Time to take another look at Glen Canyon Dam
by Eleanor Inskip

This drought may be the blessing we need to take a fresh, honest look at the alternatives and the consequences of trying to continue with dams - especially Glen Canyon. And as a result, a fresh, honest look at former Congressman Jim Hansen's outdated ban on studying Glen Canyon Dam's decommissioning, now up for annual reconsideration by Congress.

This winter Lake Powell's principal purpose, water supply, is likely to be tapped for the first time in history. Never before has the reservoir's water storage been a benefit to downstream water users. During its 40-plus years, Lake Powell has lost from 30 to 40 million acre feet of water from evaporation and seepage. This water loss represents a four- to five-year supply for water users below Lake Powell, or more than 20 years of Utah's Colorado River water allocation. As the drought began we had stored only 23 million acre feet and the water supply continues to drop.

Lake Powell exists to satisfy a water accounting formula - a commitment by the states of Utah, Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico to deliver on average 8.25 million acre feet of water per year to Arizona, Nevada, California and Mexico. Since 1922 this promise, part of the Colorado River Compact, has been met without using the stored water behind Glen Canyon Dam. But now nature is testing this antiquated compact for the first time. And dam or no dam, if nature does not provide the water, we are stuck. The federal government,   as the ultimate water master, will likely pro-rate every state's allocations based on what the river is actually delivering, and the 8.25 million acre feet rule that led to Glen Canyon Dam will go the way of Prohibition.

We need to be looking at ways of saving this water. California, Nevada and Arizona are already doing so by instituting water-saving methods and storing Colorado River water in underground aquifers. Ground water storage loses as little as 1 percent without evaporation, as compared to more than 50 percent loss associated with what Lake Powell is finally providing.

And we need to be looking at ways of saving the river itself. We used to think that hydropower and dams were wholly beneficial, causing little damage to the environment. We now know differently. As the World Wildlife Fund reported in its recent study, Rivers at Risk, many of the benefits conferred by dams like hydropower are canceled out by wasteful water use and environmental damage. Dams disrupt the ecological balance of rivers by depleting them of oxygen and nutrients and affecting the migration and reproduction of fish and other freshwater species, the report states.

It's ironic that in addition to prolonging the ban on studying the decommissioning of Glen Canyon Dam, this year's Interior appropriations bill also includes $64 million for the continued removal of dams   and the restoration of rivers in Florida. Since 1993 taxpayers have spent $1 billion for Everglades restoration.

We need to ask our legislators, Reps. Matheson, Cannon and Bishop, as well as Sens. Hatch and Bennett to do some house cleaning. Ask them to remove this ban and allow monies to be spent on the study of alternatives, solutions and restoration of the Colorado River.

The Colorado River is all we've got, and it's not much. Even in a good year, the Colorado River provides just 3 percent of the amount of water that annually flows down the Mississippi River. This water is precious - it is life itself for humans and all the other living creatures in the West. And while damming   it up may have been the way of the past, it's not the way of the future.

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Eleanor Inskip, author of Glen Canyon Before Lake Powell, is a Colorado River historian and program director at Living Rivers in Moab.

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Last Update: October 30, 2007