TRADEOFFS IN PARADISE:

Negative Impacts of Glen Canyon Dam

* Destroyed Glen Canyon, which should have been one of the world's great scenic parks
* Partially destroyed the native fish fauna in Glen and Grand canyons by creating uniformly cold water
* Resulted in the loss of 20% to 40% of Grand Canyon sandbars, and many river campsites
* Increased severity of Grand Canyon rapids
* Increased danger of hypothermia in Grand Canyon

Environmental Gains from Glen Canyon Dam

* Increased aquatic ecosystem productivity in the clearwater segment between the dam and the Paria River confluence, and in the sometimes turbid river between the Paria River and the Little Colorado River confluences.
* Created a trophy trout fishery and angling guide industry
* Increased endangered Kanab ambersnail habitat by 20–25%
* Provides food and habitat that support one quarter or more of the Southwest's wintering bald eagles
* Substantially increased the post–dam migratory waterfowl population, and supports a new summer–breeding population.
* Provides food for the largest breeding population of endangered peregrine falcons in the 48 states.
* Produced abundant, biologically productive riverside marshes.
* Created one of the largest, most productive, and most diverse riparian vegetation stands in the Southwest
* Greatly increased diversity and abundance of riparian invertebrates, amphibians and reptiles, birds, and mammals.
* Produced a more predictable river, allowing commercial river running companies to transport more passengers, more safely and through a longer river running season.
* Created cheap, environmentally clean hydroelectric energy production for more than 3 million Southwest residents.
* Created water storage for the upper Colorado River basin, with an estimated 15 million beneficiaries.

In September Utah Congressman Jim Hansen called a special hearing in Washington to air the proposal, by the Sierra Club and Glen Canyon Institute, to drain Lake Powell. Attended primarily by western congressmen hostile to the idea, it was more of a blanket party than a hearing, with testimony heavily weighted against the proposal.
National press summarized the hearing by saying the proposal had been pronounced “colossally dumb”. This was indeed the intent of the hearing… to squash the idea like a bug. The opposite, however, seems to have happened—the idea seems to keep growing and the publicity it has received, good or bad, continues to help it gain a wider audience. In fact, a Citizens' Environmental Impact Study is about to begin.
On the following two pages are excerpts from two testimonies at the hearing. Adam Werbach, president of the Sierra Club, speaks for the proposal. Rob Elliot, owner of Arizona Raft Adventures, speaks against it.
On the page following the testimonies, Michael Ghiglieri presents yet another viewpoint on dam management…

Adam Werbach's Tesitimony - an exerpt

Draining Lake Powell is not just about restoring a place more mysterious than the Grand Canyon, though that alone would be worth it.
It is about facing the reality that we are asking too much of the Colorado River. We are not being good stewards of this resource nor are we providing a safe future for our children in the way we are abusing the river today.
In destroying Glen Canyon we have eliminated some of the most productive habitat for native Colorado River fish, many of which have been smothered forever from the face of the Earth while the remaining species hang on in isolated and aging populations in a few places along the river.
The Colorado River Compact promises more water to the Basin States and to Mexico than nature promises to provide based on what we know now about past river flows.
Most of the river goes to water plants, not people. And many of these plants, such as cotton, are not native to the desert, are heavy water users and would not be grown at all if their farming was not supported by a complex web of tax breaks, subsidies and federal price supports.
The Colorado River system drains a vast area of our country, yet is so depleted by diversions along the way that most years its flow disappears into its riverbed sands miles from its former mouth at the Sea of Cortez. Its death has caused the demise of a fishing industry and communities in neighboring Mexico, and threatens the ecological sanctuary recently established in that country to protect rare porpoises and other endangered creatures in the delta region.
The Grand Canyon just downstream is suffering from the effects of Glen Canyon Dam, which has turned its warm water native fish habitats cold, cut off the major supply of sediments to rebuild its beaches and shorelines, and prevented cleansing seasonal floods…
In the not too distant future, Lake Powell, like all reservoirs, will be rendered useless for water storage and power by incoming silt. Lake Powell represents short-term vision, and those of us who are not old enough to have experienced Glen Canyon pay the price.
Between seepage into the canyon walls around Lake Powell and evaporation from this vast flat water reservoir located at high elevation in one of the driest areas of the country, water loss is estimated at almost 1 million acre feet per year according to the Bureau of Reclamation, enough for a city the size of Los Angeles.
This is no way to run a river, and it's not the legacy to leave for our children.
Changes are possible without massive shortfalls in water or power. I would like to submit to the hearing record a study just completed by the Environmental Defense Fund entitled The Effect of Draining Lake Powell on Water Supply and Electricity Production.
Regarding hydropower, EDF finds that “most power users in the Southwest would not be affected”, and that the estimated cost to all Americans of restoring Glen Canyon by foregoing power revenues from the dam is only 37 cents a piece per year, a bargain for what we'd get back. EDF concludes that “a comprehensive study of all the effects of the proposal to drain Lake Powell...is clearly warranted.”
Information prepared by the Bureau of Reclamation itself in July 1997 to address the issue of draining Lake Powell says that the difference between the average annual inflow to the reservoir and current Upper Basin use “is enough to satisfy the Colorado River Compact obligation of 75 million acre feet per ten years to the lower basin without needing the storage of Lake Powell. In addition, recovered evaporation losses from Lake Powell would help to meet any potential deficiency in the Mexican Treaty obligation.”
We believe these preliminary analyses show that draining Lake Powell is possible without major dislocations, that it's affordable, and that it's not too late to consider this option.
Hoover Dam and Lake Mead can continue to regulate the river and produce power. Glen Canyon Dam doesn't do anything different than Hoover and Mead in that regard, but it does drown a unique natural treasure and destroy an ecosystem which we can still uncover and restore.
The water saved by reduced evaporation and seepage from Lake Powell will add water supply back into the system. The power generation lost from Glen Canyon Dam can be replaced by natural gas or conservation elsewhere, and the cost spread over the rate base of the Western power grid should not be prohibitive.
Today, people are reevaluating at our past fascination with dams. And reviewing and changing dam operations is not without precedent. Congress has directed that the Elwha Dam in Washington State be removed to restore the river. Reservoirs in the Columbia and Snake river basins are being proposed for drawdown to restore salmon runs. Glen Canyon Dam itself has been reregulated by 1992 legislation. The Bureau of Reclamation assumes the economic life of dams is only 75 years. Even former Interior Secretary and now head of the Christian Coalition Don Hodel suggested in 1987 that O'Shaughnessy Dam in Yosemite National Park's Hetch Hetchy Valley be removed.
The Sierra Club supports evaluating the tradeoffs and opportunities of draining Lake Powell through an environmental assessment. We urge the Administration to undertake this review. Such an analysis has never been done because it wasn't required at the time Glen Canyon Dam was built. Regardless of where you stand on this issue, it shouldn't hurt to at least look at the information.
Our goal is to make the "place no one knew" the place everyone knows about. And we believe the American public will choose in favor of Glen Canyon.

