Hello all. It has come to my attention that the term "Anasazi" is out of date, and that the term "Ancestral Puebloan" is preferred. My apologies for the oversight.
Yeah, ananizi is a Navajo word meaning ancient enemy. The Navajo and Apache came into the southwest from the north about 1100 or 1200 CE. They had to fight the Puebloan natives fo territory.
I think you environmental people really need to learn critical thinking and reasoning enough to realize what it would mean if we do everything you really want. Many of us know your true agenda. We would all have to live like the Flintstones back 1,000 years in time Or would you elitists still have your private jets and huge redwood lodges while just the peasants would be forced to go back 1,000 years ?
@@carlatamanczyk3891 "I think you environmental people really need to learn critical thinking and reasoning" You first. "We would all have to live like the Flintstones back 1,000 years in time" A great example of the slippery slope fallacy. "Or would you elitists still have your private jets and huge redwood lodges while just the peasants would be forced to go back 1,000 years ?" This channel has 956 subscribers on youtube, 156 followers on Instagram, and you think the person(s) behind the channel are millionaires? Which if that were even true, how is that relevant?
"the term "Anasazi" is out of date" Naturally. And in a year or three its successor will also be out of date. Since pretty much everyone understands "Anasazi" that's a word I will keep using. Still, its nice to know yet another name by which a population can be labeled.
@@carlatamanczyk3891 "I think you environmental people really need to learn critical thinking and reasoning" Not going to happen. This kind is emotional and those emotions are very powerful and rule until their bellies are growling with hunger. Then watch out.
Scientists knew in 1922 that the water the law makers were allocating didn’t exist. E.C.LaRue was the head hydrologist and he attempted to correct the numbers the law makers were using, but the compromises they would have had to make proved too difficult, and thus they used numbers they could agree on, not numbers provided by their own scientists. It’s important as the basin goes into the 2026 renegotiations to remember that it was the politically difficult reality that caused the over allocation in the first, in hopes we don’t repeat the same mistakes this go-round.
That's a good point - one I didn't touch on too much in the video. Politics is an inherent part of these projects and has to be factored in to any discussion.
I would be interested in the history of development of Arizona and Nevada. I assume not including the American Indian tribes that reside there it was almost completely devoid of European descendant life. Like did we really need big cities in these areas? Couldn't everyone just move to California? 🤣 If you split states up like that then everyone will want to build a city or 2 in their land. I think the mistake began there, while drawing the state lines.
I just found this channel. How did I not know it existed before? This content is the kind of stuff I live for. I'm so glad that someone out there is making videos like this. I have visited nearly 200 different National Park Service units and it is so amazing to get the full stories on these places that we have come to know and love. I actually just visited Glen Canyon NRA a couple months ago, which is what led me to this content.
Welcome to the community, we're glad to have you! 200 units is impressive - way more than me lol! I'm glad you're enjoying the stories and there are more to come. I appreciate the support!
Even with the water shortage, big companies are still building huge facilities around the Phoenix area. The Phoenix residents still flood irrigate their grass yards with 8 to 10 inches of water twice a month from water that comes from the Colorado River. The problem will continue to get worse. The population of the Phoenix metro area is 5 million with more coming every day. In the next 10 years, you won't be able to give the homes away out in the Phoenix suburbs because of the lack of water.
I find this stampede of people moving to Phoenix baffling. Have these people not heard of climate warming or do they think it’s a hoax by the left-wing media? I live no where near Phoenix but even I know that it’s rapid growth is unsustainable and that it could become virtually unliveable in the near future due to rising temperatures, to the extent that being outside for too long on a hot summer day may prove deadly. But it’s a great place to raise a family.
Flood irrigation is limited and grandfathered. Most all newer residential Phx does not have this ability. It is also arguable whether this uses less water that daily sprinkling, since such irrigation is twice a month. That being said, there is an unnatural insistence on greenery and grass lawns as vs desert (native) landscaping.
@@xaviermillar9375 Well, the temperature is rising due to urban heat sink effect from city buildings, and that is noticeable at night mostly. Daytime highs have not noticeably increased, nor will a global warming increase of say 1.5C be more than a blip for Phx dwellers. A/C keeps folks comfortable and will do so into the foreseeable future. Nothing predicted wrt global warming will change that, nor does global warming theory predict/cause the current drought. Lengthy droughts have been recorded in the Sonoran desert from the geologic record lasting hundreds of years. The shortage of water will affect the residents last. Before such rationing, farming will cease, then certain industries. Phx residential water use is over double the second largest city, Tucson. There is much that can be conserved should rationing be implemented. Prior to the CAP water from the Colorado, Phx had separate river water *and* ground water. Those resources remain. People are not going anywhere simply because it is better to live in a warm climate than a cold one-all things being equal.
@@johnluiten3686 What newer residental Phoenix? There haven't really been any residential housing developments in Phoenix in 30 years. Everything now is being built in the suburbs and those houses all have desert landscaping, not grass lawns. The point I guess I should have been more clear about is that all the houses in Phoenix that have flood irrigation should half to switch to desert-type landscaping because the water-saving would be enormous.
@@anthonynelson9136 The reply has to take into account the metro area of course. But Phx has expanded, and jumps some of the nearer mountain ranges. Those are not the old Phx, “central”, were irrigation ditches were run along roadways to residential housing. As I said, the aspect of flood irrigation vs sprinklers is problematic. The problem is water hungry landscaping, not necessarily how the water gets there. You could zone areas to be non-grass, or water savings, but I suspect the politics involved will make that the last thing they’d consider.
"does the benefits outweigh the costs?" is always such a tricky questions, since most of the times who pays the costs doesn't reap any of the benefits...
So when I was a kid late 70’s early 80’s, I knew a guy named Frank Wright. Frank was the foremost amateur archaeologist and explorer of the glen canyon , Grand Canyon and the Colorado basin areas, he knew and worked with a lot of the academics like Powell that worked in those areas, he had 8mm, films hours of it that was in glen canyon before the dam, the natural and historical treasures that was there was nothing short of amazing. One film I seen showed a flat bottom boat on the Colorado river in that glen canyon area, the boat was motored and the river went right in to a cliff face and the boat kept going in to this huge cavern that was by my guess about 200 feet across and probably 50 feet tall from the water level, no shore in the cave and pictographs all over the walls and celling. I asked him why he did not doing anything with these films and he would tell us that Disney actually owned them and didn’t know he had copies and he wanted to keep it that way. What we have lost is terrible. He died years ago not even sure when but he was born turn of the century late 1800’s.
You should investigate if the films still exist and procure them. Make a thousand copies and then distribute them to as many people as possible telling them to make copies of their own. With shit tons of copies around disney won't be able to make it disappear. The internet is being placed inside a permitted area. Outside information will be deleted including any information about our true history.
I have a coffee table book of Glen Canyon before the dam. (I believe it’s called ‘The Place No One Knew’ by Elliot Porter.) It is heartbreaking to look at it, knowing everything in it is drowned. For those with fond memories of the lake, I believe the river with its natural ecosystem and wildlife would have been infinitely more enriching and beautiful. I believe the river had much more gentle current suitable for amateurs to paddle. The Grand Canyon with its huge rapids is a fantastic experience, but one needs much more skill and support to go down it. Just found this quote from the back cover: “Remember these things lost. The native wildlife; the chance to float quietly down a calm river, to let the current carry you past a thousand years of history, through a living canyon of incredible, haunting beauty. Here the Colorado had created a display that rivaled any in the world. The side canyons simply had no rivals. We lost wholeness, integrity in place . . . a magnificent gesture of the natural world." --David Brower
It's a big problem in the sense that without these dams many of the larger cities in the southwest could not exist. Honestly, I'm surprised desalination plants aren't popping up by the dozens on the California coast. Yeah, it's expensive... but if you honestly care about the plants and animals it's something that needs to be done. But, for the most part people will say how evil it is that we dammed this river destroying habitats, while happily using the water and power generated by these same dams and would very quickly realize how dire the situation would be without them if they were torn down.
What about the insects and lizards that live where the desalinization plants are proposed to be built? Probably easier to move the millions of invasive humans. Kalifornia karma.
@@MyBelch I agree, we should all huddle in caves because all places on earth are a native biome that would be potentially inhabited by some animals. The spot where my house is built could have held a rabbit burrow and deer den instead of my house. I'm awful. Actually, us living in caves and using fires to keep the place warm would perhaps cause them to be unhabitable by some of the wildlife that would actually live there if we weren't there. So better yet, we should kill all of humanity because us existing as a species at all effects too many other creatures. True conservation of Earth.
The problem is that desalination is so expensive as to be completely unprofitable, and there will never be desalination plants unless companies see a profit in it or the government subsidizes the fuck out of it.
The largest and most efficient desalinization plant in the world can produce a gallon of potable water for about 20 cents. If you use 5 CCF's (750 gallons) of water monthly like most U S. homes, your water bill (not sewer portion which is typically twice the price if water) would be $800 a month. Saudi oil essentially subsidizes Saudi drinking water.
I'd say it's even worse than you said. Floyd Dominy, Reclamation's most well known administrator (hero or villain, you pick) called Glen Canyon Dam a "cash register dam." The idea was to generate hydroelectricity to create revenue to build other projects, such as the dams in the Grand Canyon. The other purpose was to impound silt to extend the life of Lake Mead. By design, Lake Powell is a sacrificial lamb. Water storage was tertiary, at best. In fact, I understand more water evaporates from Lake Powell than is actually taken from it. Now it's time to pay the piper. Seems they shut down the Navajo Generating Station a little too soon, although we are better off without all the pollutants it spewed out. The real tragedy is the loss of Glen Canyon. My science teacher from high school got to pass through it as a teen in 1957. He told us it was every bit as stunning as the Grand Canyon, and a piece of him died when they impounded Lake Powell. BTW, John Wesley Powell must also be turning in his grave knowing his beloved canyon is filled with water and silt. Removing the dam makes sense, and nature almost did it for us in 1982. At the very least, bore a new spillway to allow water to flow through. After all, outside of the the lower lake levels, the silt building up is building up fast, so it will lose its use for hydroelectricity in a couple of decades, regardless. In response to the recreational access it provides, I quote the Sierra Club's campaign against the Grand Canyon dams, "Would you flood the Sistine Chapel to be nearer the ceiling? "
@ Casey, Everything I know about the dam, and the environment makes me agree with you completely. Many of my friends work in various science and environmental groups…they called the Glen Canyon Dam an Ecological Atrocity. The desert is not just a barren wasteland, to be filled up - it is an important and valuable environment in its own right.
this reminds me of the time my 3 kids "dammed" the Colorado River with rocks in the river. It was way, way upstream where it was less than a foot deep and maybe 15 feet wide. that must have been more than 20 years ago. I'd guess the dam is long gone by now.
As a Utah resident throughout the 90's, I watched as The Stillwaters,Flaming Gorge, Lake Powell, Jordanelle and many other lakes of The C.U.P. filled in record time. That should have been a clue that they can empty in record time as well. Say a prayer for Powell. Or make a plan for the refugees from Phoenix!
I use to live in page and was a river guide on the river. Ive been at the bottom of the dam many many times. Its pretty awesome. If you ever go there you realize how remote that area is.
I have been to the top of the dam, not the bottom. The whole area, at least when I was there was very remote. Very few people would visit the area if it were not for the dam. He is worried about the ruins that were covered by the lake. AZ is covered with such ruins by the ANASAZI, I hate when people start using politically correct language. I have been all over AZ and seen them. Parks and in the back desert using 4x4s. Phoenix, at least when I lived there, was using irrigation canals that were over a thousand years old. My point is, "you can not build if a thousand years ago somebody else lived there?" The lake may have destroyed habitat for some animals. On the other hand it created habitat for others. It was a net zero for destruction verses creation at worst. We took the beaver model and made it bigger. The SW has a sine curve for water. When I lived there the precipitation was very high, late 70's, early 80's. We were flooding. Glenn Canyon was shedding water at an amazing rate, same with Hoover. These dams were made to flatten the curve. Should have seen Phoenix and the flooding they had back then. Now they are in a drought. Why did the Anasazi leave the land? Maybe because of a drought even worse than today? What I got from the video is that this person is happy with solar farms. Bulldoze millions of acres for power and destroy even more land to produce even less energy. Have a better idea. Let's build bird choppers and kill off raptors.
@@TheLittlered1961 I grew up in Page and there are always going to be tons of people driving through the area doing the grand circle (GC, Zion, Bryce, Capitol Reef, Canyonlands, Arches, Black Canyon, Mesa Verde). Glen Canyon is managed by the Park Service too so they could easily develop more hiking infrastructure to some of the more interesting areas that are now uncovered. Also, Horseshoe Bend and Antelope Canyon have become massively popular over the years. Page can easily survive if they focus on more hiking, biking, Kayaking and 4wheeling.
@@lkajiess I do not doubt in what you have said. I went through there in about 1975/76. I was on the "dam'" elevator. The one that takes you to the generating plant. I saw the bolts that they used to stabilize the rock on the outer edges of the dam. My parents took me through there to see the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, Bryce and Zion. My point was, would this have happened if the dam was not there? This was a short cut for AZ and many places in NM to get to the places you have mentioned. As I stated before, would this place be so popular if it were not for the dam?
When I was in college, we studies the water issues in the west. The book. “Cadillac Desert” was the book we had to read in addition to other course materials. It lays out this very scenario and the outlook is dismal.
Someday we will drain the Reservoir, when we start condensing water from air and desalinating ocean water. Till then, people depend on that water. The planet has innumerable beauties
Of course. A college's outlook will ALWAYS be dismal so then they can say "you need to pay for our degree so you can help sAvE tHe wOrLd". They're selling their own services when they claim the sky is falling.
I don't understand how something like that compact would be fixed for a century. In my country there would be a governing structure for the entire watershed that would manage the whole area and continually update their ideas and models.
I live in Bulhead city AZ just a 2 minute drive from the most beautiful river I have ever seen. I have taken it for granted. I, like so many others are very concerned about the current drought situation. Thank you for a great video. I had no clue.
Thank you for watching! These issues are tough and complicated and I don't presume to have all the answers, but with folks like you engaging in topics like this, I think we can find a better way forward.
I don't know how anyone could read Edward Abbey and want to do anything other than destroy Glen Canyon dam. Especially his story in Desert Solitare of his trip through Glen Canyon right before it was flooded. Desert Solitare should be required reading. Thankfully, here in Arkansas, the Buffalo River was barely saved from a similar fate. That's a great story in itself.
Just read Desert Solitaire and it was fantastic. Just remember that he embellished the hell out of it. Like how it wasn't one summer but was over two years and that he was alone... with his wife and kid. That said every damned word of it is true even if not factually correct. The San Rafael Swell is still mostly undeveloped and you can "get out of your metal coffin" and walk there. I'm actually angry that Capitol Reef, my favorite park, was chosen over the Swell for park status, the place is truly that extraordinary. I'm more of a fan of The Emerald Mile, which talks directly about the dams and the Colorado. Also... get rid of that damn dam. Glen canyon as it was might be gone, but the wilderness will make a new masterpiece out of it.
Desert Solitare is one of my favorite all time books! Another one: ‘The Place No one Knew -Glen Canyon on the Colorado’ by Elliot Porter is a gorgeous coffee table book of Glen Canyon before it was drowned. Sadly, it is no longer in print, used copies are probably available, though.
This is probably going to sound foolish, but hear me out. What if the desert states that grow food built large greenhouses? That would allow for multi-tier farming and conservation of water. There's a lettuce farm near me that has this monster sized building where they grow, process, and sell several kinds of leafy greens, so it's certainly do-able.
Learn about permaculture and a guy named Geoff Lawton. And about the huge permaculture projects in Ethiopia and other African countries. There are many examples here on YT. Permaculture is all about harvesting and storing water with strategically designed contour swales and ponds, and using the natural biological system such as useful plants and trees and bio mass to restore the land and the natural water tables, and the fertility from the soil. Even projects that are located in the desert were very successful.
Real Estate developers were keenly aware that Phoenix had overbuilt, even in the 1970's. But there was money to be made! Currently there are several Phoenix adjacent towns that are being cut off. They can't hire the local Water hauling company to bring them water, because the water hauler is no longer allowed to buy Phoenix water. The Phoenix water table has been dropping for 50 years, also causing adjacent cities to drill deeper to hit water too.
