Monday, September 6, 2010

Dam Tour

Today we took a tour of the Glen Canyon dam located at the southern end of Lake Powell. Considered one of the most highly regulated dams in the country because it directly affects the Grand Canyon ecosystem, the Glen Canyon dam was no small project. Constructed over 10 years from 1956-1966, the dam was built to wall up the water coming from the Utah to Arizona direction of the Colorado River. Call me dense, but I thought that the dam took water coming from the Grand Canyon direction, harnessed it somehow, pooled it into Lake Powell, and used it to generate energy. I was a bit backwards. It took 13 years after construction to fill Lake Powell completely. It took three years to pour all the necessary concrete and used enough to build a four lane highway from Phoenix, AZ to Chicago, IL. A power plant was built to generate energy from this natural hydro-monster that is distributed among 4 states and two countries. On the nearby Navajo reservation there is an eye sore of another power plant. It’s a coal generated power plant and that was constructed solely to create a system of energy to power the systems needed to distribute the water to the various states. It’s the first thing you see coming into Page from the West. Kind of ugly.

Adam had the foresight to bring the wheelchair and being a federal facility it was wheelchair accessible. It was a good thing too because it was a long walk. We took two elevators down to the power plant which was close to 2000 feet down from the top and it was a long walk. It was fascinating. Since 9/11 they have stepped up the security in the federal locations such as this dam, but we were still allowed to bring in a camera, bottle of water, car keys and our wallets. We could not bring any bags of any kind or colored water bottles (interesting?). The thing that fascinated me the most about this dam, except for the grandeur, was the fact that the dam could last 700 years before it is expected to falter. That’s one strong wall of dirt! There was one other interesting tidbit (besides the obvious unbelievable amounts of energy generated through this wall). They planted grass at the base of the dam to insulate the pipes in which the water flowed from the lake through the power plant. They water it using the seepage from the rock walls and have to mow it every week. I think they should have made an employee putting green. It was beautiful. Our grass in Colorado never gets that green. I know some golfers who would be saddened by this missed opportunity.
Who knew that I would be so fascinated by this monstrous engineering creation? I don’t think I need to tour another one any time soon, but I learned a lot. I do, however, want to go jump in Lake Powell. They say the water is 80 degrees Fahrenheit at the top. That’s still cool when the weather is 100.

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