Grand Canyon Flooded to Restore Beaches

[NVMojo]

the repuke way to fix a damaged environment ..

GRAND CANYON NATIONAL PARK, Ariz. - Scientists flooded the Grand Canyon on Sunday to restore beaches and save fish and plants that have been disappearing since sediment-free water began flowing from a man-made dam 40 years ago.

A torrent of gushing water raced down the Colorado River and into the canyon, carrying badly needed natural sediment with it, as four giant steel tubes at the base of Glen Canyon dam were opened.

more...

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=533&e=2&u=/ap/20041121/ap_on_re_us/grand_canyon_flooding

[knowbody0]

1. way to go

they should flood the infrastructure of this administration. a good douching is what we need there, not in the canyon

[leftchick]

3. hey that would make a nifty bumpersticker!

douche the repukes!!!

douche the white house!

douche AmeriKa!

[LincolnMcGrath]

13. Is the FW logo available online anywhere?

[leftchick]

17. yes indeed....

Here you go....http://www.cafepress.com/fwstickers

[LincolnMcGrath]

19. Thank You!

:yourock:

[LincolnMcGrath]

20. Thank You!

:yourock:

[flygal]

2. This sounds like my husbands crazy uncle who wants to float the

polar ice bergs down to LA to bring water to the desert. God forbid we act progressively and **shock** conserve water and **gasp** protect the environment.

[Journeyman]

7. You need to research the sedimentary flow and silting problems. . .

of the Colorado River and the dams that constrict it before you dismiss this effort as somehow "anti-environmental."

[yardwork]

11. The dam(n)s shouldn't have been built in the first place

[UNIXcock]

15. You are right, I don't see how this is spun into a partisan issue ...

... too many people just need to bitch for the sake of bitching

[VivaKerry]

8. I agree. Your husband's uncle is crazy.;

sorry, but that is truly a nutty idea... the icebergs.

[havocmom]

4. Environmentalists have pushed for this. Was done a few years ago and

was beneficial. It emulates the more natural occasional flood that would happen were it not for the Glen Canyon Dam.

[NVMojo]

5. maybe but ....i like the bumper sticker idea this generated

douche the white house!!!

[havocmom]

6. One might suggest an enema would be the more correct procedure,

considering the problem of what the WH is currently full of. :evilgrin:

[hatrack]

9. Only temporary, though

The improvements in habitat and in beach-building lasted only as year or two. Then back to (ab)normal.

[havocmom]

10. That's why they wanted it done every few years

Not all years have big snows & high river floods. But it happens from time to time and the plan was to duplicate what nature did.

[BeFree]

12. Glen Canyon Dam

Last I heard it was getting low, but they feel they have enough water to let some go? I bet Lake Mead is getting down too and the flow from Glen will end up in Mead anyway.

Anybody seen Lake Foul(powell) recently? How's it looking? Might be a good time to get out there and see the now unflooded canyons.

[hatrack]

16. This is the first time since 1996, which is quite a while

And back in the Predambrian Period, the river flooded every year, big snowpack or small. The only variation year-on-year was the height of the water. The water rose and the silt came down in the spring, the water dropped and the silt dropped out later in the summer and the rhythm went on and on. The serious old-time river rats like Bert Loper and Buzz Holstrom said that the Canyon was never too low to run, even in dry summers. You just needed to change your boats and equipment to match what the water levels were.

Now we have a three- or five-day Band-aid every eight years or so which is ostensibly "replicating" the natural cycles of the river. Hardly. Whatever beaches this release will restore won't last more than a year or two.

In addition, since the maximum possible flow of Glen Canyon Dam is 96,000 cfs, the Grand Canyon may become more and more difficult to run. The canyon's rapids are produced by side canyon floods, but without really big (200-300,000 cfs) floods coming down every few decades to shift and break up these debris fields, sporadic but inevitable side canyon floods will inevitably pack the rapids so densely with rocks that they'll eventually become unrunnable. Not a short-term problem, but then we Americans never were much good at long-term thinking anyway.

I'm not saying that we shouldn't try and maintain these beach-building flows. I'm just saying that they're not enough, and BuRec should keep their environmental back self-patting to a minimum.

[UNIXcock]

18. Exactly - the fact remains, Glen Canyon is in existence and ...

... this best emulates nature. More folks need to do their homework before "shaking their fist at the man" (just because it's en vogue)

[daleo]

14. "Creation scientists" should be studying this

They can use this to model Noah's flood and its effect on the Grand Canyon. "Oh look - all the small stupid animals are dying in the flood, while the larger smarter animals are climbing up the canyon walls to avoid the great deluge!"

[htuttle]

21. Still praying for just one precision earthquake

Or a couple of houseboats filled with C4.

:evilgrin: