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Show To keep the image of the Sierra Club more conservative Bradley helped persuade the board of directors to pull the Sierra Club's opposition to building Glen Canyon Dam while still opposing the dams in Dinosaur National Monument. With this decision a compromise was reached between the two factions. Environmental groups, including the Sierra Club, agreed to withdraw their opposition to Glen Canyon dam and to the Colorado River Storage Project as a whole if the Echo and Split Mountain dams were dropped from the CRSP agenda. Congress passed the bill in April of 1956. They authorized the CRSP without the Echo Park and Split Mountain dams, but including the Glen Canyon dam. And so despite doubts from geologists about its design, and assurance from engineers that the water storage would be wasteful and the knowlege that kilowatts could come cheaper from a longer lasting resource than from a short lived dam on the silt laden, over engineered and uniquely beautiful Colorado river, Glen Canyon dam was built. With its rising waters, hundreds of thousands of acres.of the most beautiful scenery in the world was covered, including over 3,000 Indian ruins, nearly 200 miles of the river and hundreds Having just defeated those cry baby “nature lovers,’ the Bureau took aim at-another natural wonder... of wondrous side canyons. And suddenly two species of animal life were extinction and others were forced to cling perilously to life. : driven to But it did not stop there. Having just defeated those cry baby “nature lovers,” the Bureau of Reclamation, with Floyd Dominy its new director, took aim at another natural wonder. On the very day in March 1963 that the bypass tunnels were closed at Glen Canyon Dam, the Bureau of Reclamation announced plans for the construction of two dams in the Grand Canyon. But this time a line was drawn in the sand. David Brower along with Martin Litton and a very large army of soldiers that now called themselves “environmentalists,” defended the Canyon with all their might. “Remember Glen Canyon” was their motto. It looked like the battle would be over before it was ever fought, because Marble Dam construction was well underway when debate began. Finally, Secretary of the Interior Udall stopped the entire project. The battle for the Grand Canyon dams had ended and the environmentalists had won. ‘ The environmental movement was now organized. The Sierra Club had over 70,000 members, up from the rag tag band of 7,000 members 20 years earlier. Congress was ripe for environmental legislation. Two bills were introduced and passed by a Republican congress and signed into law by President Richard Nixon, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Never again could a Glen Canyon Dam be built. Never again could the Grand Canyon be destroyed by these archaic and damaging monoliths. The environmental movement was defined by the battles for the dams on the Colorado River. Now take a minute and. reflect. Look back on American history and think about what environmental losses have occurred in U.S. history. One could make a long list. Certainly the loss of the nations forests would come to mind as a terrible tragedy. The loss of clean water and the pollution of our air is appalling. But if someone could name a single environmental incident that caused the most damage, and that continues to evoke the most emotion, it would have to be the construction of Glen Canyon Dam in 1956. Today we are wiser, to be sure. We know much more than we knew in the 1950's. Big The best thing that happened in the 50s was ME BEING BORN! dams, for all their water storage capability, are bad and whatever benefits they give to the world are immensely overshadowed by the destruction that they cause. Today Glen Canyon dam and the laws of the river are inadequate to serve the needs of an expanding American West. Water is being wasted in such intolerable amounts that the river never reaches the ocean. Wildlife, plant life and whole communities are dying as a result. Species are Transformational endangered from the headwaters all the way to the Delta because of that dam. It is silting in at an alarming rate and after only 40 years of life, the San Juan arm of Lake Powell is completely sedimented in. Hite marina has only a few years of life remaining. A tremendous lack of foresight was used in building Glen Canyon Dam. So now, in Body~Mind Therapy is working hard to decommission Glen Canyon dam and restore wondrous Glen Canyon and the life of the beautiful Colorado : : For more information on how you can help contact: www.glencanyon.org Dr. Richard Ingebretsen is president of the Glen Canyon Institute. Heda PROPERTY SERVICES | 23 South 100 West Moab, UT 84532 4352591001 JOHN HARTLEY Fall Line of Caretaker Independent Home Services Inspection Services (TM) 76 S. Main Suite #11 Moab, UT 84532 435.259.8123 movement to restore Glen Canyon started by the Glen Canyon Institute, and supported by the Sierra Club and other environmental groups, Sacral -Ortho-Bionomy Massage Therapy a time of new awareness of water rights and claims, increasing water demands, as well as environmental concerns, new rules must be developed to manage Western water. The River. Cranial omens SERVICES |
