ESSAY - JUNE
21 , 2004
As dams fall, a chance for redemption
by Daniel McCool
I am sitting next to a 200-foot high concrete apparition. Matilija
Dam, not far from the California coast, sits astride the narrow canyon
of the Ventura River amid the velvet green foothills of the Santa
Ynez Mountains.
At the entrance to the dam site, razor wire conspicuously adorns the
top of a fence, just above a sign that says "DANGER RAZOR WIRE,"
as though visitors might not have noticed already that the dam looks
more like a concentration camp than a public utility. The control
tower’s windows are smashed, and rusting cables and slashed
wires hang from the abutments.
Falling boulders have smashed the staircase that ascends to the control
tower, and the face of the dam is a filigree of cracks. This area
has the geologic stability of a stack of greased bowling balls. One
good shake of Mother Earth, and this dam is beach fill.
The current lessee of Matilija Dam, the Casitas Municipal Water District,
based in nearby Oak View, Calif., would prefer that the public not
see this concrete disaster. Numerous signs warn: "trespassing
loitering prohibited by law." But I decide to loiter anyway,
because I am fascinated by doomed dams: They presage the future. Just
as surely as dams were once symbols of progress and the "conquest"
of nature, some of them are now symbols of the excesses of the past.
Nature, and a new political dynamic, are dismantling some dams. A
dam slated for the wrecking ball is a kinetic form of politics —
falling concrete that embodies the energy of a whole new concept of
river management. As dams fall, hopes rise — a stark exchange
of the past with the future.
I sit down beside one of the no-trespassing signs to rest, utterly
alone. I see a piece of concrete from the dam, about the size of a
fist, and put it in my pack, a souvenir of the world’s largest
dam to be slated for removal, so far. At my feet are 16,000-pound
chunks of concrete that have already been torn from the lip of the
structure, some of them during a visit by former Interior Secretary
Bruce Babbitt in 2000. Babbitt is no longer secretary, but this dam
will continue its demise without him, the inevitable result of changing
values and the law of gravity.
Spring rains have raised the shallow pool of water behind the dam
(no one would seriously call it a reservoir), and water is spilling
over the rim, creating a series of translucent sheets of water that
drop gracefully down the face of the dam. The reservoir bed is filled
with six million cubic yards of sand, silt and rock —material
that once went to build up Ventura Beach. For the last half-century,
this beach fill has been trapped in this canyon behind Matilija Dam,
and as a result, Ventura Beach is slowly eroding into the sea. Even
the surfers’ association lobbied to have the dam removed. The
Santa Ana winds are gusting forcefully, and the falling water twists
into swirls and drifts. The dark, dilapidated face of the dam is marked
with large red circles painted at strategic joints; they look vaguely
like targets, as though the dam owners are hoping someone will blow
this thing to dam heaven and save a lot of time and money. But this
is no monkey-wrench target; if the dam failed, the meager amount of
water stored behind it would create no more than a spring freshet
downstream.
Matilija is a dam that stores no water, generates no electricity,
and offers no recreation. It is utterly, irrevocably useless, other
than to serve as a reminder of a time when America built dams willy-nilly
without considering their long-term impact or utility. It may be hard
to imagine, but this is the future facing every dam in the world.
Sooner or later, every dam crumbles.
Two months later, I am walking along the top of Elk Creek Dam, which
spans a beautiful mountain stream in southern Oregon. I kick up a
fine dust of weathered concrete that settles on the weeds growing
from cracks. This is a dam so pointless, so obviously irrational,
that even the Corps of Engineers — the Dams-R-Us agency —
did not want to build it, and when forced to do so, completed only
one-third of the job and quit.
Up- and downstream from the dam, this little valley is a verdant natural
paradise. The river courses briskly through dark volcanic rock and
dense stands of pine and Douglas fir. But the dam site is an industrial
nightmare. It is strewn with giant piles of crushed rock and gravel,
placed there by the Corps to complete the last two-thirds of the dam,
but never put to use. Rusting rebar juts from the unfinished escarpment,
and the rolled concrete fill is spalling badly.
Elk Creek Dam is the perfect example of pork-barrel water politics,
born in an age when politicians equated dam building with re-election.
The first standard bearer for the dam was Mark Hatfield, senator from
Oregon from 1967 to 1997. According to some sources, Hatfield promised
his constituents that he would get the funding to build Elk Creek
Dam. When the Corps of Engineers recommended against building the
dam, which would produce no hydropower or water supply, and provide
only a slim margin of flood control, Hatfield put money for it in
an appropriations bill anyway.
The Corps, a military unit, dutifully followed orders. It started
digging keyways and pouring concrete. When representatives from an
environmental group met with Corps personnel to discuss Elk Creek,
a Corps staff member expressed his frustration, asking the environmentalists,
"Isn’t there anything you can do to get Hatfield off our
backs?"
There was: Environmental groups sued the Corps for failure to complete
an adequate environmental impact statement. They were unsuccessful
in the district court, but prevailed at the appeals level. That gave
the Corps the excuse it needed; the agency turned its back and walked
away from the construction site, leaving building materials lying
around as though it planned to resume work the next day.