The questions about whether or not the Glen Canyon dam was built is irrelevant because it's already there. No one is going to tear it down or abandon it. California was growing like mad and they needed water for those people to survive. People surviving and expanding into this part of the country was important to the growth of the country. No one worried about plants and animals or Anasazi ruins either. The water didn't ruin anything, it opened up the entire southwest to more people coming here. If these dams wouldn't have been built, then no one would be here and California would look very different today. Go to Chile some day and look around their desert. No one's there...
I read Mark Riesner's monumental book 'Cadillac Desert' about 30 years ago. As an Australian who has been involved in public water policy since then it gave me a useful perspective on why we do such things to rivers. Many of the dilemmas you face in the US are shared in other places around the planet.
@@NationalParkDiaries Desert Solitaire is another great book on the region, even if it's more of a personal rant and barely-edited journal. Ed Abbey's anger at Glen Canyon's drowning still resonates.
Here in California, water is liquid gold. Much of the water has been used to grow America’s fruit and vegetables(along with the Central Valley aquifer). It’s hard to make a case for these dams not being crucial for the US as a whole. The environmental cost has been enormously high, but so have the benefits. Recreation seems like such a minor reason to build a dam. Irrelevant in a world where the SouthWest is running out of water.
We as a nation have to change our dietary habits back to being “seasonal” consumers and not count on the west, that isn’t “running out” of water, it simply expanded past its natural sustainable size.
I lived in Nevada up until a few years ago. I left because Hoover Dam is pretty much dry. I used to boat and fish there. They have moved the dock area was moved at least 15 times and I lived there 14 years.
I went there twice, one in the late 2000s early 2010s (Was a kid, difficult to fully remember), and in 2019 over the summer months when I was living out west. It’s bizarre to see the water level lower so much so the rocks surrounding it were “bleached” white. Wondering what’ll the water level will be in another 10~ or so years.
@@Stentinalization The rocks aren't "bleached white", that is alkali in the water from when the reservoir(s) were at full pool, it sticks to the walls of the canyon. The water west of the Rockies has a higher alkali content then other parts of the country. You'll see it on the stocks of trees. When it dries, it's very powdery and you can run your fingers along the stock and it comes off like baby powder. Anyways, take it easy.
@@dmannevada5981 Interesting, I referred to bleaching only as it seems to be the most general concept someone could imagine but that detail gives a more complete understanding. Thanks for informing me a bit more on that, my specialties lie within micro+molecular biology so apologies if my previous comment came off a bit ignorant.
Deciding after the fact that "they" misestimated the effect is a problem. Do the dams get torn down, and the people who rely on that water have to move after their property values reach zero has massive social and economic consequences to the nation. Leaving the dams in place has shown economic consequences as well, positive and negative. The environmental effects of what has been done may not ever be undone by opening the flow. Taking out the dam or dams will not "bring back what was lost", it will create a new and different effect all along the river. It is not "do we want to undo the damage", it is "what will the net long term effect be" whichever way we go.
Oddly enough, there's plenty of water for the population size living in the American southwest. It's the cotton, almond, alfalfa farms that use 80-93% of the water.
We took a two hundred year old dam out by me and within days eel and herring were spawning where they hadn't in centuries. Nothing ever is the same but Nature can bounce back fast.
When I first "saw" this dam, the diversion tunnel was recently put into service with the coffer dam diverting the flow. The lower former river bed had been cleaned to bedrock and the initial cement pours were just starting.
Sorry for my disjointed thought process. Many don't know that two dams were proposed in the Grand Canyon, but in what was only Grand Canyon National MONUMENT at the time. One at Marble Canyon, just upstream from the Little Colorado River confluence and one that was to flood the lower portion of Grand Canyon with the upper slack water of its reservoir reaching upward to the boundary of the park portion of "the canyon." I've seen the surveyor's markings for the Marble Canyon proposal on the rocks at the canyon's bottom. It's all part of the National Park now, none of this monument nonsense.
Reclamation also assured that no one could see the reservoir from the rim of the canyon. Never mind the people who hike down, or those who go rafting. After all, the inner canyon is just ugly billion year old rock. Boring! Reclamation said by flooding the canyon, it would be more accessible. It gets worse with the Marble and Bridge Canyon dams. Like Glen Canyon Dam, their purpose was to generate electricity, which Reclamation would sell to finance more projects. Floyd Dominy himself called them "cash register dams." David Brower and the Sierra Club screwed up with Glen Canyon. At least they redeemed themselves by stirring up public outrage against these cash register dams. In one of the most brilliant and effective advertising campaigns ever, in 1975, they flooded every major newspaper with an ad that said, "Would you flood the Sistine Chapel to be nearer the ceiling?"
@@caseycooper5615 As I remember Brower made the statement during a congressional hearing after Dominy made the statement that more people would be able to see the canyon if it was flooded. The Marble Canyon dam would be in view from the rim at Desert View, so I would dispute what the BOR said about it. That unless they built the dam upstream of where I saw the markings on the canyon wall, which were upstream of the Little Colorado confluence. If those dams were built we would still have problems with little water in the reservoirs. Also if those were not in view of the south rim, the massive electrical facilities would have to be on the rim. Plus, roads would have to have been built to each site for construction access and maintenance.
@@wannabetowasabe I absolutely agree with you. I hope you took my dry sarcasm for what it was. Their only purpose was to generate power and make money. You're right about Marble Canyon - it would have been just upstream of the confluence with the Little Colorado. I saw plans for miles of roads and other infrastructure that would have paved over places sacred to the Navajo. I recall part of the plan was to have a miles long tunnel paralleling the Colorado, emptying at Bridge Canyon. The idea was to have the penstocks in this tunnel,, so as so get more drop, generating more electricity. I would love to see video of Brower using the Sistine Chapel line when he testified in Congress. Regardless, I saw copies of the ad campaign, which rivals Johnson's _Daisy_ ad for effectiveness.
It's a Land Watch issue. New Mexico has been having those issues majorly and I hope we will Not be seeing effects in the next several decades Southern California Always has these problems. Always
In 1955, an uncle, a cousin and myself, (age 9), loaded slabs of sandstone onto the tailgate of my uncle's station wagon, from the east end of Glen Canyon Bridge. We unloaded mid span, drove off and parked. We walked back and hoisted the slabs over the bridge rail, then dropped them into the river. The slabs vanished out of sight, then they hit the water, producing the loudest BOOM we ever heard! The crash echoed endlessly, between the walls of Glen Canyon. The dam was not there, yet.
I was there around 1969-72, hiking down the Escalante River as Lake Powell backed up into the canyons. A documentary by BuRec (th-cam.com/video/ImIaNw6HJCE/w-d-xo.html) states that the bridge was opened for traffic in 1959. Is the bridge farther upstream older?
Certain states that have been allowing other states to "have" their allocated water as they haven't needed it, are now facing shortages & need their allotment. The states who had benefitted from the other states not needing their allotted water are now angry about the water not going to them (was a gift from the other states)...
My father worked at the Yuma Projects office during the channelizing of the lower Colorado River. The MAIN reason Glen Canyon Dam was built was to extend the life of Hoover/Bolder Dam. The silt load coming out of the Grand Canyon was going to turn Hoover into a large water fall due to silt build up. Glen Canyon is used as a settling basin. The silt comes rushing out of the canyon flows into the lake where the water drops it silt load before flowing on down stream to spin the turbines of hoover Dam. The Bureau of reclamation basically turned the lower Colorado into a giant irrigation canal. in some places the river is now unnavigable and only 1-2ft. deep.
@@weaverlance you are correct that there were other reasons used to win approval from the congress to build Glen Canyon. But, I beg to differ with you. I am not sure of what study you are quoting, But the fact is, there are MANY places below Parker Dam where the river is indeed 1ft-2ft deep. There is so little water in the river below Blythe, around Walters Camp that you can no longer drive a boat from Blythe to Yuma anymore. Mexico is also complaining that the Colorado River water allotment they are receiving is so saline as to be borderline unusable for irrigation.
@@thuringervonsausage5232 You are right. No politician does things for just one reason. Personal enrichment is another, as is the power and control that go along with it. It is almost impossible to run for congress if you ARE NOT A MILLIONAIRE to start with.
I love these videos and this channel. I hope your channel gets big - it deserves to be seen by more people. Maybe make about 100 video shorts and post about 3 a day. The algorithm should help attract more subs for you once you're into the "shorts" loop.
Thank you! I'm really glad you're enjoying it and I'm excited to see this channel keep growing and attracting a wonderful community. Thanks for being here!
i can say, the water coming out of the gcd is freezing cold, numbing cold all the way to mead. you can look up in the grand canyon and see trees from floods, hundreds of feet above the river in the GC.
At Lake Havisu you will see light houses maintained by the local Yacht Clubs. Those light houses are named after ships that would traverse inland from Baja gulf before the dams.
Great video yet again, has always struck me that Lake Powell was named after someone who said the river should not be damned for irrigation/ or to support heavy settlement.
His ideas on small scale, watershed-based development were certainly before their time. I'm sure he'd be quite disappointed in the way water is managed there today... Thanks for watching!
It is indeed time we considered the questions raised by this and other dams. We need to expand and develop technology for water conservation and re-use. And we need to support our national (and state) parks by visiting those places instead of commercialized resorts. People need to learn to treasure and respect our natural world.
Glen Canyon dam hasn't produced at its nameplate capacity for some time. The argument for its existence is further eroded by the fact that as a powerplant, it's of fairly low output even at full power. A single nuclear reactor at the Palo Verde Nuclear plant near Phoenix produces that same amount of electricity as Glen Canyon Dam, and there are three such reactors. Building and installing another one would be all the additional electricity needed to replace the dam's declining output. Or, stick a few nice shiny new modular reactors where the Navajo Generating Station is. The coal plant is shutdown at this point but all the electrical connections are still there. In terms of water use, the flows of the Colorado will still be there. Nearby Paige AZ and the native tribes will have access. Perhaps a side canyon could be flooded as a small local reservoir that isn't as consequential as Glen Canyon to ensure steady water supplies. The sensible move here is to remove the Glen Canyon dam and restore the river and store the water in Lake Mead downstream. Not only would you regain the natural beauty of Glen Canyon's striking sandstone walls but you'd stop allowing so much water to seep through those walls. The Navajo Sandstone of Glen Canyon is much more porous than the basaltic rock that makes up Black Canyon where Hoover Dam was built. Bank seepage is considerably worse in Lake Powell. When Lake Powell was closer to full, it lost enough water each year from evaporation and bank seepage, to completely cover Nevada's allocation of 300k Ac/ft per year. One lake loses less water than two. Lake Mead is also deeper than Powell but has slightly less surface area, meaning less evaporation. The reasons for keeping Glen Canyon Dam are gone. It was a bad idea when it was built and it needs to go.
I have three generations of my family in the coal power plant business including myself they just closed the one I retired from pitiful it was a cyclonic steam generator from Germany from war reparations and it had been rebuilt and numerous times and it still going but they let the stupid Sierra club stop it and close it down
I am ready for a well deserved thrashing on a matter of complex science and public policy relating to water, power, and dams: My academic background is in geology with emphasis on hydrogeology and quaternary geology. My professional background is in environmental consulting and environmental regulation. By necessity, this a multi-disciplinary field that encompasses interaction with and good working knowledge of the principles of basic engineering, energy, bio-chemistry, geo-chemistry, toxicology, occupational health and safety, economics, environmental law, property law, and business law. In my opinion, the perceived delicate balance between water supply and water demand is much more dynamic than is given credit in modern society. One only has to look back to Pleistocene Lake Lahontan (8,500 square miles, maximum 900 feet deep) and Owens Lake (200 square miles, maximum 200 feet deep) to see that very subtle, but natural changes in the long term balance between precipitation and evaporation (over the course of decades to centuries) in endorheic closed drainage basins represents the difference between prehistoric Lake Lahontan (12,700 years ago) representing one of the largest prehistoric lakes in North America versus today's dry lake bed (playa) it became during the modern Holocene epoch (11,650 years before present). This all occurred long before the arrival of Europeans to North America. Mother nature did that all by herself without the assistance of any humans. That is not to diminish the significance of human impact in what happened to the historic Owens Lake (108 square miles), as it existed in 1913 in comparison to the dry lake bed it became by 1926. That was solely due to the impact of humans. Lake Lahontan, Owens Lake, Lake Bonneville, and many, many other modern playas (dry lake beds) of the western United States can be viewed through a certain type of eyes as big empty pre-constructed bath tubs just waiting to be filled. In the times we live in today, matters of water supply and water demand are very much less a matter of climatological balance as they are a matter of public policy (regulation, taxation, spending), engineering, energy, and economics. Tampa Bay, Florida installed a reverse osmosis seawater desalination plant which came online in 2007. The plant is a drought-proof alternate water supply that provides 25 million gallons of water per day meeting 10% of the region’s needs. Tampa Bay was in need of water and they were willing to pay for the cost of installing and operating a seawater desalination plant. Seawater, desalination plants, pumps, aqueducts, and most importantly ENERGY can supply and deliver fresh water to pretty much wherever it is needed or wanted in the world. The primary control, limitation, and driver of all this is the supply and cost of energy needed to operate the desalination systems and pumps. In this regard the rapid development of solar photovoltaic (PV) technology is a game changer. Imagine for a moment a big dry lake bed like Lake Lahontan or Owens Lake largely covered with floating solar PV panels (Floatovoltaics). The solar PV panels serve dual purposes of generating electrical power to operate coastal seawater desalination plants and prevent evaporation to once again tip the precipitation/evaporation balance and allow the natural stream inflow to begin filling the lakes as it did during the Pleistocene Epoch. Solar PV coupled with seawater desalination could potentially irrigate large swaths of the Mohave and Sonoran deserts across southern California and southwestern Arizona for pasture of grass fed / grass finished beef cattle and/or growing low carb keto vegetables. As many are probably not aware, Saudia Arabia and the U.A.E. have purchased farms and ranches in southern Arizona where they are pumping groundwater at very high non-sustainable rates (i.e., groundwater mining) to irrigate and grow hay in the desert which they harvest and ship back to the middle east to feed dairy cows and beef cattle. Hopefully, with the improving economics of solar PV they will soon begin generating their own local power to run seawater desalination plants to irrigate and grow hay locally in their own countries. For those paying attention to such matters, the cost of solar PV has plummeted over the last decade and continues to fall. Large utility scale ground mounted solar PV systems in the multiple gigawatt range are now coming in at less than $0.02 per kilowatt-hour (with no government subsidies) at favorable locations like the Atacama desert in Chile and in Dubai. Intermittent solar PV generation pairs nicely with seawater desalination as there is no need for battery storage. Desalination plant production can ramp up and down with the sunshine. As of November 2021 there is serious talk of building a 15,000 km underwater power cable (high voltage DC) from the Atacama desert in Chile, South America across the Pacific Ocean to Asia. The economics theoretically work because when the sun is shining in Chile it is nighttime in Asia, so no need for local battery storage in Chile. A 3,800 km undersea power cable (high voltage DC) is already in the works to transmit power from Morocco to the U.K. It may not be long before the substantive problems and limitations of intermittent power sources like PV and wind are solved by an interconnected global network of long distance bi-directional underwater power cables to shuttle power from one place to another across the globe (no batteries needed).
Wow, thanks for that detailed and insightful response! I'll be the first to admit that I'm not a technical expert on this subject. This video was the result of research and arguments I found compelling, and was really intended to give historical context to the mindsets and development patterns that led Glen Canyon Dam to be built in the first place. I think you make some great points about the relationship between water demand/supply and public policy. Thanks for your perspective!
