Talk:Risks to the Glen Canyon Dam

Neutrality
Nobody started a NPOV discussion... so here it is. If no one has anything to say in a week or two, I'll remove the tag. --R27182818 (talk) 15:32, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I placed the tag because someone wrote blatantly on the top of the article, "This entire article biased and in clear violation of the spirit of neutrality of Wikipedia." While this article is indeed from a point of view against the dam, whoever wrote it didn't bother to look at the name of the article, to see what it really is describing. Shannon1  talk   contribs  00:13, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
 * No discussion either way, so I removed it. Shannon1, you didn't seem to express an opinion. --R27182818 (talk) 21:46, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
 * The opinion wasn't mine, it was someone else's. Shannon1  talk   contribs  04:13, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

I think your statement above this article is correct. Being against the dam is different from discussing its risks. The author has attempted to show the dam is risky, which it probably isn't, and has from his or her point of view created a large list of supposed negatives. Of course the dam has an even larger list of reasons for it's being left in place. From its huge recreational use to the crops it waters, the on-demand power it generates, and the flooding it controls (actually the 1983 and 1984 flooding events are prime examples of why Glen Canyon dam should remain in place). Being scientifically trained I have a lot of problems with folks who talk about lost water. They taught me at Cal Tech that water can't be destroyed. It goes somewhere and the benefits there need to be included in any cost benefit analysis. Being a river runner who was on the river in 1983 both upstream and down of Glen Canyon I've watched the sediment build in lower Cataract Canyon for close to 30 years now. I get really confused when people talk about river sediment being at the dam face in 80 years (it's over 500' deep there when the upstream reach has only been able to sediment fill down to Hite Marina in the shallow section of the reservoir (100' or less deep). I believe there is a lot of emotion and a paucity of reality in some of the current writing about this subject. I would recommend making this article just about dam risks. Talk about the 1983 event. Remove the one-sided evaporation and ground charging from the discussion since it has nothing to do with risk or include the possible benefits and reasons for the dam in the first place (flood control which it has done well, water storage which it has done very well, and power generation which it has also done well - isn't there a shortage of clean, on-demand electrical power generation in this country?). 174.17.130.176 (talk) 22:19, 24 September 2009 (UTC)


 * First of all the article obviously mentions that the sediment will reach the dam face in that time, and can even apply if a half-inch of it does. The reservoir will certainly fill with sediment eventually, unless another dam is built upstream. (Should remove the time span for total sedimentation and add "eventually", I agree, because the 1983 floods carried more sediment that the past few years combined. And the 1983 event caused the dam to nearly collapse, isn't that a "risk"? Since 1984 the spillways haven't been tested by another major flood, and how do we know if they'll work again in 2012 or another big flood? Well, I understand your opinions on how the dam has done well with some things, I agree with that. However, this article doesn't contest with the fact that the dam does those things. Shannon  talk   contribs   sign! :) 01:47, 25 September 2009 (UTC)


 * I think that this article can go a long way towards neutrality. It seems biased to the anti-dam side. As someone else said, being anti-dam is fine, but the subject of stability still needs to be discussed in a neutral manner. I also noticed some omissions of information that contradict some of the points mentioned, and a lot of uncited statements. I'll work on sorting those out. 67.60.15.221 (talk) 14:21, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Comment in text
174.17.130.176 added the bolded text to the page: An example of the fast deposition rate of Colorado River sediment is found in Lake Mead itself, where, before the completion of Glen Canyon Dam, ten percent of its storage was already compromised by sediment. When Lake Powell levels drop, sediments deposited in its upper reaches are carried into the receding water by the Colorado and its tributaries. One large flash flood caused by heavy rainfall could move all or most of these sediments into Lake Powell, creating a sudden loss of storage capacity (This is get rid of the dam gobbledegook, makes no sense at all. All of the sediments above Hite are already in high pool Lake Powell. Is the author saying he or she believes Lake Powell should never be at high pool, even during an 1983 type event?). The only way to control sediment flow in the reservoir, without removing the dam outright, is by dredging. Unfortunately, as Glen Canyon is remote and isolated, the cost of dredging (which would require to remove 84 tons per minute in order to keep pace with advancing sediment) is extremely high. Although the Colorado River Delta is the most ecologically friendly place for sediment to be dumped, the cost of transporting sediment from Glen Canyon to the Delta, which not only involves a long distance travelled as well as international negotiations (the Delta is located in Mexico) is $2.6 billion USD per year. I removed it as it does not belong in the article. 75.69.0.58 (talk) 23:35, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

New title and subject
Because of all the controversy over this topic I mildly suggest that this page be moved to Glen Canyon Dam controversy, and also include information supporting the dam, but I can't really do this myself, so if anyone could help in this that would be great. Shannon talk   contribs  21:56, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Removal of unsourced number, and an additional source to use
The article said that the force of water in the left tunnel was eroding building material and sandstone at a rate of 1,000 tons per second. This works out to a rate of 86.4 million tons eroded per day. Assuming two tons per cubic yard, that represents a loss of roughly 40 million cubic yards of rock per day. I just read another article saying that 4,000 to 5,000 cubic yards of material were lost due to cavitation/erosion, so the 1,000 tons/second rate seems very implausible to me.

Here's the source where I saw the figure of 4,000-5,000 cubic yards. It's a nice article that has a day-by-day breakdown of how events unfolded in the summer of 1983, and it may be helpful for other editors:

http://www.hcn.org/external_files/40years/blog/ErodedGlenCanyonTunnelCover-Full.jpg

The article describes how debris clogged temporarily clogged the spillway, which I don't think is mentioned here yet. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.17.131.126 (talk) 18:16, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 2 one external links on Risks to the Glen Canyon Dam. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20090513010435/http://www.usbr.gov/dataweb/dams/az10307.htm to http://www.usbr.gov/dataweb/dams/az10307.htm
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20090609053309/http://creation.com:80/beware-the-bubble-s-burst to http://creation.com/beware-the-bubble-s-burst

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 02:30, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Neutrality of siltation section
The issue of siltation is very well covered in the main article and this section here is redundant. It appears that the editor has an axe to grind. The only working source is an opinion piece with an obvious bias, lacking any semblence of neutrality. The lead states, "[the dam is] viewed as carrying a large amount of risk, most notably due to siltation" but 90%+ of the article is about the flood. The second graf in the lead states, "anchored in unstable Navajo sandstone (sometimes said to be "solidified sand dunes")" but the source provided says the opposite, stating 'the rocks are stable with no nearby faults'. More bias and POV pushing. Undue weight is given to this single point of view.

I believe the siltation section should be removed and the article renamed as the 1983 Glen Canyon Dam flood. — btphelps (talk to me) (what I've done) 06:59, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

This article should be removed
Previous edits removed some of the information about potential risks related to the dam, leaving the article with little information about the subject, "Risks to the Glen Canyon Dam".

If there is anything of value at all in this article, it could be merged into the main "Glen Canyon Dam" article. The main article covers the 1983 incident and the ongoing controversy, with more detail, more sources, and clearer writing. 74.77.140.206 (talk) 15:27, 11 September 2021 (UTC)