Echo Park Dam was proposed in the 1950s by the

United States Bureau of Reclamation The Bureau of Reclamation, formerly the United States Reclamation Service, is a federal agency under the U.S. Department of the Interior, which oversees water resource management, specifically as it applies to the oversight and operatio ...

as a central feature of the

Colorado River Storage Project The Colorado River Storage Project is a United States Bureau of Reclamation project designed to oversee the development of the upper Colorado drainage basins, basin of the Colorado River. The project provides Hydroelectricity, hydroelectric powe ...

. Situated on the Green River, a major tributary of the

Colorado River The Colorado River () is one of the principal rivers (along with the Rio Grande) in the Southwestern United States and in northern Mexico. The river, the List of longest rivers of the United States (by main stem), 5th longest in the United St ...

, the dam was proposed for the Echo Park district of

Dinosaur National Monument Dinosaur National Monument is an American national monument located on the southeast flank of the Uinta Mountains on the border between Colorado and Utah at the confluence of the Green River (Colorado River tributary), Green and Yampa River, Y ...

, flooding much of the Green and Yampa river valleys in the monument. The dam was bitterly opposed by preservationists, who saw the encroachment of a dam into an existing national park as another Hetch Hetchy, to be opposed as an appropriation of protected lands for development purposes. The Echo Park project was abandoned in favor of Glen Canyon Dam on the main stem of the Colorado, in lands that were not at that time protected. This was eventually regarded as a strategic mistake by conservation organizations.

Project history

The Echo Park Dam project was first proposed in 1941.

was, at the time of its designation in 1915, a small park unit focused on the dinosaur fossil beds discovered along the Green River in 1909. The monument was expanded in 1938 to , encompassing the canyon networks of the Green and Yampa upstream from the dinosaur quarry. The newly added areas were little known to the public and to the Park Service, and the Park Service initially did not oppose the dam plans, having allied itself with the Bureau of Reclamation to develop Boulder Dam National Recreation Area (later

Lake Mead National Recreation Area Lake Mead National Recreation Area is a U.S. national recreation area in Southeastern Nevada and Northwestern Arizona. Operated by the National Park Service, Lake Mead NRA follows the Colorado River corridor from the westernmost boundary of Gran ...

) and other reservoirs as public recreation facilities. The Park Service finally came out against the proposal in 1950, with director Newton B. Drury in opposition to the position of Secretary of the Interior Oscar L. Chapman, whose department controlled both the Park Service and the Bureau of Reclamation. Drury stated in the 1950 Park Service annual report that reservoir projects would "destroy or impair the beauty and interest" of the national parks. Drury, a Republican in a Democratic administration, resigned in 1951, leading to criticism of Chapman for forcing Drury out. Drury was succeeded for eight months by Arthur Demaray, then by Conrad Wirth. Wirth took a less confrontational approach, partly under orders from Chapman to make the disagreement less public. Wirth was an advocate of public recreation lands associated with Reclamation projects, and suggested that Echo Park could become a National Recreation Area once flooded with a reservoir. The first widely published public reaction to the Echo Park Dam proposal was a July 22, 1950 article by Bernard DeVoto in ''

The Saturday Evening Post ''The Saturday Evening Post'' is an American magazine published six times a year. It was published weekly from 1897 until 1963, and then every other week until 1969. From the 1920s to the 1960s, it was one of the most widely circulated and influ ...

'', entitled "Shall We Let Them Ruin Our National Parks?" Implicitly comparing the flooding of Echo Park to the Hetch Hetchy intrusion in Yosemite, the article was picked up by ''Reader's Digest'' and saw wide circulation. The

was proposed by the Bureau of Reclamation in the early 1950s as an integrated plan for collecting and using the waters of the upper Colorado River. Politically, the project had the backing of the upper Colorado states: Colorado, Wyoming and Utah, as well as Arizona, who had all fought with California over water allocations from the Colorado, of which California consumed a disproportionate share. Construction of storage reservoirs high on the river system would allow the upstream states more control over the water and its use. In 1955, the new Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay withdrew the Interior Department's support for the Echo Park Dam.