While I am not a geology major, and I admit it; I have a longtime interest in science, and in low-tech solutions, getting the biggest "bang" for the buck, and dealing with the here, and now. The examples from the Pleistocene Epoch were exactly that: 12,000 years ago. At that time, the northern half to two-thirds of Ohio were covered by the Wisconsin Glacier, a half mile thick, at the edges, around Dayton, and Columbus; and as much as a mile thick, over Detroit, Cleveland, and Toronto. There was Lake Bonneville, but Salt Lake City would have drowned; and water backed up in the Bitterroot and Clark Fork Rivers, with the Ice Dam occassionally collapsing, and the flooding creating the "Scablands" in Washington State. We need low-tech solutions; 1. Because they're cheap, and 2. Because they're more reliable. Owens Lake, and Valley; were apparently a paradise, fertile, with a fair-sized lake; until Los Angeles, and its Water Authority; came to call. They took nearly all of the water in the Owens River, leaving almost none for the local farmers, ranchers, and the lake, and the entire area began to dry up. Much of Owens Valley is now dry, and essentially useless as farmland, and the Lake is virtually gone, salty, or a salt-pan desert. As for Hetch Hetchy, San Francisco calls the shots, but that can be changed. San Francisco can develop its water supply, elsewhere, or can desalinate; the Pacific Ocean is right next door. They should not be in a position to dictate to the rest of California, or The United States; Hetch Hetchy is too valuable a resource. What we need to do, is develop land and forest management, along the lines of Aldo Leopold: Reasonable and pragmatic, but also respect the land, forests, and natural resources. As for the Keystone Pipeline, I am willing to entertain it, PROVIDED that the pipeline operators; now, and in the future; GUARANTEE THAT THE PIPELINE WILL NEVER FAIL, AND POLLUTE THE MISSOURI RIVER, OR THE OGALLALA AQUIFER! These are also valuable resources, and we cannot afford to allow them to be destroyed. I am not encouraged by the Oil Industry's record. There are also questions as to whether the "Tar Sands" Oil, already considered some of the "dirtiest" on the Planet, probably because what must be done, to obtain it, and prepare it for transport, by pipeline; will stay here, or if it is destined for other markets. That question has yet to be answered by the Oil Companies, and their lobbyists; both in The United States, and Canada.
Thank you for bringing up desalination! We are at the point that desalination needs to be seriously discussed and implemented ASAP! Do you know if any other good resources discussing desalination, I'd like to learn more.
You are not a realist and you don’t understand the relative size of the things you are talking about. Keystone couldn’t pollute the aquifer if you tried. Tar sand oil has been coming to the US for decades.
@@rodrudinger9902 The US isn't primarily composed of Nigeria wetlands, a small pipeline burst could very well be contained. The benefits of a major connecting pipeline outweigh the negatives. It is better ecologically to not be burning so much gas just transporting it.
The biggest problem is Colorado is taking the water from the west of the Rockies and moving it to the east side, and that is causing floods and the water is only being used once. The water on the west side of the Rockies gets used up to 20 times before being released to open river.
I’m in my mid 20s and it’s crazy how I can say I’ve watched the Colorado river slowly dry up my entire life. Had dreams to go kayaking in the river one day but I’m afraid those dreams have dried up.
on essentially an infinite number of planets throughout the universe, there are staggeringly beautiful landscapes to be seen by nothing and nobody. the value of them here is that humans and other lifeforms exist to see them. both are essential.
This is a very well done video. The quality and thought put into it is reminiscent of a time when books and media sources still encouraged their consumers to think and come to their own conclusions. I sincerely enjoyed this for its historical and informational value.
Thank you! I always try to put out well-researched and well-thought out information, even if I don't always get it right or people don't always agree with me. I also encourage plenty of discussion and alternative opinions on the issues I talk about on my channel - these issues are pretty complicated and there are lot of valid viewpoints. Ultimately, I just try and put out a good video and, like you said, just let people come to their own conclusions. Thanks again for watching!
….good video with extreme bias…you can’t drive a PRIUS without a power dam or coal plant to charge it (or a polluting Chinese lithium mine to build it)
There is also the issue of flooding. The Boulder Dam was built for many reasons and one of them was the flooding issues with the Colorado. Odd that this was not part of this presentation.
I was at the Hover dam in '84' at 16 years old MAN WHAT A CHANGE I'm sure glad that I live on the other side of the Rockies in the sandhills BUT we are having water isues now also it's amazing how much things change in 40 years
These dams have a silt build up that limits their life to about 50 years. Most of them are reaching or exceeding that time frame. So how do you handle that problem?
I would go in there with my engineering firm where I used to install fire extinguishing equipment in coal fire power plants and take some of that water put it on high pressure and blow that silt away constantly it would have to be sedimented ,somewhere
Seams like modern dams need a mechanism to suck up silt and to add it into the discharge beyond the power station so that downstream still gets the sediment that they are lacking now. Don't have a solution for the cold water though unless there was a series of pipes that allowed water to be pulled from the upper, warmer layers but that would be a nightmare to manage with fluctuating levels.
Love the Colorado River. Great fishing in the lake. The biggest issue is the water use. Too many houses too many almond farm. We have a choice of energy or live like a hippy. If you like going to Vegas you best like the Hover dam.
You can build a hydro facility without a huge dam: Take the Shoshone Hydroelectric Plant inside the Glenwood Canyon, for example. They run a pipe from an intake upstream, and bring the water downhill to a later section of the river, where they put a generator just before the discharge pipe. The natural elevation change is enough to make a significant head pressure
Hydroelectric is just to unreliable in the long term vs the cost to build it and the massive emissions required to make all the concrete/steel/copper. Between its moderate electric generation capacity and the risk that weather patterns today may not be the weather patterns in 30 years, it's an investment unlikely to be worth it. Nuclear energy requires the same amount of construction materials, but they make far more electricity and they do it 24/7/365 without altering massive landscapes and rivers. They last 50+ years and could be built to last even longer than that. At this point hydro should be a limited use option.
Hi can you please make a video about the California central valley? The Tulare lake was massive in the 1850s and they redirected the water to Los Angeles. Now the central valley is drying up to include its ground water. Tulare lake is gone and the valley is in perpetual drought. We are told to conserve water while it is being sent to LA.
I just found your channel. I watched all 3 of your videos on dams. It answered a lot of question I've had for years. Thank you! Man always seems to make things worst with their "great" ideas, only to realize decades later that perhaps they've created new or a bigger problem. Now what do we do?
Thanks for being here! Dams are certainly a contentious issue, especially the 3 I highlighted in my videos. There's no easy answers considering the scale of this system and the people that rely on them, but my hope is that we can at least learn from our mistakes and identify opportunities like the Elwha for sensible removal and restoration.
Now me, someone who uses a suction dredge, mines respectfully of nature, which suction dredging is literally the least impacted mining due to the fact you are moving gravel in a river from one spot to another, and silt only goes a short distance. We recover lead, fishing lines, hooks, mercury, and just trash in general. Then we literally get surrounded by fish feeding off the back of the dredge, get treated like we're criminals because we're "destroying nature " , and these people are responsible for destroying more nature and towns with dams, than mining has in this countries history... it's mind boggling. Not to mention the history they have destroyed with these dams.
I knew a guy once who heard a Professor speak on how the damn was a big mistake and that it was just built for greedy, Capitalist reasons. They didn't know what they were doing back then. Many innocent plants have suffered as a result.
I've a few degrees myself. Done some university work, too. Hard science or no do your own investigating. Increasingly, social and political maturity are a distant second oftentimes these days.
You want to see some cruelty to nature? Check out what communists/socialists have done. Not that the American Indians were behind hand -stampeding a thousand buffalo over a cliff so they could use one or two. Destruction of habitat and wildlife and other Indians was as natural to Indians as slavery was to the Comancheria. I've watched Andean campesinos torch whole mountainsides over one bushmaster.
The big problem here is not whether it was worth building the dam, but what happens when the water just doesn’t show up as expected, and boat ramps end up high and dry, and the electricity generated is reduced, and the allotted amounts need to be renegotiated. And we have built a dependency on something over which we ultimately have no control. Sounds like a recipe for trouble, or worse.
@@blackhawk7r221 I moved to the desert from Western Oregon and I'll stay. Its the other morons who aren't adapting to the realities of desert life that are going to flee the desert when it comes back for what its due. Then they'll be your problem. Best of luck.
This is the 1st time since it was built that this has happened. In 1984 (I think?) Flood waters were not properly estimated & the dam was inches from being "Crested" if water poured over it, it would have basically Self destructed. Dam Workers were Actually using Plywood on the top of the dam to stop it from cresting.
this is well done and good information enjoyed it very much thanks for doing it. My only quibble is with this idea that we can control mother nature. Mother nature controls us we’re not that powerful. Yeah we can affect our environment as you have shown in the video but nature adapts and changes so while we may affect one thing mother nature will do something else
If the water is no longer available the people who chose to live in the desert without any reason other than wanting resort towns will adapt or move. Human greed is not necessarily a net "benefit" and the desert development was NEVER about anything but luxury. No one needs to live there. Many want to. Those are not the same and "want" is mere emotion which after all is weakness.
When I was young...we went to lake Powell (1980 ish) several times for vacation...and they told us that.the concrete alone would take 600 years to fully cure in the dam...don't know if thats true, but that's what the Ranger tour guide said.
The original allocation of 1922 was based on politics, not science. The upcoming renegotiation will be similarly flawed. Basically it will work until it doesn’t, there is no contingency plan.
@@Thomas63r2 Do you believe everything the Government tells you? Do you believe that Fauci always told the truth? Do you believe that Pfizer told the truth? Do you believe that widespread Government mandates are legal and Constitutional?
@@RobertPetersen1z2y Okay, so you are a reductionist. You might as well take it all the way, and argue that nothing is real. Please I would ask you to stop making everything into a vast conspiracy theory. In the history of pandemics such reactions always emerge, then fade with the passage of time. Meanwhile, respectfully back on topic: my point was that the allocation of water in the 1922 agreement was not based on its actual availability, which is forcing the situation now at hand. My second point was the same error will likely be repeated in the renegotiations. Scarce fresh water is the true gold of the earth. It appears to me that we have treated the relatively wetter last 120 years or so as normal - against a longer and drier historical record. Humans may enjoy living in warm dry areas, but nature may have other plans for its sustainability.
@@Thomas63r2 You asked me a question on whether I was a conspiracy theorist. I responded with questions back to you to better ascertain if you were interested in reconsidering your labeling of me. But, alas, by your follow up response it's clear that you are a Labelist. You labeled me twice in two comments and both labels you tried to impose on me are wrong. But, that won't stop people like you from doing this over and over. You're perfectly happy to simply throw a label on someone and engage in ad hominem attacks rather than actually offer an opinion of your own creation in furtherance of discussion. You behave no better than the typical school yard bully.
Convenient how one of the benefits of having a damn was never mentioned. which is because of this drought the reservoir was the only reason why people had water in California last year.
Dams are not the answer. Oregon found out the hard way after the salmon began disappearing, cut off from their place of birth. Lack of salmon caused entire food systems to collapse. Fish enrich the water, provide food to carnivores, including humans. Oregon is now dismantling some dams, but irreparable damage has been done to the ecosystems. This is especially evident with the climate of the Pacific Northwest becoming drastically warmer and dryer.
One of the things I never thought about with the salmon runs is the impact of the oceanic nutrients they bring into these freshwater ecosystems. Absolutely vital. And of course, dams sever that link completely. This isn't Oregon, but I have a video about the Elwha dam removals in Washington that touches on these sorts of impacts if you're interested: th-cam.com/video/Q3ooEH3cGHs/w-d-xo.html
Next time you do one of these videos, include information about how the dam has supported increased farming lands and population growth. Don't limit your context to the 1920s and 30s. Ask the question of where we would be without the dam. Focus on how much agriculture you want to shut down and how many people you'll move out of the southwestern United States. (Well, that's not what I meant to say...that's exactly what you're saying.)
The real problem is twofold. One is OVERPOPULATION the other is the need to control flooding. Dams can control flooding plus you get water and electricity. Of course in today's world you can't have prosperity without both!Yes it's nice to sit in an air conditioned home and dream about saving what was but without these dams life would be difficult to exist as we do today. To reclaim the southwest would mean that millions would need to relocate elsewhere. Plus the economy of California would collapse. If I have the correct information- Californias economy is 6th or 7th largest in the WORLD so lose it and theU.S.A goes down with it! Progress has always cost. Look at Manhattan- used to be a wooded island-now it's a concrete jungle. So much for progress.
You're not wrong. These dams have certainly brought a level of development and comfort to the Southwest that would have been hard to achieve without them. I do think it's worth pointing out the flaws in these projects though, especially when they aren't operating as intended. In the case of Glen Canyon, if it stops generating the benefits it once did, and we know the impacts it's having on the overall ecosystem, I think you could make a case for its removal. These are tricky questions to answer though, so I appreciate your perspective!
@@NationalParkDiaries it is naive and silly to say that Lake Powell is not (or will not be) generating the benefits for which it was designed. Even if Glen Canyon Dam no longer generates electricity, it will still serve as water storage and flood protection. As recently as 2019 and 2017, the lake rose dramatically (over 20 feet in 2019) preserving that precious water for years like the last couple when 40 million people desperately need it. If you look at the water records since the construction of Glen Canyon Dam, there is no way that Lake Mead could have preserved enough water in wet years and delivered enough water in dry years without Lake Powell. Lake Mead would have been drained and dry at least 3 times over. The calculations for the Colorado River Compact may have been based on flawed data, but the fact is 40 million people now rely on all of the dams in Colorado River System in order to live in the West. Another fact that isn't pointed out is that up until about 2 years ago, the lower basin states had always taken more than their allotment from the upper basin states. Had the lower basin been abiding by the terms of the compact, the reservoirs would all be in much better shape. (That would be a very interesting video to watch if you want to research the Net flows into and out of the reservoirs and the utilization by upper and lower basin states)
You make some great points, and I appreciate your perspective. I would push back on your claim of naivety, however. I maintain that it's worthwhile to point out that Lake Powell is not operating as it was intended. Hydropower generation is in jeopardy and water levels are way down - I don't think either of those facts are in dispute. By pointing out where it's flaws are, we can move forward with a plan that benefits all of Lake Powell's (and the Colorado River Basin in general) users. My intention with this video was simply to provide an alternative perspective and give some historical context to the problems Lake Powell is currently facing. My opinion on this issue is still evolving and no doubt this is a complex and VERY complicated situation. Thanks again for your comment.
How we utilized rivers like the Colorado River is fundamentally flawed I think. If we were managing the river correctly it would still be reaching the gulf of California but alas it doesn’t. We have chosen to over populate an area that was never ment to have such a heavy population density. We also use this water to farm land that shouldn’t be farmed. That is why California’s aqua fur is drying up and the Colorado river runs dry, and why lake Powell is drying up. The level at which we are using the water is not sustainable
That's pretty much where I fall on this issue as well. Water in the West has fundamentally changed since the time when these dams were built and I think modern conditions necessitate a change in how we think about/use that water. It doesn't mean our standard of living has to drop or people have to leave their homes - we just need to think a bit differently about the resources we're using. Thanks for your input!
In fact, if everyone wanted to live like the average American, you'd need somewhere around 2 billion people and no more. A lot of this is due to water consumption. Too many people, using too much water. Eventually folks will realize the price we are paying.
This presentation focuses on the negative side of the effort by the BOR to provide irrigation water and electricity to an area that would otherwise have neither. The presence of people, cities, recreation, and industry in the west has a favorable side too, and with proper management can exist with these dams.
@@patriciajackson6711 you act as you speak for God, but the fact is you don't. The Word of God says exactly the opposite of what your saying God said. God in the Bible told mankind to be fruitful and multiply and to subdue the earth. The fact is that cannot be done without utilyzing the earth's natural resources. People actually need items such as wood, minerals, oil, gas, water, & electricity. And the earth just like food, crops and animals were all created for mankind's use. And are not meant to be abstained from. Climate change is a lie!
I was just there last week. There's a boom behind the dam, which I suspect is actually a net to prevent more invasive species sneaking through like bass did earlier this year. It's very sobering to see it, to stand there and know the reservoir shore shrinks daily.
Fun fact, This summer, the Glen Canyon Dam may be at Dead pool. This means that although water goes threw the dam with floodgates, the several million dollar turbines will be rusting and dry. I personally don't care too much because although I live here, I see it as a way to cleanse the lake of its zebra muscles infestation and to look at the history below, but the decrease of tourism will suck a little, the tourism will never die.
The Ancestral Puebloans, also known as the Anasazi, were an ancient Native American culture that spanned the present-day Four Corners region of the United States, comprising southeastern Utah, northeastern Arizona, northwestern New Mexico, and southwestern Colorado. They are believed to have developed, at least in part, from the Oshara Tradition, which developed from the Picosa culture.
I live in Page, AZ home of the lake Powell and I’m not gonna lie it’s sad to see our lake become less and less than it used to be back in the 90s or the 80s
Okay I get it, both Parks and Wildlife and the bureau of land management both have vested interest in either getting ride of Glen Canyon Dam or keeping it in place to generate electricity. Whose pocket does the power generation line? What about the big ditch and tunnel that diverts Colorado river water from the West back over to the East?
