Dear HCN,
I’m disgusted with the
tone and inaccuracies of Adam Burke’s article, “One dam, two
rallies” (HCN, 4/24/00: One dam, two rallies). “What’s the best way
to build support for tearing down a dam?” he wrongly asks. None of
the organizations at the rally ever supported “tearing down a dam’;
they were advocating the draining of Powell Reservoir,
scientifically and slowly, and restoring a lost and beautiful Glen
and Grand Canyon’s sick and dying ecosystems, by releasing the
river to do its natural thing around the dam. The more grassroots
organizations that join in the fray, the
better.
The Glen Canyon Institute continues to
move forward in a fashion that is strong and influential in places
other organizations fail to touch. Likewise, some groups appeal to
a young energy, but all are directed toward the same goal. The
opposition will rise, no matter what, in direct relation to the
number of people who understand what is lost, and show their intent
to do whatever it is necessary to do, politically, scientifically
and emotionally.
“Absent from the festivities
were representatives of the Glen Canyon Institute,” says Mr. Burke;
thereby pitting one organization against the other – exactly what
we don’t need! There were quite a few GCI members, even donors,
there and GCI literature was given out. David Brower is GCI’s first
vice president and I am on the advisory board. Together, over the
last few years, we have spent countless hours and dollars working,
performing, speaking for GCI and Rich Ingebretsen – and for many
other organizations so inclined – toward the draining of Powell
Reservoir (please call it what it is!) and toward the saving of
other rivers throughout the country.
My bottom
line is the same for GCI as it is for Glen Canyon Action Network
and all the rest: Set the river free! Let it be a river, not a
stinking reservoir that covers an Eden lost. I am not just “making
noise” nor am I an “aging torch bearer’ – David and I are aged
torch bearers for a dying river, and far more qualified to speak
for a place that too many others have never seen, felt, and have no
knowledge of.
Katie
Lee
Jerome, Arizona
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Dam unites environmental opposition.
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