SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Glen Canyon Dam has greatly altered the Colorado River, inundating more than 150 miles of the Colorado River in Glen Canyon and transforming the ecosystem of the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon. But Utah State University scientists urge caution in implementing the widely publicized Fill Mead First plan aimed at restoring the canyon. The massive plan calls for partially or completely draining Lake Powell, the reservoir formed by the dam, and collecting the water downstream in Lake Mead, the reservoir formed by Hoover Dam.
...
Schmidt and colleagues identified several significant issues that could cause adverse ecosystem changes in the Grand Canyon. For one, recreating the natural pattern of stream flow in Grand Canyon would be very difficult, unless Glen Canyon Dam is completely bypassed. Similarly, it will be impossible to provide a natural supply of sand essential to restoring eddy sandbars and camping beaches in Grand Canyon, unless the dam is completely bypassed.Thus, the ecosystem changes in the Grand Canyon may be small or even harmful, says Schmidt, who was among scientists who proposed use of controlled floods from Glen Canyon Dam to mitigate the dam's effects, including the most recent of those floods begun Nov. 7, 2016, and continuing through Nov. 11. A project as large as FMF should not be attempted, he says, until a detailed plan is in place to avoid catastrophic changes to the Grand Canyon ecosystem downstream from the dam.
Hydroelectric is a significant source of renewable power in the American West, but building dams is not so irreversible for the affected ecosystems.
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Friday November 11 2016, @05:50PM
Last note: I wrote "Environmentalists who complain, but offer no realistic alternatives are simply not worth listening to."
Just now, in Switzerland, the green brigade has an initiative on the ballot that would force us to shut down all of our nuclear plants, the first of them within the next year. The initiative makes absolutely no mention of where those gigawatts of electricity are supposed to come from, if not from nuclear. The supporters make vague noises about "more hydroelectric", and "imported energy".
Hydroelectric is what we're discussing, of course. Whose valley they want to flood, well, it's pretty certain that the very same people would oppose any specific plan for a specific new dam. And I love the "imported energy" - meaning let's go mess up somebody else's back yard.
Or maybe they think electricity is magic, and just comes of out the plug in the wall.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.