In my opinion, no solution is simple when it comes to the Colorado River. But you're right in the sense that the Colorado River Compact needs to be renegotiated, or at the very least updated, given current river flows and water usage.
When are people going to realize that although it is expensive and produces a lot of waste(that can be stored until we find a good use for it), desalination is the answer to the water problem?
Not sure how you figure. I was watching something about desalinization in a middle eastern country and did the math, if they wanted to avoid discharging saturated brine back into the ocean, they'd need to have devoted like 1/10 of the landmass of the country or something insane like that, to ponds to dry out the brines produced to provide all the water they needed.
@@Nevir202 That was probably done using reverse osmosis, if you boil the water, there is much less waste. Although boiling does take a lot more energy. Another solution would be discharging the brine up in the north pole where the ice melting is causing an excess of fresh water which disrupts water currents so we could fill the fresh water with the brine to keep the currents going. From the people I've talked to who work at desalination plants. the reason its dumped into the ocean is because that is cheaper than doing something with it.
@@MegaLokopo Brine sinks, so not only would building such pipelines be among the largest engineering feats in human history, due to the length and size requirements. you'd still be obliterating the ecosystem there. If you were in a position to build such pipes, why wouldn't you instead propose capturing ice melt and pumping it the other direction? It would be fresh and relatively clean to start with. And yes, it's cheaper to dump brine than to do something with it, again, to provide the water for a city, you would require evaporation ponds taking up dozens, if not hundreds of square miles to reduce it to salts. That's gonna be expensive. Or else, you need inconceivably large plants gulping down stupid amounts of energy to dry it by force.
@@Nevir202 My point is that the solutions are out there, sadly it is currently cheaper to avoid solving the problem because not enough people are dying yet. The ecosystem is already being destroyed from the fresh water. But yea capturing ice melt would be a good alternative. Evaporation ponds would be part of the solution but there are many ways to clean water, and we already have lots of land that isn't being used for anything and any salt water lakes could easily be used for evaporation even though its less efficient that way every bit helps. Large plants gulping down stupid amounts of energy would be necessary if we weren't already using stupid amounts of energy to cool down everything that generates heat. If you use excess heat that buildings like powerplants and servers use, you could significantly reduce the amount of energy you need. Also if we used, nuclear power generating enough energy would be far easier.
@@MegaLokopo Wait, so you're upset that people are gathering natural fresh water in artificial lakes, but have no issue with converting thousands of square miles into uninhabitable badlands by flooding them with brine? What kind of sense does that make?
My opinion is that we should be using desalinization along the coast. So many cities use that water from the river people forget that a portion is also required to go to Mexico as well. I am almost 40 and have gone to Powell for recreation for 3 decades. To see the water levels where they are right now is sad. Water management is really bad in so many places specially in California. And they keep building more and more without a solution for the future problems that are going to arise.
Desalinization is really interesting to me. I don't know enough about it to offer an opinion here, but thanks for offering an additional perspective and giving me something to research!
@@jimbob4456 you are the one that’s incorrect I’ve tried posting a couple different links. Slippery slope for sure. Search “grass lawns are an ecological catastrophe”
Good question. The white rock strip is the result of the reservoir level being lowered so much that the "bleached" rock that was previously underwater is now exposed. It's a symptom of the myriad problems Lake Powell is facing right now, which this video is contextualizing. Thanks for your comment!
In La Paz MX, Baja Cabos where the Black Pearl was written the geological tours out to islands note that with in a decade of the mega dams the pearls were gone. Only ruins housing birds remain. Can you imagine the impact thru the whole Gulf!?!
Hi, I just subscribed to your channel. I find it not only entertaining, but educational, informative, and thought-provoking. I also like your cinema graphic skills
Thanks and welcome to the community! I will be honest and say a lot of the footage in my videos isn't my own, but comes from stock footage. I incorporate my own when I'm able to travel, but I couldn't tell these stories as frequently as I do without stock footage. Glad you're enjoying it!
It doesn't even need to be an issue of ethics. In fact, bringing ethics into it is part of the self-dooming process because then these things become an issue of emotion and personal preference, neither of which take a rational look at cause and effect. Science tells you all you need to know, and if you embrace its message, then there is no other conclusion one can come to than cause will ultimately destroy everything we've made with effect. We use our intelligence and creativity to accomplish amazing things, and our egos and desires to ignore consequences that should be obvious. We are only capable of realizing our catastrophic mistakes once they are actively eating us alive. The simple truth is this: A planet cannot be mass modified to service ONE species without compromising all the others, and compromising all others for the sake of one is a fatal trap for that one. We have great intellect and great creativity, but an incredible lack of foresight and wisdom. It is that lack of foresight and wisdom that will destroy us, and the Earth will be more than eager to swallow everything we've made.
Nice job. But the "costs v. benefits" framing would have been improved by sketching out which groups receive the benefits, and which groups pay the costs.
Fair. I do like the cost-benefit (or maybe "pros vs cons" is better) approach. A lot of these big issues/decisions are pretty even on the pros vs cons, and different people/interests can legitimately see that balance going one way or the other... Important to remember that it is close to being evenly balanced though. That also means that it shouldn't take much to shift folks from one 'side' to the other, and being on the 'losing side' shouldn't be a huge loss.
Hi Travis. Thank you for the reply. I congratulate you on your idealism, but my many decades on the Colorado Plateau provide little evidence that there exists a common perspective that allows different groups to equitabely weigh pros and cons of projects that impact very large and disaparate groups of people. Everyone wants to be on the "winning side" and no one wants to be on the "losing side", however those very fluid terms are defined. My view would be that the challenge we face is developoing a perspective that can be broadly shared, and I think that is going to require a more equitable apportionment of the anticpated benefits of development, and a fundamental committment to honoring ecological reality. Thanks again. Scott.
A very informative explanation of the cost of these dams for development. Of course you never actually hear about the fact that they knew the water levels back then were above average. They just try to blame everything on the climate change. Not the fact of over development, and skewed numbers back when the dams were originally built.
Ironically, John Wesley Powell, after whom lake Powell was named, warned in 1883 that the central aquifer of the western US was not sufficient to support the settlement of large populations or extensive agriculture. His advice was ignored because the vested interests of the day saw big profits in settling these areas.
At the time of my viewing, 2356 comments. One more will probably just get lost in the noise. That said, I've boated Lake Powell for over 30 years. It's always struck me as one of the most beautiful places in the world. Unlike many of the boaters, I have also hiked the area extensively. I've easily got over 1000 miles hiked in every conceivable canyon and atop the canyon rims. It's equally beautiful there as well. I've loved every minute of my boating and exploration experiences. Along with that, I've rafted down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. My only experience was with cold water coming from the bottom of Lake Powell, though I have been told by a few people, one being my mother, of rafting experiences pre Glen Canyon Dam. I'd still jump at the chance to raft the Grand Canyon again. It has been the highlight of virtually all the adventures I've had in the Southwest. Many of the people I know who boat Powell are adamant that the lake has given more than it's taken away. I used to feel this way, but over time, I've grown to change my mind. I've read accounts by so many people that I've gotten to know some of what I never saw. There isn't enough water to support two reservoirs anyway. Regardless of water storage, the meandering river through the slow and easy Glen Canyon area was a sight to behold before it was inundated with a reservoir. I wouldn't think it a bad thing if the Glen Canyon Dam were removed. In a country falling apart, with runaway inflation, I'm not sure I'd be spending the fortune it would take to do so, but turning off the power plant, opening the gates and leaving it be to flow would be fine by me.
I appreciate your insight! Even with all these comments, it's still nice to hear other's perspectives on the situation at Glen Canyon. It's an incredibly complicated issue, hence all the different viewpoints, and I by no means have all the answers. But I do think there are lessons to be learned with the history of Glen Canyon and how those apply to the modern situation of water in the west. Thanks for your comment!
If there is one thing that truly needs to be reclaimed it's humanities place IN nature, & not trying to dominate & control it. If you look around, we're not really great at the last part.
Excellent vid quality and info. You deserve more subs! You got mine via this one. I looooove lake Powell but we have some real conversations to have about the future of water in the SW. It’s gonna get ugly fast without serious considerations toward reality. Great job! I’m happy to have found this today. Now, if I could just get back to work over here. 😂
Thanks, and welcome to the community! I couldn't agree more about water in the Southwest. Serious questions to ask and no easy answers, but conversations like these certainly help. Thanks for contributing!
When talk of dams, it's true they took alot away, but also added alot. I am 65 and from a few years old, have loved nature and have hicked uncountable miles of wild areas. One of the first things I found out was that almost all animals will be within a short way of water. Dams have created much larger shorelines and as such, alot of new habitat for wildlife. We need to find how to take care of how dams are operated to maintain the rivers between and bring back things like samon runs in the north west US. We have lost much and gained much with are dams.
Personally I think that glen canyon damn needs to bite the dust. Once Powell reaches dead pool, it means that the flow of the Colorado beyond glen canyon damn will stop, which in itself will cause major problems for the Grand Canyon, lake mead, etc.
As a former land development contractor.. no one ever talks about ,or mentions the usage of extreme amounts of cubic feet of water it takes to prepare for major housing tracts .. Or major projects . .We did some calculations of three annual projects and the amount of water it consumed ,was enough water to supply a whopping 100, 000 people for 14 yrs .
I'm an old-fashioned libertarian, so for me, all the eminent-domain powers that were used to install the dams in the first place, however beneficial one thinks they are, wouldn't exist. All it would take was one guy who didn't want to sell his land where the proposed reservoir was going to be to scotch the whole deal. I'm more of a small-scale, permaculture kind of guy. Those deserts out West can be pioneered in ways that are friendly to man and environment. There's a false dichotomy between "use the land" and "preserve the land." We're smart enough to improve on Nature as creatures OF Nature. We're not separate from Nature. That's a big myth. We can choose what our place in the ecosystem is by making conscious decisions. Small-scale sequestration of rainwater can green up an awful lot of desert.
All plants and animals try their best to alter their surroundings to better their own survival chances, like a tree growing roots through hard stone to make more soil or a mole digging a hole to live in. Or the entire concept of a beaver. We can alter our environment to our own needs without destroying it for everything else, if we play it smart.
@@stone7281 The difference between humans and animals is that animals don't care what they destroy. Moles would happily eat every bug in the soil if they could. We're the only species who can consciously improve on nature, going back to Druids of an earlier age gently moving a strangler vine from a living tree to a nearby rock, or building an earth-sheltered home that blends with the environment.
All of this seems correct. And I cannot believe they have not corrected water usage by pricing it correctly. NO-ONE is gonna flood water their lawn if it costs a thousand dollars to do that. Seriously, ten fold the price, watch conservationists pop up outta nowhere.
Water is unmetered in Scotland. Pay a monthly fee and use as much as you like and it's all drinkable and mostly v nice to drink. We use less than almost anywhere in the USA. I can't work out what you do with it but growing lawns in desert would certainly explain a lot. Improve your decorative horticulture. You have an excellent diversity of plants and must be able to stop copying north European styles. I suppose a lawn is a status thing ?
@@reubenj.cogburn8546 it is sad to see you suffer from lack of thinking as well! Only a moron would not know that wasteful irrigation techniques in agriculture account for most of the water usage in the world. Pricing water at 600% more than what it costs now would definitely cause a B.O. problem for sure. It would make alot of poor people unable to utilize a community garden to shave off the cost of food. All the big cities in the southwest are Democrat run and the people who have a lawn to water are mostly white people so we know who to blame with the green grass issues eh? I remember in the 80s visiting family in L.A. and taking a shower like we do here in Colorado and after being told that because of that they could not do laundry for a couple days. They lived in a condominium and the grass outside was as green as could be!!!! Adult thinking = laughing my ass off , the adults in the room are the driver of the worlds ills.
I visited Lake Powell in 1981, when the water level was high and the attitude still generally positive for the area. It was already clear that the sediments captured behind the dam would eventually make it useless for water storage even without the drought.
Although (thanks to a surplus snowpack this year) lake Powell will rise 50 feet and buy some time, but the next drought is just around the corner. It seems a dilemma exists: Try and save both Powell and Meade and lose both, or save one. Meade is more important.
Hello all. It has come to my attention that the term "Anasazi" is out of date, and that the term "Ancestral Puebloan" is preferred. My apologies for the oversight.
Yeah, ananizi is a Navajo word meaning ancient enemy. The Navajo and Apache came into the southwest from the north about 1100 or 1200 CE. They had to fight the Puebloan natives fo territory.
I think you environmental people really need to learn critical thinking and reasoning enough to realize what it would mean if we do everything you really want. Many of us know your true agenda.
We would all have to live like the Flintstones back 1,000 years in time
Or would you elitists still have your private jets and huge redwood lodges while just the peasants would be forced to go back 1,000 years ?
@@carlatamanczyk3891 "I think you environmental people really need to learn critical thinking and reasoning"
You first.
"We would all have to live like the Flintstones back 1,000 years in time"
A great example of the slippery slope fallacy.
"Or would you elitists still have your private jets and huge redwood lodges while just the peasants would be forced to go back 1,000 years ?"
This channel has 956 subscribers on youtube, 156 followers on Instagram, and you think the person(s) behind the channel are millionaires? Which if that were even true, how is that relevant?
"the term "Anasazi" is out of date"
Naturally. And in a year or three its successor will also be out of date. Since pretty much everyone understands "Anasazi" that's a word I will keep using. Still, its nice to know yet another name by which a population can be labeled.
@@carlatamanczyk3891 "I think you environmental people really need to learn critical thinking and reasoning"
Not going to happen. This kind is emotional and those emotions are very powerful and rule until their bellies are growling with hunger. Then watch out.
Scientists knew in 1922 that the water the law makers were allocating didn’t exist. E.C.LaRue was the head hydrologist and he attempted to correct the numbers the law makers were using, but the compromises they would have had to make proved too difficult, and thus they used numbers they could agree on, not numbers provided by their own scientists. It’s important as the basin goes into the 2026 renegotiations to remember that it was the politically difficult reality that caused the over allocation in the first, in hopes we don’t repeat the same mistakes this go-round.
That's a good point - one I didn't touch on too much in the video. Politics is an inherent part of these projects and has to be factored in to any discussion.
Lawmakers have always been clueless, greedy bastards.
Why does it say 3 reply and there is just one?
Ya we won't just listen to the science right lol COVID-19.
I would be interested in the history of development of Arizona and Nevada. I assume not including the American Indian tribes that reside there it was almost completely devoid of European descendant life.
Like did we really need big cities in these areas? Couldn't everyone just move to California? 🤣
If you split states up like that then everyone will want to build a city or 2 in their land. I think the mistake began there, while drawing the state lines.
Dinosaur National Monument was saved not just by environmental groups, but also by hunters and fisherman coming together to preserve it.
I just found this channel. How did I not know it existed before? This content is the kind of stuff I live for. I'm so glad that someone out there is making videos like this. I have visited nearly 200 different National Park Service units and it is so amazing to get the full stories on these places that we have come to know and love. I actually just visited Glen Canyon NRA a couple months ago, which is what led me to this content.
Welcome to the community, we're glad to have you! 200 units is impressive - way more than me lol! I'm glad you're enjoying the stories and there are more to come. I appreciate the support!
I’m amazed that one of your friends hadn’t recommended it to you Jerry?
read the Monkey Wrench Gang
Even with the water shortage, big companies are still building huge facilities around the Phoenix area. The Phoenix residents still flood irrigate their grass yards with 8 to 10 inches of water twice a month from water that comes from the Colorado River. The problem will continue to get worse. The population of the Phoenix metro area is 5 million with more coming every day. In the next 10 years, you won't be able to give the homes away out in the Phoenix suburbs because of the lack of water.
I find this stampede of people moving to Phoenix baffling. Have these people not heard of climate warming or do they think it’s a hoax by the left-wing media? I live no where near Phoenix but even I know that it’s rapid growth is unsustainable and that it could become virtually unliveable in the near future due to rising temperatures, to the extent that being outside for too long on a hot summer day may prove deadly. But it’s a great place to raise a family.
Flood irrigation is limited and grandfathered. Most all newer residential Phx does not have this ability. It is also arguable whether this uses less water that daily sprinkling, since such irrigation is twice a month. That being said, there is an unnatural insistence on greenery and grass lawns as vs desert (native) landscaping.
