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Show , ' I Jaek-Stramfs - H By Jack Wallis L . J jThe big news last week was the ptem failure of Utah Power and Light p., throwing a blackout over the state id southern Idaho and southwestern yoming for from four to six hours. The Vernal area is served by a high iltage line from Castlegate. After J out ten minutes of outage, the Basin ea was cut out of the UP&L system id and interconnected to high voltage les coming from Flaming Gorge Dam id Western Colorado over the Water id Power Resources Service system. flThanks to this interconnected .Vjstem, the Basin area was not in the ixk like the rest of the state. With the construction of two 400 egawatt generators by Deseret I feneration and Transmission operative at a site near Bonanza the I wer grid of the area will be further lengthened. In the Tosco announcement for the oil je ale and Sand Wash Project south of .ernal, it was stated that 100 J Jegawatts of electricity would be need-, need-, I. The White River Shale Project will 'en need more than Tosco. Add to this 1 e Paraho and Geokinetics oil shale ojects besides other projects that are the mill by large companies such as jievron, Texaco, Sohio, and SOCAL I 'id 800 megawatts can be used up fast. J This is the urgency for the Moon Lake roject by DG&T. The middle of April the crucial time for the project to get final approval for the Bonanza site, the Utah site is not approved a whole quence of development will be fl istrated, to say the least. Oil shale nnot be developed without readily ailable sources of power and water. Just as turning off the power affects r daily activities, so will a winter thout snow and rain. Our water supp- rtj is likewise very important to our ex-ence. ex-ence. $ This is justification for storing up our jm iter resources by damming off large 'j'egular streams forming reservoirs provide a water supply in times when e streams do not supply sufficient iter during dry months of the year. I The White River Dam and Reservoir one of these projects that is essential providing the water resource so ; dly needed in an arrid area of the " Hn interesting article concerning the jnte River Dam has been published in e February Issue of "Discover" agazine, the news magazine of science from Time Inc. The article is entitled "Skeptical Eye" and is accom- , panied by a picture of a squawfish swimming around in vegetation and is captioned, "The squawfish endangered?" en-dangered?" The article tells how the snail darter about stopped the huge Tellico Dam in Tennessee three years ago. And then after the Tellico Dam was finished other streams were found inhabited by the snail darter and the Tellico Dam was not a threat to the survival of this species. The "Discover" article infers that the same could also be true with the squawfish and the White River Dam in Utah. The artical says, "First the snail darter, now the squawfish, environmentalists' en-vironmentalists' crocodile tears to wash out Utah dam?" Joseph Bauman, the environmental writer for the Deseret News, also has some farout views on the White River dam. In his caustic articles against building the White River Dam he calls the White River one of the few remaining remain-ing free-flowing rivers in the state and he infers that the dam would destroy the area including all its wildlife. In talking to an old-timer who has probably spent more time around the White River area from Ouray to Bonanza Bonan-za than anyone else, a different opinion was expressed. This native said the White River in this area is too dangerous to canoe in in high water and in low water a canoe couldn't get through the sandbars. A dam to regulate the stream flow would improve im-prove the ability to navigate through this section of river. As for wildlife, a dam and reservoir will not destroy wildlife. Look at Flaming Flam-ing Gorge, Glen Canyon and many other reclamation projects we have. The wildlife is still in abundance. It is hard to explain why environmentalists environmen-talists are so dead-set against dams and reservoirs. The existing ones have enhanced the areas and have made recreation for multitudes of visitors. White River Dam is no exception. The project will improve the desirability of the area and make it more accessible for those who also enjoy the beauties of nature. If the White River Dam would destroy the beauties of southern Uintah County we would be among the first to oppose this destruction, but we fail to see the reasoning of those who argue against this project. |