As the April/May issue of this publication attested to, there is a movement out there to drain Lake Powell and eventually dismantle Glen Canyon Dam. The cries of outrage by conservative lake-lovers and cigarette boat owners are enough to warm the cockles of any man's heart who despises that big concrete monstrosity and I don't even know what the hell 'cockles' are. And since this is an issue dedicated, in part at least, to honoring Women of the West, I am sure that their cockles are being warmed as well, provided that is, that cockles are a part of a woman's anatomy. I doubt, however, that Louis Liston's cockles are even remotely warmed by such a proposal.

If she has them.

I've got to quit taking these antihistamines...they're making me goofy. When will the pollen go away?

Anyway, the movement has received national attention via television, radio and the print media and even congressional hearings, albeit at the hands of that right wing rascal Jumpin' Jim Hansen. And sometimes I think proponents of the dam have more confidence that it will be dismantled than we who want the damn thing torn down. They have that nervous little catch in their throats when they discuss the "absurdity" of the idea.

"The idea!"

In the midst of all this publicity and brouhaha, sits a very relevant big doorstop of a book, available at most bookstores in the western United States and certainly here in Moab (Back of Beyond...shameless plug. Big Zephyr advertiser). The book is called, appropriately, Glen Canyon...a novel and its author is Steven Hannon.

Some people have tried to compare Hannon's work to Ed Abbey's masterpiece The Monkey Wrench Gang and indeed, his little band of disgruntled dam haters bears a striking resemblance to Seldom Seen et al. And even Hannon admits that he "waited 14 years for Abbey to get rid of Glen Canyon Dam." Finally almost a decade after Abbey's death, Hannon took on the job himself.

Hannon has struggled with the comparison because he truly hoped Abbey would pen the words that rid the planet of Glen Canyon Dam, if only in a literary sense. And as a novelist, Steve Hannon is no Ed Abbey. But then...who is?

Instead, Hannon's book must be measured in a completely different way. Although it is a work of fiction, Glen Canyon is actually a handbook about a drowned river. It is everything you ever wanted to know about Glen Canyon, before the dam and after. It is everything you ever wanted to know about Glen Canyon Dam. And it is everything you wanted to know about the forces of Nature that threaten the existence of that dam. It is fascinating reading and I found myself utterly absorbed by parts of the book. It is the only novel I have ever read where I wish it had an index.

I can tell you that a Russian nuclear physicist is one of the main characters in this book without giving away a major part of the story. But it is that aspect of the plot that has made mainstream Glen Canyon Dam haters a little wary of being too closely associated with it. Science and economics will ultimately bring down the dam and no one in Congress will ever support a movement associated with nuclear terrorism.

But Glen Canyon is after all, a novel. And other than the middle, which bogs down a bit, there is a wealth of information stored within those pages and a vision of a future that I found...uplifting.

Glen Canyon by Steven Hannon. He's not Ed Abbey. He's Steven Hannon.

I STILL MISS DAVID KNUTSON

I am nothing if not sentimental and recently I realized that it has been just a little more than five years since the Great Book Cliffs Highway Controversy came to a dramatic end and the road project was stopped. For those of you who don't remember, the Grand County Roads Special Service District proposed the construction of a multi-million dollar paved road over the Book Cliffs to Vernal in 1989. Their plan was to use federal mineral lease monies to build the highway and the idea first came to light about a month before the first issue of the Zephyr went to press. That highway and my paper were born at almost the same time.

Naturally, I was against it and for the next four years, this publication locked horns with the Road Board and the Grand County Commission over the need and logic for such a huge undertaking. Jimmie Walker was on the board and so was Ollie Knutson and they were always ready to argue their point, but it was Ollie's son David who I miss the most. We never could come to a consensus on the Book Cliffs Road, but I've never enjoyed disagreeing with anyone as much as I did with David.

It is simply impossible to dislike David Knutson, even when you disagree with him so thoroughly that you're ready to pull your own hair out (apparently Dave already did that to himself.). David and I used to sit on the porch of his family's heavy equipment shed, drinking Mountain Dews (David did the de-caf), endlessly debating the future of Moab and Grand County. He still clung to the notion that oil and gas were the secret to a prosperous future and dreaded the thought of a yuppie tourist town full of lycra-clad bikers and espresso shops.

I dreaded the thought of either and took comfort in knowing that whichever way the town went, I'd be able to complain about it. I think David enjoyed, or at least was amused by, my cynicism as a natural counterpoint to his own optimistic view. And I took comfort in knowing that there was someone as unflappable as Dave. He's one of the few politicians I've ever known who was really a nice guy.

I saw Dave's mom, Roberta, at City Market a month or so ago. We were both glad to see each other and spoke like two old blue & gray survivors of Gettysburg---no longer adversaries, and instead bound by shared memories of a different time. (And by the way, Roberta, I meant to tell you...you looked great.)

Last week, I was talking to my friends at the Nature Conservancy office, Fabulous Babes Sue Bellagamba and Anne Wilson. Anne had spent the morning at the river road orchard, trying to install a floating pump. Wilson groaned and said, "Good thing David was there...I would have never got the job done without him and his crane. I don't think he expected to wade into the river, but he went right in."

They were speaking of David Knutson, of course, a gentleman to a fault.

AN EDITORIAL COMMENT ON THE DEATH OF JOHN DINSMORE..

On page four of this issue is a story about the shooting death of Moab citizen John Dinsmore by a Moab Police officer last November. It has been the most difficult and unpleasant task I have ever undertaken in the almost ten years this publication has been in existence.