@@xaviermillar9375 Well, the temperature is rising due to urban heat sink effect from city buildings, and that is noticeable at night mostly. Daytime highs have not noticeably increased, nor will a global warming increase of say 1.5C be more than a blip for Phx dwellers. A/C keeps folks comfortable and will do so into the foreseeable future. Nothing predicted wrt global warming will change that, nor does global warming theory predict/cause the current drought. Lengthy droughts have been recorded in the Sonoran desert from the geologic record lasting hundreds of years. The shortage of water will affect the residents last. Before such rationing, farming will cease, then certain industries. Phx residential water use is over double the second largest city, Tucson. There is much that can be conserved should rationing be implemented. Prior to the CAP water from the Colorado, Phx had separate river water *and* ground water. Those resources remain. People are not going anywhere simply because it is better to live in a warm climate than a cold one-all things being equal.
@@johnluiten3686 What newer residental Phoenix? There haven't really been any residential housing developments in Phoenix in 30 years. Everything now is being built in the suburbs and those houses all have desert landscaping, not grass lawns. The point I guess I should have been more clear about is that all the houses in Phoenix that have flood irrigation should half to switch to desert-type landscaping because the water-saving would be enormous.
@@anthonynelson9136 The reply has to take into account the metro area of course. But Phx has expanded, and jumps some of the nearer mountain ranges. Those are not the old Phx, “central”, were irrigation ditches were run along roadways to residential housing. As I said, the aspect of flood irrigation vs sprinklers is problematic. The problem is water hungry landscaping, not necessarily how the water gets there. You could zone areas to be non-grass, or water savings, but I suspect the politics involved will make that the last thing they’d consider.
"does the benefits outweigh the costs?" is always such a tricky questions, since most of the times who pays the costs doesn't reap any of the benefits...
There are actually very few things today that actually simplified life like a washer.
So when I was a kid late 70’s early 80’s, I knew a guy named Frank Wright. Frank was the foremost amateur archaeologist and explorer of the glen canyon , Grand Canyon and the Colorado basin areas, he knew and worked with a lot of the academics like Powell that worked in those areas, he had 8mm, films hours of it that was in glen canyon before the dam, the natural and historical treasures that was there was nothing short of amazing. One film I seen showed a flat bottom boat on the Colorado river in that glen canyon area, the boat was motored and the river went right in to a cliff face and the boat kept going in to this huge cavern that was by my guess about 200 feet across and probably 50 feet tall from the water level, no shore in the cave and pictographs all over the walls and celling. I asked him why he did not doing anything with these films and he would tell us that Disney actually owned them and didn’t know he had copies and he wanted to keep it that way. What we have lost is terrible. He died years ago not even sure when but he was born turn of the century late 1800’s.
Man, I bet those would be incredible to see!
You should investigate if the films still exist and procure them. Make a thousand copies and then distribute them to as many people as possible telling them to make copies of their own. With shit tons of copies around disney won't be able to make it disappear. The internet is being placed inside a permitted area. Outside information will be deleted including any information about our true history.
I have a coffee table book of Glen Canyon before the dam. (I believe it’s called ‘The Place No One Knew’ by Elliot Porter.) It is heartbreaking to look at it, knowing everything in it is drowned. For those with fond memories of the lake, I believe the river with its natural ecosystem and wildlife would have been infinitely more enriching and beautiful. I believe the river had much more gentle current suitable for amateurs to paddle. The Grand Canyon with its huge rapids is a fantastic experience, but one needs much more skill and support to go down it.
Just found this quote from the back cover: “Remember these things lost. The native wildlife; the chance to float quietly down a calm river, to let the current carry you past a thousand years of history, through a living canyon of incredible, haunting beauty. Here the Colorado had created a display that rivaled any in the world. The side canyons simply had no rivals. We lost wholeness, integrity in place . . . a magnificent gesture of the natural world." --David Brower
Way to sell frank out
@@iTokyoDemon heard this story like half a dozen times now, always a different old guys name.
It's a big problem in the sense that without these dams many of the larger cities in the southwest could not exist. Honestly, I'm surprised desalination plants aren't popping up by the dozens on the California coast. Yeah, it's expensive... but if you honestly care about the plants and animals it's something that needs to be done.
But, for the most part people will say how evil it is that we dammed this river destroying habitats, while happily using the water and power generated by these same dams and would very quickly realize how dire the situation would be without them if they were torn down.
What about the insects and lizards that live where the desalinization plants are proposed to be built? Probably easier to move the millions of invasive humans. Kalifornia karma.
@@MyBelch I agree, we should all huddle in caves because all places on earth are a native biome that would be potentially inhabited by some animals. The spot where my house is built could have held a rabbit burrow and deer den instead of my house. I'm awful.
Actually, us living in caves and using fires to keep the place warm would perhaps cause them to be unhabitable by some of the wildlife that would actually live there if we weren't there. So better yet, we should kill all of humanity because us existing as a species at all effects too many other creatures. True conservation of Earth.
The problem is that desalination is so expensive as to be completely unprofitable, and there will never be desalination plants unless companies see a profit in it or the government subsidizes the fuck out of it.
The largest and most efficient desalinization plant in the world can produce a gallon of potable water for about 20 cents. If you use 5 CCF's (750 gallons) of water monthly like most U S. homes, your water bill (not sewer portion which is typically twice the price if water) would be $800 a month. Saudi oil essentially subsidizes Saudi drinking water.
@@Xander-dx6mw you don't need potable water to shower or flush toilets.
I'd say it's even worse than you said. Floyd Dominy, Reclamation's most well known administrator (hero or villain, you pick) called Glen Canyon Dam a "cash register dam." The idea was to generate hydroelectricity to create revenue to build other projects, such as the dams in the Grand Canyon. The other purpose was to impound silt to extend the life of Lake Mead. By design, Lake Powell is a sacrificial lamb.
Water storage was tertiary, at best. In fact, I understand more water evaporates from Lake Powell than is actually taken from it. Now it's time to pay the piper. Seems they shut down the Navajo Generating Station a little too soon, although we are better off without all the pollutants it spewed out.
The real tragedy is the loss of Glen Canyon. My science teacher from high school got to pass through it as a teen in 1957. He told us it was every bit as stunning as the Grand Canyon, and a piece of him died when they impounded Lake Powell. BTW, John Wesley Powell must also be turning in his grave knowing his beloved canyon is filled with water and silt.
Removing the dam makes sense, and nature almost did it for us in 1982. At the very least, bore a new spillway to allow water to flow through. After all, outside of the the lower lake levels, the silt building up is building up fast, so it will lose its use for hydroelectricity in a couple of decades, regardless.
In response to the recreational access it provides, I quote the Sierra Club's campaign against the Grand Canyon dams, "Would you flood the Sistine Chapel to be nearer the ceiling? "
@ Casey, Everything I know about the dam, and the environment makes me agree with you completely. Many of my friends work in various science and environmental groups…they called the Glen Canyon Dam an Ecological Atrocity. The desert is not just a barren wasteland, to be filled up - it is an important and valuable environment in its own right.
Man you can't even compare Glen canyon to the Grand canyon no comparison not even close Grand Canyon is massive compared to the Glen
this reminds me of the time my 3 kids "dammed" the Colorado River with rocks in the river. It was way, way upstream where it was less than a foot deep and maybe 15 feet wide. that must have been more than 20 years ago. I'd guess the dam is long gone by now.
@@zacsdiyguns Ouch.
In a couple years you'll be lucky to find a spot anywhere that's still 15 feet wide.🥺
Maybe your kids accidentally "damned" the river instead, cursing us with this permanent drought.
As a Utah resident throughout the 90's, I watched as The Stillwaters,Flaming Gorge, Lake Powell, Jordanelle and many other lakes of The C.U.P. filled in record time. That should have been a clue that they can empty in record time as well. Say a prayer for Powell. Or make a plan for the refugees from Phoenix!
Well, dammit all over again
Mother nature will reclaim the Colorado River over time. The dam is temporary.
I use to live in page and was a river guide on the river. Ive been at the bottom of the dam many many times. Its pretty awesome. If you ever go there you realize how remote that area is.
I used to fish Lee’s Ferry, awesome place.
I have been to the top of the dam, not the bottom. The whole area, at least when I was there was very remote. Very few people would visit the area if it were not for the dam. He is worried about the ruins that were covered by the lake. AZ is covered with such ruins by the ANASAZI, I hate when people start using politically correct language. I have been all over AZ and seen them. Parks and in the back desert using 4x4s. Phoenix, at least when I lived there, was using irrigation canals that were over a thousand years old. My point is, "you can not build if a thousand years ago somebody else lived there?"
The lake may have destroyed habitat for some animals. On the other hand it created habitat for others. It was a net zero for destruction verses creation at worst. We took the beaver model and made it bigger.
The SW has a sine curve for water. When I lived there the precipitation was very high, late 70's, early 80's. We were flooding. Glenn Canyon was shedding water at an amazing rate, same with Hoover. These dams were made to flatten the curve. Should have seen Phoenix and the flooding they had back then. Now they are in a drought. Why did the Anasazi leave the land? Maybe because of a drought even worse than today?
What I got from the video is that this person is happy with solar farms. Bulldoze millions of acres for power and destroy even more land to produce even less energy. Have a better idea. Let's build bird choppers and kill off raptors.
@@TheLittlered1961 nailed it! 👍🏼
@@TheLittlered1961 I grew up in Page and there are always going to be tons of people driving through the area doing the grand circle (GC, Zion, Bryce, Capitol Reef, Canyonlands, Arches, Black Canyon, Mesa Verde). Glen Canyon is managed by the Park Service too so they could easily develop more hiking infrastructure to some of the more interesting areas that are now uncovered. Also, Horseshoe Bend and Antelope Canyon have become massively popular over the years.
Page can easily survive if they focus on more hiking, biking, Kayaking and 4wheeling.
@@lkajiess I do not doubt in what you have said. I went through there in about 1975/76. I was on the "dam'" elevator. The one that takes you to the generating plant. I saw the bolts that they used to stabilize the rock on the outer edges of the dam. My parents took me through there to see the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, Bryce and Zion. My point was, would this have happened if the dam was not there? This was a short cut for AZ and many places in NM to get to the places you have mentioned.
As I stated before, would this place be so popular if it were not for the dam?
When I was in college, we studies the water issues in the west. The book. “Cadillac Desert” was the book we had to read in addition to other course materials. It lays out this very scenario and the outlook is dismal.
Great book. Definitely a must read for anyone interested in these issues.
Someday we will drain the Reservoir, when we start condensing water from air and desalinating ocean water. Till then, people depend on that water. The planet has innumerable beauties
Of course. A college's outlook will ALWAYS be dismal so then they can say "you need to pay for our degree so you can help sAvE tHe wOrLd". They're selling their own services when they claim the sky is falling.
I don't understand how something like that compact would be fixed for a century.
In my country there would be a governing structure for the entire watershed that would manage the whole area and continually update their ideas and models.
I live in Bulhead city AZ just a 2 minute drive from the most beautiful river I have ever seen. I have taken it for granted. I, like so many others are very concerned about the current drought situation. Thank you for a great video. I had no clue.
Thank you for watching! These issues are tough and complicated and I don't presume to have all the answers, but with folks like you engaging in topics like this, I think we can find a better way forward.
I don't know how anyone could read Edward Abbey and want to do anything other than destroy Glen Canyon dam. Especially his story in Desert Solitare of his trip through Glen Canyon right before it was flooded. Desert Solitare should be required reading. Thankfully, here in Arkansas, the Buffalo River was barely saved from a similar fate. That's a great story in itself.
Just read Desert Solitaire and it was fantastic. Just remember that he embellished the hell out of it. Like how it wasn't one summer but was over two years and that he was alone... with his wife and kid. That said every damned word of it is true even if not factually correct. The San Rafael Swell is still mostly undeveloped and you can "get out of your metal coffin" and walk there. I'm actually angry that Capitol Reef, my favorite park, was chosen over the Swell for park status, the place is truly that extraordinary.
I'm more of a fan of The Emerald Mile, which talks directly about the dams and the Colorado. Also... get rid of that damn dam. Glen canyon as it was might be gone, but the wilderness will make a new masterpiece out of it.
NPS ironically sells his book in all their gift shops, including Arches and Glen Canyon :(
Another great book on this topic is "Goodbye to a River" by John Graves. It's about his trip down a river in Texas. Can't recall the name. Good read.
Desert Solitare is one of my favorite all time books! Another one: ‘The Place No one Knew -Glen Canyon on the Colorado’ by Elliot Porter is a gorgeous coffee table book of Glen Canyon before it was drowned. Sadly, it is no longer in print, used copies are probably available, though.
This is probably going to sound foolish, but hear me out. What if the desert states that grow food built large greenhouses? That would allow for multi-tier farming and conservation of water.
There's a lettuce farm near me that has this monster sized building where they grow, process, and sell several kinds of leafy greens, so it's certainly do-able.
Learn about permaculture and a guy named Geoff Lawton. And about the huge permaculture projects in Ethiopia and other African countries. There are many examples here on YT. Permaculture is all about harvesting and storing water with strategically designed contour swales and ponds, and using the natural biological system such as useful plants and trees and bio mass to restore the land and the natural water tables, and the fertility from the soil. Even projects that are located in the desert were very successful.
We need to be doing that so we can prepare to live on uninhabitable planets. It will be much easier on earth. Lol
After all,isn’t that what we were sold at world’s fairs and Disney-world ?
Real Estate developers were keenly aware that Phoenix had overbuilt, even in the 1970's. But there was money to be made! Currently there are several Phoenix adjacent towns that are being cut off. They can't hire the local Water hauling company to bring them water, because the water hauler is no longer allowed to buy Phoenix water. The Phoenix water table has been dropping for 50 years, also causing adjacent cities to drill deeper to hit water too.
We shouldn't pump water from out of deserts into deserts. If we can't live off the air/ground water in the region, maybe we just shouldn't live there
@@tylerjones1645 you'd think
The questions about whether or not the Glen Canyon dam was built is irrelevant because it's already there. No one is going to tear it down or abandon it.
California was growing like mad and they needed water for those people to survive. People surviving and expanding into this part of the country was important to the growth of the country. No one worried about plants and animals or Anasazi ruins either.
The water didn't ruin anything, it opened up the entire southwest to more people coming here. If these dams wouldn't have been built, then no one would be here and California would look very different today.
Go to Chile some day and look around their desert. No one's there...
I read Mark Riesner's monumental book 'Cadillac Desert' about 30 years ago. As an Australian who has been involved in public water policy since then it gave me a useful perspective on why we do such things to rivers. Many of the dilemmas you face in the US are shared in other places around the planet.
Read that this year myself. So important and helpful for understanding these issues.
@@NationalParkDiaries Desert Solitaire is another great book on the region, even if it's more of a personal rant and barely-edited journal. Ed Abbey's anger at Glen Canyon's drowning still resonates.
Here in California, water is liquid gold. Much of the water has been used to grow America’s fruit and vegetables(along with the Central Valley aquifer). It’s hard to make a case for these dams not being crucial for the US as a whole. The environmental cost has been enormously high, but so have the benefits. Recreation seems like such a minor reason to build a dam. Irrelevant in a world where the SouthWest is running out of water.
We can grow our food without California it's cool
We as a nation have to change our dietary habits back to being “seasonal” consumers and not count on the west, that isn’t “running out” of water, it simply expanded past its natural sustainable size.
I lived in Nevada up until a few years ago. I left because Hoover Dam is pretty much dry. I used to boat and fish there. They have moved the dock area was moved at least 15 times and I lived there 14 years.
But you do know S. Nevada doesn't have water issues.
I went there twice, one in the late 2000s early 2010s (Was a kid, difficult to fully remember), and in 2019 over the summer months when I was living out west. It’s bizarre to see the water level lower so much so the rocks surrounding it were “bleached” white. Wondering what’ll the water level will be in another 10~ or so years.
@@Stentinalization The rocks aren't "bleached white", that is alkali in the water from when the reservoir(s) were at full pool, it sticks to the walls of the canyon. The water west of the Rockies has a higher alkali content then other parts of the country. You'll see it on the stocks of trees. When it dries, it's very powdery and you can run your fingers along the stock and it comes off like baby powder.
Anyways, take it easy.
