D e s e r t E x p o s u r e
June
2009
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Redneck River LoverAuthor and unconventional environmentalist "Dutch" Salmon is a fierce defender of the Gila River and other wild things. |
He doesn't fit the stereotype of a tree-hugging environmentalist. A self-described (with tongue in cheek) "redneck," this ruddy outdoorsman loves unleashing his hounds to run down jackrabbits, shooting squirrels out of trees, and casting lines to snag wild trout. Guns, rods and dogs are lifelong passions. Yet Silver City's M.H. "Dutch" Salmon is a fierce defender of our untamed, untrammeled and undammed.
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"Dutch" Salmon with a favorite
hound, Phoebe. |
"I moved to southwest New Mexico in 1980 because I like to chase things," explains the activist writer and book publisher, who spent time in the Mimbres Valley before settling on five rolling acres below Gomez Peak some 20 years ago. Our quadrant, Salmon has found, is "ideal for the pursuit of game and fish."
During an interview at his home-office — clad comfortably in work boots, denim overalls, plaid shirt and a battered straw hat — the man whose nickname recalls a childhood resemblance to the iconic blue-eyed, blonde-haired Dutch boy states a preference for the old-fashioned term "conservationist." Salmon sees his environmental ethic as derivative of the Theodore Roosevelt and Aldo Leopold traditions of the early 20th century, "where you got yourself out hunting and fishing as a way of being outdoors. Then you began to see threats [to game animals and their habitats]. So you realized the need to preserve species — and not just the species for which you hunted and fished. Yet you still sent yourself out there with hook or bullet — and that's the redneck part."
The 64-year-old wilderness advocate — whose name carries an accent on the first syllable (SAL'-mon) — suggests constant vigilance is essential in order to protect and defend the "ideal" world of the upper Gila River and adjacent watersheds from misguided meddlers and bungling bureaucrats.
"It's basically under the same threat" of development as it was 25 years ago, Salmon maintains, "but it is a little trickier now." Today, for example, there is no imminent risk that a dam will be built on the Gila, New Mexico's last large free-flowing stream. A less-obtrusive form of diversion is a more likely scenario, calculated to benefit farmers and regulate water-flow. This may explain, says Salmon, why "people in the environmental community today are not quite as agitated as they were back in the Eighties."
The cool-down follows abandonment of several plans to block or divert the Gila. But new ways to store or manipulate its waters are still topics of serious discussion among government authorities, and tens of millions of dollars of public money are readily available to help pay for such projects. (Under terms of the 2004 Arizona Water Settlements Act, New Mexico is allowed a substantial federal subsidy and permission to use up to 14,000-acre-feet per year of Gila River water.) Think stimulus. Think recession. Think construction. These are reasons why Salmon remains as active on river-related issues now as he was in 1984.
The ongoing battle to preserve New Mexico's Gila and its nearly 4 million acres of associated real estate reflects a tense struggle between old and new Southwest water-management strategies. According to Salmon, the prevailing paradigm holds that people in a given geographic area will do whatever they can to keep as much available water within their sector for so-called "consumptive" or "beneficial" use. Gila River water that flows into Arizona, by this manner of thinking, is essentially "wasted" water. Such folks are likely irked further that Arizona deliberately diverts virtually all of the Gila's flow, creating hundreds of miles of dry riverbed before its confluence with the Colorado River near Yuma.
"We're up against an entrenched mindset that says, 'If you get a chance to take water out of a river, take it — even if you won't use it for 300 years!' It is a real flip of that mindset," Salmon concedes, "to be able to look at a river like that and say, 'Well, that 14,000-acre-feet in question really does us more good in the stream than it does diverted out, both aesthetically and economically.' This new paradigm hasn't yet caught up with the old one in the minds of the powers that be."
Salmon's own mind has been clear on the subject since he first fished the Gila back in the early 1980s, a time when local residents were divided sharply over the now-defunct Hooker Dam project: "I thought, this is ridiculous, to put a dam up in this roadless area, in a magnificent canyon above the Mogollon Creek confluence. From the first time I went there, I hoped there was a way to avoid it, even though people told me the dam was pretty much a done deal." He found enough kindred spirits to help stop the project in its tracks.
Salmon, a freelance journalist and author, employed the Hooker controversy as a central (though nominally fictional) theme in his 1989 novel, Home Is the River, which features a latter-day mountain man who helps stop such a project by revealing the existence of a remnant otter population near a proposed dam site. The book was a departure for Salmon, whose previous manuscripts included a hound-hunting guide and a memoir about his 200-mile float down the Gila accompanied by a hound dog and a tomcat. He has since published a half-dozen other books, written numerous articles, and penned an award-winning outdoors column, "Country Sports."
