A Declaration of Independence for the Colorado River

I know how radiant Glen Canyon was. I saw what was left of it when I was a boy. As the reservoir began to fill, our Scout troop hiked up the deep, narrow canyons that led to Rainbow Bridge. All the way we encountered waterfalls, slides, huge rocks, and warm pools. My scoutmaster stopped us at one point and said, "You had better remember this now, because next year it will all be underwater." I asked him why they were flooding it. He didn’t know.

As a young adult I boated over the same canyon, remembering what I had seen, and my heart ached. Year after year, compulsively, I rafted the Colorado through what remained of Cataract Canyon, wondering why a glorious river system was destroyed. By the early 1990s I had read, studied, and absorbed enough that I began to understand the politics that led to the dam. I founded Glen Canyon Institute to pass on what I had learned and, beyond that, to undo a tragic mistake, to begin the process of getting Glen Canyon back.

In October of 1996, leading scientists, engineers and Bureau of Reclamation officials gathered at our second annual meeting to discuss the draining of Lake Powell. Their statements made clear that replacing the reservoir with a free-flowing river, uncovering Glen Canyon, would make water delivery more efficient downstream. Armed with their data, we announced plans to formulate a scientific and well reasoned plan for eliminating the reservoir. Less than two weeks later, the Board of Directors of the Sierra Club voted to "advocate the draining of the reservoir behind Glen Canyon Dam." Environmental groups and scientists have endorsed the idea. When I speak at various events I am asked a number of questions. Here are the most common.

Without the dam, how do you propose to control the erratic flows of the river through Grand Canyon?

The question’s assumption needs examination. We must ask first whether it is necessary and desirable to control the flow, and beyond that, whether we have the right to control it. Animals, plants and fish downstream evolved in a dynamic, free flowing river system. We can’t ask the question in a vacuum, ignoring the life forms that depend on seasonal fluctuation.

Won’t the white "bathtub ring" make a newly exposed Glen Canyon look terrible?

Not for long. A biologist who has documented the rise and fall of the lake in the Escalante drainage has demonstrated how quickly the white ring disappears. Our initial studies indicate that in as little as five to ten years we will see very little evidence of this superficial damage.

Will draining Lake Powell require the upper Basin states to deliver more water than is economically feasible?

Draining Lake Powell, in fact, will free up water. The reservoir now wastes nearly 1,000,000 acre feet per year, which is 8% of the river’s flow. Water lost to evaporation is sent out of the basin entirely; most of it winds up in the Midwest in the form of rain. That’s a lot of wasted money as well as water. Adding one million acre feet of water into the system would provide a net gain to all water users, as well as the river ecosystem. Users could store the additional water underground, where it wouldn’t evaporate and where it would be available in times of drought. We could also save the millions of dollars we spend to protect the Grand Canyon and its native endangered species from the effects of the dam. Draining Lake Powell will conserve water, create revenue, reduce wasteful spending, and stimulate the economy.

Hasn’t Lake Powell protected the Grand Canyon from floods and increased bio-diversity by adding fresh water species to the river?

The very unique of the Colorado River system evolved in a dynamic, warm, muddy environment. Glen Canyon provided a gentle, nurturing environment where they could reproduce. By trapping sediments in Reservoir Powell and sending a cold, steady flow out of the dam, we have eliminated one fish species from the river below the dam, eliminated two more from the Grand Canyon, and endangered species in the lower river. The trout, introduced below the dam, are very common in mountain streams.

In the spring of 1996, an attempt was made to mitigate damage to the Grand Canyon by releasing an artificial flood from the dam, to mimic the high flows of former spring runoffs. This experimental "flood flow" represented only half the pre-dam spring peak, and introduced no new sediment into the system. This flow rejuvenated beaches and backwater habitats, and improved habitat for endangered fish. Less than a year later, the new habitat was gone, eaten away by clear water hungry for sediment. The flood was a short term success, but fell short of a long term solution.

How would we make up the lost power from the dam? Wouldn’t peaking power be lost if we drained Lake Powell?

Glen Canyon Dam is part of an electrical grid that receives power from many other sources. Currently, there is a surplus of power on the grid. This fact along with a few energy saving measures in the delivery system and at the consumer end would quickly make up for energy lost at the dam, and greater efficiency would leave us a cleaner world as a dividend. These facts are not disputed by power officials. Much of the potential peaking power became unavailable with the passage of the Grand Canyon Protection Act of 1992. Losing it all is precisely what we want. The rapid fluctuations of sediment hungry water which produced peaking power at the dam have caused great environmental damage in Grand Canyon. There are other ways to create peaking power that are less environmentally damaging.

