LAKE POWELL
Lake Powell
On 15 October 1956 President Dwight D. Eisenhower pushed a button at
his White House desk, initiating the blast that started construction of
the Glen Canyon Dam in Arizona, eight miles below the Utah border. Not only
did this put in motion a mammoth building project by the Bureau of Reclamation,
it also was one more effort to end the free-rolling life of the Colorado
River, a knowledge of whose history is essential in understanding the West.
The dammed water of Lake Powell backed up the flows of the Colorado and
San Juan rivers 186 miles and 72 miles respectively, creating 1,960 miles
of shoreline (more than that along the New England coast). It also rendered
unserviceable prehistoric, historic, and religious sites of value. The Navajo
lost at least two sacred places. The confluence of the San Juan and the
Colorado was a meeting place where two Navajo deities, embodied in theses
rivers, met to create water children of the cloud and rain people. Nearby
stood Rainbow Bridge, an arch with a span of 278 feet. Said to be male and
female holy beings who created clouds, rainbows, and moisture, this site,
like the confluence, is no longer used for worship. The waters of Lake Powell
are eroding the foot of the rainbow while crowds of pleasure seekers land
at the dock facilities nearby, making public this place of privacy.
Historic sites have disappeared including the Crossing of the Fathers, used
by Escalante and Dominquez in 1776; the fording place on the Hole-in-the-Rock
Trail created by the Mormons in 1880; gold mining sites of the 1880s, 1890s,
and early 1900s; and rock art panels and homes of the Anasazi. Even the
glen in which John Wesley Powell stood in awe and for which the canyon and
dam took its name, is covered beneath 500 feet of water.
In exchange for these losses, the dam has created one of the largest man-made
lakes in the United States. Forecasters estimated during the 1950s that
it would have up to a half million visitors during a year; it can now boast
that number on a Labor Day weekend alone. Some come to fish, others to swim
and boat, still others to explore, but all come to enjoy the red rock, sand,
and sun for which Lake Powell is famous. Marinas located at Page, Wahweap,
Bullfrog, Hall's Crossing, and Hite sit on land that used to be visited
only by Navajos, Paiutes, and an occasional white man, but which now serves
hundreds of thousands of people.
In 1957 the Navajo tribe exchanged more than 53,000 acres bordering the
south bank of the Colorado River for a similar amount of land on McCracken
Mesa near Montezuma Creek, Utah. This transfer provided the necessary land
for the dam. At the dam site, work crews founded Page, Arizona, named after
John C. Page, the Commissioner of Reclamation between 1937 and 1943. The
town soon became a city of service industries, catering to tourist needs
and electric power generation. The Navajos, as part of this and later agreements,
waived their rights to 43,000 acre-feet of Colorado River water necessary
for the operation of Glen Canyon Dam. In return, Page was built on leased
reservation lands, money was funneled into tribal coffers, and Navajo preference
in employment was promised. Today, the 800-megawatt hydroelectric dam is
operated by the Bureau of Reclamation, which sends its power to large metropolises
in the West.
Problems, however, have arisen. The fluctuating water levels of the lake
determined how much water would be released from the dam each year. The
rising and lowering levels created intense downstream erosion, so an established
amount is now turned loose annually. A continuing problem occurs when the
silt-laden water of the San Juan and Colorado rivers hits the still water
of the lake, dropping its burden and filling the reservoir with sand and
soil. One government report estimates that in 400 years Lake Powell will
be one big sandbox.
The Navajo Generating Station in Page creates a another problem. Started
in 1974, this coal-fired plant is capable of producing 2,250 megawatts of
power during its peak season in August. To do this, however, it must burn
1,000 tons of coal per hour--coal that is shipped by electric train from
Black Mesa, seventy miles away. Las Vegas, Tucson, and Los Angeles get the
power they demand, but the nitrogen oxides and other gas emissions from
the plant create an unsightly brown haze that hangs over Page and its environs
and reduces visibility in the Grand Canyon. Thus, one of the biggest issues
facing Lake Powell today is how to preserve the quality of experience to
be enjoyed by generations to come.
See: Philip L. Fradkin, A River No More (1984); Karl W. Luckert,
Navajo Mountain and Rainbow Bridge Religion (1977); Dean F. Peterson
and A. Berry Crawford, Values and Choices in the Development of the Colorado
River Basin (1978).
Robert S. McPherson