@@dmannevada5981 Interesting, I referred to bleaching only as it seems to be the most general concept someone could imagine but that detail gives a more complete understanding. Thanks for informing me a bit more on that, my specialties lie within micro+molecular biology so apologies if my previous comment came off a bit ignorant.
@@Stentinalization It's all good, thanx for the reply.
Deciding after the fact that "they" misestimated the effect is a problem. Do the dams get torn down, and the people who rely on that water have to move after their property values reach zero has massive social and economic consequences to the nation. Leaving the dams in place has shown economic consequences as well, positive and negative. The environmental effects of what has been done may not ever be undone by opening the flow. Taking out the dam or dams will not "bring back what was lost", it will create a new and different effect all along the river. It is not "do we want to undo the damage", it is "what will the net long term effect be" whichever way we go.
K
Not true , just your blind opinion , nature will always revert back
The bottom of that lake must resemble a landfill at this point.
Oddly enough, there's plenty of water for the population size living in the American southwest. It's the cotton, almond, alfalfa farms that use 80-93% of the water.
We took a two hundred year old dam out by me and within days eel and herring were spawning where they hadn't in centuries. Nothing ever is the same but Nature can bounce back fast.
I like keeping people alive more than ancient ruins and random wildlife that exists elsewhere.
When I first "saw" this dam, the diversion tunnel was recently put into service with the coffer dam diverting the flow. The lower former river bed had been cleaned to bedrock and the initial cement pours were just starting.
What a sad sight.
Sorry for my disjointed thought process. Many don't know that two dams were proposed in the Grand Canyon, but in what was only Grand Canyon National MONUMENT at the time. One at Marble Canyon, just upstream from the Little Colorado River confluence and one that was to flood the lower portion of Grand Canyon with the upper slack water of its reservoir reaching upward to the boundary of the park portion of "the canyon." I've seen the surveyor's markings for the Marble Canyon proposal on the rocks at the canyon's bottom. It's all part of the National Park now, none of this monument nonsense.
Reclamation also assured that no one could see the reservoir from the rim of the canyon. Never mind the people who hike down, or those who go rafting. After all, the inner canyon is just ugly billion year old rock. Boring! Reclamation said by flooding the canyon, it would be more accessible.
It gets worse with the Marble and Bridge Canyon dams. Like Glen Canyon Dam, their purpose was to generate electricity, which Reclamation would sell to finance more projects. Floyd Dominy himself called them "cash register dams."
David Brower and the Sierra Club screwed up with Glen Canyon. At least they redeemed themselves by stirring up public outrage against these cash register dams. In one of the most brilliant and effective advertising campaigns ever, in 1975, they flooded every major newspaper with an ad that said, "Would you flood the Sistine Chapel to be nearer the ceiling?"
@@caseycooper5615 As I remember Brower made the statement during a congressional hearing after Dominy made the statement that more people would be able to see the canyon if it was flooded.
The Marble Canyon dam would be in view from the rim at Desert View, so I would dispute what the BOR said about it. That unless they built the dam upstream of where I saw the markings on the canyon wall, which were upstream of the Little Colorado confluence. If those dams were built we would still have problems with little water in the reservoirs. Also if those were not in view of the south rim, the massive electrical facilities would have to be on the rim. Plus, roads would have to have been built to each site for construction access and maintenance.
@@wannabetowasabe I absolutely agree with you. I hope you took my dry sarcasm for what it was. Their only purpose was to generate power and make money. You're right about Marble Canyon - it would have been just upstream of the confluence with the Little Colorado. I saw plans for miles of roads and other infrastructure that would have paved over places sacred to the Navajo. I recall part of the plan was to have a miles long tunnel paralleling the Colorado, emptying at Bridge Canyon. The idea was to have the penstocks in this tunnel,, so as so get more drop, generating more electricity.
I would love to see video of Brower using the Sistine Chapel line when he testified in Congress. Regardless, I saw copies of the ad campaign, which rivals Johnson's _Daisy_ ad for effectiveness.
They wanted the Dam in Dinosaur Colorado - that was the Sierra Clubs big beginning, while they fought that - Glen Canyon was basically snuck in.
It's a Land Watch issue. New Mexico has been having those issues majorly and I hope we will Not be seeing effects in the next several decades
Southern California Always has these problems. Always
In 1955, an uncle, a cousin and myself, (age 9), loaded slabs of sandstone onto the tailgate of my uncle's station wagon, from the east end of Glen Canyon Bridge. We unloaded mid span, drove off and parked. We walked back and hoisted the slabs over the bridge rail, then dropped them into the river. The slabs vanished out of sight, then they hit the water, producing the loudest BOOM we ever heard! The crash echoed endlessly, between the walls of Glen Canyon. The dam was not there, yet.
I was there around 1969-72, hiking down the Escalante River as Lake Powell backed up into the canyons. A documentary by BuRec (th-cam.com/video/ImIaNw6HJCE/w-d-xo.html) states that the bridge was opened for traffic in 1959. Is the bridge farther upstream older?
So you stole rocks?
You Impish Vandal, probably squashed Humpback Chubs with those rocks!
@@Moose803 hey his taxes payed for that bridge he has the right to take loose bricks if they fell off.
@@billyd7628 how do you know if they paid taxes?
Certain states that have been allowing other states to "have" their allocated water as they haven't needed it, are now facing shortages & need their allotment. The states who had benefitted from the other states not needing their allotted water are now angry about the water not going to them (was a gift from the other states)...
I don't suppose California might be one of those ungrateful states?
@@ronskancke1489 If it shrivels and dries up, and blows away, the country will be better off.
@@MyBelch Yeah how I feel about Arizona and the SW
The water flow is the same amount of water once the lake is full. In fact more water is available in more useable amounts.
@@NatureShy %75 of the country wants California to go away.
My father worked at the Yuma Projects office during the channelizing of the lower Colorado River. The MAIN reason Glen Canyon Dam was built was to extend the life of Hoover/Bolder Dam. The silt load coming out of the Grand Canyon was going to turn Hoover into a large water fall due to silt build up. Glen Canyon is used as a settling basin.
The silt comes rushing out of the canyon flows into the lake where the water drops it silt load before flowing on down stream to spin the turbines of hoover Dam. The Bureau of reclamation basically turned the lower Colorado into a giant irrigation canal. in some places the river is now unnavigable and only 1-2ft. deep.
I've never heard the Silt Theory - your right it does, but I would be surprised that that was their intention.
@@weaverlance you are correct that there were other reasons used to win approval from the congress to build Glen Canyon. But, I beg to differ with you. I am not sure of what study you are quoting, But the fact is, there are MANY places below Parker Dam where the river is indeed 1ft-2ft deep. There is so little water in the river below Blythe, around Walters Camp that you can no longer drive a boat from Blythe to Yuma anymore. Mexico is also complaining that the Colorado River water allotment they are receiving is so saline as to be borderline unusable for irrigation.
@@thuringervonsausage5232 You are right. No politician does things for just one reason. Personal enrichment is another, as is the power and control that go along with it. It is almost impossible to run for congress if you ARE NOT A MILLIONAIRE to start with.
The main Reason Glenn Canyon was built was because the Sierra Club sopped the Dam in Dinosaur. So they literally snuck it in.
I love these videos and this channel. I hope your channel gets big - it deserves to be seen by more people.
Maybe make about 100 video shorts and post about 3 a day. The algorithm should help attract more subs for you once you're into the "shorts" loop.
Thank you! I'm really glad you're enjoying it and I'm excited to see this channel keep growing and attracting a wonderful community. Thanks for being here!
i can say, the water coming out of the gcd is freezing cold, numbing cold all the way to mead. you can look up in the grand canyon and see trees from floods, hundreds of feet above the river in the GC.
At Lake Havisu you will see light houses maintained by the local Yacht Clubs. Those light houses are named after ships that would traverse inland from Baja gulf before the dams.
Great video yet again, has always struck me that Lake Powell was named after someone who said the river should not be damned for irrigation/ or to support heavy settlement.
His ideas on small scale, watershed-based development were certainly before their time. I'm sure he'd be quite disappointed in the way water is managed there today... Thanks for watching!
Dammed, not damned.
@@ntdscherer
When they dammed the river they damned themselves.
damned. Well, I'll be damned if I'll approve of this river being dammed!!
@@ntdscherer where the hell is the damn dam tour?!
It is indeed time we considered the questions raised by this and other dams. We need to expand and develop technology for water conservation and re-use. And we need to support our national (and state) parks by visiting those places instead of commercialized resorts. People need to learn to treasure and respect our natural world.
Glen Canyon dam hasn't produced at its nameplate capacity for some time. The argument for its existence is further eroded by the fact that as a powerplant, it's of fairly low output even at full power. A single nuclear reactor at the Palo Verde Nuclear plant near Phoenix produces that same amount of electricity as Glen Canyon Dam, and there are three such reactors. Building and installing another one would be all the additional electricity needed to replace the dam's declining output. Or, stick a few nice shiny new modular reactors where the Navajo Generating Station is. The coal plant is shutdown at this point but all the electrical connections are still there.
In terms of water use, the flows of the Colorado will still be there. Nearby Paige AZ and the native tribes will have access. Perhaps a side canyon could be flooded as a small local reservoir that isn't as consequential as Glen Canyon to ensure steady water supplies. The sensible move here is to remove the Glen Canyon dam and restore the river and store the water in Lake Mead downstream. Not only would you regain the natural beauty of Glen Canyon's striking sandstone walls but you'd stop allowing so much water to seep through those walls. The Navajo Sandstone of Glen Canyon is much more porous than the basaltic rock that makes up Black Canyon where Hoover Dam was built. Bank seepage is considerably worse in Lake Powell. When Lake Powell was closer to full, it lost enough water each year from evaporation and bank seepage, to completely cover Nevada's allocation of 300k Ac/ft per year. One lake loses less water than two. Lake Mead is also deeper than Powell but has slightly less surface area, meaning less evaporation. The reasons for keeping Glen Canyon Dam are gone. It was a bad idea when it was built and it needs to go.
Navajo Generating Station is cleaning up. I went to Page 2 weeks ago and the tall chimneys had been torn down and not many of the facilities are left.
I have three generations of my family in the coal power plant business including myself they just closed the one I retired from pitiful it was a cyclonic steam generator from Germany from war reparations and it had been rebuilt and numerous times and it still going but they let the stupid Sierra club stop it and close it down
@@ronald5629 The Green New Fool just doesn't solve anything good or effective to the energy but destroys American energy structure and its stability.
@@ronald5629 we should be closing them down. Burning hydrocarbons is dumb when we have lots of Uranium available.
@@DriveCarToBar hydrocarbons aren't doing anything I don't care go nuclear
I am ready for a well deserved thrashing on a matter of complex science and public policy relating to water, power, and dams:
My academic background is in geology with emphasis on hydrogeology and quaternary geology. My professional background is in environmental consulting and environmental regulation. By necessity, this a multi-disciplinary field that encompasses interaction with and good working knowledge of the principles of basic engineering, energy, bio-chemistry, geo-chemistry, toxicology, occupational health and safety, economics, environmental law, property law, and business law.
In my opinion, the perceived delicate balance between water supply and water demand is much more dynamic than is given credit in modern society. One only has to look back to Pleistocene Lake Lahontan (8,500 square miles, maximum 900 feet deep) and Owens Lake (200 square miles, maximum 200 feet deep) to see that very subtle, but natural changes in the long term balance between precipitation and evaporation (over the course of decades to centuries) in endorheic closed drainage basins represents the difference between prehistoric Lake Lahontan (12,700 years ago) representing one of the largest prehistoric lakes in North America versus today's dry lake bed (playa) it became during the modern Holocene epoch (11,650 years before present). This all occurred long before the arrival of Europeans to North America. Mother nature did that all by herself without the assistance of any humans. That is not to diminish the significance of human impact in what happened to the historic Owens Lake (108 square miles), as it existed in 1913 in comparison to the dry lake bed it became by 1926. That was solely due to the impact of humans. Lake Lahontan, Owens Lake, Lake Bonneville, and many, many other modern playas (dry lake beds) of the western United States can be viewed through a certain type of eyes as big empty pre-constructed bath tubs just waiting to be filled.
In the times we live in today, matters of water supply and water demand are very much less a matter of climatological balance as they are a matter of public policy (regulation, taxation, spending), engineering, energy, and economics. Tampa Bay, Florida installed a reverse osmosis seawater desalination plant which came online in 2007. The plant is a drought-proof alternate water supply that provides 25 million gallons of water per day meeting 10% of the region’s needs. Tampa Bay was in need of water and they were willing to pay for the cost of installing and operating a seawater desalination plant.
Seawater, desalination plants, pumps, aqueducts, and most importantly ENERGY can supply and deliver fresh water to pretty much wherever it is needed or wanted in the world. The primary control, limitation, and driver of all this is the supply and cost of energy needed to operate the desalination systems and pumps. In this regard the rapid development of solar photovoltaic (PV) technology is a game changer. Imagine for a moment a big dry lake bed like Lake Lahontan or Owens Lake largely covered with floating solar PV panels (Floatovoltaics). The solar PV panels serve dual purposes of generating electrical power to operate coastal seawater desalination plants and prevent evaporation to once again tip the precipitation/evaporation balance and allow the natural stream inflow to begin filling the lakes as it did during the Pleistocene Epoch. Solar PV coupled with seawater desalination could potentially irrigate large swaths of the Mohave and Sonoran deserts across southern California and southwestern Arizona for pasture of grass fed / grass finished beef cattle and/or growing low carb keto vegetables. As many are probably not aware, Saudia Arabia and the U.A.E. have purchased farms and ranches in southern Arizona where they are pumping groundwater at very high non-sustainable rates (i.e., groundwater mining) to irrigate and grow hay in the desert which they harvest and ship back to the middle east to feed dairy cows and beef cattle. Hopefully, with the improving economics of solar PV they will soon begin generating their own local power to run seawater desalination plants to irrigate and grow hay locally in their own countries.
For those paying attention to such matters, the cost of solar PV has plummeted over the last decade and continues to fall. Large utility scale ground mounted solar PV systems in the multiple gigawatt range are now coming in at less than $0.02 per kilowatt-hour (with no government subsidies) at favorable locations like the Atacama desert in Chile and in Dubai. Intermittent solar PV generation pairs nicely with seawater desalination as there is no need for battery storage. Desalination plant production can ramp up and down with the sunshine. As of November 2021 there is serious talk of building a 15,000 km underwater power cable (high voltage DC) from the Atacama desert in Chile, South America across the Pacific Ocean to Asia. The economics theoretically work because when the sun is shining in Chile it is nighttime in Asia, so no need for local battery storage in Chile. A 3,800 km undersea power cable (high voltage DC) is already in the works to transmit power from Morocco to the U.K. It may not be long before the substantive problems and limitations of intermittent power sources like PV and wind are solved by an interconnected global network of long distance bi-directional underwater power cables to shuttle power from one place to another across the globe (no batteries needed).
Wow, thanks for that detailed and insightful response! I'll be the first to admit that I'm not a technical expert on this subject. This video was the result of research and arguments I found compelling, and was really intended to give historical context to the mindsets and development patterns that led Glen Canyon Dam to be built in the first place. I think you make some great points about the relationship between water demand/supply and public policy. Thanks for your perspective!
While I am not a geology major, and I admit it; I have a longtime interest in science, and in low-tech solutions, getting the biggest "bang" for the buck, and dealing with the here, and now. The examples from the Pleistocene Epoch were exactly that: 12,000 years ago. At that time, the northern half to two-thirds of Ohio were covered by the Wisconsin Glacier, a half mile thick, at the edges, around Dayton, and Columbus; and as much as a mile thick, over Detroit, Cleveland, and Toronto. There was Lake Bonneville, but Salt Lake City would have drowned; and water backed up in the Bitterroot and Clark Fork Rivers, with the Ice Dam occassionally collapsing, and the flooding creating the "Scablands" in Washington State. We need low-tech solutions; 1. Because they're cheap, and 2. Because they're more reliable. Owens Lake, and Valley; were apparently a paradise, fertile, with a fair-sized lake; until Los Angeles, and its Water Authority; came to call. They took nearly all of the water in the Owens River, leaving almost none for the local farmers, ranchers, and the lake, and the entire area began to dry up. Much of Owens Valley is now dry, and essentially useless as farmland, and the Lake is virtually gone, salty, or a salt-pan desert.
