Lake Powells Pros Cons

In the reading The Damnation of a Canyon, the author, Edward Abbey, described his outlook on the Glen Canyon Dam and Lake Powell. Throughout his reading, he emphasized many positives the Glen Canyon Dam once had. The text revealed Abbey believing the nature that Glen Canyon used to contain and how people didn't appreciate it. He used his perspectives of when he worked as a park ranger before all the changes happened. He strongly believed in nature. He felt that he supported his argument with facts and his personal opinions. If Abbey discussed his views to others, then maybe he could've understood the reason why other people enjoy the new reservoir. I feel that Abbey has the right to judge

Beside these arguments, there is also a more quantitative side to the debate. The ecological detriments of the Glen Canyon Dam have been well-documented. Extensive changes were brought about in the Colorado River ecosystem by the construction of the Glen Canyon Dam. Most of these alterations negatively affected the functioning of the system and the native aquatic species of the river. The reduced supply and transport of

The Site C Dam is the most controversial topic of interest. An $8.77 billion dollar project scheduled to be built in British Columbia along the Peace River. A Dam that will provide fresh maintainable energy that results in decreasing hydro bills, and allows jobs for thousands of citizens. However, this is debatable, as it is known that with the growth of our population and technology, power will automatically get reduced.

Lake Mead, the largest man made reservoir, 32 miles from Vegas has been dropping water levels at an alarming rate. In ten more years with no change in attitude, the city will dry out along with the lake. Satellite views of the city and the lake show a negative correlation between the lake and the city. As the city grows, the lake shrinks. Unless somebody can explain to me why we need grass and pine trees in the desert, I propose we remove all this unnecessary shrubbery and learn to appreciate what nature naturally grows here. Our city continues to expand outward with beautiful houses, and equally beautiful yards. However in order to reduce our water use there should be a new policy to have more native plants. Once we control what we add onto

The Glen Canyon dam has improved the Glen canyon area by making it safer. The dam helps with flood control so it will protect the canyon from water damage. The dam also helps create or enlarge a riparian zone ( area is the interface between land and a river or stream). Another reason that the dam is good for the canyon is the change of the ecosystem can help support a variety of introduced species.

The Glen Canyon Dam has been used to generate controlled floods based on geologists’ understanding of the natural cycle on the pre-dam Colorado River. Scientists hoped that a moderate, dam-generated flood would scoop sediment, which had accumulated for years on the riverbed, out of the channel and redeposit it on the shoreline of the river. This action could lead to restoring beaches and backwater nursery habitats, irrigating native vegetation and flushing out non-native

The Chinese government officials have been defending the $24 billion project and only see it as a huge source for renewable power and as a way to prevent floods. The dam generates over 18,000 megawatts of power, which is eight times more than the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River. Wang Xaiofeng, who oversees the project, admitted that the dam had many “hidden dangers”. The government realized that what the biologists and environmentalists were saying was more than true. Building an enormous hydropower dam where it is heavily populated is a threat to the people that live there and the animals that inhabit the area.

I am writing to you today to explain what the Three Gorges Dam is, why it is needed, the social, environmental and economic advantages and disadvantages and whether should it have been built? Firstly the Three Gorges Dam is a hydroelectric dam that spans the Yangtze River by the town of Sandouping, located in Yiling District, Yichang, Hubei province, China. The Three Gorges Dam is the world's largest power station in terms of installed capacity it can create up to 22,500 MW enough to power New York for 10 years. In 2012, the amount of electricity the dam generated was similar to the amount generated by the Itaipu Dam. This is the world’s largest dam as is located in

Dams not only preserve water for future use but also can be used as power stations and there are other benefits (such as flood control, irrigation, electrical generation etc.) (FEMA). However, building dams involves massive financial investment from government and also a lot of displacement can occur. As a result, the cost of building dams is very high as it needs massive manpower and compensation for displacing families. Taking a dam (on Grand Coulee, Columbia river) built between USA and Canada as an example, it cost £6.5bn, it has a height of 170 metres, forming a 260 square kilometre reservoir (The guardian). 96000 people were forced to be resettled and there was a loss of some fish species. Most Indian inhabitants were not compensated for 45 years which caused a very bad feeling between government and citizens. As for the benefits, 1,400 farms have been irrigated; there is a big water source for industry and urban areas. Furthermore, huge profits have been made from hydroelectricity, which has a capacity of 6,809 megawatts of power. Overall, precise plans and calculations should be done before making the decision to build a dam.