The 1967 Trinity University English graduate has been in print about as long as he's been hunting, fishing and raising hounds — with no end in sight. "I finished the draft of a new novel about three years ago," says Salmon, "and I'm editing it now with the hope of getting it out later this year. I usually keep a schedule of writing between one and five each weekday afternoon." Although his first few books were typewritten, today they are pounded out on a computer in an alcove off a master bedroom.
But Salmon's writing routine is often interrupted by an impressive swirl of ongoing public-spirited commitments. He is a second-term member of the New Mexico Game Commission, for example, and participates in meetings of the Arizona Water Settlements Act Stakeholders' Group. Salmon continues to chair the board of directors of the Gila Conservation Coalition (GCC), which he co-founded with three other area activists 25 years ago, and holds a board seat on the associated Gila Resources Information Project (GRIP). Over the years he's served in similar capacities for other groups, including the Quivira Coalition and New Mexico Wildlife Federation.
"Yes, it is disruptive," he says of organization-derived intrusion, "but it's hard to say 'no.' And I try to hold [my group involvements] down to the most important ones."
Despite (or perhaps because of) the demands of meetings, writing deadlines and the publishing business, Salmon escapes to the woods or desert whenever possible. He heads into the backcountry "about 100 days each year," by his count, "or at least once each weekend and once during each set of weekdays. Sometimes it's only for a few hours; other times I'm gone for several days at a time."
Salmon backpacks into remote parts of the Gila for a few days once or twice every summer, and there are occasional canoe trips, too. "I get out more than the average person," he admits, "so I can't complain." (A favored pastime is "coursing," or the hunting of game by hounds trained to pursue by sight rather than scent. Also called gazehounds, preferred breeds for this sport include the saluki and whippet.)
Asked why he finds this region so attractive, Salmon leans away from his big wooden desk and considers the question at length. "Even an objective observer would have to say that the Gila is unique," he offers, in his characteristically steady, thoughtful cadence. "It is vast and relatively unvisited. You can go to even the most obvious places for a day's fishing and most of the time not see anybody beyond the trailhead. . . . And sometimes in the same pool you can catch a catfish — the epitome of the southern, slow-moving stream fish — and a wild trout, a fish associated with cold, clear, mountain waters."
Salmon welcomes the controversial reintroduction of Mexican wolves to the Gila, so long as those who can verify losses of their livestock are properly compensated. "Wolves are certainly interesting," he says, "as is the reaction of people to having them around. I think every native species of the Southwest deserves at least a remnant of its former life. There's a place here for wolves, grizzly bears, jaguars, otters and all kinds of critters."
While he's not a scientist, Salmon's recent book about the Gila River, Gila Libre! New Mexico's Last Wild River (University of New Mexico Press $19.95), has cemented his reputation as one of the top authorities on New Mexico's last large untapped waterway. But he acknowledges that the Gila's obscurity, even among New Mexicans, compounds the challenge of keeping it protected.
"Most environmentalists who would oppose a dam on a wild river are in the northern half of the state," he notes, a reference to the many green-minded residents of Santa Fe and Albuquerque. "While they are sympathetic to what we're trying to do, the great majority have never been here and therefore don't have a gut-level response to the [dam and diversion] threat. If we can get them down here, I think we can get converts by the dozens."
| The Gila Resources Information Project, along with the Sierra Club and the Silver City Climate Protection Agreement Citizens' Advisory Committee, is sponsoring a "Viva Verde Expo," June 26-28 in Silver City. Topics will include "Turning Water Scarcity into Water Abundance," as well as sustainability, energy efficiency, agriculture and local food, green building and "green jobs." For schedule and more information, see www.vivaverdenm.com, or contact 538-8078, info@vivaverdenm.com |
One hopeful trend, according to Salmon, is "greater local recognition of the aesthetic values of mainstream flows [in the Gila] — of leaving the river alone. There's more realization that a free-flowing stream could be a real economic resource. It could be much more of a tourism draw than it is, which the [Silver City-Grant County] Chamber of Commerce is kind of missing the boat on."
Concurrently, Salmon sees a decline in the once widespread and unabashed business-community enthusiasm for compromising the river: "It's now mostly the Interstate Stream Commission, Gila Valley irrigators, and the odd citizen here and there who are promoting this sort of project."
While a decline in boosterism doesn't mean the fight for preservation is over, Salmon senses that politicians and government bodies recognize that any serious tinkering with the Gila is sure to ignite controversy. Governor Bill Richardson and other powerful leaders are on record in support of preserving the river's "wild" status. What's more, Salmon points out, studies suggest the large, recharging aquifer beneath Silver City obviates any justification for importing water into this slow-growing urban area for decades to come — if ever.