Rob Elliot's Testimony - an exerpt

he riparian habitat in Grand Canyon downstream from the dam is today amazingly vibrant, rich in biodiversity, none the less legitimate because it is a highly managed ecosystem, and it is threatened by both the prospect of draining Lake Powell and the possibility that nature may act first to blow out Glen Canyon Dam, with or without the authorization of Congress.
The post dam riparian conditions in the Grand Canyon are neither better nor worse than before the dam, but certainly vastly different. Post dam conditions are richer, more vibrant. …
Recreationally, river running in the Grand Canyon took off at the end of the decade in which the dam was built. Early Bureau of Reclamation managers like to think the dam made river running possible. Although the fight to keep dams out of Grand Canyon may have brought early popularity to river running, from a flow perspective, there is no correlation between flows moderated by the dam and ability to run the river. Modern day river running has experienced 90% of the median range of pre dam flows from 3,000 cubic feet per second to 92,500 cubic feet per second. We have the water craft, safety systems, and training to handle most any flow the river can throw at us.
Recreationally, the difference comes in the sediments and water temperature. Pre dam, or post draining Lake Powell, the water temperature in August would be 80 degrees and 10% of it would be mud. There would be lots of flies, no way to get clean, and no cold water to help our perishable foods make it through the canyon for two weeks. Not a pretty picture. As an environmentalist and a river runner who regards the Grand Canyon as home, I and my customers rather like the river environment and species diversity which has evolved downstream from the dam the way it is today.
…With the draining of Lake Powell and the freeing of Glen Canyon from beneath megatons of presumably toxic sediments, restoration would begin immediately ... and take a millennium for nature to restore Glen Canyon to ... to what? We don't know.
…If the sediments flow through Glen and Grand Canyons, then Lake Mead will fill all the more quickly ... and then are we to decommission Hoover Dam as well? Is the only ultimate answer to let the sediments run through to the Sea of Cortez? To use the water, we must remove the sediments and I admit, that fact poses very tough questions for future generations. It's not too soon to start looking for the answers today.
We must begin risk analysis to determine the competency of Glen Canyon Dam and flood control capacity in Lake Powell to withstand a 500 year flood. How long did the engineers design the dam to last? Was it smart to put it in sandstone in the first place? There is a lot of speculation as to how long the dam will be there. We almost lost it in 1983 when El Niño produced 210% of normal snowpack in the early spring and a warm June brought it all down in the first ten days of the month.
…With all tubes and spillways flowing, Glen Canyon Dam can release somewhere between 220,000 and 270,000 cubic feet per second… and might be able to handle that for a few days. Bill Duncan, the manager of the dam, says the 1983 problem with the bypass tubes has been fixed and the tubes are competent to handle full volume. A 500 year flood event runs about 250,000 cubic feet per second and sedimentologists with the Bureau of Reclamation point to evidence of prehistoric floods of up to 400,000 c.f.s. Meteorologists tell us that El Niño event building off the coast of South America is expected to be the biggest of the century.
…My view is that the subcommittees can productively focus time and resources on assuring that the risk analysis of managing a 500 year flood event is addressed. Whether the lake is drained by man or the dam is blown out by nature, the riparian resources in both Glen Canyon and Grand Canyon will recover in a few hundred years. Whether we have a choice, or no choice, if we fail to accommodate the eventuality of a 500 year flood, we may have created a situation with unacceptable risks to society.
…Thank you for legitimizing this very necessary debate. I believe dam removal in some river systems may increasingly be a credible and necessary management alternative over time, just not Glen Canyon Dam and not now… What we learn from assessing storage capacity, the quantity and quality of lake sediments, and downstream impacts of a 500 year flood event at Glen Canyon may provide invaluable scientific data and understanding against which to evaluate long range management options at other aging facilities.
Habitat restoration in Glen Canyon by draining Lake Powell is a very bad idea on all counts, environmentally, recreationally, socially, and economically.
The damming of Glen Canyon was a wrong that cannot be righted in this way. It is counterproductive to outfitted river trips and other forms of recreation, counterproductive to local economies, and counterproductive to the environment.…
We must all be open to evaluating the draining of reservoirs as a viable management option that may make sense in some cases in the future. But in the case of Glen Canyon, I do not believe the restoration of Glen Canyon is either doable, or a net benefit for anyone or any natural, cultural or recreational resource involved.

