Hayduke
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You guys like to discuss dams. Think there's any chance they'll ever decommission the dam creating this 180-mile sewage lagoon?
Rethinking the Colorado
Glen Canyon Dam idea worth discussion
By Peter Lavigne
Since he was a boy in the 1960s, gazing at an exquisite but soon-to-be-flooded canyon, Richard Ingebretsen thought about restoring Glen Canyon - along with the Grand Canyon's beaches and riparian ecosystems - by eliminating the reservoir behind the Bureau of Reclamation's controversial Glen Canyon Dam.
Ingebretsen wasn't alone. Writer Edward Abbey called Glen Canyon the heart of the Southwest, more important even than Grand Canyon. The burial of this unique world wonder was controversial from the start of the dam project in the 1950s.
Today, in a era of dramatic water-cycle fluctuations and proposed changes in the uses of the Colorado River watershed, it is useful to examine how one of the West's most controversial dams has evolved.
The dam straddles the Arizona-Utah border, backing up the Colorado River to form Lake Powell.
In the years since filling the dam's reservoir, which commenced in 1963, David Brower's book about Glen Canyon, "The Place No One Knew," Abbey's writings and speeches about the travesty of the dam, and Katie Lee's photographs, stories and songs of the canyons kept alive visions of Glen Canyon that most people assumed were irretrievably lost.
Not so for Ingebretsen. His boyhood memory of the magical place stayed with him, and the loss it represented to humanity stayed as well.
In 1995, Ingebretsen, a medical doctor and physics professor at the University of Utah, decided to do something about the destruction of the canyon he loved as a child. He founded the Glen Canyon Institute and started calling similar-minded people to join the cause. Among them were Dave Wegner, then head of the Bureau of Reclamation's Glen Canyon Ecosystem Studies Unit; David Brower, a world-renowned conservationist who always regretted his failure to stop the completion of Glen Canyon Dam when he was executive director of the Sierra Club in the '60s; and Lee, an actress, singer-songwriter and author with a passion for the Glen Canyon that was gone.
Helped by many key Colorado River figures - including former Clinton administration Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Dan Beard - the institute decided to advocate "decommissioning of the dam" so it could operate with "run-of-the- river" flows. The idea is simple: Liberate the stunningly beautiful series of deep canyons from the weight of the 180-mile-long ringed reservoir that is Lake Powell by letting the river run unimpeded through new diversion tunnels at the base of the dam. In a run-of-the-river operation, the reservoir is no more, a free-flowing river is restored through Glen Canyon and its dozens of unique side canyons come back to use by tributary streams and wildlife, as well as human explorers.
In addition, the Rainbow Bridge National Monument would no longer be flooded by the slackwater pool of the reservoir; badly needed natural river flows would be restored to Grand Canyon beaches, and with them the fish and wildlife depleted by the continually varying flows from the Glen Canyon Dam; and upwards of 1 million acre feet of water wasted annually by evaporation and seepage from this giant pool in the desert could be freed for downstream uses. As a bonus, in high flood years like 1983, when a dangerously full reservoir came within inches of topping and washing out the dam, the new diversion tunnels could be temporarily restricted for flood-control purposes.
Stung by the failure of appeals to beauty and preservation in the early 1960s and the corresponding lack of any environmental impact-assessment process in those pre-environmental-law days, the Glen Canyon Institute in 1996 began a citizen's environmental assessment of the dam, the reservoir and operational effects on the Grand Canyon. Eight separate studies over the next few years firmly grounded the movement in its battle to change the operations of the dam - in science, law and logic.
Public and political reaction to early proposals by the institute to decommission the dam was immediate and blunt: "Crazy," "it will never happen," "insane" and "pipe dream," opponents said. Yet the ideas attracted a small but significant segment of popular support. Gatherings in Salt Lake City and other cities throughout the Southwest to talk about the dam started attracting hundreds of people, and soon more than 1,000.
Threatened by the excitement the institute was generating, politicians convened a carefully scripted congressional hearing on Glen Canyon Dam in 1997 to denounce the idea of draining the reservoir. In following years, they supported legislation forbidding the Department of Interior from spending any money to study decommissioning the dam.
As support for changes in the Glen Canyon Dam operation grew, clarity of purpose became paramount for the institute. Many members of the public, and even members of the institute, never quite understood what "decommissioning" meant, and most assumed the group was advocating the removal of Glen Canyon Dam. In reality, that option just didn't make sense, for financial and many other reasons.
"Originally, we wanted to simply reopen the old diversion tunnels made when the dam was built," said Pam Hyde, a Flagstaff attorney and the first executive director of the Glen Canyon Institute. "Rich was having dinner one night in 1997 with Floyd Dominy, the head of the Bureau of Reclamation when Glen Canyon Dam was built, and he mentioned this possibility to Floyd. Floyd told Rich, 'That's crazy. We filled those tunnels with concrete and rebar and they'll take forever to drill out. Here's how to do it.'"
