Lake Powell, Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, and the areas surrounding Page, Arizona will likely continue to require focused attention from our team. Like Moab, this area regularly draws the attention of those who want to limit access to this area. There has long been a movement to drain Lake Powell and remove the Glen Canyon Dam. Legal settlements from anti-access groups forced the National Park Service to revaluate the limited primitive road access into the national recreation area. Meanwhile, Glen Canyon NRA saw its economic impact soar as many other areas stagnated or declined.
In the background of all this, the Bureau of Reclamation is reviewing its operating guidelines for Lake Powell and Lake Mead, which will determine how much water flows to Las Vegas, Phoenix, Southern California, and Mexico for the next 20 years.
The removal of a dam is most often associated with a catastrophe. The most notable dam removal in recent history was the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam in Ukraine, which was likely destroyed through an act of sabotage during a war. The Tishrin Dam in Syria is also currently threatened in an area faced with significant hostilities. It is fitting to consider the destruction of dams as a pretty serious act of war, since dams are often a key piece of critical infrastructure that ensure reliable supplies of both water and power.
In the U.S. The Rapidan Dam in Minnesota faced a partial failure as a result of flooding. The Lake Lure Dam also nearly failed during the flooding from Hurricane Helene. Both of these events are a reminder that human attempts to tame nature come with risk, but we have regularly determined that living with these risks is worth the trade off for the modern benefits that are provided by hydropower and flood control.
Meanwhile, despite the fact that once they’re built, dams provide critically necessary infrastructure for our modern standard of living, the United States removed four major dams along the Klamath River that will have cascading effects on the rural communities that run along the California/Oregon border. While the history behind the removal of these dams is extensive, the simple explanation for their removal was to restore the natural river for Salmon runs. The dams were also part of Pacificorp’s privately owned power system, and they decided to decommission the dams instead of pay to maintain them.
The movement that successfully petitioned for the removal of the Klamath River dams, shares similar roots with the activist groups that want to decommission the Glen Canyon Dam. While dams do create environmental trade-offs, there were probably many who believed that that we would never spend the hundreds of millions of dollars to remove the critical infrastructure that provides billions in economic benefit. But here we are.
The good news for Glen Canyon Dam is that the Bureau of Reclamation appears to be committed to managing the Colorado River in a way to preserves Glen Canyon Dam in its critical role while also striving to maintain Lake Powell and Lake Mead at healthy levels. BlueRibbon Coalition and its members have helped shape this plan through our promotion of our Path to 3588′ Plan. Many of the elements of our plan are being considered in the Bureau of Reclamation’s post 2026 operating guidelines.
Since were first started educating our members about how these water management decisions will affect our communities, we have also seen a significant change in the economic benefit Glen Canyon NRA creates for surrounding communities. According to NPS data Glen Canyon’s economic impact jumped from $373 million in 2022 to $670 million in 2023.
No other park saw this level of growth.
The crazy part is increasing recreation access into this area could create even more economic benefit. With more competitive concession contracts, improved access infrastructure, and more events, This area could likely sustain billions of dollars of economic output. However, instead of finding ways to make the benefits of this national recreation area available to recreation users, the National Park Service is entering into legal settlements with anti-access groups to limit access. As a result of this legal settlement, the few primitive roads that access the lake could be closed our restricted in addition to other important routes in other parts of this massive recreation area.
It is likely that an administration change in Washington will realign priorities for Lake Powell and the Colorado River Basin. We will be working hard to ensure that recreation stakeholders, who have historically been marginalized, find a seat at the table. We know that recreation interests need to be balanced with power generation and water management, but as a significant economic contributor to the area, recreation can play an important role in supporting the maintenance of existing infrastructure and the development and construction of new infrastructure that is necessary in the 21st century.
With snowpack totals across the basin currently holding at between 70-80% for this time of year, we also could use some assistance from the weather.
