Rafters row reservoirs
by James LaberArticle Tools
Missoula journalists Josh Mahan and Jen Sauer and environmentalist Mike Roselle set out on Aug. 27 to recreate Major John Wesley Powell’s a 1,023 mile journey. The difference between their journey and Major Powell’s expedition is about 270 miles—miles of motionless water that is. Today, the rafters must row the entire length of all the reservoirs that were created by dams built in the 1950s and ’60s. In the process, they hope to raise awareness of the harm dams cause to the canyon-country rivers. They expect to finish the trip at the South Cove of Lake Mead on Nov. 15.
“Lake Powell took us 11 days to row across, which was 150 miles of flat water—reservoir water— with zero current, and it was probably one of the most arduous tasks I’ve ever partaken in,” said Mahan in an interview conducted by satellite phone from just below the Glen Canyon Dam, which creates Lake Powell. “Every stroke was a stroke in protest.”
Mahan and crew hope their expedition will serve as a catalyst to return Glen Canyon to its free-flowing natural state and that their updates on the expedition’s website—downtheriver.org—will spur environmentalists into action.
Mahan says that Glen Canyon Dam damages the Colorado River ecosystem by disrupting fish and wildlife migrations and causing an enormous backup of silts, creating a “chocolate milk” river that harms native vegetation.
“You guys are lucky in Missoula where you are seeing one of the first real reclamations of a river and a dam in the country, and it’s really special,” Mahan says, referring to the Milltown Dam and the Clark Fork River. “And there is going to be more coming down the pipe, and hopefully Glen Canyon is going to be one of those in the next 10 to 20 years.”
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I think it is interesting that people from one state or region take it upon themselves to determine what is right/wrong about the environment in another state/region. I also find the "chocolate milk river" comment to be especially entertaining. What color does he think the free-flowing river is? Obviously he wasn't there when John Wesley Powell ran the river.
Thanks for the story James. Well done. We're off the river for now, though we're putting back on South Cove in a couple days to finish this out. We're riding the water as far as it goes, ideally all the way to the Sea of Cortez, and in the process we'll be the first human-powered expedition to do so since George Flavell and Ramon Montez launched from Green River, Wyoming on August 27, 1896. One minor factoid, the chocolate milk river is natural. We call it the downtown brown all the way down. But the stilled currents of the reservoir stop the important movement of the silt, clearing the water and robbing downstream beaches, wildlife, and vegetation of its much needed friend: dirt. This is especially obvious below the Glen Canyon Dam in the Grand Canyon. Though the high and dry silt beds that a retreating Lake Mead has left behind have started sloughing into the river below the Canyon returning the river to its natural dirty state. Spaceship earth, we're all on this continent. Rivers and ecosystems adhere not to political boundaries, nor do wild creatures such as ourselves. Have a good winter, Missoula.
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