"It was one of those moments," Ingebretsen now says. "Neither one of us had anything to write on, so Floyd grabbed a napkin, and sketched out the place to drill new diversion tunnels through the soft Navajo sandstone. I kept the napkin and now have it framed in my office."
Ten years later, the conversations around the future of Glen Canyon and the Colorado River have changed dramatically. The Glen Canyon Institute and other groups are now advocating for establishment of a Glen Canyon National Park. Others support restoration of Glen Canyon and the Colorado River. An international coalition is making headway on restoration of the Colorado River Delta in Mexico, and several indigenous organizations are actively working on water supply, energy and environmental justice issues.
Even the Bureau of Reclamation stated last summer that it was highly unlikely that Lake Powell would ever refill. As Ingebretsen says, "With 6 million new people in California, and with all the water in the upper basin that they are going to use, Lake Powell is not going to be there. They can only fill it with surplus water - and there isn't any surplus water."
Ingebretsen believes the Glen Canyon Institute's biggest accomplishment of the last decade was "getting the debate going."
"Honestly, before, there was no other side to it. No one ever talked about it. Now, there's a voice out there that there are problems, that there is a better way."
Ingebretsen calls the decision to base the institute's effort in science and law, something originally proposed by Dave Wegner, "absolutely critical. It was essential; it gave us credibility and science to study and debate." The data the group presented 10 years ago about demand and water losses "is now accepted as fact," Ingebretsen says. "We were dismissed at first. & People who called us crazy 10 years ago are now calling and saying, 'You know, you were right.'"
The future of Western water is ultimately about choices, and the current fight about the proposed new pipeline to bring water from Lake Powell to St. George, Utah, is a great example, Ingebretsen says. "This is a debate that has gone on since time immemorial: What do we do with our lands? What is the best use of our lands? Where do we develop? Where do we not?" says Ingebretsen. "Someone has got to stand up constantly and say, 'We have to think through this, we've got to think of our kids, we've got to think of the communities of the future and do we want to do this?'"
It's probably safe to say that the Glen Canyon Institute will remain a small, relatively unknown think tank. It is also safe to say the institute has permanently changed the conversation about water on the Colorado River - and that it will continue to influence the life and future of the river and its watershed for many years to come.
Peter Lavigne is founder of the Rivers Foundation of the Americas; director of the Colorado Water Workshop; and professor of environmental studies at Western State College in Gunnison, Colo.
Rethinking the Colorado
Glen Canyon Dam idea worth discussion
By Peter Lavigne
Since he was a boy in the 1960s, gazing at an exquisite but soon-to-be-flooded canyon, Richard Ingebretsen thought about restoring Glen Canyon - along with the Grand Canyon's beaches and riparian ecosystems - by eliminating the reservoir behind the Bureau of Reclamation's controversial Glen Canyon Dam.
Ingebretsen wasn't alone. Writer Edward Abbey called Glen Canyon the heart of the Southwest, more important even than Grand Canyon. The burial of this unique world wonder was controversial from the start of the dam project in the 1950s.
Today, in a era of dramatic water-cycle fluctuations and proposed changes in the uses of the Colorado River watershed, it is useful to examine how one of the West's most controversial dams has evolved.
The dam straddles the Arizona-Utah border, backing up the Colorado River to form Lake Powell.
In the years since filling the dam's reservoir, which commenced in 1963, David Brower's book about Glen Canyon, "The Place No One Knew," Abbey's writings and speeches about the travesty of the dam, and Katie Lee's photographs, stories and songs of the canyons kept alive visions of Glen Canyon that most people assumed were irretrievably lost.
Not so for Ingebretsen. His boyhood memory of the magical place stayed with him, and the loss it represented to humanity stayed as well.
In 1995, Ingebretsen, a medical doctor and physics professor at the University of Utah, decided to do something about the destruction of the canyon he loved as a child. He founded the Glen Canyon Institute and started calling similar-minded people to join the cause. Among them were Dave Wegner, then head of the Bureau of Reclamation's Glen Canyon Ecosystem Studies Unit; David Brower, a world-renowned conservationist who always regretted his failure to stop the completion of Glen Canyon Dam when he was executive director of the Sierra Club in the '60s; and Lee, an actress, singer-songwriter and author with a passion for the Glen Canyon that was gone.
Helped by many key Colorado River figures - including former Clinton administration Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Dan Beard - the institute decided to advocate "decommissioning of the dam" so it could operate with "run-of-the- river" flows. The idea is simple: Liberate the stunningly beautiful series of deep canyons from the weight of the 180-mile-long ringed reservoir that is Lake Powell by letting the river run unimpeded through new diversion tunnels at the base of the dam. In a run-of-the-river operation, the reservoir is no more, a free-flowing river is restored through Glen Canyon and its dozens of unique side canyons come back to use by tributary streams and wildlife, as well as human explorers.
