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;->^" Not Man Aport, February-May, 1989 By GeoffWebb "The next big battle is going to be Glen Canyon, without any question.!' Bruce Babbitt, the former Arizona governor and presidential candidate, is addressing a springtime gathering of Grand Canyon river guides, outfitters and US. Park Ser. vice employees. The subject is Glen Canyon Dam, longtime symbol of en~ vironmental sacrilege. Buitton the Colorado River above Grand Canyon Na- tional Park, the dam hl)S changed the ecol. ogy of the canyon itself, scouring sandy streamside beaches and diminishing wildlife habitat. "In effect, the river envirorunent of the Grand Canyon is being destroyed, for the convenience of people using loastel1 and hair driers in Los Angelcs," Babbitt says; "The plain fact is that the United States Government has allowed Glen Canyoh tQ"}:~; be! run exclusively for generating power; They're running it like a bathtub -..,. fill it up, let it all run through the generators, flood the canyon, then corle it up, the river goes down to virtual mud. This does Un; mense environmental damage." The river guides already know. From April to October, they see first hand the damage that is being done., "It's been ~ frustrating situation where a lot of people have opinions on the Grand Canyon and hfw it should be run," says Tom Moody, a founder of Grand Canyon River Guides, "but no one seems to ask the people who spend 100-150 days a year in the bottom -:pf lhe Grand Canyon." The guides',as- sociation, now celebrating its fmt- y~." speak. for a group of people nol poIiU,cal" Iy oriented to begin with. and whose inde--. pendent character wasn't conducive.to getting organized. .,~, But aianned by the rapidly fl~tuating flows and erosion of the sand beaches in the Canyon, the guides are now moJ>iliz- ing to publicize the situation and to WO~ with environmental groups in the hope,of forcing Congressional attention to the issue. The day before Babbitt spoke to the assembly, guides and outfitters met with scientists and environmentalists to chart a legislative strategy aimed al protecting the beaches - which provide campgrounds for river runners and habitat for other Canyon dwellers. Bob Melville, a Grand Canyon guide for 15 years, had spoken for the boatmen in a written plea to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife ~ervice a few days before. "IrM repamble degradation is now occurring at a profound rate. Let's not let thi:: G~nd Canyon river corridor be the place that everyone knew, but we still lost." The Place No One Knew. "On the walls, and back many miles into the country, numbers of monumenlM shaped buttes are observed. So we have a curious ensemble of wonderfulleatures-- carved walls, royal arches, glens. alcove _gulches, mounds, and monuments. From which of these features shall we select a name? We decided to call ir GJenCimyon." - Major John. Wesley Powell, 1869 was an especially sensitive issue for the Club, reminiscent of John Muir's lostcam- paign to save California's Hetch Hetchy valley, Yosemite's twin, from being dammed and flooded.' In the early 1950's, Brower put his con- siderable energy into preventing conslrUCM lion of the damS-within Dinosaur. In doing so, he and the Sierra Club steered the Bureau of Reclamation to Glen Canyon, arguing that it was the better site. Outside The CttD Canyon Dam I~ Ar_lzOOa.. DepllrtlDUol fIIlnlerior pho(o. In his Sierra Club book The Place No Otte Knew, Jiliot Porter penned a eulogy .:-:for th~.losl'-Canyo~; . "The waten, 1m. , pnWIded by this plug of ortificiaJ .toite 8pIead bsck through Glen Canyon and for one ~~ ~ght)'~sb: miles in aU. inun- datin8lhe,~~ing riverl.swallowing its : iwn~ cliffs and tapestried waDs, and . extinguish~g far into the loog, dim, disM , ~t futuJ:'e ~verything that gave it life." , On March 13, 1963, the doors .lammed shut on th~ Colorado River. For the next 18 years. canyon ,cOuntry 'disappeared as Lake Powell walj, created. Today, Glen -Canyon Dam generates 950 megawatts of hydroelectric power, Sold throughout the West!;ly the Western Area Power Associa- tion (WAPA)' at just under a penny per Kilowatt hour. far below the going rale for electricity in the region. The saga of Glen Canyon Dam began with Congressional proposals to erect two dams inside Dinosaur National Park, on the Colorado- Utah border. David Brower, then Executive Directorofthe Sierra Club, embarked on, a. crusade to protect the sanctiCly of the Park system itself. This the boundaries of the National Park Sys- tem, un~er the jurisdiction of the. Bureau of Land Managment, Glen Canyon held a . place on lhe map, but in few minds. Not until after the Dinosaur campaign was ,won did conservationists realize what price: they had paid. In 1963, on the eve of the dam's closing, Bro~er appealed to'ln- terior Secretary Stewart Udall to leave the fmished dam in plac<:. doors open, allow- ing the ColoradQ to proceed unintemlpted. But with the legislation passed,lhe money spent and the dam built.lhis request was a political impossibility for Udall. The rcserM voir began to filt Today, both Udall and Brower say they would do Ihings differently. "I guess I'm with Barry Goldwater on that one," Udall says. "When he retired, they asked him if he had any regrets. He said just one _ Glen Canyon. I have profound regrets about it; if it had come up ten years later it would have been a national park," For his part, Brower has long regarded his role in the creation of Glen Canyon Dam as the greatest mistake of his conservation career, recently telling one interviewerthat