe Monticello wasn’t the best place to have homesteaded here on the plateau of the mountain…

BILL BOYLE

Bill Boyle: We will never …(pause) The city has vowed they will never draw it down that low again…. Because it was really a situation that, if we didn’t get precipitation again, we were done…

[Sound of well water dribbling on gravel]

88-year-old man: We have these periods and people just have to be prepared for them.

BACK AT THE CITY WELL… THIS 88-YEAR-OLD MAN FEEDS QUARTERS INTO THE METER… IN THIS COUNTRY… HE SAYS… DROUGHT IS SIMPLY A WAY OF LIFE….

88-year-old man: We have some good years and dry years… it’s customary…

Larry Davis: These folks, … they probably weren’t using a lot of water…

LARRY DAVIS

Larry Davis: …Household wise … they didn’t shower every morning… and as far as utilizing a dearth, they didn’t. Now saying that… and studying the Anasazi, they also made mistakes, they may have over-utilized their resource… during times of not favorable climatic conditions… so the reason we should be studying these folks and see what they did and didn’t do is because… we’re living in the same environment…What can we learn from it? We can learn to conserve, maybe change the ways we’re doing things. We could learn to be more thrifty in utilizing the resources around us…

Golf Sound

Jim Robertson: It’s tough, we’re trying provide a recreational opportunity, and a shot in the arm for this economy… and bring something to Monticello… My name is Jim Robertson, I’m the golf course superintendent…We think there’s a lot of things on the side that would be benefited by having a golf course here… to help open a new chapter here, and get folks to bring some play, and buy a burger, and get a tank of gas.

Bill Boyle: The mystery of the Anasazi is something the people have thought about in the last few years…

BILL BOYLE.

Bill Boyle: In San Juan County… it’s a wild bronco that we’re riding on, and holding on for all we’re worth. … there’s a feeling of vulnerability, there’s a feeling of forces much larger than ourselves. … People here look to rain. You talk to most people in the United States, rain is an annoyance, here rain is a blessed event… it rained last night, everyone in town has a smile on their face…

IN MONTICELLO, UTAH, I’M ROSS CHAMBLESS.

HOST: THIS STORY WAS PRODUCED WITH FUNDING HELP FROM THE UTAH HUMANITIES COUNCIL.

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