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Show Hingkley Journal of Politics 2005 The Politics of the Glen Canyon Dam: Challenging the Status Quo of Water Policy in the West Brian D. Poulsen, Jr. The struggle to appropriate Colorado River water, while striving to mitigate the negative impacts of doing so, embodies the very essence of Western water policy. One of its defining controversies is over the Glen Canyon Dam at Lake Powell. During the past decade, groups and individuals have openly opposed the presence and operation of the Glen Canyon Dam. These groups claim that the environmental and cultural costs of the dam outweigh its benefits. State and federal decision makers presently think otherwise. The purpose of this paper is to identify and analyze the actors who are striving to influence policy on the Glen Canyon Dam, their specific arguments, and the effects their efforts have had or likely will have. The paper concludes that while support for the proposal to decommission the dam is growing, it appears unlikely that any political decision to do so will occur in the near future. Introduction For nearly a century, the Colorado River has been at the center of Western water politics. Its drainage basin encompasses seven western states which include Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona and California. As such, it has been the victim of more interstate water policy conflict than perhaps any other river in the West. More recently, an era of environmental policy concern that views dams with ever more scrutiny has focused on some of the Colorado's more controversial water development projects. The biggest culprit, many argue, is the Glen Canyon Dam. Although it was built only 41 years ago, the Glen Canyon Dam is already under fierce fire by some who would like to see it decommissioned and the reservoir behind it drained. Others, such as the state and federal governments and a majority of the populations of the surrounding states, feel otherwise. The purpose of this work is to identify who the actors trying to influence policy are, analyze their arguments in the context of past and present policy concerning the dam, and assess what impacts their efforts are having or likely will have. Thus, the logical order in which these issues are discussed is (1) Actors, (2) Conditions, (3) Arguments and Behaviors, and (4) Outcomes. The study will conclude that while momentum for decommissioning is growing, it does not appear that any political decisions in favor of doing so will likely be made in the near future; and that if the lake is to be drained, Mother Nature will have to drain it herself. Discussion Actors Because the Glen Canyon Dam is tied to the much larger Colorado River System, and because policy on the dam has impacts throughout the system, the number of actors trying to influence policy on the system at large is stifling. However, because the dam is located at the tail end of the upper basin and most of the water withdrawals come from much higher or much lower on the river, those who are directly trying to influence policy on the dam itself are relatively few. In a broad sense, there are certainly numerous actors attempting to influence policy in some small way, but for the purposes of this study, it is the most significant actors that will be discussed. When building the Glen Canyon Dam was still being debated during the mid-1950s, the primary actors involved were the congressional delegates from the upper basin states, the Bureau of Reclamation, and the Sierra Club. The delegates, leery of California making use of their water before they could get to it, pushed heavily to get Congress to pass the Colorado River Storage Project, of which the Glen Canyon Dam was a part (Ashley and Jones 2002, 273). During the early 1960s, the Bureau was to some degree still enjoying its glory days of dam building, and Commissioner Floyd Dominy was persistently working to fulfill his dream of entirely harnessing the Colorado River (Martin 1989, 12). The Sierra Club, on the other hand, had crafted a deal with Congress to accept the Glen Canyon Dam and five other dams on the 15 |
