Why can't we accept the need to aggressively pursue restoration of environmental systems that have been impacted by our dam building history? In my view, we need to aggressively undertake environmental restoration activities.
The dam building era in the United States is now over. (applause) Our flirtation with dams has educated us, I think, about a great deal. One important thing is, the significant environmental impacts these facilities have had over time. In my view, building a dam is the same as constructing a nuclear power plant. You get immediate and continuing benefits, but you also get long term costs of a very high magnitude. Just like Chernobyl, or Hanford, or any other site, a dam can leave a permanent legacy of environmental destruction that will take hundreds of years to correct. It will also require the government to spend billions of dollars to correct problems that were never anticipated in the first place.

The challenges posed by major restoration activities were really highlighted at the hearings before the House Resources Committee. The hearing was held on the proposal to drain Lake Powell and restore one of America's most remote and, I think, pristine canyons. There is no mistaking the intent of those hearings. The western congressmen who dominate the panel wanted to use a public forum to embarrass David Brower, Adam Werbach, Dave Wegner, and other environmentalists who support the restoration of the canyon.
In my view it didn't work out that way. True, one representative after another tried to paint the proposal as ludicrous. Millions of people, they predicted, could suffer water and power outages. Lake Powell tourism would collapse. Witnesses who agreed with this view were paraded before the committee, and a lot of high fives thrown, but those who disagreed were painted as naive, misguided or worse.

What these members of congress missed is a very simple notion. Dams are not permanent fixtures on the landscape. I repeat, dams are not permanent fixtures on the landscape. They are there because we made a political decision to build them. The decision to build any dam isn't a scientific decision, it isn't an economic one, and it isn't a pronouncement from God. It is, pure and simple, a political decision. But dams won't last forever. They fill in with silt, they deteriorate with age; even more important, the political will to keep them can disappear.
The suggestion that we drain Lake Powell and restore Glen Canyon is, to me, breathtaking in its scope. The political and economic obstacles are really substantial, but I'm not prepared to dismiss the idea, and I'm not at all afraid to study the issue and to examine it. We already spend millions of dollars each year to maintain the Grand Canyon river ecosystem, through our appropriations and efforts on river management, endangered species restoration, and a host of other activities. Millions of dollars are also spent to protect and restore a whole host of environmental problems associated with the construction and the operation of the dam. Why not consider spending those millions of dollars on restoring the canyon?

Correcting the problems that are there, or the problems with any dam, in restoration are expensive. Even by the most conservative estimates, we will spend tens of billions of dollars to address the legacy of our dam-building era throughout the West. This year alone, federal dam building agencies, the Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of Reclamation will spend more trying to correct the problems of the past than they will constructing new projects. This is, in my view, an important lesson we have learned from our water development experience. We have reaped benefits, but we have also reaped very large costs. Draining a reservoir and restoring a pristine canyon just may be the cheapest and the easiest solution to our river restoration problems.

Now the Congress has already moved in this direction and taken some modest steps. We're paying now to purchase two dams on the Elwha River, on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state, to restore the Elwha River for the salmon fishery. The Army Corps of Engineers is removing concrete channels from Florida's Kissimmee River to recreate the original meanders and put the river back the way it was.

Despite all of the bruises on the bodies of Dave Wegner and the others who were there at the hearings, the House Resources Committee should really be applauded for holding the hearing on draining Lake Powell. Even though they didn't mean to, they have given legitimacy to the option of removing dams and restoring beautiful canyons.
Now, most of the people in this room are advocates for draining Lake Powell, and as you pursue this fascinating question, I urge you to remember one thing: the decision to study this issue is not just a scientific exercise, it is also a political one. You will be opposed throughout your effort by those who currently benefit handsomely from a flooded canyon and cheap power. They will not oppose you on the merits or with facts. They will use political clout, process arguments, and emotions. They will attack you personally, and they will question your qualifications, personal integrity, your motives, and probably something to do with your mother and father's sexual habits, I suppose.
I know this to be fact because I have spent thirty years working on western water resource issues, and most of the time I have spent arguing a position which is not very popular. I remember a number of occasions when my former boss, George Miller, ran up some amendments in our committee and we lost—forty-one to one, I think was one of the votes—and he turned to me and he said, “Well that was a learning experience.”
But you've got to remember that this exercise that you're about ready to embark on is not just a scientific one, it is also going to be a political one, and it is not going to be popular with the people who currently receive millions of dollars in benefits from the current system. John Adams, our second president, once said, concerning politics, “Is there no common sense or decency in this business?”

Well the answer is, sadly, no. Politics is not a profession where there is a lot of common sense and decency. Reform never comes without controversy, political pain, or hard work. Reform isn't easy, it isn't pretty, and it isn't fun. But the rewards from the values and the resources that we all care so much about are too great to ignore. I urge you, don't give up.
Thank You.