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Show TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT By Jim Stiles NONSENSE AT GLEN CANYON DAM The National Park Service, the Bureau of Reclamation and the Secretary of the Interior could not have been prouder of themselves last month. With the national media gathered to witness this "historic event Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt threw a switch and released into the Colorado River up to 45,000 cubic feet of water per second (cfs) from the bowels of this country's most despised and controversial dam...Glen Canyon Dam. This section of the wild Colorado River last flowed freely in the winter of 1962. The following spring, the diversion gates at the recently completed dam were sealed and water began to rise behind it, forming today's Lake FowelL Also stopped by the dam was all the sediment that the Colorado River once transported with it (The word 'Colorado' describes the red color of the river as it carried millions of tons of sediment to the Gulf of California.) Beaches and sand bars in the Grand Canyon, downstream from the dam, have been washed away by regular water releases through the turbines at the dam ever since, which usually flow through the canyon at a rate of about 12,000 cfs. the sediment is Those turbine releases contain dear water-a- ll is sediment to no new the in there lake; thus, being deposited 33 die replace what has been washed away in past years. And BuRec's Great Flood of '96 didn't change anything in that respect The idea behind the plan was to send a greater volume of water through the downstream canyon with the hope that the force of the flood would stir up a lot of the preexisting sediment that had settled at the bottom of the river. That sediment would then be pushed to the edges of the river, creating new beaches. But there still isn't any new sediment, at least not from the Colorado River. Lake Powell is filling with it, but below the darn, the Department of Interior will have to make do with what's left from more than 30 years ago. That didn't keep Interior Secretary Babbitt from proclaiming his efforts a great success. "What we're doing is understanding everything relates," said Babbitt, "and if we're going to find equilibrium on this landscape we're going to see the entire watershed (emphasis added) as a unit and manage it as an beach-buildi- ng ecosystem. What? Apparently, as Secretary Babbitt flipped the lever that opened the jet tubes to release all that water, he somehow failed to notice the 700 foot high concrete monstrosity that loomed behind him...Glen Canyon Dam itself. All these gestures would not have been necessary were it not fra the construction of the damn dam in the first place. You bet "everything relates," Mr. Babbitt, and if you think the dam has caused the Colorado River problems downstream, you should see what it's done upstream. Of course you can't see what the upstream effects have been because Glen Canyon, perhaps the most beautiful canyon cqmplex on the face of our earth, is buried by 27,000,000 acre feet of water. So when Babbitt says we must see "the entire watershed as a unit and manage it as an ecosystem," does he think the ecosystem naturally started at Glen Canyon Dam? And if he doesn't.. if he acknowledges that man's stupidity and shortsightedness are responsible for the dam, If he really believes that "everything relates," is he also prepared to go down in history as the most visionary Secretary of Interior to ever wear the shoes by ordering the dismantling of die dam and restoring of the Colorado River? the complete I wouldn't hold my breath, but that's die bottom line. Glen Canyon Dam should never have been built and would never be built today. The American people would never stand for it Ironically and sadly, it was the loss of Glen Canyon that Inspired many to say, "Never again." When the Bureau of Reclamation attempted to follow Glen Canyon Dam with a series of dams down stream in the Grand Canyon, the agency met a solid wall of opposition. In ways, the river still flows free through the Grand Canyon because of the sacrifice that was made upstream. Even former staunch proponents of den Canyon Dam now regret their support As late as 1974, Senator Bany Gold water still felt the dam was an improvement over the untamed river. But by ed namratSMSBiMib tTryT.TiTi!HMfrm!PiTn ignnnailib TlffligmiBgiraDSEEESm i$gnnnE iQBSjymStoaHUigm jn$I&lBBEto)CEfl36tiuBEflly fECHltalPlfr ISEEtoODED tMCg!& 5SEisini!iiitoiitoBiM4MB eco-systc- m eco-syste- m 6.lEED$nBD I.J!!MtteCTnWWBTnWli tiBtmltlWb Itas the mld-80he felt otherwise. In one interview, in fact, Goldwater lamented that if he could change just one Senate vote he'd cast in 30 years, it would have been his vote to approve construction of Glen Canyon Dam. I hope that someday we not only have die good sense to admit that Glen Canyon Dam was a mistake, but that we have the courage and the wisdom to right that terrible wrong s, THE BIG fc THE SMALL OF IT ALL. I managed to miss Jeep Safari, Easter Week and at least some of our hectic spring break (break for who?) this year. I came back to town just as everyone was packing up and leaving It was a very quiet time for me; I sought sanctuary on some land a hundred miles or so south of Moab, where die elevation is about 3000 feet higher and the temperatures about 25 degrees cooler than here. So in early April my hideaway was still in the fading grip of winter, which is not very appealing to Spring Breakers. Knowing that such chaos was rattling die desert just a few dozen miles away made me appreciate my quiet neck of the woods even mote. The silence there is profound, sometimes maybe too quiet even for a reluctant loner like me. But I hesitate to ever complain about it because I know the precious quiet that prevails there is so tenuous and always threatened by the same forces that have, for the time being at least; turned Moab upside down. I've seen too many old trees uprooted, too many canyons defiled, too many rivers turned into stagnant pools, and too many meadows turned into condo cities to ever again think that something is just too beautiful to be threatened or destroyed. But sometimes there are days that are too perfect to be ruined of the future and the "evil that lurks in men's minds." fears by Sometimes the loveliness of a day is so complete and so seamless that nothing can diminish it The big and the small of ItalL-i- n the span of a few hours, that's what I saw. There is a small canyon nearby; it is not particularly remarkable, and sometimes I worry about it, because the canyon lies on private land. Yet, in all the years I've been visiting it, I've never seen another human footprint but my own. I'm die only intruder in this forgotten little place and I try to be as unobtrusive as possible. The water that has flowed through here for thousands of years has sculpted the Dakota sandstone and left pot hole pods and fluted fells, but away from the wash bottom the canyon breaks away in ledges and is lined with majestic FOnderosa pines. At one point the canyon drops precipitously. In the lower canyon, a stand of remnant aspens ding to life in a place where they are not supposed to be. This cluster must have established Itself sometime in the long ago past when die weather was cooler and wetter. Now, tucked into the shadowed recesses of my forgotten canyon, these trees live at an elevation usually too low for them to survive, much less to flourish. But they da And on this day, so did L I found an outcrop of rock, perhaps a hundred feet above the remnant aspens and, being the lazy loafer that I am, just sat there for the next three hours. There was so much to absorb-.th- e fragrance of the Ponderosas, the sound of the wind blowing through those mighty trees and the trickle of water over the into the aspens. I saw five mule deer wander into the drop-of- f canyon, pause briefly for a drink and then move west out of the canyon on the far side. They never saw me, just a hundred or so feetawsy. But I was most intrigued by a bird that I followed from tree to tree for almost an hour. It was a hairy woodpecker, I rhtnle. I'm not a 'birder' by any means. I only made a positive ID later when I could consult the book. But not knowing fee scientific details did nothing to diminish my appreciation or admiration for this little winged guy. Of course, I heard him before I ever saw Jiim, pecking away at a tall tree, and looking for hinch,I suppose. His persistence was remarkable, not to mention his endurance. As I watched him pound away Incessantly at the bark with his beak, I wondered why all woodpeckers and flickers don't have splitting headaches most of the time. Maybe they do and they're just teal stoic about it |