Although the lake has dried up due to unchecked mining in the hills, but still caters to a lot of activities. It has

The dam will affect the environment in many negative ways. First of all when the dam blocks the water and makes a lake the plants that are now covered by water will start to decompose. The decomposing plants give off a gas called methane which is a strong greenhouse gas. Scientists estimate that this contributes 4% to the world wide greenhouse gas emissions! That is the same as the climate impact of aviation. Second dams kill fish. The water that is held back by the dam and then is suddenly let through has very little or no amounts of air in the water so the fish quickly suffocate to death. Also silt and rocks are caught in the dam instead of going down the river giving fish and plants nutrients. Finally the dams reduce the amount of fertile soil downriver. This soil is necessary for plants to grow along the river for animals to eat. These are the ways the dam will affect the environment in negative ways. The dam will affect the local people in many negative ways. First of all many tribes would lose their territory as a result of the lake made by the dam. When the dam holds back the water it would eventually get backed up enough and tribes hunting grounds, villages, and sacred places would be flooded. They would have to relocate to other places that might already be occupied by other tribes. Second the local people living on the river would lose money. Many of these people rely on fishing to get food and money for their family. When the the fish are gone they will have

The movie Damnation showed conflict in values by groups such as the Elwha tribe, people who worked at the dam, and environmentalists. These groups all had their reasons for why the dam should be taken down or not. In this paper I will argue that the values held by the different groups involved in the conflict over these dams have shaped those conflicts: first, the Elwha tribe need abundant resources and have a spiritual heritage to follow: second, the dam workers need their jobs to support their families and themselves: third, environmentalists encourage the use of hydroelectricity and the government use the dams as a renewable source of energy and finally, the environmentalists who believed hatchery fish is an inefficient way of bringing abundant resources to the river. As you can see the values held by these groups have shaped those conflicts on why the dam should be either removed or not.

A third advantage of dam building is the fact that they tame the river so as to prevent flooding due to the fact that the amount of water flowing out of the base of the dam can be controlled quite precisely. To most, this notion seems reasonable but to the raging conservationist, the river is meant to be something that is untamed and allowed to flow free and wild. There are 15 dams on the Colorado River alone and every cubic foot is metered so as to prevent the intense flooding that is historically supposed to occur every spring[4]. The flooding that occurs seasonally on many rivers is vital to maintain certain river-bank ecosystems; however, it is extremely devastating to the communities that

In the film, Damnation, the narrator displays the impact of dams in the United States, the minimal benefits and detrimental consequences to the environment. The film provided necessary information of dams that allows individuals to make an informative decision on which side of the argument they want to take. The film positively moved me, especially during interviews where those affected by dams specified their individual experiences. The film provided three different perspectives on the impact that dams have, which consist of the anthropocentric, ecocentric, and religious viewpoints to help viewers take a side on the matter at hand.

Now imagine that we can get all the benefits of a hydropower dam, with fewer or no harms. Imagine the cheap, on demand power which only hydropower can provide without the threat of a thermonuclear meltdown. Think of not haggling over the optimum manner in which to handle release schedules. Picture running that stretch of river without a dam in your way. Envision a future where American Rivers will no longer have to fight industry and the government over hydropower dams. That is now more reality than you might expect. Our platform, as supporters of American Rivers, according to President W. Kent Olson (1989) has been to, "kill bad hydro proposals," and, "limit acceptable hydro development to places where it will cause the least ecological and aesthetic damage." For American Rivers, however, a this outdated approach needs to be replaced.