"I think any [Gila development] project faces a lot of hurdles," Salmon declares, "including a lot of obstacles that earlier proposals faced. I wouldn't predict how things are going to turn out, but I'm sure it's going to take a period of years to know what we're finally going to end up with."
In the meantime, the peripatetic writer expects to continue his multi-tasking, following a pattern that's been consistent since his settlement in New Mexico nearly 30 years ago. (Prior to his arrival, Salmon spent almost a decade doing farm work and freelance writing among the timber and "brush" wolves of northwestern Minnesota.)
"I did some research and [southwestern New Mexico] looked like the kind of area where you could entertain yourself both with stream fishing and hunting," Salmon recalls. "I went to Catron County first because the land was cheaper and I thought the remoteness would please me. But it turned out to be more remote than I wanted. Grant County seemed to suit me better. " He liked the odd mix: "An amalgam of Western influences that included mining, cattle-ranching, retirees, artists and recreation enthusiasts. I began to see it as a rich source of material for writing about the New West."
In the early 1980s, Salmon became a correspondent for the Albuquerque Journal and a reporter for the Silver City Enterprise, a now-departed weekly newspaper. He later became a syndicated columnist and the editor of Basin & Range, a short-lived magazine based in Silver City. His own High-Lonesome Books imprint was born in 1986 when the University of New Mexico Press insisted on deleting a portion of the manuscript it had accepted for Salmon's Gila Descending, a whimsical account of proceeding from the river's origin at Bead Spring to its taming at Safford, Ariz. The author scrounged up $3,500 to have 2,000 copies printed and subsequently peddled them in person at bookstores across the Southwest.
"I was able to make back my money pretty fast," Salmon remembers. "The first printing sold out within a year."
A literal mom-and-pop enterprise, High-Lonesome continues to publish his book-length work, but increasingly specializes in previously out-of-print volumes or titles that have lapsed into the public domain. "If nobody owns it," he points out, "you just reprint it." Sales are modest, but steady. The vast majority of the publisher's business is via mail-order, thanks to the Internet (www.high-lonesomebooks.com) and a devoted cadre of readers keen on Western Americana, outdoor adventure, hunting and fishing. But High-Lonesome also welcomes a trickle of retail customers willing to ford Little Walnut Creek, which gurgles across the dirt road leading to the white ranch house that serves as combination office, store and residence. Chicken eggs, fish bait, Anasazi beans and goat cheese are also produced and sold on the premises. A guesthouse — occupied by Tour of the Gila cyclists on the day of my visit — is available for short-term rent.
Salmon's wife and business partner, Cherie, boasts an MBA and software savvy. Cherie was an accountant for a mining firm when Dutch two-stepped into her heart at Silver City's Drifter honky-tonk in 1988. She proceeded to read some of his books and pronounced them "pretty good." Marriage followed and Cherie has worked full-time for High-Lonesome since 1995. The couple have an outdoors-loving teenage son, Bud, who was hospitalized last winter for seven weeks due to a series of unexpected, life-threatening infections.
"It was a scary experience, " says Salmon, "but he's fully recovered."
The dark cloud of Bud's illness contrasted sharply with the bright light of recognition trained on the boy's father on Feb. 4, when Dutch Salmon received a lifetime achievement award at the Third Annual Gila River Day at the Capitol Rotunda in Santa Fe. It honored his quarter-century of work on behalf of the river, nearby wilderness areas and New Mexico's native wildlife. "Dutch has made tremendous contributions to conservation efforts throughout his career," noted Allyson Siwik, executive director of the Gila Resources Information Project, which co-sponsors (with the GCC) a festival each September celebrating what has been ranked among the 10 most endangered US rivers by the nonprofit group, American Rivers. Last year, Salmon also received a Lifetime Conservation Award at Western New Mexico University's Gila Natural History Symposium.
Salmon remains modest about his accomplishments. "If I can say one thing for myself," he allows, "it's that I've hung in here. I don't think by nature I am a flamethrower or person who makes personal attacks. I like to think that I can marshal the facts and I am persistent. And I expect to hang in there until they put the Gila River back in a 'safe' category again."
Richard Mahler, an author and tour guide based in Silver City, wishes he could get into the Gila backcountry as often as Dutch Salmon. Mahler would also like to see a return of the jaguar to our wilderness. The last confirmed jaguar sighting in the Gila was in 1902, but some folks swear they still see 'em.