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In Montana, it's shoot-for-pay hunting / page 4 NOI'ember 10, 1997 Vl)L 29 No. 21 One dollar mtdI!!'Y cents .""'''''''\ i''lI , . Count!:)!News By Ed Marston a theocracy. In their righteousness, they built dams, they tested nuclear weapons, they roaded and clear-cut the forests. and they generally ran the region in a thoughtless and destructi....e way. The national and then regional reaction to what they did first made it impossible to build additional dams in the West. And now we are coming full circle, by beginning to decide, on a case-by..case basis, whether the dams they built should remain standing. The examination of Glen Canyon Dam and Lake Powell is especial- ly exciting because, at Lake Powell. we are not just subjecting a dam to the light of current val- ues, but are also showing how the West might be governed. That puts a heavy burden on the environ- _<mental movemenLThe.:rec:ent congressional hearing on draining Lake Powell, chaired by Utah Rep. Jim Hansen, R, was a throw- back to the 19508. The Western e Drain Lake Powell? A Paper for People who Cnre about .tbe Wesl Democracy and science finally come West ; ! ; delegation acted as if it could blow away this idea, and offered no intelligent or C()n~t ructivr) critique.. The hearing showed that if there is (ll be a thoughtful weighing of the drain-Lake Powell proposal, it will have to come from with- in the environmental movement. For the moment, at Ic:l.~t.. environmentalists must pre- sent all sides of the debate, and must be sem;i. tive to the values of everyone who has an inter- est in the lake and the dam. If the movement can't do that, it risks committing the same kind of narrow-minded, reckless acts that the 1950s- era politicians committed. As a start toward such a debate, High Country News offers a lengthy essay by Gl'orge Sibley on the 1922 Colorado River Compact and its manifestation in concrete - Glen Canyon __.Dam. Sibley, a writer in Gunniaon, Colo., argues that there is more to Glen en":.."n Dam than its impacts on Grand Canyon and the Sea of Cortez. Also in this issue, assistant editor Greg Hanscom describes the people who brought the drain-Lake Powell effort to life. The stories begin on page 8. e The proposal to drain Lake Powell is exhil- arating. Not because it is necessarily a good idea. That remains to be seen. The proposal is exhilarating because it means democracy and science, inseparable twins when it comes to natural resource issues, have pene. trated the West. The proposal is also evidence that David Brower's dismal dictum - that all environmen- tal victories are temporary and all defeats per- manent - need not be true. If the destruction of Glen Canyon by Lake Powell isn't perma- nent, then almost nothing is permanent. Glen Canyon Dam was authorized and built a decade before the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act. Because of the lack oflaws, because of the politics ofthe . lDterior West, and because the federal govern- ment had more money than God, dams were thrown across an enormous number of streams in the West, whether or not they made eamomic or ecological or even CQmmon sense. Those dams are a monument to the region's political leadership in the 1950s and 19608, when men like former Colorado Rep. Wayne Aspinall, D, and his allies ruled the West like i I e IN TlE BEGINNING: A crane lowers a bulldozer into Glen Canyon at the start of construction, 1956 (Bureau 01 Reclamation photo)