As for Hetch Hetchy, San Francisco calls the shots, but that can be changed. San Francisco can develop its water supply, elsewhere, or can desalinate; the Pacific Ocean is right next door. They should not be in a position to dictate to the rest of California, or The United States; Hetch Hetchy is too valuable a resource.
What we need to do, is develop land and forest management, along the lines of Aldo Leopold: Reasonable and pragmatic, but also respect the land, forests, and natural resources.
As for the Keystone Pipeline, I am willing to entertain it, PROVIDED that the pipeline operators; now, and in the future; GUARANTEE THAT THE PIPELINE WILL NEVER FAIL, AND POLLUTE THE MISSOURI RIVER, OR THE OGALLALA AQUIFER! These are also valuable resources, and we cannot afford to allow them to be destroyed. I am not encouraged by the Oil Industry's record. There are also questions as to whether the "Tar Sands" Oil, already considered some of the "dirtiest" on the Planet, probably because what must be done, to obtain it, and prepare it for transport, by pipeline; will stay here, or if it is destined for other markets. That question has yet to be answered by the Oil Companies, and their lobbyists; both in The United States, and Canada.
Thank you for bringing up desalination! We are at the point that desalination needs to be seriously discussed and implemented ASAP! Do you know if any other good resources discussing desalination, I'd like to learn more.
You are not a realist and you don’t understand the relative size of the things you are talking about. Keystone couldn’t pollute the aquifer if you tried. Tar sand oil has been coming to the US for decades.
@@rodrudinger9902 The US isn't primarily composed of Nigeria wetlands, a small pipeline burst could very well be contained. The benefits of a major connecting pipeline outweigh the negatives. It is better ecologically to not be burning so much gas just transporting it.
The biggest problem is Colorado is taking the water from the west of the Rockies and moving it to the east side, and that is causing floods and the water is only being used once. The water on the west side of the Rockies gets used up to 20 times before being released to open river.
blue mesa reservoir (west slope) has been 80% depleted by giving water to Lake Mead
I’m in my mid 20s and it’s crazy how I can say I’ve watched the Colorado river slowly dry up my entire life. Had dreams to go kayaking in the river one day but I’m afraid those dreams have dried up.
But what's done is done.
Are you suggesting the dam should be 'deleted', how would that work.
on essentially an infinite number of planets throughout the universe, there are staggeringly beautiful landscapes to be seen by nothing and nobody. the value of them here is that humans and other lifeforms exist to see them. both are essential.
This is a very well done video. The quality and thought put into it is reminiscent of a time when books and media sources still encouraged their consumers to think and come to their own conclusions. I sincerely enjoyed this for its historical and informational value.
Thank you! I always try to put out well-researched and well-thought out information, even if I don't always get it right or people don't always agree with me. I also encourage plenty of discussion and alternative opinions on the issues I talk about on my channel - these issues are pretty complicated and there are lot of valid viewpoints. Ultimately, I just try and put out a good video and, like you said, just let people come to their own conclusions. Thanks again for watching!
….good video with extreme bias…you can’t drive a PRIUS without a power dam or coal plant to charge it (or a polluting Chinese lithium mine to build it)
I remember swimming in the red water of the Colorado as a kid before the dam. The water was red and silky.
Too bad the drought has emptied the lake to levels never seen before other than when it was filling up. We need LP full again. The sooner the better.
Look up how many millions of gallons the government has dumped in the ocean this last year.
Has it also come to your attention that you posted this on an electronic platform?
There is also the issue of flooding. The Boulder Dam was built for many reasons and one of them was the flooding issues with the Colorado. Odd that this was not part of this presentation.
Actually, flood prevention is the primary reason for these dams. Water storage and power production are less important.
I was at the Hover dam in '84' at 16 years old MAN WHAT A CHANGE I'm sure glad that I live on the other side of the Rockies in the sandhills BUT we are having water isues now also it's amazing how much things change in 40 years
Thank you, President Reagan!!
These dams have a silt build up that limits their life to about 50 years. Most of them are reaching or exceeding that time frame. So how do you handle that problem?
They would have to coffer it off again. using bypass tunnels and clean it.
I would go in there with my engineering firm where I used to install fire extinguishing equipment in coal fire power plants and take some of that water put it on high pressure and blow that silt away constantly it would have to be sedimented ,somewhere
You could suction dredge it up remove it. Easiest way might be to barge it to a pumping station and pipe it off as a slurry.
Remove the silt with nuclear weapons.
A little nukey never hurt anyone..
Seams like modern dams need a mechanism to suck up silt and to add it into the discharge beyond the power station so that downstream still gets the sediment that they are lacking now. Don't have a solution for the cold water though unless there was a series of pipes that allowed water to be pulled from the upper, warmer layers but that would be a nightmare to manage with fluctuating levels.
Love the Colorado River. Great fishing in the lake. The biggest issue is the water use. Too many houses too many almond farm. We have a choice of energy or live like a hippy. If you like going to Vegas you best like the Hover dam.
Almond Orchards, Pecan Orchards & down by Yuma I think besides some root crops it's almost all the rest Alfalfa.
Human beings, animals and crops need water to survive. That should be the number one priority.
You can build a hydro facility without a huge dam: Take the Shoshone Hydroelectric Plant inside the Glenwood Canyon, for example. They run a pipe from an intake upstream, and bring the water downhill to a later section of the river, where they put a generator just before the discharge pipe. The natural elevation change is enough to make a significant head pressure
Hydroelectric is just to unreliable in the long term vs the cost to build it and the massive emissions required to make all the concrete/steel/copper. Between its moderate electric generation capacity and the risk that weather patterns today may not be the weather patterns in 30 years, it's an investment unlikely to be worth it. Nuclear energy requires the same amount of construction materials, but they make far more electricity and they do it 24/7/365 without altering massive landscapes and rivers. They last 50+ years and could be built to last even longer than that. At this point hydro should be a limited use option.
@@karlschauff7989because wind and solar are ohh so environmentally friendly??? Bullshit
Hi can you please make a video about the California central valley? The Tulare lake was massive in the 1850s and they redirected the water to Los Angeles. Now the central valley is drying up to include its ground water. Tulare lake is gone and the valley is in perpetual drought. We are told to conserve water while it is being sent to LA.
Creating dams is one of the first things humans achieved as a species so their viewpoint on water management is in line with that
Creating dams isn't the problem, its how we use them recklessly then outstrip sustainable gains provided by those dams.
I just found your channel. I watched all 3 of your videos on dams. It answered a lot of question I've had for years. Thank you!
Man always seems to make things worst with their "great" ideas, only to realize decades later that perhaps they've created new or a bigger problem. Now what do we do?
Thanks for being here! Dams are certainly a contentious issue, especially the 3 I highlighted in my videos. There's no easy answers considering the scale of this system and the people that rely on them, but my hope is that we can at least learn from our mistakes and identify opportunities like the Elwha for sensible removal and restoration.
Dams now seems to be a relatively short term profitable solution to the need for water, giving a false sense of water security!
Every single thing filmed in this video was once UNDER WATER!!!!
Now me, someone who uses a suction dredge, mines respectfully of nature, which suction dredging is literally the least impacted mining due to the fact you are moving gravel in a river from one spot to another, and silt only goes a short distance. We recover lead, fishing lines, hooks, mercury, and just trash in general. Then we literally get surrounded by fish feeding off the back of the dredge, get treated like we're criminals because we're "destroying nature " , and these people are responsible for destroying more nature and towns with dams, than mining has in this countries history... it's mind boggling. Not to mention the history they have destroyed with these dams.
I knew a guy once who heard a Professor speak on how the damn was a big mistake and that it was just built for greedy, Capitalist reasons. They didn't know what they were doing back then. Many innocent plants have suffered as a result.
I've a few degrees myself. Done some university work, too. Hard science or no do your own investigating. Increasingly, social and political maturity are a distant second oftentimes these days.
Those plants were guilty. They only pretended to be innocent.
You want to see some cruelty to nature? Check out what communists/socialists have done. Not that the American Indians were behind hand -stampeding a thousand buffalo over a cliff so they could use one or two. Destruction of habitat and wildlife and other Indians was as natural to Indians as slavery was to the Comancheria. I've watched Andean campesinos torch whole mountainsides over one bushmaster.
The big problem here is not whether it was worth building the dam, but what happens when the water just doesn’t show up as expected, and boat ramps end up high and dry, and the electricity generated is reduced, and the allotted amounts need to be renegotiated. And we have built a dependency on something over which we ultimately have no control. Sounds like a recipe for trouble, or worse.
Nuclear power for the save!
No trouble for me. I didn’t move to an arid desert. Screw em.
@@blackhawk7r221 I moved to the desert from Western Oregon and I'll stay. Its the other morons who aren't adapting to the realities of desert life that are going to flee the desert when it comes back for what its due. Then they'll be your problem. Best of luck.
This is the 1st time since it was built that this has happened. In 1984 (I think?) Flood waters were not properly estimated & the dam was inches from being "Crested" if water poured over it, it would have basically Self destructed. Dam Workers were Actually using Plywood on the top of the dam to stop it from cresting.
this is well done and good information enjoyed it very much thanks for doing it. My only quibble is with this idea that we can control mother nature. Mother nature controls us we’re not that powerful. Yeah we can affect our environment as you have shown in the video but nature adapts and changes so while we may affect one thing mother nature will do something else
If the water is no longer available the people who chose to live in the desert without any reason other than wanting resort towns will adapt or move. Human greed is not necessarily a net "benefit" and the desert development was NEVER about anything but luxury. No one needs to live there. Many want to. Those are not the same and "want" is mere emotion which after all is weakness.
When I was young...we went to lake Powell (1980 ish) several times for vacation...and they told us that.the concrete alone would take 600 years to fully cure in the dam...don't know if thats true, but that's what the Ranger tour guide said.
The original allocation of 1922 was based on politics, not science. The upcoming renegotiation will be similarly flawed. Basically it will work until it doesn’t, there is no contingency plan.
Just like covid policies. Nothing ever changes when power and money is involved.
@@RobertPetersen1z2y Are you one of those Covid conspiracy theorists?
@@Thomas63r2 Do you believe everything the Government tells you? Do you believe that Fauci always told the truth? Do you believe that Pfizer told the truth? Do you believe that widespread Government mandates are legal and Constitutional?
@@RobertPetersen1z2y Okay, so you are a reductionist. You might as well take it all the way, and argue that nothing is real. Please I would ask you to stop making everything into a vast conspiracy theory. In the history of pandemics such reactions always emerge, then fade with the passage of time. Meanwhile, respectfully back on topic: my point was that the allocation of water in the 1922 agreement was not based on its actual availability, which is forcing the situation now at hand. My second point was the same error will likely be repeated in the renegotiations. Scarce fresh water is the true gold of the earth. It appears to me that we have treated the relatively wetter last 120 years or so as normal - against a longer and drier historical record. Humans may enjoy living in warm dry areas, but nature may have other plans for its sustainability.
@@Thomas63r2 You asked me a question on whether I was a conspiracy theorist. I responded with questions back to you to better ascertain if you were interested in reconsidering your labeling of me. But, alas, by your follow up response it's clear that you are a Labelist. You labeled me twice in two comments and both labels you tried to impose on me are wrong. But, that won't stop people like you from doing this over and over. You're perfectly happy to simply throw a label on someone and engage in ad hominem attacks rather than actually offer an opinion of your own creation in furtherance of discussion. You behave no better than the typical school yard bully.
Convenient how one of the benefits of having a damn was never mentioned. which is because of this drought the reservoir was the only reason why people had water in California last year.
And they just kept using water like their wasn’t a drought. Clueless people.
Dams are not the answer. Oregon found out the hard way after the salmon began disappearing, cut off from their place of birth. Lack of salmon caused entire food systems to collapse. Fish enrich the water, provide food to carnivores, including humans. Oregon is now dismantling some dams, but irreparable damage has been done to the ecosystems. This is especially evident with the climate of the Pacific Northwest becoming drastically warmer and dryer.
One of the things I never thought about with the salmon runs is the impact of the oceanic nutrients they bring into these freshwater ecosystems. Absolutely vital. And of course, dams sever that link completely.
This isn't Oregon, but I have a video about the Elwha dam removals in Washington that touches on these sorts of impacts if you're interested: th-cam.com/video/Q3ooEH3cGHs/w-d-xo.html
@@NationalParkDiaries I think I've seen it, but I'll take a look to be sure.
Nope. I hadn't seen it. Watching it now and now subscribed!
@@samsmom1491 Thanks and welcome to the community!
There is no controversy we need to drink water.
It's called progress.
Next time you do one of these videos, include information about how the dam has supported increased farming lands and population growth. Don't limit your context to the 1920s and 30s. Ask the question of where we would be without the dam. Focus on how much agriculture you want to shut down and how many people you'll move out of the southwestern United States. (Well, that's not what I meant to say...that's exactly what you're saying.)
The real problem is twofold. One is OVERPOPULATION the other is the need to control flooding. Dams can control flooding plus you get water and electricity. Of course in today's world you can't have prosperity without both!Yes it's nice to sit in an air conditioned home and dream about saving what was but without these dams life would be difficult to exist as we do today. To reclaim the southwest would mean that millions would need to relocate elsewhere. Plus the economy of California would collapse. If I have the correct information- Californias economy is 6th or 7th largest in the WORLD so lose it and theU.S.A goes down with it! Progress has always cost. Look at Manhattan- used to be a wooded island-now it's a concrete jungle. So much for progress.
You're not wrong. These dams have certainly brought a level of development and comfort to the Southwest that would have been hard to achieve without them. I do think it's worth pointing out the flaws in these projects though, especially when they aren't operating as intended. In the case of Glen Canyon, if it stops generating the benefits it once did, and we know the impacts it's having on the overall ecosystem, I think you could make a case for its removal. These are tricky questions to answer though, so I appreciate your perspective!
@@NationalParkDiaries it is naive and silly to say that Lake Powell is not (or will not be) generating the benefits for which it was designed. Even if Glen Canyon Dam no longer generates electricity, it will still serve as water storage and flood protection. As recently as 2019 and 2017, the lake rose dramatically (over 20 feet in 2019) preserving that precious water for years like the last couple when 40 million people desperately need it. If you look at the water records since the construction of Glen Canyon Dam, there is no way that Lake Mead could have preserved enough water in wet years and delivered enough water in dry years without Lake Powell. Lake Mead would have been drained and dry at least 3 times over. The calculations for the Colorado River Compact may have been based on flawed data, but the fact is 40 million people now rely on all of the dams in Colorado River System in order to live in the West. Another fact that isn't pointed out is that up until about 2 years ago, the lower basin states had always taken more than their allotment from the upper basin states. Had the lower basin been abiding by the terms of the compact, the reservoirs would all be in much better shape. (That would be a very interesting video to watch if you want to research the Net flows into and out of the reservoirs and the utilization by upper and lower basin states)
You make some great points, and I appreciate your perspective. I would push back on your claim of naivety, however. I maintain that it's worthwhile to point out that Lake Powell is not operating as it was intended. Hydropower generation is in jeopardy and water levels are way down - I don't think either of those facts are in dispute. By pointing out where it's flaws are, we can move forward with a plan that benefits all of Lake Powell's (and the Colorado River Basin in general) users. My intention with this video was simply to provide an alternative perspective and give some historical context to the problems Lake Powell is currently facing. My opinion on this issue is still evolving and no doubt this is a complex and VERY complicated situation. Thanks again for your comment.
"To reclaim the southwest "
The dam IS the reclamation. Bureau of Reclamation if I remember right.
Dear John: please do a little rresearch about world population growth. I suspect you will be surprised.
How we utilized rivers like the Colorado River is fundamentally flawed I think. If we were managing the river correctly it would still be reaching the gulf of California but alas it doesn’t. We have chosen to over populate an area that was never ment to have such a heavy population density. We also use this water to farm land that shouldn’t be farmed. That is why California’s aqua fur is drying up and the Colorado river runs dry, and why lake Powell is drying up. The level at which we are using the water is not sustainable
That's pretty much where I fall on this issue as well. Water in the West has fundamentally changed since the time when these dams were built and I think modern conditions necessitate a change in how we think about/use that water. It doesn't mean our standard of living has to drop or people have to leave their homes - we just need to think a bit differently about the resources we're using. Thanks for your input!
If we where correctly managing our water ways no fresh water would ever be wasted by releasing it into the ocean.
Yes it does & has for Years. Envirowhackey's Lie to push a ignorant point.
