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Show The Politics of the Glen Canyon Dam: Challenging the Status Quo of Water Policy in the West Brian D. Poulsen, Jr. vation of Echo Park, Brower said, "I started building dams at age six. I most enjoyed destroying them. I got over the habit of dam building. Floyd's built some good ones, a few bad ones too. He's made a mistake or two, but so have I" (Farmer 1999, 182). In October of 1996, the GCI held its second annual conference and it was decided that they would actively seek the decommissioning of the Glen Canyon Dam (Ingebretson 2004). One month later the Sierra Club board voted unanimously to support the proposal to drain the lake and restore the canyon (Brower 1997). By 1997 the issue was gaining national recognition and Utah Congressional Representative Jim Hansen called for congressional hearings to address the issue. Testimony at those hearings came from a number of stakeholders including congressional and senate representatives from Arizona, Colorado, Utah, and other states, as well as the director of the Sierra Club, the president of Friends of Lake Powell, a representative from Western Area Power Administration, and many other agencies and organizations (Oversight Hearings 1997). The majority of the testimonies given at the hearing were strongly opposed to the proposal, citing that the economic, cultural, recreational, and even agricultural costs would be too heavy (Oversight Hearings 1997). Many, such as Congressmen Hansen and Cannon of Utah, used language bordering on mockery to describe those that favored the proposal. The message was clear: there was absolutely no federal- or state-sponsored support for draining Lake Powell. Yet Ingebretsen and those in favor claimed the hearings as a relative success, asserting that the meetings brought publicity and credibility to the movement (Ingebretsen 2004). Former commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation Daniel Beard (now board member of the GCI) declared, There was no mistaking the intent of the hearing.... The Western lawmakers on the panel wanted to use the forum to embarrass those who support restoration of the canyon.... But by holding the hearing in the first place, the panel gave legitimacy to the option of removing the dams because it tacitly admitted that dams are not permanent fixtures of the landscape. They are there because we made a political decision to build them. And they won't last forever (Joseph 1998, 48). The net result: the dam was there to stay-at least for now. However, the opponents of the dam were not deterred. The GCI launched a major fact-finding campaign to study some of the issues surrounding the dam that were not addressed in the adaptive management approach for operation. One such issue was the effects of the 1996 experimental floods conducted by the Bureau of Reclamation. Dave Wegner, lead scientist in the experiment, recognized that the outcome was not the success everyone hoped it would be. Unwilling to go before the public and continue what he calls the "misconception," Wegner became black-marked by the Clinton administration. When his position became conveniently expendable, and an offer that would have taken him to Guam was not what he was looking for, he resigned (Wegner 2004). In April 1997, Wegner joined the GCI as a board member and began work on what would become the Citizens' Environmental Assessment (CEA) which was completed under the rules outlined by the National Environmental Policy Act (Ingebretsen 2004). The effort cost the GCI nearly $250,000 and the document was completed and released by early 2001 (Peterson 2004b). It addressed topics including water loss, sediment deposition, water quality, impacts on ecology, dam safety, electricity production, and a number of other issues (Glen Canyon Institute 2000). The purpose of the CEA was to address the need for action on the decommissioning of the dam by presenting scientific facts. It is the use of science, Executive Director Chris Peterson says, that has moved the reputation of the GCI away from that of "crazy" as it was perceived in its early days, to more progressive, factual, and scientific (Peterson 2004b). Thus, the GCI has largely crafted its scientific arguments for decommissioning around the data they collected during the completion of the CEA. Their primary arguments are as follows: (1) the dam is no longer needed and the purposed for which it was built can be served by other means; (2) given the evaporative loss and loss due to seepage, the lake is more wasteful than useful; (3) the dam is imposing serious pressure on habitat for native wildlife species such as the humpback chub; and (4) the dam will eventually expire due to sedimentation (Peterson 2005). While several of these arguments seem compelling, even to the skeptical, others counter that they are misguided. It is worth looking at each in detail. First, the GCI argues that the Glen Canyon Dam and Lake Powell are not necessary. This issue is probably the most difficult to deal with because there are so many factors involved. Indeed, this issue alone could constitute an entire paper if not an entire book. However, suffice it to say that the GCI claims that the purposes for which the dam was built, i.e. to store water for upper basin use and allow the upper basin to meet its obligation to the lower basin, can be served by other means. Jane Bird, Deputy Director and General Council for the Upper Colorado River Commission, claims that without the dam, upper basin users would be in serious trouble during times of drought (Bird 2005). During these times, she argues, the upper basin can continue to use up to its full allotment from the CRC and still deliver its obligation to the lower basin because of the stored water behind the Glen Canyon Dam (Bird 2005). Were it not for such stored water, upper basin states would have to curtail their use of Colorado River Water in order to deliver their obligation to the lower basin. This argument only holds weight, counters Peterson, because the amount of water the upper basin delivers to the lower is calculated at Lee's Ferry, just beyond the Glen Canyon Dam (2005). If the CRC were altered, he asserts, so that delivery to the lower basin were calculated as it exited Lake Mead, then the upper basin could fulfill its obligation and the lower basin 18 |
