In January of 1983 the first of a series of massive El Nino superstorms hit the west coast of the United States. By the time spring had finally sprung the El Nino storms had dumped massive amounts of snow in the Rocky Mountains. The subsequent spring and early summer snow melt sent the headwaters of every tributary of the Colorado River cascading into that substantial body of water from where the rushing tide roared on into Lake Powell in northern Arizona.
As the Colorado came flooding into Lake Powell, the operators of the Glen Canyon hydroelectric dam that formed the lake watched with amazement as, in a period of a few short weeks, the level of the Lake rose to within inches of the top of the dam in spite of the fact that massive amounts of water were already roaring through the dam's turbines and outlet tubes. Knowing that a breach of the dam would be catastrophic, the call was made to open the spillway gates a few inches for the first time since they were tested in 1980. The spillways are massive forty-foot diameter concrete lined tunnels designed to shunt water around the dam at flow rates of tens of thousands of cubic feet per second. Glen Canyon has two of them, one on each side of the dam.
At first the spillway tunnels were performing as designed shooting a graceful plume of water about a 100 ft in the air from where it arched into the river. But four days later things started coming off the rails. An operator on the graveyard shift (midnight to 8 AM) who was monitoring the spillway tunnels from an access chamber inside the dam could hear unusual noises coming from the east tunnel that were quite unlike the streamline flow of water that he should be hearing. He informed his supervisor who in turn got the manager of the dam out of bed to come down and have a look, or rather a listen. All agreed that something was very wrong, but exactly what would have to wait until daylight when they could have a first-hand look at the water coming out of the spillway.
As it got light enough to see what should have been a smooth arching flow of clean water coming from the spillway, they saw instead reddish-colored water coming out in intermittent gushes throwing chunks of concrete and gravel into the air. The implication was obvious. Water rushing through the spillway was chipping away at the concrete lining of the tunnel and eating into the sandstone base to which the side of the dam was anchored.
If the damage was severe enough and left uncorrected the erosion of the sandstone anchor could cause the entire dam to fail, a catastrophic event which would elicit millions of dollars in damages and no doubt several downstream lives. Accordingly, the extent of the damage had to be assessed straight away. For this job, one of the hydraulic engineers from the Bureau of Reclamations and Engineering in Denver, the outfit in charge of the several hundred western dams, flew down to have a look.
Knowing that they would have to close the east spillway gate in order to inspect the damaged tunnel from the inside, they erected a makeshift extension to the height of the dam to handle the anticipated rise in the level of the lake. The extension was constructed by welding an angle iron frame together on top of the dam and filling it with sheets of plywood. This was a difficult and dangerous job requiring no small measure of courage to dance around on top of a dam inches from the rising level of water while welding and hammering the thing together.
With the makeshift dam extension in place the spillway gate was closed. When the water drained out enough to allow inspection from inside the tunnel, an even more dangerous job than constructing the extension was undertaken by the hydraulic engineer from Denver. He and his equipment were placed on a platform which was lowered by cable into the tunnel from an access point above lake level. If the cable system malfunctioned, he could go crashing to the bottom of the tunnel or be stuck with no way to get out. If the spillway gate holding back the lake under untested high pressure gave way he would be unceremoniously swept through the tunnel and shot out into the river. But he stayed in the tunnel until he had made a thorough assessment of the damage, its causes and recommendations for repair.
Knowing that it was unlikely that the west tunnel alone could handle the volume of spillway necessary to keep the lake from rising further without it too obtaining significant damage, the decision was made to re-open the east tunnel. Both tunnels would handle whatever flow was necessary for as long as it took for the flood to subside and the lake level to drop to where both spillway gates could be closed, and repairs commenced.
The flood surge of 1983 did finally recede, and toward the end of June the level of Lake Powell had dropped to where the spillway gates at Glen Canyon could be closed. At that point the tunnels were thoroughly assessed for any repairs that might be needed upon which it was discovered that the west tunnel too had sustained significant damage.