In fact, if everyone wanted to live like the average American, you'd need somewhere around 2 billion people and no more. A lot of this is due to water consumption. Too many people, using too much water. Eventually folks will realize the price we are paying.
"aqua fur"? Really?
This presentation focuses on the negative side of the effort by the BOR to provide irrigation water and electricity to an area that would otherwise have neither. The presence of people, cities, recreation, and industry in the west has a favorable side too, and with proper management can exist with these dams.
I, personally, do not believe that "man" has the right to destroy what God created, for such as this. Some things are just not meant to be !!
@@patriciajackson6711 you act as you speak for God, but the fact is you don't. The Word of God says exactly the opposite of what your saying God said. God in the Bible told mankind to be fruitful and multiply and to subdue the earth. The fact is that cannot be done without utilyzing the earth's natural resources. People actually need items such as wood, minerals, oil, gas, water, & electricity. And the earth just like food, crops and animals were all created for mankind's use. And are not meant to be abstained from. Climate change is a lie!
This is correct. The way it is framed is obvious.
@@jasperbates6760 ok Trumper
@@steviesevieria1868 No not Trumper, I am a Christian I already have a leader the Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God.
I was just there last week. There's a boom behind the dam, which I suspect is actually a net to prevent more invasive species sneaking through like bass did earlier this year. It's very sobering to see it, to stand there and know the reservoir shore shrinks daily.
Meanwhile Saudi Arabia is producing 380M gallons of water a day using desalination… these states need to get their priorities straight
Fun fact,
This summer, the Glen Canyon Dam may be at Dead pool. This means that although water goes threw the dam with floodgates, the several million dollar turbines will be rusting and dry.
I personally don't care too much because although I live here, I see it as a way to cleanse the lake of its zebra muscles infestation and to look at the history below, but the decrease of tourism will suck a little, the tourism will never die.
This is one thing I like about my area of Ontario, I'm always less than a mile away, from a lake or river :)
I'm from the Eastern US. I feel the same way lol
Yeah, keep bragging, and they'll put in a canal.
The Ancestral Puebloans, also known as the Anasazi, were an ancient Native American culture that spanned the present-day Four Corners region of the United States, comprising southeastern Utah, northeastern Arizona, northwestern New Mexico, and southwestern Colorado. They are believed to have developed, at least in part, from the Oshara Tradition, which developed from the Picosa culture.
No such thing as "Native American" ........... Since ALL of our ancestors migrated here from ether Europe or Asia.
@@NoNo-fy3kr Really? Dog whistle much?
yeah & they are now trying to say Pueblos & Anasazi are related. As well as Anasazi is a bad word Racist & shouldn't be used. Go Fish
I live in Page, AZ home of the lake Powell and I’m not gonna lie it’s sad to see our lake become less and less than it used to be back in the 90s or the 80s
Not as sad as loosing the natural environment was.
Okay I get it, both Parks and Wildlife and the bureau of land management both have vested interest in either getting ride of Glen Canyon Dam or keeping it in place to generate electricity. Whose pocket does the power generation line? What about the big ditch and tunnel that diverts Colorado river water from the West back over to the East?
This presentation missed a very simple solution. Fix that interstate compact and adjust draws on the river to flow and some reserve
In my opinion, no solution is simple when it comes to the Colorado River. But you're right in the sense that the Colorado River Compact needs to be renegotiated, or at the very least updated, given current river flows and water usage.
When are people going to realize that although it is expensive and produces a lot of waste(that can be stored until we find a good use for it), desalination is the answer to the water problem?
Not sure how you figure.
I was watching something about desalinization in a middle eastern country and did the math, if they wanted to avoid discharging saturated brine back into the ocean, they'd need to have devoted like 1/10 of the landmass of the country or something insane like that, to ponds to dry out the brines produced to provide all the water they needed.
@@Nevir202 That was probably done using reverse osmosis, if you boil the water, there is much less waste. Although boiling does take a lot more energy.
Another solution would be discharging the brine up in the north pole where the ice melting is causing an excess of fresh water which disrupts water currents so we could fill the fresh water with the brine to keep the currents going.
From the people I've talked to who work at desalination plants. the reason its dumped into the ocean is because that is cheaper than doing something with it.
@@MegaLokopo Brine sinks, so not only would building such pipelines be among the largest engineering feats in human history, due to the length and size requirements. you'd still be obliterating the ecosystem there.
If you were in a position to build such pipes, why wouldn't you instead propose capturing ice melt and pumping it the other direction? It would be fresh and relatively clean to start with.
And yes, it's cheaper to dump brine than to do something with it, again, to provide the water for a city, you would require evaporation ponds taking up dozens, if not hundreds of square miles to reduce it to salts. That's gonna be expensive.
Or else, you need inconceivably large plants gulping down stupid amounts of energy to dry it by force.
@@Nevir202 My point is that the solutions are out there, sadly it is currently cheaper to avoid solving the problem because not enough people are dying yet.
The ecosystem is already being destroyed from the fresh water. But yea capturing ice melt would be a good alternative. Evaporation ponds would be part of the solution but there are many ways to clean water, and we already have lots of land that isn't being used for anything and any salt water lakes could easily be used for evaporation even though its less efficient that way every bit helps.
Large plants gulping down stupid amounts of energy would be necessary if we weren't already using stupid amounts of energy to cool down everything that generates heat. If you use excess heat that buildings like powerplants and servers use, you could significantly reduce the amount of energy you need. Also if we used, nuclear power generating enough energy would be far easier.
@@MegaLokopo Wait, so you're upset that people are gathering natural fresh water in artificial lakes, but have no issue with converting thousands of square miles into uninhabitable badlands by flooding them with brine?
What kind of sense does that make?
My opinion is that we should be using desalinization along the coast. So many cities use that water from the river people forget that a portion is also required to go to Mexico as well. I am almost 40 and have gone to Powell for recreation for 3 decades. To see the water levels where they are right now is sad. Water management is really bad in so many places specially in California. And they keep building more and more without a solution for the future problems that are going to arise.
Desalinization is really interesting to me. I don't know enough about it to offer an opinion here, but thanks for offering an additional perspective and giving me something to research!
You do realize that 80% of the water is used by agriculture.
@@jimbob4456 yes and the biggest irrigated crop in the United States is the lawn.
@@prospectorsoils1240 You are incorrect. Nice try though. Agriculture takes huge chunk of the water pie. 80% bro.
@@jimbob4456 you are the one that’s incorrect I’ve tried posting a couple different links. Slippery slope for sure. Search “grass lawns are an ecological catastrophe”
Good video but why didn't I learn about the white rock strip that the red arrow is pointing to in the thumbnail? Thanks.
Good question. The white rock strip is the result of the reservoir level being lowered so much that the "bleached" rock that was previously underwater is now exposed. It's a symptom of the myriad problems Lake Powell is facing right now, which this video is contextualizing. Thanks for your comment!
In La Paz MX, Baja Cabos where the Black Pearl was written the geological tours out to islands note that with in a decade of the mega dams the pearls were gone. Only ruins housing birds remain. Can you imagine the impact thru the whole Gulf!?!
Hi, I just subscribed to your channel. I find it not only entertaining, but educational, informative, and thought-provoking. I also like your cinema graphic skills
Thanks and welcome to the community! I will be honest and say a lot of the footage in my videos isn't my own, but comes from stock footage. I incorporate my own when I'm able to travel, but I couldn't tell these stories as frequently as I do without stock footage. Glad you're enjoying it!
It doesn't even need to be an issue of ethics. In fact, bringing ethics into it is part of the self-dooming process because then these things become an issue of emotion and personal preference, neither of which take a rational look at cause and effect. Science tells you all you need to know, and if you embrace its message, then there is no other conclusion one can come to than cause will ultimately destroy everything we've made with effect. We use our intelligence and creativity to accomplish amazing things, and our egos and desires to ignore consequences that should be obvious. We are only capable of realizing our catastrophic mistakes once they are actively eating us alive. The simple truth is this: A planet cannot be mass modified to service ONE species without compromising all the others, and compromising all others for the sake of one is a fatal trap for that one. We have great intellect and great creativity, but an incredible lack of foresight and wisdom. It is that lack of foresight and wisdom that will destroy us, and the Earth will be more than eager to swallow everything we've made.
You talk so much but say so little.
@@Nyx_2142 Or so it might seem to one that possesses a brain but uses it so little.
Nice job. But the "costs v. benefits" framing would have been improved by sketching out which groups receive the benefits, and which groups pay the costs.
Fair. I do like the cost-benefit (or maybe "pros vs cons" is better) approach. A lot of these big issues/decisions are pretty even on the pros vs cons, and different people/interests can legitimately see that balance going one way or the other... Important to remember that it is close to being evenly balanced though. That also means that it shouldn't take much to shift folks from one 'side' to the other, and being on the 'losing side' shouldn't be a huge loss.
Hi Travis. Thank you for the reply. I congratulate you on your idealism, but my many decades on the Colorado Plateau provide little evidence that there exists a common perspective that allows different groups to equitabely weigh pros and cons of projects that impact very large and disaparate groups of people. Everyone wants to be on the "winning side" and no one wants to be on the "losing side", however those very fluid terms are defined. My view would be that the challenge we face is developoing a perspective that can be broadly shared, and I think that is going to require a more equitable apportionment of the anticpated benefits of development, and a fundamental committment to honoring ecological reality. Thanks again. Scott.
A very informative explanation of the cost of these dams for development. Of course you never actually hear about the fact that they knew the water levels back then were above average. They just try to blame everything on the climate change. Not the fact of over development, and skewed numbers back when the dams were originally built.
Thanks!
Thanks so much for your support!!!
You're promoting the destruction of the dam. I disagree strongly. Leave the dam alone.
Hayduke lives!
Ironically, John Wesley Powell, after whom lake Powell was named, warned in 1883 that the central aquifer of the western US was not sufficient to support the settlement of large populations or extensive agriculture. His advice was ignored because the vested interests of the day saw big profits in settling these areas.
Again and again, GREED won over sense, and now they are Paying big time for those earlier Mistakes.
At the time of my viewing, 2356 comments. One more will probably just get lost in the noise. That said, I've boated Lake Powell for over 30 years. It's always struck me as one of the most beautiful places in the world. Unlike many of the boaters, I have also hiked the area extensively. I've easily got over 1000 miles hiked in every conceivable canyon and atop the canyon rims. It's equally beautiful there as well. I've loved every minute of my boating and exploration experiences. Along with that, I've rafted down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. My only experience was with cold water coming from the bottom of Lake Powell, though I have been told by a few people, one being my mother, of rafting experiences pre Glen Canyon Dam. I'd still jump at the chance to raft the Grand Canyon again. It has been the highlight of virtually all the adventures I've had in the Southwest. Many of the people I know who boat Powell are adamant that the lake has given more than it's taken away. I used to feel this way, but over time, I've grown to change my mind. I've read accounts by so many people that I've gotten to know some of what I never saw. There isn't enough water to support two reservoirs anyway. Regardless of water storage, the meandering river through the slow and easy Glen Canyon area was a sight to behold before it was inundated with a reservoir. I wouldn't think it a bad thing if the Glen Canyon Dam were removed. In a country falling apart, with runaway inflation, I'm not sure I'd be spending the fortune it would take to do so, but turning off the power plant, opening the gates and leaving it be to flow would be fine by me.
I appreciate your insight! Even with all these comments, it's still nice to hear other's perspectives on the situation at Glen Canyon. It's an incredibly complicated issue, hence all the different viewpoints, and I by no means have all the answers. But I do think there are lessons to be learned with the history of Glen Canyon and how those apply to the modern situation of water in the west. Thanks for your comment!
If there is one thing that truly needs to be reclaimed it's humanities place IN nature, & not trying to dominate & control it.
If you look around, we're not really great at the last part.
Outstanding visuals and commentary!!!!
Thank you!
This dynamic exactly describes the controversy at the Salton Sea.
Excellent vid quality and info. You deserve more subs! You got mine via this one. I looooove lake Powell but we have some real conversations to have about the future of water in the SW. It’s gonna get ugly fast without serious considerations toward reality.
Great job! I’m happy to have found this today. Now, if I could just get back to work over here. 😂
Thanks, and welcome to the community! I couldn't agree more about water in the Southwest. Serious questions to ask and no easy answers, but conversations like these certainly help. Thanks for contributing!
When talk of dams, it's true they took alot away, but also added alot. I am 65 and from a few years old, have loved nature and have hicked uncountable miles of wild areas. One of the first things I found out was that almost all animals will be within a short way of water. Dams have created much larger shorelines and as such, alot of new habitat for wildlife. We need to find how to take care of how dams are operated to maintain the rivers between and bring back things like samon runs in the north west US. We have lost much and gained much with are dams.
Personally I think that glen canyon damn needs to bite the dust. Once Powell reaches dead pool, it means that the flow of the Colorado beyond glen canyon damn will stop, which in itself will cause major problems for the Grand Canyon, lake mead, etc.
As a former land development contractor.. no one ever talks about ,or mentions the usage of extreme amounts of cubic feet of water it takes to prepare for major housing tracts .. Or major projects . .We did some calculations of three annual projects and the amount of water it consumed ,was enough water to supply a whopping 100, 000 people for 14 yrs .
I'm an old-fashioned libertarian, so for me, all the eminent-domain powers that were used to install the dams in the first place, however beneficial one thinks they are, wouldn't exist. All it would take was one guy who didn't want to sell his land where the proposed reservoir was going to be to scotch the whole deal.
I'm more of a small-scale, permaculture kind of guy. Those deserts out West can be pioneered in ways that are friendly to man and environment.
There's a false dichotomy between "use the land" and "preserve the land." We're smart enough to improve on Nature as creatures OF Nature. We're not separate from Nature. That's a big myth. We can choose what our place in the ecosystem is by making conscious decisions.
Small-scale sequestration of rainwater can green up an awful lot of desert.
All plants and animals try their best to alter their surroundings to better their own survival chances, like a tree growing roots through hard stone to make more soil or a mole digging a hole to live in. Or the entire concept of a beaver.
We can alter our environment to our own needs without destroying it for everything else, if we play it smart.
@@stone7281 The difference between humans and animals is that animals don't care what they destroy. Moles would happily eat every bug in the soil if they could. We're the only species who can consciously improve on nature, going back to Druids of an earlier age gently moving a strangler vine from a living tree to a nearby rock, or building an earth-sheltered home that blends with the environment.
All of this seems correct.
And I cannot believe they have not corrected water usage by pricing it correctly.
NO-ONE is gonna flood water their lawn if it costs a thousand dollars to do that.
Seriously, ten fold the price, watch conservationists pop up outta nowhere.
Water is unmetered in Scotland.
Pay a monthly fee and use as much as you like and it's all drinkable and mostly v nice to drink.
We use less than almost anywhere in the USA. I can't work out what you do with it but growing lawns in desert would certainly explain a lot.
Improve your decorative horticulture. You have an excellent diversity of plants and must be able to stop copying north European styles. I suppose a lawn is a status thing ?
@@julianshepherd2038 us Americans are just idiots
So you want everyone so smell like B.O as it would be to expensive to take more then one shower a week?
@@The_Handsom_Italian I'm so sorry for your disability.
Adult thinking can be difficult, but if you try hard, you can make progress.
Good luck
@@reubenj.cogburn8546 it is sad to see you suffer from lack of thinking as well! Only a moron would not know that wasteful irrigation techniques in agriculture account for most of the water usage in the world. Pricing water at 600% more than what it costs now would definitely cause a B.O. problem for sure. It would make alot of poor people unable to utilize a community garden to shave off the cost of food. All the big cities in the southwest are Democrat run and the people who have a lawn to water are mostly white people so we know who to blame with the green grass issues eh? I remember in the 80s visiting family in L.A. and taking a shower like we do here in Colorado and after being told that because of that they could not do laundry for a couple days. They lived in a condominium and the grass outside was as green as could be!!!!
Adult thinking = laughing my ass off , the adults in the room are the driver of the worlds ills.
I visited Lake Powell in 1981, when the water level was high and the attitude still generally positive for the area. It was already clear that the sediments captured behind the dam would eventually make it useless for water storage even without the drought.
probably ought to dredge them up for topsoil, then.
Although (thanks to a surplus snowpack this year) lake Powell will rise 50 feet and buy some time, but the next drought is just around the corner. It seems a dilemma exists: Try and save both Powell and Meade and lose both, or save one. Meade is more important.