Скачать или смотреть Glen Canyon Dam Facts: America’s Second Highest Dam on the Colorado River in Northern Arizona

Glen Canyon Dam is a concrete arch-gravity dam in the southwestern United States, located on the Colorado River in northern Arizona, near the town of Page. The 710-foot-high dam was built by the Bureau of Reclamation from 1956 to 1966 and forms Lake Powell, one of the largest man-made reservoirs in the United States. with a capacity of more than 25 million acre-feet. The dam is named for Glen Canyon, a series of deep sandstone gorges now flooded by the reservoir; Lake Powell is named for John Wesley Powell, who in 1869 led the first expedition to traverse the Colorado River's Grand Canyon by boat. A dam in Glen Canyon was studied as early as 1924, but these plans were initially dropped in favor of the Hoover Dam which was located in the Black Canyon. By the 1950s, due to rapid population growth in the seven United States and two Mexican states comprising the Colorado River Basin, the Bureau of Reclamation deemed the construction of additional reservoirs necessary. Contrary to popular belief, Lake Powell was not the result of negotiations over the controversial damming of the Green River within Dinosaur National Monument at Echo Park; the Echo Park Dam proposal was abandoned due to nationwide citizen pressure on Congress to do so. The Glen Canyon Dam remains a central issue for modern environmentalist movements. Beginning in the late 1990s, the Sierra Club and other organizations renewed the call to dismantle the dam and drain Lake Powell in Lower Glen Canyon. Today, Glen Canyon and Lake Powell are managed by the Department of the Interior within Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. Since first filling to capacity in 1980, Lake Powell water levels have fluctuated greatly depending on water demand and annual runoff. The operation of Glen Canyon Dam helps ensure an equitable distribution of water between the states of the Upper Colorado River Basin includes Colorado, Wyoming, and most of New Mexico and Utah and the Lower Basin includes California, Nevada and most of Arizona. During years of drought, Glen Canyon Dam guarantees a water delivery to the Lower Basin states, without the need for rationing in the Upper Basin. In Rainey period, it captures extra runoff for future use. The Glen Canyon Dam is also a major source of hydroelectricity, averaging over 4 billion kilowatt hours per year. The long and winding Lake Powell, known for its scenic beauty and recreational opportunities including houseboating, fishing and water skiing, attracts millions of tourists each year to the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. In addition to its flooding of the scenic Glen Canyon, the dam's economic justification was questioned by some critics. It became "a catalyst for the modern environmental movement," and was one of the last dams of its size to be built in the United States. The Glen Canyon Dam has been criticized for the large evaporative losses from Lake Powell and its impact on the ecology of the Grand Canyon, which lies downstream; environmental groups continue to advocate for the dam's removal. Water managers and utilities state that the dam is a major source of renewable energy and provides a buffer for severe droughts.
The Glen Canyon Dam is an extremely contentious and controversial project. There’s a growing movement in support of the Glen Canyon Dam Removal altogether. With the specter of climate change looming, those calls may grow louder. But whether or not you agree with that decision, there’s a lot to be learned from the history of the dam’s construction.
Glen Canyon before Lake Powell was a veritable sandstone cathedral. As it wound its way through Southern Utah, Glen Canyon’s numerous side canyons, nooks, and crannies were home to countless plants and animals, as well as the priceless artifacts of Ancestral Puebloans.
But after the Glen Canyon dam construction, this area was flooded under Lake Powell, becoming part of the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area.
These two states, Glen Canyon with the dam and Glen Canyon without it, lie at the heart of the controversy surrounding it. A controversy that asks difficult questions about the role we expect natural places to play in our lives. This video helps you understand these issues and the circumstances which led to them.


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