In addition, the Rainbow Bridge National Monument would no longer be flooded by the slackwater pool of the reservoir; badly needed natural river flows would be restored to Grand Canyon beaches, and with them the fish and wildlife depleted by the continually varying flows from the Glen Canyon Dam; and upwards of 1 million acre feet of water wasted annually by evaporation and seepage from this giant pool in the desert could be freed for downstream uses. As a bonus, in high flood years like 1983, when a dangerously full reservoir came within inches of topping and washing out the dam, the new diversion tunnels could be temporarily restricted for flood-control purposes.
Stung by the failure of appeals to beauty and preservation in the early 1960s and the corresponding lack of any environmental impact-assessment process in those pre-environmental-law days, the Glen Canyon Institute in 1996 began a citizen's environmental assessment of the dam, the reservoir and operational effects on the Grand Canyon. Eight separate studies over the next few years firmly grounded the movement in its battle to change the operations of the dam - in science, law and logic.
Public and political reaction to early proposals by the institute to decommission the dam was immediate and blunt: "Crazy," "it will never happen," "insane" and "pipe dream," opponents said. Yet the ideas attracted a small but significant segment of popular support. Gatherings in Salt Lake City and other cities throughout the Southwest to talk about the dam started attracting hundreds of people, and soon more than 1,000.
Threatened by the excitement the institute was generating, politicians convened a carefully scripted congressional hearing on Glen Canyon Dam in 1997 to denounce the idea of draining the reservoir. In following years, they supported legislation forbidding the Department of Interior from spending any money to study decommissioning the dam.
As support for changes in the Glen Canyon Dam operation grew, clarity of purpose became paramount for the institute. Many members of the public, and even members of the institute, never quite understood what "decommissioning" meant, and most assumed the group was advocating the removal of Glen Canyon Dam. In reality, that option just didn't make sense, for financial and many other reasons.
"Originally, we wanted to simply reopen the old diversion tunnels made when the dam was built," said Pam Hyde, a Flagstaff attorney and the first executive director of the Glen Canyon Institute. "Rich was having dinner one night in 1997 with Floyd Dominy, the head of the Bureau of Reclamation when Glen Canyon Dam was built, and he mentioned this possibility to Floyd. Floyd told Rich, 'That's crazy. We filled those tunnels with concrete and rebar and they'll take forever to drill out. Here's how to do it.'"
"It was one of those moments," Ingebretsen now says. "Neither one of us had anything to write on, so Floyd grabbed a napkin, and sketched out the place to drill new diversion tunnels through the soft Navajo sandstone. I kept the napkin and now have it framed in my office."
Ten years later, the conversations around the future of Glen Canyon and the Colorado River have changed dramatically. The Glen Canyon Institute and other groups are now advocating for establishment of a Glen Canyon National Park. Others support restoration of Glen Canyon and the Colorado River. An international coalition is making headway on restoration of the Colorado River Delta in Mexico, and several indigenous organizations are actively working on water supply, energy and environmental justice issues.
Even the Bureau of Reclamation stated last summer that it was highly unlikely that Lake Powell would ever refill. As Ingebretsen says, "With 6 million new people in California, and with all the water in the upper basin that they are going to use, Lake Powell is not going to be there. They can only fill it with surplus water - and there isn't any surplus water."
Ingebretsen believes the Glen Canyon Institute's biggest accomplishment of the last decade was "getting the debate going."
"Honestly, before, there was no other side to it. No one ever talked about it. Now, there's a voice out there that there are problems, that there is a better way."
Ingebretsen calls the decision to base the institute's effort in science and law, something originally proposed by Dave Wegner, "absolutely critical. It was essential; it gave us credibility and science to study and debate." The data the group presented 10 years ago about demand and water losses "is now accepted as fact," Ingebretsen says. "We were dismissed at first. & People who called us crazy 10 years ago are now calling and saying, 'You know, you were right.'"
The future of Western water is ultimately about choices, and the current fight about the proposed new pipeline to bring water from Lake Powell to St. George, Utah, is a great example, Ingebretsen says. "This is a debate that has gone on since time immemorial: What do we do with our lands? What is the best use of our lands? Where do we develop? Where do we not?" says Ingebretsen. "Someone has got to stand up constantly and say, 'We have to think through this, we've got to think of our kids, we've got to think of the communities of the future and do we want to do this?'"
It's probably safe to say that the Glen Canyon Institute will remain a small, relatively unknown think tank. It is also safe to say the institute has permanently changed the conversation about water on the Colorado River - and that it will continue to influence the life and future of the river and its watershed for many years to come.
Peter Lavigne is founder of the Rivers Foundation of the Americas; director of the Colorado Water Workshop; and professor of environmental studies at Western State College in Gunnison, Colo.