Lake Powell silt!!

[GeorgAz]

Hey all! Just got back from Utah for 7 days of skiing and knees are fine! Cloudy with flat light first part of the week,but excellent in the latter with awesome snow and great sun!! Needed that!! While there I happened to see a pic of Lake Powell on the Utah news and it looks just horrible.They may have to get some kind of dredge to get rid of all the silt.The aerial view was quite alarming! Never shoulda built that porridge dam!!

[cactuscat]

[Daddee]

[Canyon Dweller]

I personally dont think it should be drained. I also dont think it should of been build. It ruined all sorts of good hiking. I have heard it was a much more beautiful canyon then the Grand Canyon.
I dont think it should be drained because, for one, the beauty will not be there anymore. There would be trash everywhere, the silt would be awful, the beauty it once had would not be there anymore.
Also it had created a whole new habitat for animals and fish. Draining it would disrupt this habitat.
Also there are alot of people that depend on its electricity, they would need to find some other way to make up for the loss.
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Mountains are there to be climbed!

"Meaningless! Meaningless," says the teacher, "Utterly Meaningless, Everything is meaningless."-Ecclesiastes 1:2

[Daddee]

The interesting thing is that there are significant and valid arguments for both points of view. Neither side has managed to throw a truly convincing argument one way or another that has gotten me to lean to either side from a theoretical perspective. The opinions of both sides are (usually) well thought out and (occasionally) researched fairly well. The two opposing viewpoints are so convincing on their own that it is hard to go with either one exclusively.

This is why I put the perspective of the politician out there. Right or wrong - past/present/future - that is how things work. Follow the money. Glenn Canyon Dam is here to stay - for good or ill.
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"Only small minds want always to be right."
- Louis XIV

"...haven't you lived long enough to know that two men may honestly differ about a question and both be right?"
- Abraham Lincoln

[GeorgAz]

There's a book called "All My Rivers Are Gone" by Mary Lee, who was one of the first explorers and hikers in the Glen Canyon area ,along with two friends, a photographer and outdoorsman. It is an amazing book.Her descriptions of all the canyons and sacred places they found and named ,explored and almost lost their lives in, are so profound and touching.Goes right up to the porridge being built and watching as the canyon became inundated and lost forever. It is a beautiful poignant and sad account of a place that must have been indescribably beautiful and irreplaceable. It is available at most libraries. Brought tears to my eyes.

[Nighthiker]

Be thankfull that they did not build the other four coal fired power plants around the lake.

[cactuscat]

[cactuscat]

[Daryl]

Draining it would do more harm then good. Right or wrong to be built in the first place, now that it's there it needs to stay up.

Whats worse, a thriving lake (which many people consider one of the most beautiful lakes around) or a barron, life less, trash filled canyon that won't be close to normal or useable for anything for hundreds of years.

Yes the water is colder in the colorado river then it should be, but is exposing the damage already done to glen canyon and the creation of more power plants worth warming up the river? If so, please explain.

As for the river being red, most of the time it is. The last few years, due to the drought in the south west, the Paria river, which supplies the colorado river with plenty of silt, has been nothing but a trickle.
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[kurthzone]

Mmmmmmmmmmm...........Stripers
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;o)>

[GTG]

I heard an interesting story on All Things Considered today that is right in line with this subject. -
St. Francis Dam Disaster -
http://www.npr.org/display_pages/features/feature_1190341.html

Interesting story, check out the audio when it becomes available.

GTG
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Good things come to those who walk.

[Shawn]

Cactuscat, you radical you!

I vote to drain it also, although the primary reason for its existence is the water compact between the upper CO River states and the lower states. Its all part of the Law of the River, a mixture of laws, court cases, and agreements, that set how the river is managed. Basically, the upper states "owe" the lower ones a certain amount of water annually, the reserve in Lake Powell is to ensure they can deliver without shutting off irrigation and municiple water up stream. Recreation and power are ancillary to that requirement.

I think if it were drained the land would recover sooner than we think. Keep in mind that geolocially, a human life span is a blink of an eye. I suggest that ten years would show lots of change, remember its all down hill from the lake, the silt would wash and errode down stream, changing it for awhile but sooner or later it would run clear. So what if it takes 50 years, at least its going in the right direction. The silt is a problem, the lake's life is not all that long.

another $.02 worth
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The bear went over the mountain to see what he could see.

[tempe8]

I love these debates. Arguments that rail against human intervention in nature, dams specifically, don't hold any water with me (pun intended). I just have to shake my head.

Dams and canals around the world are wonderful creations by man that support and propagate our species. They've provided: safety from floods, consistent water supplies, electricity, and jobs. How quickly we forget how we got here today. How quickly we forget the hand that feeds us, the life spring that sustains us. Unfortunately, these arguments are often made from the lofty perches of our comfortable McMansions, not taking into account our individual microscopic impact on the macroscopic world around us.

Do you live in a nice house? One with a nice big yard? What about the ecosystem that was destroyed by bulldozing it and then laying concrete over it? "But my house only took up a 1/4 acre". Yes, on the micro level, but on the macro level, our population in Phoenix has eaten up 100 square miles of natural ecosystems to propagate our species. Did you drive to work in a nice car, on smooth asphalt highways, so you could earn money to buy food today? Woops, there goes another 150 miles of nature paved over and some giant strip mines gathering iron ore for our cars. How about that nice chicken salad today at lunch? Sorry chickens, there goes another industrial factory farm. Did you enjoy that cool glass of water while hiking across the desert? Don't look now, but someone just built a dam. Do you have kids? Then you're part of the problem (if you look at the human species as a problem).

Now I enjoy the beauty of nature more than most people and I think we should do all we can to lighten our impact on nature, but I certainly will never rally against something as fundamental to life as water. "Well, if Phoenix can't support us without a dam we shouldn't live here". Ok, but we've got to go somewhere and we'd be causing problems there too.

All jesting aside, before we make these arguments against dams, we need to look at how we each contribute to their existence, how we each owe our existence to them. So, I have to ask now "Have you looked in the mirror today"?

P.S. We can take the energy equation out of dams if we go nuclear. We can also clear up the air while also becoming an energy independent country (think Middle East crisis). Woo hoo! go Nuclear!

[tempe8]

That's weird. Everywhere I had an apostrophe or a quotation mark, it put in a funny numerical sequence. Sorry, hope you can read it.