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The Hidden Glen

It was July 4, 1776.

Back east, in Philadelphia, the Founding Fathers were signing the Declaration of Independence, bringing into existence a new nation of 13 states.

Out west, in Santa Fe, two Catholic priests were just setting out in search of a passage to one of the Church's missions in Monterey, California. Needing to find a crossing over one of the most treacherous rivers, the Colorado, they finally came upon a ford. It was later to become known as the Crossing of the Fathers.

Almost 100 years later, in 1869, John Wesley Powell stood at the Crossing of the Fathers during one of his famous, and most dangerous, expeditions down the Colorado.

Taking a respite from the dangerous rapids that lay behind and ahead of his team, Powell looked down the long, stunning canyon that was their brief refuge. It was peaceful, with an abundance of wildlife, creeks, and waterfalls. He dubbed it Glen Canyon.

Yet another 100 years later, the beauty of the Crossing of the Fathers had been submerged under 500 feet of water.

In 1963, the newly constructed Glen Canyon Dam's diversion tunnels had been sealed and the canyon filled with water. Three years later, Lady Byrd Johnson dedicated this monument to human progress, Lake Powell.

Quickly becoming the nation's second largest artificial lake, the body of water backed up the flow of the Colorado for 186 miles and created 1,960 miles of shoreline - more than the entire U.S. Pacific coast. The Grand Canyon, once perhaps the most potent symbol of wilderness and the power of nature, had been effectively walled off at both ends.

Two miracles of modern engineering now hold in check the very waters that created this vast natural wonder - at one end the Glen Canyon Dam and, at the other, the Hoover Dam, which was built in the 1930s and brought Lake Mead into existence.

The new Lake Powell was expected to draw tourism to the Southwest - maybe a half million visitors a year. In 2003, Lake Powell had 1.9 million visitors and during a busy summer month, the lake attracts about 350,000 people.

But for all the pleasure a day of boating may bring on the lake, the creation of the dam is, to many, a disaster in the making.

David Brower, the former director of the Sierra Club who reluctantly gave his official thumbs-up to the project in the 1950s in exchange for other ecological concessions, is still guilt-stricken over the creation of the Dam. "Glen Canyon died," he told Congress in 1997, "and I was partly responsible for it."

Disaster could, indeed, strike the Dam any time. Heavy rains in 1983 brought it close to its bursting point. And the lake is gradually filling up with silt (the same river deposits that once scoured out the Grand Canyon) and toxic boat pollution. Experts agree that, sooner or later, Lake Powell is destined to become a vast sandbox.

A growing body of informed, scientific opinion urges that the Dam be decommissioned and Glen Canyon restored.

"We cannot return the rivers and canyons to the way they were in 1869," Brower admits. "But we can allow the river to be restored to a level where it will be able to sustain itself ecologically."

Detractors of the efforts to destroy the Dam argue that it supplies power to about three percent of the Southwest - although there is now a surplus of power there. It is also considered an important water reservoir in case of drought - although its waters have never needed to be tapped for that purpose.

Another specialist who used to work for the Dam now works against it. Dave Wegner, chief scientist at the Glen Canyon Institute, is helping to gather all the information necessary to present a thorough case to Congress for the restoration of Glen Canyon.

If and when the Glen Canyon Dam is, indeed, decommissioned, it won't be the first dam to be breached. In California, Washington, Oregon, and Florida, dam busters have already replaced dam builders in an effort to save wildlife when their natural habitats are destroyed by the creation of dams.

Whatever human beings decide to do, nature will inevitably have its way. The Glen Canyon and Hoover dams are but blips in geologic history.

Indeed, they are by no means the first dams to have blocked the Grand Canyon. In the past, volcanic lava flows backed up the waters of the Colorado for hundreds or thousands of years at a time. Eventually, those natural dams gave way and vast walls of water crashed down the canyon.

It will happen again, one way or the other. Sooner or later, the dam will have to go - by the hand of man or the hand of nature. Meanwhile, visiting Lake Powell is a delightful experience and well worth the visit.

Enjoy it while you can!

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