Glen Canyon Dam

Glen Canyon Dam was proposed from the beginning of the Colorado River Storage Project as the project's chief feature. Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes had proposed the establishment of Escalante National Monument in 1936, at twice the size of

Yellowstone National Park Yellowstone National Park is a List of national parks of the United States, national park of the United States located in the northwest corner of Wyoming, with small portions extending into Montana and Idaho. It was established by the 42nd U ...

, that would have encompassed Glen Canyon and the surrounding lands. The proposal was whittled down by excluding grazing lands, and then by intervention by Utah, favoring the reservation of Glen Canyon as a reservoir site. In the 1940s and 1950s this proposal was apparently forgotten or ignored. The Glen Canyon region was a virtually unknown wilderness, not widely regarded as particularly high in scenic value. A 1946 survey of potential recreational resources undertaken by the National Park Service in the Colorado Basin entirely omits the Glen Canyon region from its assessment, focusing instead on the Aquarius Plateau to the northwest and Monument Valley to the southeast. The Park Service had no official opinion on Glen Canyon, since it was not a Park Service unit and was tacitly excluded from Park Service plans, while the Sierra Club, focused on the fight to keep water development out of established parks, failed to realize until it was too late that Glen Canyon possessed scenic and wilderness value even greater than Dinosaur.

Sierra Club The Sierra Club is an American environmental organization with chapters in all 50 U.S. states, Washington, D.C., Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico. The club was founded in 1892, in San Francisco, by preservationist John Muir. A product of the Pro ...

executive director David Brower's assent to a suggestion that the proposed Glen Canyon Dam be raised led Brower's critics to argue that he effectively sacrificed Glen Canyon to save Dinosaur. Brower considered the trade to be his biggest mistake.

Project details

The Echo Park project actually involved two dams: the main Echo Park Dam with a reservoir pool elevation of above sea level and a smaller afterbay dam downstream at Split Mountain, that would collect and re-regulate discharges from the main dam, assuring an even river flow. The Split Mountain pool was planned for an elevation of . Echo Park Dam was planned for a site just downstream from Steamboat Rock, a monolith standing just below the confluence of the Green and Yampa, where the Green flows out of Echo Park, a broad wooded flatland walled by steep canyon cliffs. Located at the base of Harpers Point, the dam was to be a high concrete

gravity dam A gravity dam is a dam constructed from concrete or stone masonry and designed to hold back water by using only the weight of the material and its resistance against the foundation. Gravity dams are designed so that each section of the dam is ...

. Above Echo Park, the reservoir was to flood the Canyon of Lodore, extending upstream through Browns Park. The Yampa was to be flooded as well to Lily Park. Roughly half of Steamboat Rock's height would have been underwater, along with archeological sites, caves and wilderness valleys. A Park Service report on the dam's effects on the monument called it a "lamentable intrusion" with "particularly deplorable effects" on wilderness and geological features in the monument. Electric power transmission lines would intrude into the park as well. Installed power generating capacity was to amount to 200 MW.

Split Mountain Dam, high, was to be sited a couple of miles downstream from Split Mountain, about two miles in a straight line from the Quarry Visitor Center, or about ten river miles upstream. The pool was to back up through Whirlpool Canyon to the toe of Echo Park Dam. The two dams were to create slackwater reservoirs throughout virtually the entire monument on the Green and Yampa. Although Split Mountain Dam was to have a hydraulic height of about , a penstock was planned to be built to carry water across a deep bend of the Green, taking advantage of the river's fall to create a head for power generation. The Split Mountain reservoir would have inundated Rainbow, Island and Little Rainbow Parks.

References

External links

compiled in 1946 by the National Park Service {{authority control Dams in Utah Hydroelectric power plants in Utah United States Bureau of Reclamation dams Arch dams Dams in the Green River (Colorado River tributary) basin Colorado River Storage Project United States Bureau of Reclamation proposed dams Dinosaur National Monument

Project history

Glen Canyon Dam

Project details

See also

References

Further reading

External links