I am not an investigative writer and did not want to entangle myself in yet another Moab controversy. The major changes I made in the Zephyr two years ago reflected my own weariness and frustration with local issues. But the speed with which this tragedy faded from the minds of Moab's citizens disturbed me. Our entire community was up in arms over the price of garbage collection last year. Week after week, tempers boiled over at packed public meetings. But the use of deadly force by the police against a suicidal man in a confrontation that lasted all of five minutes and ended with the flash of a 12 gauge shotgun generated a mild flurry of objections and by Christmas, the matter passed into history. By spring, it was only an unpleasant memory.

As I spoke recently to Moab citizens about the incident, I found perhaps three or four, out of more than a hundred, who actually felt satisfied with the police department's performance, but few who wanted to speak openly on the matter.

I realize that I will receive criticism for trying to "stir things up" as one public official put it. That is not my intention, if the implication is that I want to sensationalize a truly tragic event. But if giving the citizens of this community a clear and thorough view of what happened last November means I am being provocative, then so be it.

I do not attempt to paint John Dinsmore as an innocent victim who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was indeed John who set in motion the events of that evening. John was drunk, suicidal and abusive, and in possession of a deadly weapon, in this case a kitchen knife with an eight inch blade. It was at his insistence that the 911 call was made in the first place.

Perhaps the outcome would have been the same no matter how the police responded and no matter what tactics they employed. But the bottom line is this: there were no tactics, the entire confrontation lasted five minutes and Dinsmore was brought down by a 12 gauge shotgun blast, guaranteed to be fatal, because the officer who fired the shotgun somehow felt that five police officers with handguns against one drunk man with a kitchen knife was an inadequate response. He at least deserved more time.

In the course of writing this story I have read and re-read the statements and interviews of the officers on the scene and the citizen eyewitnesses as well. I spoke to Chief Deputy Doug Squire who conducted the investigation and to County Attorney Bill Benge. On a point of clarification regarding the use of weapons on the scene, I talked to Deputy Steve Brownell who responded as backup to the Moab Police that night. I interviewed Dinsmore's friend Ned Robinson who was in the yard with Dinsmore when the police arrived. I spoke at length with John's widow, Holly Dinsmore. In an attempt to resolve the confusing positive amphetamine/methamphetamine reading from a drug screening given Sgt. Wiler after the shooting, I called Bruce Beck at the Division of Laboratory Services at the State Department of Health in Salt Lake City. I talked to Dr. Steven Rouzer, the doctor on duty in the emergency room at Allen Memorial Hospital that night.

With a detailed copy of the crime scene map drawn by the Grand County Sheriff's Office, I spent hours in the Dinsmore's driveway, trying to reconstruct movements and distances.

I sent a series of questions, via Mayor Karla Hancock, to the Chief of Police Alan West. Most of the questions related directly to the shooting, but some were simply inquiries about police procedure, tactics and training. In a letter Mayor Hancock replied, "Although Chief West was quite willing to pursue the matter with you, the representative from the Utah Local Governments Trust (the Utah firm which handles the City's liability insurance) felt that, given the sensitive nature of the Dinsmore issue, the City should not respond to questions from the public at this time."

On the other hand, the Grand County Sheriff's Office was, in every respect, helpful and cooperative. They provided, without hesitation, a photograph of the knife Dinsmore held during the confrontation and a copy of a supplemental interview with Sgt. Wiler in mid-December. Both items were requested in the letter to the Chief of Police.

I did not re-interview any of the officers who participated in the confrontation, except as previously noted, to clarify a point with Deputy Brownell. The Sheriff's Office acted swiftly to take statements and conduct interviews, sometimes within an hour of the shooting and almost always within 24 hours. It is my opinion that those recollections are much more accurate than any statement given now, six months later. The interviews were, for the most part, thorough and informative, and form the basis of the narrative that recreates that evening in the story that follows on page 4.

Finally, I depended on the advice and expertise of Moab resident Dirk Vaughan, a former police officer in Colorado who offers his own analysis of the shooting in the pages that follow. During his career, Dirk faced situations similar to this one, and resolved the crises without the use of deadly force.

Our opinions differed on some of the finer points of this incident, but I have nothing but admiration and respect for his knowledge and integrity. And his courage for speaking up.

Ultimately, what do I hope to accomplish by bringing this story to print? Ideally, I'd like to see the Mayor or the City Council completely re-examine the shooting and perhaps even call for public hearings. Realistically, I don't expect that to happen.

But while we cannot change the past, we can alter the future. This community can take steps to see that this kind of tragedy never occurs again. We can demand better trained police officers, we can demand better leadership, we can demand more compassion and humanity from a police department that seems determined to show that it has none.

The idea of city/county police consolidation has been bantered around for years. Perhaps this is a good time to revive the argument. There has never been a better opportunity; the economic savings have always been tempting, and as our taxes continue to rise, ways to cut the tax burden should not be ignored.

But never in the 20 years that I have lived in Grand County have I seen such a disparity in the esteem and confidence and respect citizens hold for the Moab Police versus the Grand County Sheriff's Office. As a result, the idea of abolishing the Moab Police Department and contracting the service to the Grand County Sheriff's Office sounds like an idea we can all live with...literally. Ultimately, however, the future of law enforcement in Moab rests in your hands. We can write and print the stories, relate the events, and raise the questions. And that's it. What the citizens of Moab do (or don't do) with that information is up to you.

This publication has the means to provide information; only you have the power to make change happen.