Glen Canyon Dam is a dam on the Colorado River at Page, Arizona, USA, operated by the United States Bureau of Reclamation. The purpose of the dam is to provide water storage for the arid southwestern United States, and to generate electricity for the region's growing population. Construction of the dam was part of the Colorado River Storage Project (CRSP). Damming the river has created a large reservoir called Lake Powell.
Its construction began in 1956. Although the dam was not dedicated until 1966, it was able to begin blocking the flow of the river in 1963.
The Sierra Club and other environmental organizations originally opposed plans for the construction of the Echo Park Dam farther upstream on the Colorado River which would have inundated part of Dinosaur National Monument. When the Bureau of Reclamation dropped plans to construct that dam, the Sierra Club then attempted to stop the construction of the Glen Canyon Dam to no avail.
Thirty-one years after the dam's completion, Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona, who originally supported the project, stated in an interview that he would be happier without the lake and expressed regret for voting in favor of its construction.http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/0528dam-anniversary0528.html Despite opposition from many environmental groups, the dam, Lake Powell, and the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area remain popular tourist destinations.
Continued population growth in the western and southwestern United States places more demands on the system of dams and reservoirs on the Colorado River for water, power, and recreational purposes, which are important to the infrastructures and economies of the western United Stateshttp://www.kued.org/productions/glencanyon/interviews/wirth.html.
High volume flows are now periodically released to assist in re-arrangement of river beaches in the canyon, deemed necessary to prevent overgrowth of exotic plant species such as tamarisk and balance the needs of the human population with that of the environment.
