Dam breaching effects questioned

Lewiston MorningTribune and Associated Press ^ | Sept. 5, 2002

[WaterDragon]

The left's primary interest in breaching dams is to undo the capitalistic benefits that the dams represent to communities and states.

And to emphasize to the Americans most affected by the dams they have no control over their public or private property.

And also, that federal laws that have protected water management in this country since early in the last century can be flouted with impunity just because someone says it is "for the environment."

[SierraWasp]

"Just wanted to share some dam ignorance."

How 'bout "Dam Delusions!"

Without 'em, we'll have some dam big deluges!!!

Wallace Stegner and Marc Riesner being the biggest dam deluders!

[Issaquahking]

As ususal, you are 100% correct on this.

[Carry_Okie]

Yep, to give any credibility to a Pew Funded study is a breach of trust.

[SierraWasp]

Y'know, on a trip to page, AZ a few years ago, I noticed something almost idylic about the fact that almost every other block of that town has a church building on it!

Yes, the folks that built the dam that holds Lake Powell in place was built by God fearing, mid American Christians who not only made something of themselves, but of their country, too!

That has to be why these Pagan EnvironMentalists, supported by Pew Charitable Trust who has now co-opted the Rand Corp with a huge grant to write for them what they wanted to discredit the constructive conservative Christians of Page, AZ.

When I compare that community with what I see happening to our own with the commercial whitewater rafting industry catering to the Prop. 215 Medical Marijuana and other drug cultures they are bring in here, it makes me sick that I can hardly find a parking place at the Post Office due to the attorney who just ran for District Attorney meeting with marijuana "patients" to turn this region into a dead-head zone!!!

Is that the recreational eco-tourism industry with 15,000 jobs they're talking about. To hell with 'em!!! I've now lost all respect I may have ever had for the Rand Corporation!!! This may be a rant, but it's from the heart! A broken one!!!

[Carry_Okie]

Well at the rate it is silting up, Lake Powell won't be with us for long. It'll be the Powell Wetland followed by Powell Meadow very soon.

[SierraWasp]

Hey! Check this link out

Note the two foundations sponsoring this site on it's main page. The program was excellent, although about 5 years late to be an "expose'"

[SierraWasp]

Where's the proof? What's the rate? What's "very soon?" Mark, you're a process engineer! You must know that even if it creates a "delta" at the entrance to the lake, that the water doesn't move fast enough to carry silt to all the fingers of that lake! You must be spoofin me!

If true, then deconstruct gradually and re-construct when erosion takes it's course. Mexico needs more Real Estate, right? (grin)

Think of it!!! Another Baja peninsula and Sea of Cortez II! Talk about a "movement!"

Oh, if it's silting up so bad, why didn't some of it flush out when Babbit opened it up to flood everything downstream?

[Granof8]

Is this the same Rand?

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/745374/posts

[SierraWasp]

Yes, I do believe it is. I don't believe there two think-tanks named RAND. Prostituting themselves to the same people that do the Pew pressure polling and squeezing out this honest employee's legitimate work on the truth, lowers my opinion still further. I had forgotten he worked for RAND. How disappointing!!!

[Granof8]

How interesting:

"RAND receives most of its funding from the US government. A small portion -- less than one percent of its $160 million in research revenue in the last fiscal year -- came from Arab nations, Egner said."

[Carry_Okie]

Waspman, I'm not taking a position here other than that the location of the dam was selected according to political boundaries, not necessarily the best of engineering locations. Because of the porosity of that sandstone they lose 2 million acre feet through the walls annually.

Basin porosity is not an uncommon problem in the southwest. I have seen the leakage from a dam not far from Lake Powell. It was so bad you could see artesian gushers flowing out of the rock. I can't disclose the location because there WILL be a lawsuit. Once that water leaks out, there is no telling where it goes. Many of those aquifers go really deep and take circuitous routes over hundreds of miles. Volcanism in that area deeply fractured the rock. Consider the Hurricane fault.

The current rate of siltation of Lake Powell is 37,000 acre feet per year. I am told that the rate is three times what was predicted before its construction but I don't have documentation on that. The guy who told me is a mining geologist who works in that area and has no ax to grind against the dam (other than he thinks it was a stupid location). So, "soon" is relative to the expected useful life AND considering the necessary storage volume for the dam to serve a useful purpose. The numbers say that the lake will fill in about 750 years, but as you pointed out the side fingers will fill more slowly. The point is that its value as a storage basin for summer agricultural irrigation will be seriously depleted long before that. I'd bet that it's less than a few hundred years. Do you have such a hard time understanding this or do I have to remind you why it's named the Colorado?

There are all sorts of "fixes," the problem is where to put all that material. They could probably use a suction dredge but know that the mud also contains ag and industrial wastes. I don't know about its value as fill or a top soil amendment but it might work for that. Transportation costs are the problem there.

Probably the best thing that dam accomplished is that it has extended the useful life of Lake Mead.

If volcanism returns to that area (the last serious volcanic event in that area was but 2,500 years ago only a couple of hundred miles from Lake Powell) the earthquakes and liquifaction might make an interesting test of the dam's integrity. Life is full of problems, risks, and unknowns.

So no, I'm not spoofin. I'm not wailin either.

[SierraWasp]

They were forced by Wallace Stegner's rabid EnvironMentalism to choose that stupid dam location! His picture books and poetry embarrassed ConGress to force a stupid move.

Of course he tried to make it appear they were gonna fill the Grand Canyon which was baloney, and so on and so on, ad infinitum...

I think my fast-flowing vs still waters siltation argument is just as good as the pure unadulterated fear argument put forth by pseudo scientific guys like Jeff Mounts, anytime!

[Carry_Okie]

My point with regard to "soon" was that to build cities of hundreds of thousands (much less millions) of people based upon a water supply that can only last a couple of hundred years is probably not a wise use of capital.

[SierraWasp]

"that can only last a couple of hundred years"

If you could somehow bring yourself to believe that, especially with the knowledge and data available at the time of design and with idiots nipping at ConGress' heels about the location, etc.

[Carry_Okie]

The taxpayer bears the risk.

[SierraWasp]

"The taxpayer bears the risk."

And let's see... Since that ONE dam was designed and built, the overburdened taxpayer has born the risk of:

1. The War on Poverty!

2. The Great Society!

3. Guns & Butter!

4. The Endangered Species Act!

5. The 70's Energy Crisis!

6. The National Enviornmental Policy Act!

7. The Medicare Act!

8. Wage & Price Controls

9. Whip Inflation Now! (remember the WIN buttons?)

10.The Mediteranian Fruit Fly Attack

I could go on, but... It's all pretty "relative" isn't it, compared to roughly 750 years of economic reward through affordable water for multi-millions of Americans.

And that's compared to the few hardy souls that liked to hike around in that hole in the desert and take pictures instead of storing water in it like a sistern!