Michael Ghiglieri's view

We the people are treating Grand Canyon as lowbrow cops treat a rape victim: she Probably had it coming; and anyway the real damage cannot be undone. This attitude, however, spoken or not, is illegal, unethical, and transparently disingenuous to Americans of average intelligence.
As American citizens live under a law defining our duties and rights with regard to Grand Canyon National Park and the operation of Glen Canyon Dam. The Congressional Mandate of August 25, 1916, orders the Secretary of the Interior to "conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wildlife therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such a manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations."
This law, however, has taken a back seat to expediency among our public servants, who say they truly care about Grand Canyon yet bemoan having their hands tied by "reality". If we let them slide on this, our descendants will have ample reason to hate our guts. To illustrate how insidious our adversary is, the 1994 Draft Environmental Impact Statement Summary: Operation of Glen Canyon Dam states on its first page of text (p. iv): "None of the alternatives considered in' this EIS can return the system to predam conditions. However, this EIS considers nine alternate ways to operate the dam to reduce further adverse impacts on or to enhance the existing ecosystem." (Italics mine). Note that this "existing ecosystem" is an artificial one so qualitatively inferior to the historic natural one of pre-dam Grand Canyon that its degradated state alone is precisely what led to this very EIS that hereby is sanctimoniously absolving itself of any hope of its restoration.
Take, for example, one existing dam release option (p. 11) likely to be most helpful: a seasonal, short duration peak flow of 45,000 CFS. Why not instead release in June the full 48,200 cfs possible from the dam at any time--or the even better historic 85,000 cfs peaks of nature when possible? And better yet, why not tie this in with a seasonally adjusted steady flow mimicking predam flows? The answer is such releases might impact subsequent, artificially created---and legally unprotected---resources.
Worse is the alternative is for saving endemic fish endangered due to dam releases of water too cold (46 F at Lees Ferry) for them to breed in. The mitigation offered is to establish another population of humpback chub in another tributary of the Colorado downstream of Glen Canyon Dam (p.12). On the contrary, the obvious solution for endangered species of fish at risk due to dam operations is to stop drawing water from 230 feet deep and to rebuild the feeder penstocks in multi-intake structures to take warm surface water from Lake Powell to re-establish the natural temperature regime of the river so that the endemic (and endangered) fish can breed in the river again. Forget the trout fishery; trout are alien exotics and are in conflict with the National Park Mandate. And don't worry about warm water allowing predatory striped bass planted in Lake Mead to come up river; the striped Bass already come upriver to Lee's Ferry. And don't worry about the retro-fitting of the dam costing $60 million; take these funds from dam operations revenues and fix the dam now— as we are required to by law (as was done at Flaming Gorge Dam).
And no question anymore, sediment augmentation within the river corridor below Glen Canyon is not an impossible dream, it is a mandatory mitigation of damage being caused by Glen Canyon Dam. And it is feasible:, several US sediment-delivery pipelines and pumps have been built by industry. Let's build one to restore our Seventh Wonder of the World and World Heritage Site. Stalling this' construction by another EIS and a proposed 15-20 year building requirement is disingenuous; private industry could build one hell of a lot faster.
Finally, remember that it is not just government who balks at undoing the damage that government has done and is still doing in Grand Canyon. The private sector, with its own interests, may be as guilty. Take, for example, recommendations in the book The Colorado River through Grand Canyon: Natural History and Human Change. On page 152 we read that dam releases should be managed to facilitate the invasion of new biological species not present historically in Grand Canyon. And on pages 189 to 194 we read that the National Park Mandate is obsolete, that instead of adhering to it, we should manage Grand Canyon to preserve artificially created ecosystems. This is the most dangerous suggestion so far made by anyone. Were either of these recommendations ever to become law---or even precedent---we could kiss goodbye literally every natural ecosystem remaining in the United States. We may as well dump the Bill of Rights in the Porta Potty as well.

Michael P. Ghiglieri