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MYTHS OF THE WESTERN DAM The Disadvantages Often Outweigh the Benefits By WALLACE STEGNER ~ ~W;T'S the matter with dams?" someone asks at a dinner party. "Why are you ronservationists always bucking them? Isn't it a good thing to conserve water?" At a time when the waiter won't bring you a glass unless you demand it, it is a good question in New York. [t has always been a good question in :he West, which the late Walter Webb ;Jescribed as a semi-desert with a desert heart, and in which the need for water ;;rows in proportion . to the exploding POPulation of its oasis cities. A fair question, but not one that can be answered during one dinner party or in one brief article. In the .first place, relatively few dams have been opposed, f)f the West could never have attained its present population and prDductivity. But certain projects, notably Hetch lIetchy in the Sierra Nevada, Echo Park In the Green River, Glen Canyon, Marble Canyon, and Bridge Canyon on the Colorado, and Rampart on the Yukon have been or are being strongly fought Hetch Hetchy was built over conservationist protests a half-century ago' and still supplies a major part of San Francisco's water. Glen can~ gates were closed in 1963. Echo which would have flooded the heart of Dinosaur National ~Ionument. was lilled bd conservation pressure in 1956, and Bri ge Canvon, though authorized, has been stalled bv the Bureau of the Budget's request for further study of its economics. Marhle Canyon, also au- thorized, may get an appropriation this session or ne.'l:t, though opposition. to it is warm. Rampart, the biggest project ot all, is in a condition of flaming con- troversv. Just' as the record of successful op- position is mixed, so the reasons for op- position vary with different projects. I~ simplest terms, they boil down to con- cern for natural scenery and wildiIre, Jlnrl tn JI v-nwin17 doubt of the formula, on~ ~m~;p"t ~nrl workable.. bv which .1101:' I"'n....~ in.. ;1"r;gntinn ~nrl ROM l"'nntrn) rlo;arn(! o::J1"~ p~;rJ nn" thTnllfh c:::t)p nf hydr~ ~ \-Vater, once paramount, has become secondary. The questionable. dams are never simple water holes. What dictates the damsite is as often as not the power head: efficient generation of power calls for a higher dam, and hence a bigger lake, than a simple waterhole does. When the dam is high. the reservoir larl!e in area. and the countrY arid. dams may waste as much water as they save. Marble and Bridge canyons, if they are built, would certainly do so, for there are already dams enough on the Colo- rado to hold its total flow (some say more than its total flow), and additional spreading of the water surface in a coun- try where the evaporation may reach six feet annually can only result in waste. Glen Canyon, though it or some equiva- lent may have been necessary for control SATURDAY REVIEW 48:29-31. October 23. 1965. (photographs omitted) -I q-