Dear HCN,
Please may I quibble over
a couple of minor points in Tom Wolf’s informative essay about
Floyd Dominy and Morrow Point Dam (HCN, 10/26/98). Morrow Point is
indeed an elegant engineering marvel, and you have to admire the
artful audacity of its designers, but the Black Canyon of the
Gunnison is a marvel, too, a world-class physiographic marvel
designed by God and Mother Nature. I walked and crisscrossed its
awesome 50-mile length before its upstream third was inundated by
the three huge dams. Dammed elegance aside, Morrow Point’s graceful
arch does not “belly out” into Blue Mesa Reservoir. Tut, tut. Said
reservoir is impounded by the utilitarian, if inelegant, rock and
earthen plug of Blue Mesa Dam near the head of the
canyon.
Second, Wolf mentioned that he and his
students visited Morrow Point Dam “to see where the Colorado Front
Range’s water comes from,” but Morrow Point was conceived only to
generate power and raise revenue from its production. It is a “cash
register dam” not designed for the transmountain diversion of
water. Blue Mesa and Crystal dams in the Black Canyon and Flaming
Gorge Dam in Utah also are “cash register dams,” built primarily to
generate power, though their combined storage also helps fulfill
downstream water commitments. Crystal has minimal storage capacity.
Last I heard, its turbines provide peaking power for times of high
energy demand. Though Gunnison River water is coveted by various
east-slope urban venues, not one drop has yet been diverted out of
the Gunnison River
Basin.
Wallace
Hansen
Lakewood,
Colorado
Wallace Hansen is the
author of The Black Canyon of the Gunnison, in Depth; Dinosaur’s
Restless Rivers and Craggy Canyon Walls; and Geology of the Flaming
Gorge Area.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Tom Wolf should check a few facts.
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