Moran Dam, also called High Moran Dam or Moran Canyon Dam, was a 1950s proposal to dam the

Fraser River The Fraser River () is the longest river within British Columbia, Canada, rising at Fraser Pass near Blackrock Mountain (Canada), Blackrock Mountain in the Rocky Mountains and flowing for , into the Strait of Georgia just south of the City of V ...

in the Canadian province of

British Columbia British Columbia is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Situated in the Pacific Northwest between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, the province has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that ...

(BC). The structure was planned in the wake of devastating floods in a time of rapidly growing power demand, and if built, would have powered the largest

hydroelectric Hydroelectricity, or hydroelectric power, is Electricity generation, electricity generated from hydropower (water power). Hydropower supplies 15% of the world's electricity, almost 4,210 TWh in 2023, which is more than all other Renewable energ ...

facility in North America. After a protracted environmental battle, Moran Dam was defeated in 1972, mainly over concerns of its adverse impact on

salmon Salmon (; : salmon) are any of several list of commercially important fish species, commercially important species of euryhaline ray-finned fish from the genera ''Salmo'' and ''Oncorhynchus'' of the family (biology), family Salmonidae, native ...

populations in the Fraser River basin. The shelving of the project also influenced cancellation of other hydro developments along the river, and today the Fraser remains one of the most productive salmon fisheries on the continent.

Proposal

As early as 1934, the Moran Canyon site was identified as an excellent location for a large hydroelectric dam. During the dam-building era of the mid-20th century, up to five major hydropower projects were proposed on the

main stem In hydrology, a main stem or mainstem (also known as a trunk) is "the primary downstream segment of a river, as contrasted to its tributaries". The mainstem extends all the way from one specific headwater to the outlet of the river, although t ...

of the Fraser River. The largest of these, a dam near the railway point of Moran, some upstream of

Lillooet Lillooet () is a district municipality in the Squamish-Lillooet region of southwestern British Columbia. The town is on the west shore of the Fraser River immediately north of the Seton River mouth. On BC Highway 99, the locality is by road abo ...

, was put forth by the Moran Development Corporation (MDC). This American firm put forth US$500 million in 1952 to finance the construction of the dam, which would have been the tallest in the world. The Fraser River was favoured over other large rivers in BC, such as the Columbia or

Peace Peace is a state of harmony in the absence of hostility and violence, and everything that discusses achieving human welfare through justice and peaceful conditions. In a societal sense, peace is commonly used to mean a lack of conflict (suc ...

, because of its relative proximity to urban centres like

Vancouver Vancouver is a major city in Western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the cit ...

. The dam would have been high, generating as much power on average as

Grand Coulee Dam Grand Coulee Dam is a concrete gravity dam on the Columbia River in the U.S. state of Washington, built to produce hydroelectric power and provide irrigation water. Constructed between 1933 and 1942, Grand Coulee originally had two powerhous ...

and two

Hoover Dam The Hoover Dam is a concrete arch-gravity dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado, Black Canyon of the Colorado River (U.S.), Colorado River, on the border between the U.S. states of Nevada and Arizona. Constructed between 1931 and 1936, d ...

s combined. Much of this energy would have been sold to the northwestern United States. It would form a gigantic reservoir long, containing some of water at maximum pool,Evenden, p. 214 reaching almost to the city of Quesnel. A significant portion of this capacity would be reserved for flood control as the dam had been proposed in the wake of major floods that occurred just three years before then, in 1948. The BC government gave MDC clearance to begin preliminary work at the site in 1955. However, MDC lacked the funds to build such a gigantic dam and to acquire all the lands that would be flooded under the reservoir, and a rival company, BC Electric (today part of

BC Hydro The British Columbia Hydro and Power Authority, trade name, operating as BC Hydro, is a Canadian electric utility in the province of British Columbia. It is the main electricity distributor, serving more than 4 million customers in most areas, wi ...

), acquired similar rights to the site that same year.

Controversy and defeat

Moran Dam's tremendous height would make artificial fish passage nearly impossible, and would thus cut off a large portion of the Fraser's prodigious runs of

Pacific salmon ''Oncorhynchus'', from Ancient Greek ὄγκος (''ónkos''), meaning "bend", and ῥύγχος (''rhúnkhos''), meaning "snout", is a genus of ray-finned fish in the subfamily Salmoninae of the family Salmonidae, native to coldwater tributarie ...

and

steelhead trout Steelhead, or occasionally steelhead trout, is the anadromous form of the coastal rainbow trout or Columbia River redband trout (''O. m. gairdneri'', also called redband steelhead). Steelhead are native to cold-water tributaries of the Pacif ...

. During the later 1950s and 1960s, determined opposition from environmentalists including Roderick Haig-Brown, fishermen and others stalled the project, citing that the dam would block access to over 70% of anadromous fish spawning habitat in the Fraser basin. In addition, it would cause losses of up to 50% of catches along the main stem Fraser and its

delta Delta commonly refers to: * Delta (letter) (Δ or δ), the fourth letter of the Greek alphabet * D (NATO phonetic alphabet: "Delta"), the fourth letter in the Latin alphabet * River delta, at a river mouth * Delta Air Lines, a major US carrier ...

below the dam because of

sediment Sediment is a solid material that is transported to a new location where it is deposited. It occurs naturally and, through the processes of weathering and erosion, is broken down and subsequently sediment transport, transported by the action of ...

blockage, water temperature changes, and flow fluctuations. The defeat of the dam project, which had one of the largest power potentials of any in North America, uniquely occurred during the height of the continent's dam-building era, before determined environmentalist opposition towards dams such as at New Melones, twenty years later. In 1970, BC Hydro released a report that predicted annual provincial rises in power consumption of over 10 percent. As a result, the proposed dam project was briefly revived, to the point at which test bores were made at the site in May of that year. After continuing concern over what the dam would do to the Fraser's salmon runs, the Moran Dam was defeated again in 1972. The downfall of the Moran project led to decreased call for power generation on the Fraser River, as Moran would have been the key facility for that matter. If Moran Dam had been built, the vast construction could open much of the Fraser River for development, to the point where it might have even ended up like the dam-straitjacketed

Columbia River The Columbia River (Upper Chinook language, Upper Chinook: ' or '; Sahaptin language, Sahaptin: ''Nch’i-Wàna'' or ''Nchi wana''; Sinixt dialect'' '') is the largest river in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The river headwater ...

. Today, despite its alluring hydroelectric potential, the Fraser River remains one of the longest undammed rivers in North America and one of the continent's most productive salmon fisheries.

Notes

Works cited

* * *

References

External links