Grand Canyon Flood Created New Sandbars

[WhiteTara]

Source: comcast net news

PHOENIX — The Grand Canyon boasts new sandbars ranging in size from small nooks and crannies to ones as large as football fields, the results of a manmade flood designed to nourish the ecosystem of the Colorado River, an official said.

"On a couple of big sandbars there were already beaver tracks, bighorn sheep tracks," Grand Canyon National Park Superintendent Steve Martin said. "You could see the animals already exploring new aspects of the old canyon."

The three-day flood last week was designed to redistribute and add sediment to the 277-mile river in the Grand Canyon, where the ecosystem was forever changed by the construction of a dam more than four decades ago.
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"It's kind of like when President Bush landed a jet on the aircraft carrier and held up a banner that said `Mission Accomplished,'" said Nikolai Lash, senior program director at the trust. "Reclamation has come in with a lot of show and fanfare from last week's event and we're seeing the benefits of doing these high flows. But we know that they're short-lived and the Grand Canyon deserves long-lived benefits, long-lived restoration."

Scientists will collect data on the flood's effects through the fall. Initial reports will be available late this year or early next year. A complete synthesis of the results, which will include comparisons to the 1996 and 2004 floods, will be finished in 2010.

Read more: http://www6.comcast.net/news/articles/national/2008/03/05/Grand.Canyon.Flood/

[notadmblnd]

1. This was a man made flood?

[Greyskye]

3. Yes.

They intentionally sent a massive volume of water down the canyon for three days in order to accomplish this. IIRC, they said that the amount of water they were sending through would be enough to fill the interior of the Empire State Building in 20 minutes. :wow:

[WhiteTara]

4. yes, they opened the dam

and flooded for 3 days.

[hedgehog]

2. I have a vision of alien scientists coming along millennia in the future,

when all this is forgotten, looking at the geological record and trying to figure out just what the hell caused those anomalies!

[zonkers]

5. I am happy for the Beaver and the Big Horns!!!!

[DrZeeLit]

6. that was funny... but.... Not. With. A. Ten. Foot. Pool. n/t

[TechBear_Seattle]

7. What's this about beavers and big horns?

I don't see anything all that funn...




:think:


Oh. Never mind.

[ConcernedCanuk]

8. "kind of like when President Bush landed a jet on the aircraft carrier " - oh, a lie then?

.
.
.

When did the chimp land a jet, anywhere?

Enlighten me.

[armodem08]

9. He didn't. He was on the plane, though.

I remember that he took a fixed wing plane when he could have easily taken a helicopter. Also, the carrier was turned around so the San Diego skyline wouldn't be in the background. I was also thinking of Al Franken's book ( I think it was the Truth with jokes, but it could have been Lying Liars) where he had an account of a fictional conversation between the pilot of that plane and Bush. Georgie kept trying to take control of the plane, reminding the pilot that he was the commander in chief and "I outrank you!" It was hilarious.