The Bureau of Reclamation states that the reservoir won’t silt in for another seven hundred years. Shouldn’t we use the resource while it lasts?

To ask how long it will take the reservoir to silt in is an exercise in futility. The 700-year figure, quoted frequently by the Bureau of Reclamation, comes from a study backed by the National Science Foundation that measured actual siltation during the first decades of the reservoir during a relatively dry cycle. Other studies conducted by the government estimate the dam’s life span as 250 or 300 years. In any case, the river is unpredictable and a single 500-year flood could change all estimates.

More significant is that when silt reaches the "river outlet work" valves that allow the reservoir to be drawn down, for safety or other reasons, the dam will have to be retrofitted for new tubes. This could happen in less than 100 years. Regardless, with each passing day, more silt is held behind the dam, and less water. As water storage capacity is lost to siltation, the reservoir will increasingly be unable to contain a large flood. Thus soon, the reservoir will have no purpose to exist at all and the political will to keep it will be gone.

Furthermore, it is ludicrous to think that water laws made in 1956 will govern people 100 years from now, not to mention 700 years from now. Big dams are already outmoded technology, relics of a clumsier time. As the West continues to experience rapid, frightening growth, water laws as we know them must change. The best thing we can do for the future is to deliver a world that is starting to heal from past mistakes.

Isn’t Glen Canyon already destroyed? Can it be restored?

Moving water works powerfully and quickly, evidenced by the canyons themselves. Sediment will clear out as the river returns to its bed, and riparian life will move in the first year after high water. We would expect to see forty foot cottonwoods in ten years, with healthy if slightly altered biotic communities along the riverbank. Side canyons will take longer to scour, perhaps several decades, and life forms on the cliffs themselves will be slower to return. Life will come back in phases; it will be fascinating to watch.

Nearly three million people visit Lake Powell each year. Won’t draining the reservoir prevent many people from seeing at least part of that area?

It is true that Lake Powell has allowed many people to see the top of what was Glen Canyon. But that argument was once also made for the Grand Canyon, and rejected after a national outcry. Even now we could propose a similar fate for places like Zion National Park, but it is doubtful that American would permit it. Lake Powell does possess a stark beauty. There is beauty anytime that stone meets water. But it is a sterile beauty, lacking both the soaring heights of Glen Canyon and the green, intricate river ecosystem that made a far more entrancing meeting between water and rock than a bath tub ring. In the long range, of course, Lake Powell is doomed even if it is left alone, for it is destined to silt in.

Draining Lake Powell would allow millions of people to see the entire canyon, just as millions every year see the Grand Canyon. Twenty or thirty thousand people each year float through the Grand Canyon, many multiples of those numbers hike the trails, and 5 million people enjoy the view from the rim. The same would be true for Glen Canyon.

Won’t the Navajo Power Project east of Page have to be shut down?

Absolutely not. The power plant needs water for cooling. It can use river water as well as lake water.

Page, Arizona relies on Lake Powell for business. What will happen to Page when the reservoir is drained?

The city would merely change from one tourist economy to another, from a reservoir oriented economy to one that centers on rafting, hiking, and exploring. The actual draining of the lake would also provide jobs during the transition period, from modifications of the dam itself to the clean-up of Glen Canyon. Just as more people visited Yellowstone after the fires, more would visit a restored Glen Canyon, because people are fascinated by change and rebirth. Page could become a center for studies on river restoration.

We will succeed in our efforts because we have the future on our side. We are firmly committed to what theologian Albert Schweitzer called "respect for life." Our plan restores freedom to the animals and plants that formerly lived their lives within and beside the Colorado River and will be allowed to return to their homeland. The river itself will regain its freedom to experience its awe-inspiring flow. The citizens environmental assessment is a Declaration of Independence for the Colorado River; a Bill of Rights for life that cannot speak for itself.

There are alternatives to Glen Canyon dam—better alternatives. We are convinced that more money and jobs will be generated by a free flowing river than by outdated impoundment, and that our lives will be enriched by the return of species to their former homes. I look forward to the day when I can take my own son up the tall narrow canyons leading to Rainbow Bridge and exclaim, "This used to be all underwater." We ask for your support in the campaign to restore a free flowing Colorado River through Glen Canyon and Grand Canyon.