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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.
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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 t-3 on Friday November 11 2016, @11:38PM
During the New Deal-era there were tons of earthworks built throughout the southwest to help slow/interrupt flood waters. Today, these have changed the areas where they were built quite a bit, because they slow down water and cause it to soak into the landscape. If we take the lessons that can be learned from those structures and do more large-scale work with this effect in mind, we can change the climate and increase the habitability of the southwest.