That was in 1987 — 17 years ago. Now, the unfinished dam just
sits there, blocking salmon and steelhead migration on the river.
The Corps is now operating an expensive trap-and-haul system, catching
fish on their way upstream to spawn, dumping them into trucks, and
driving them around the dam — a scheme that has Rube Goldberg
written all over it. Efforts to remove or "notch" the dam
have been stymied by some local politicians and Congressman Greg Walden,
who still see dams as the key to future development. They hope that
some day the dam will be finished and provide additional water storage
for area farmers. Elk Creek Dam is a symbol of how difficult it is
to change a mindset and overcome the inertia of a hundred years of
pork-barrel water policy.
Later, in the fall, I head to Escalante Canyon in southern Utah. If
this canyon was anywhere else in the United States, it would be a
national park. But it had the misfortune of running into the Colorado
River upstream of Glen Canyon Dam, and thus the most impressive part
of the canyon was submerged under Lake Powell. I have come here with
members of the Glen Canyon Institute, a group with the unthinkable
idea of draining Lake Powell and restoring Glen Canyon (HCN, 12/22/03:
Massive logging plan shakes Northwest) . The Bureau of Reclamation
will not even discuss draining the lake, but Mother Nature seems to
have other ideas: After five years of drought, the reservoir is at
less than half capacity.
Most of Glen Canyon’s 96 side canyons are marked with buoys,
like street signs at busy intersections. Our motorboat takes a hard
right turn into the Escalante Arm and enters a maze of side streams,
dead-end cirques, and spiraling rock buttresses. We pause for traffic
to clear, turn left into Davis Gulch, and slow the motor to a crawl.
Still, our wake bounces off the narrow rock walls and rolls back and
forth across the channel.
We follow this avenue of water, its surface like green polished marble,
around innumerable switchbacks and meanders. All the while, the water
channel becomes more confining while the surrounding walls remain
high and often over-hanging. It’s as though we are descending
into a cleft in the crust of the earth itself. After a mile or two,
we come to a sandy beach that stretches across the canyon —
the end of this arm of the reservoir. Perhaps a hundred feet above
us, we can make out the high-water mark on the canyon wall. We have
come to see some of the revealed landscape that has emerged from the
depths of the reservoir.
We beach the boat and begin walking on ground that has not been trod
since Mickey Mantle was in his prime. The area closest to the current
water line is practically devoid of vegetation, but nascent sprigs
of grass, tamarisk, and willow are sprouting a little farther upstream.
As we hike up-canyon, the typical array of canyon flora begins to
appear in profusion. After half a mile, we are in a part of the canyon
that has been above water for perhaps two years. A meadow has formed
on both sides of the stream; evening primrose, prickly pear, and globemallow
compete for space. Across the creek, a dense copse of young cottonwood
trees crowds the bank, some of them six feet tall.
We can guess how long this area has been free of the reservoir because
of the graffiti on the rocks above us; boaters spray-painted their
names and the year they visited — two years ago — on the
cliff above their lakeside fire ring. The fecundity and regenerative
power of the canyon are spectacular, especially compared to the dead
zone that immediately surrounds the reservoir’s edge. The great
push and rush of spring floods has fed a rich load of seeds, soil
and moisture into these previously drowned areas, bringing them to
life in just a season or two. Canyon country is fragile, but it does
have a habit of aggressively reclaiming its own. Davis Gulch is coming
alive, recovering its natural green velour and its complex web of
desert life.
There are 76,000 dams in this country over six feet in height, and
another 2.5 million smaller dams. The United States entered the dam-building
era the way it sometimes goes to war — bold and headstrong,
with no understanding of the ultimate costs. For the first 200 years
of this country’s history, dams were synonymous with prosperity
and stability. But dams also destroyed entire ecosystems, and replaced
living rivers with stagnant reservoirs. We dismembered rivers and
divvied up the component parts without realizing the value of the
rivers themselves.
But the canyons and rivers are still there, below the reservoirs.
Extinction is forever; dams are not. This provides us with an opportunity
to engage in the politics of healing rivers and restoring riverine
landscapes. We can always find another source of energy, a more sensible
place to grow high-water crops, and a more efficient way to water
our cities. But we cannot replicate Glen Canyon; we cannot genetically
engineer a massive salmon run; we cannot invent a mountain canyon
that funnels sand to the edge of a continent. We have great power
to foul our own nest, but we have a commensurate power to mend that
nest, and create a future of free-flowing rivers and deeply carved
canyons.
In years to come — maybe 100 or 200 years from now — when
a free-flowing river is no longer as rare as a quiet moment, people
will stand on the edge of the Ventura River, or Elk Creek, or the
Colorado River running wild again through Glen Canyon, and marvel
at the grandeur. They may even give thanks to their ancestors for
having the foresight to save America’s rivers for them.
Daniel McCool is a professor of political science and director
of the American West Center at the University of Utah.