For close to two months while the spillway gates were opened and the plywood extension to the dam was in place, the workers at the Glen Canyon hydroelectric dam stayed on the job not knowing if or when the makeshift extension or the dam itself might fail, events which most likely would result in serious injury or death for many of them. Years later a newspaper reporter asked a hydraulic engineer from the federal Bureau of Reclamation, who had considerable experience with western dams, how close we came to loosing Glen Canyon in 1983. His answer was: "We came a hell of a lot closer than many people know."
What the Glen Canyon incident tells us is that, unlike the perception that dam operators are a bunch of nerdy technocrats, these folks are hard-working courageous souls who on occasion literally risked life and limb under difficult and often dangerous conditions to not only keep the dam from failing, but to keep the turbines running as well. This misperception of dam operators arises from the assumption that anyone who would, in anyway, support a for profit dam (sale of electricity) that would drown upstream life and drastically alter a natural setting couldn't possibly appreciate nature. However, in reality this is a false perception.
Given that most dams are located in rural areas near small towns, such as Page, AZ near Glen Canyon, their operators are by-in- large outdoors folks who do appreciate free running rivers and streams as well as lakes and all other aspects of nature. This is most certainly true of the workers at the Glen Canyon dam. While admiring the wild free-running Colorado River below the dam, as well as the Grand Canyon through which it flows, these folks deeply appreciate the beauty and tranquility of Lake Powell including the multitude of life it supports in, on and adjacent to the water. Many of them have spent a nice day boating and fishing on the lake and no doubt a few of them have rafted the length of the Colorado within the Canyon, a 280-mile journey through dozens of rapids.
Accordingly, the notion that anyone who would support, let alone work at, a dam could in no way admire nature in a free-flowing river is a misperception. The reality is that they simply have a different, and in some ways a broader, perspective about water than those who flat out condemn any and all dams. In general, dam workers, engineers and managers can see and experience nature in both natural and man-made lakes as well as in free-flowing rivers and streams. Additionally, these folks admire the magic of being able to turn flowing water into useful electricity. In other words, while both advocates and adversaries of dams appreciate nature, they simply have different perspectives on rivers, both viewpoints of which have merit.
My own outlook on this issue has developed over my lifetime during which I have boated and fished on a lot of lakes, canoed many rivers and rafted my share of white water, including a two-week oar-raft journey down the Colorado through the Grand Canyon. And I've loved every minute spent on both lakes and rivers. Thus, I enjoy wild free flowing as well as tranquil waters, including present man-made lakes. However, I would not support further dam construction unless it can be proven to be absolutely necessary.
On this point, I was in high school at the time the Glen Canyon dam was being built, and was unaware of its presence until a few years after it was up and running. Upon subsequently reading about the pros and cons of the dam I know that I would have opposed its construction since I felt that it wasn't necessary at the time it was built. But now in 2020 the Glen Canyon dam is quite necessary due to extensive reliance on the electricity it produces the absence of which would not only be difficult to deal with, but would risk our nation's security as well. Additionally, lakes, particularly ones formed by dams on rivers, now have the unanticipated task of buffering the frequent heavy storms related to global climate change.
During the heyday of dam construction in the 1960s and 70s, I fought the proposed construction of just about every one, and such efforts by numerous citizens of like mind were successful in stopping several of them. However, in light of present (2020) global climate change spurred by global warming, of which the burning of fossil fuels is a major contributor, I can't but wonder if we wouldn't be better off if we had developed hydroelectric dams to their full potential rather than relying on coal-fired power plants for electricity. Of course, this is something that we'll never know. However, it does point out that no matter how noble the cause for which you're advocating may be, long range unintended consequences are next to impossible to predict. The best anyone can do on any issue is to weigh the pros and cons at the time, as you see them, then either support or oppose. However, do keep in mind that those who advocate what you might oppose, and vice versa, aren't necessarily wrong. They most likely just have a different perspective.