Glen Canyon
Product Type: Book
Product Price: $28.95
Manufacturer: Kokopelli Books
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Description
Background: In the opening pages of his widely popular novel, Monkey Wrench Gang, Edward Abbey as much as promised that he would write a story about freeing Glen Canyon on the Colorado River. Since publication of the story in 1975, and several hundred thousand copies later, a unanimity of environmentalists, thousands of Colorado River rafters, riverine ecologists, the Sierra Club, the Glen Canyon Institute, and even the U.S. Park Service have called for the removal of Glen Canyon Dam-to liberate 186 miles of Glen, Narrow, and Cataract Canyons and to restore the river as it flows through Grand Canyon National Park below the dam. But as Mr. Abbey suggested, both in his novel and earlier in his Desert Solitaire, perhaps it will fall to a few dedicated citizens to actually do the job. Now, at least in fantasy, the within story may serve to salve the long-festering wound that an older generation of environmentalists, the author included, still suffers because of the Glen Canyon tragedy. The story. Getting rid of Powell Reservoir requires far more than what is involved in disabling a bulldozer or re-routing the Peabody Coal Co. train. Glen Canyon Dam has a mass of over nine million tons; and when the reservoir is full, 27 million acre feet of water are impounded: enough to cover 2.7 million football fields ten feet deep. Glen Canyon's protagonists try to find some way to drain the reservoir without catastrophically rupturing the dam. They find a way, but things do not go as planned.
Former Senator Sam Nunn, who before his retirement was probably the most respected man in government on the subject of national defense, has recently stated that the single biggest risk to our national security is the continued existence of the thousands of tactical nuclear weapons in the former Soviet arsenal, many of them located in or near an area of the world where racial and religious tensions are dangerously enflamed. On a recent edition of "Sixty Minutes" (September 7, 1997), Russian General Alexander Lebed, President Yeltsin's former national security advisor, revealed that over 100 atomic demolition munitions are missing from the arsenal. Glen Canyon takes this very real situation and expands upon it.
In the wake of Oklahoma City, Glen Canyon takes a close look at why persons could get so frustrated with the corruption in our federal government and the public's nearly total exclusion from the decision making in Washington that they might actually do the unthinkable. And such action might not be confined to back woods militia zealots. With the remaining precious natural places on our earth still being sacrificed for the greed and short term profit of the very few, even "normal" people can be driven to act.
In 1983 Nature came close to removing the dam Herself by means of a late spring flood when the reservoir was full. A great deal of misinformation exists in the public mind about what actually happened at the dam and just how close the Bureau of Reclamation came to losing one of its flagship plumbing jobs. Extensive research at the Bureau's headquarters in Denver, including interviews with the involved engineers, resulted in the book's clear description of just what happened and how the damage was repaired. Glen Canyon includes a collection of previously unpublished Bureau of Reclamation photographs that document the near disaster.
Following the 1983 event, the Bureau belatedly commissioned a study to determine just how large a flood actually could occur in the 108,000-square-mile Upper Basin of the Colorado River. In its 1990 report, Morrison-Knudsen Engineers determined that a massive flood would occur if an Eastern Pacific tropical cyclone came ashore and penetrated into the intermountain region, assisted by the presence of a 500 millibar low in the Colorado River's Upper Basin, an event that regularly occurs. With the largest El Nio event on record now occurring in the Eastern Pacific, recent Hurricane Linda, which at one point carried winds of 225 mph, demonstrated that the Morrison Knudsen projection is certainly not far fetched. Glen Canyon takes the next step from what Nature actually demonstrated in 1997.
Book sale proceeds: The publisher will donate a portion of the net proceeds from the sales of this book to the effort to overcome the Utah congressional delegation's campaign to sell off the last unsullied area in the contiguous United States. The only way to protect this area in Southern Utah is through the creation of the proposed 5.7 million acre Redrocks Wilderness.
Included photographs: The photographs of predambrian Glen Canyon are from the collection of Mr. E. Tad Nichols of Tucson. They have remained unpublished until now, as have most of the photographs that the author extracted from the archives of the Bureau of Reclamation in Boulder (NV), Salt Lake, Page, and Denver.
Although Glen Canyon and its river-the Pisisvayu of the Hisatsinom (Kayenta Anasazi)-have been lost for the time being, the author's catharsis in writing this story may be shared by others who have waited for a satisfying ending to Cactus Ed's fantasy that began in 1975. Who knows? With sufficient public input, the Bureau of Reclamation may yet remove Glen Canyon Dam. A small group in the Bureau's Denver headquarters has actually been studying such things since an Interior Secretary a number of years ago suggested that San Francisco's reservoir in Yosemite's Hetch Hetchy Valley should be removed. And as a result of the back-fired Congressional hearing conducted by Rep. Jim Hansen (R+, UT) in September 1997 on the Sierra Club proposal to breach Glen Canyon Dam, a whole lot more people are now aware of the reasons why 186 miles of Glen Canyon as well as the 240 miles of river below the dam through Grand Canyon National Park should be restored.
Reviews
Rating: 5 / 5
Date: 2008-05-23
Summary: "If you love the Colorado River......"
You will love this book. Having spent many a summer on Lake Powell, I've often wondered what lies below the waterline. During the recent years of drought, we have gotten a glimpse of what it all must have looked like in a pristine condition.
The image the author paints of the destruction of that abomination called Laughlin is worth the price of admission!
Read a book written by someone who obviously has a passion for the area. Well worth your time!
Rating: 4 / 5
Date: 2000-04-26
Summary: "An updated, serious Monkeywrench Gang"
I bought the book the day it showed up at the store. Fantastically well researched on the technical side. (nearly a Clancy novel in it's technical detail) The novelist is obviously still new at his craft as some of the writing seems a bit strained, but the story and plot are exceptionally well thought out as well as supported by all the technical detail. I not only will read it again, I've already passed it on to several friends with a strong recommendation to read it. Glen Canyon deserves to be brought back to life and Lake Foul drained... hopefully by non-nuclear means... Read it.
Rating: 5 / 5
Date: 2000-04-07
Summary: "Hannon's Gang Takes Up Where Abbey's Left Off"
If you enjoyed Edward Abbey's great novel The Monkey Wrench Gang you will be greatly rewarded by reading this Fat Masterpiece. Wow! This novel is extremely rich in detail about Glen Canyon's history - long before The Dam, as well as about the construction of the dam itself. And in the mix is a first-rate thriller of a novel with inspiring characters, suspense, and a wholly-satisfying ending. I can only hope and pray the author is a prophet!
Rating: 5 / 5
Date: 1999-07-23
Summary: "Silently, the canyon waits ..."
If you've ever experienced the pain of not being able to travel somewhere you desperately wanted to go, then "Glen Canyon" is for you. Steven Hannon has crafted a work that would make James Michener a fan. By drawing on his own life experience and education, he is able to draw us into the lives of three friends who once traveled through the magnificent Glen Canyon, an experience which changed their lives. They devise a plan to restore the canyon to the state Nature intended, and are confronted with problems of varying degrees along their route. The real beauty of this book is that, in Michenerian style, it educates the reader as to how the unlikely folly of Glen Canyon Dam became reality, how easily different forces could undue it, and some amazingly technical science that would be a spoiler to explain. Also, this book is a must for anyone who has ever spent time on the water under sail.
Rating: 5 / 5
Date: 1998-08-23
Summary: "An inspirational, informative, and fun book."
It's many pages seemed imposing, but once I got started I was hooked. The inundation of Glen Canyon was a tragedy, but the Colorado River waits. And I await the return of Glen Canyon.