by the Glen Canyon Action Network
International Day of Action Against Dams
On March 14, 250 people gathered at Arizona's Glen Canyon Dam to call for a "Century of River Restoration." The celebration was one of 65 actions held in 20 countries on the Third Annual International Day of Action Against Dams and for Rivers, Water and Life.
Participants at the International Day of Action Against Dams |
The crowd, representing more than 50 environmental groups (including Earth Island Institute and two of its affiliates, Bluewater Network and the John Muir Project), signed the Glen Canyon Declaration, calling for a "new approach to, and relationship with, our rivers, especially this river, the mighty Colorado -- a river once known as 'the American Nile.'"
Earth Island Founder David Brower, who has led the fight to save Glen Canyon for 40 years, addressed the crowd with his concerns about dam safety and sustainable economics. Brower recalled his last visit to Glen Canyon in 1957 and described a rich and beautiful landscape that should have become a national park as early on as the Franklin Roosevelt administration.
Brower was joined by Thomas Morris, President of the Din? Medicine Men's Association (DMMA), whose organization has unanimously voted to drain Lake Powell. Morris stated that "Lake Powell Reservoir has submerged our sacred sites and destroyed our ability to communicate with sacred gods. These sites must be restored for our children and grandchildren."
When the 710-foot-high Glen Canyon Dam was completed in 1963, its gates closed upon a free-flowing Colorado River, flooding more than 255 miles of some of the most spectacular river canyons the world has ever known. The dam created the second largest reservoir in the US, holding 27 million acre-feet of water (an acre-foot equals the amount of water needed to flood one acre one foot deep) and generating 1,300 megawatts of hydroelectric power.
The flooding of Glen Canyon damaged critical habitat for endangered fish and plant species and destroyed tens of thousands of archeological and sacred sites, including a significant portion of Rainbow Bridge National Monument -- one of the most sacred and culturally significant sites for Native American tribes of the Colorado Plateau area.
"A people's movement is now forming to embark on a restoration journey unparalleled in the history of river management," Glen Canyon Action Network Executive Director Owen Lammers told the crowd. [GCAN, PO Box 466, Moab, UT, 84532, www.drainit.org] "Starting with Glen Canyon and working up and down the watershed, this effort will promote water, energy, agriculture and restoration policies that will ensure the long-term health and integrity of the Colorado River."
"There is a rapidly growing global movement for living rivers," said International Rivers Network (IRN) Director Juliette Majot. "The Colorado, long a symbol of the development of rivers, is now becoming a symbol of society's growing commitment to heal them."
The declaration, presented by GCAN President John Weisheit and IRN President Phil Williams, seeks nothing less than "the restoration of the Colorado River and its tributaries to living rivers that support both their ecosystems and their communities."
The declaration challenges the Bureau of Reclamation to begin an immediate dam decommissioning plan, to subject every management plan affecting the watershed to a rigorous analysis of basin-wide impacts, and to halt future dam construction within the Colorado River area. Operating licenses would be required for all federal dams, as has long been the case with all non-federal dams, which face periodic licensing reviews.
Power generated by the dam could be replaced by alternative energy-generating facilities and energy conservation measures. Similarly, water storage losses could be mitigated with aggressive water conservation programs. (Lake Powell currently loses 1.5 million acre-feet of water a year due to evaporation.)
Dams are not permanent: Within the next 150 years, rising sediment trapped in Lake Powell Reservoir will force a decommissioning of the dam. Meanwhile, downstream communities remain at risk from a catastrophic failure of the dam facility.
Not everyone supports the drain-it campaign, though. Friends of Lake Powell held a counter-rally on March 14 to defend the lake's value as a recreation magnet attracting 2.5 million tourists a year. But the Glen Canyon Declaration offers a survival plan for the tourist town of Page, Arizona, calling on the Bureau of Recreation to use the town as the site for "a federal laboratory to serve as the nation's primary research facility for river and riverine habitat restoration."
The GCAN campaign to drain the dam and resurrect the long-lost red-walled cathedrals of Glen Canyon is headquartered in a refurbished ice cream shop in Moab, Utah. In addition to grabbing the latest campaign flyers, visitors can order a tasty double-cone or frosty rootbeer float. Profits from snacks sold at the "Restoration Creamery" go toward the canyons' restoration campaign.
The creamery's slogan? "Draining Lake Powell: One scoop at a time."
Glen Canyon: Just Drain It!