Analysis of Brower vs. Dominy argument in Encounters with the Archdruid

One of the largest geographic physical structures in the United States is the Colorado River. Human activity and its interaction with this great river have an interesting history. The resources provided by the river have been used by humans, and caused conflict for human populations as well. One of these conflicts is water distribution, and the effects drought conditions have played in this distribution throughout the southwestern region. Major cities such as Las Vegas, Los Angeles, San Diego, and other communities in the southwest depend on the river. It provides water for over 20 million people, irrigation for 2 million acres of land, four thousand megawatts of hydroelectric energy, and over twenty million annual visitors for

The purpose of this essay is to examine and analyze Katrine Barber's book, "Death of Celilo Falls". In this book, Barber successfully seeks to tell the story of a momentous event in the history of the West, the building of the Dalles Dam in 1957. Celilo Falls was part of a nine-mile area of the Long Narrows on the Columbia River. Despite the fact that the Celilo Village still survives to this day in the state of Oregon (it is the state's oldest continuously inhabited town), the assembly of The Dalles Dam in 1957 changed the way of life for the surrounding areas forever. Barber tells this story very well, and as it is the first book-length account of the inundation of Celilo Falls, it is a very valuable and insightful look at an influential

The Colorado River Basin starts in the Rocky Mountains and cuts through 1500 miles of canyon lands and deserts of seven US states and two Mexican states to supply a collection of dams and reservoirs with water to help irrigate cropland, support 40 million people, and provide hydroelectric power for the inland western United States [1,2]. From early settlement, rights over the river have been debated and reassigned to different states in the upper and lower basin; however, all the distribution patterns lead to excessive consumption of the resource. In 1922, the seven US states signed into the Colorado River Compact, which outlined the policy for the distribution rights to the water [3], however, this compact was written during an exceptionally

In the ¨River Restoration Project Offers a Sprinkling of Hope¨, Ron Jacobsma, general manager of the Friant Water Authority, said “We hope to get double duty out of that water by taking it the long way around.¨ As Jacobsma is a general manager of the Friant water Authority, this offers us his experience, his ideas and his thoughts of how we can have hope for the project. President Barack Obama signed the Omnibus Public Lands Bill in March, the agreement turned into federal law when he signed it. The parties had been working on the restoration plan for more than two years laying the groundwork for the physical changes to come. When the president signed it, it made them get the approval which he supported for them to continue the process. The credibility of the author right has now been believable because he provided us with the ethics of President Obama and Jacobsma. The river will not necessarily end up to its full, natural path along its entire length. Too much has changed in the decades since the dams construction. They would use canals along some stretches to carry the water short distances and to ferry the salmon upstream. This is showing us logos with facts and information it offers an explanation on how to solve one of the problems with the plan. A professor named Peter Moyole, from UC Davis also had his opinion on the project. He said “We have never done anything on this scale”, but we were willing to try it and approve of the

The Grand Coulee Dam, located in Eastern Washington, was one of controversy, risk, and a point of no return. While the water captured made the desert area blossom in agriculture and it powered some large cities, it created a sense of accomplishment, that humans can control Mother Nature. While many people were very excited for this new construction – which gives power and resources - at the time, some thought it should not be allowed, they are not proud of containing the Columbia River. In this analysis, I am going to focus on the economic and social effects that the Grand Coulee Dam created in its build.

He stated that it was the difference between life and death. Glen Canyon was alive. Lake Powell is a graveyard. He really seems to be going out on a limb in saying this extreme of a statement. I think that he is wrong in saying that. I feel that he is only looking at one side of the story. I would say the opposite, but for a rhetorical analysis proposes only, I will come from his point of view in researching that he came to that conclusion under the assumption that the wildlife and nature was more alive then the life “outside” of the dam. Lake Powell is a graveyard in such that there is nothing natural about it. The rocks are pretty and the water is blue. Abbey talks of a term called “bathtub ring”, it is left on the canyon walls, after each drawdown of the water level. The park rangers in Glen Canyon consider it to be not of great importance, and that is one of the only illusions that you look at upon a natural lake. To some people seeing that effect is more then they have seen or may ever see in their life when it comes to nature. People come from places where there isn’t a lot of wildlife around them. The closest they get seeing that might just be from a book or a video they saw in school. So what if they dump a ton of striped bass and rainbow trout into the lake every year. One of those fishes could be the first one ever

Abraham Lustgarten has written a very informative article that is published by Pro Publica and titled “How the West Overcounts Its Water Supplies.” In great detail, he analyzes the drought situation in Arizona and California to draw attention the underlying cause: the miscounting of available water. There is miscounting because officials are refusing to legally accept that the major water resource of the West—the Colorado River—is interconnected with underground water resources. All in all, Lustgarten writes a convincing article that effectively addresses the need for officials to recognize the interconnection of ground and surface water so that water shortage in the West can be better managed; he does this through his ability to gain the

Toas Blue lake is a gorgeous clear lake located in Taos, New Mexico. The indigenous people living there called the Taos pueblo, have had a long and hard history with this sacred location, especially over the past century. Having had their land and respect stripped of them by the government, they then turned to protest. As one of the oldest continuously inhabited communities in the United States, it seems odd that Rosevelt would consider taking a place so sacred and “designated (it) as a “multiple-use” area for recreation, grazing, and extraction of natural resources” (Dzelzitis).

For millions of years the Colorado River flooded the West with rich sediments, carving out the Grand Canyon, and shaping the Rocky Mountains. Today, agricultural, energy, and population demands have dwindled the once robust flow of water and its tributaries into streams that run dry, lakes that recede, and a Colorado River that hasn’t flowed into the Sea of Cortez, Mexico, since 1998.

Bill McEwen in the “ River Plan Too Fishy for my Taste Buds,” exposes that the San Joaquin River restoration has hidden flaws within its complex plan. McEwen supports his claim by explaining the two major problems with the legislation. The author’s purpose is to point out these problems in order to have people take notice in them, and have them see what is going on within the San Joaquin River restoration. The author writes in an informative tone for the locals within the

It was on a Friday that the SWRCB announced they were likely to issue an another round of curtailments into the 1870’s water rights holders to protect riparian water rights holders in the Delta. Upon learning this, I immediately called our legal counsel and water rights consultants and asked that they assert their biggest and best arguments against this and to do so unrelentingly. It was a long day of phone calls and emails, but in the end, the SWRCB delayed their decision and opted to wait until the following week.

The proposal of the project San Joaquin River Restoration receives an approval by California around the same time the article “River Plan Too Fishy for my Taste Buds” by Bill McEwen got published. McEwen wrote many disagreements on this project in the Fresno Bee’s Newspaper on March 26, 2009.The project does contain some benefits since its plan to recirculating the water again, but returning the Chinook salmon will only lead to disaster.McEwen provided numerous data to support his evidence to convince ordinary citizens deluded about the consequences behind the plan that the river restoration project turns out more for worse than good. I agree with McEwen’s statement on the river restoration project by supporting his sources emphasizing using

This was led by David Brower, the environmental organization Sierra Club fought a protracted battle against the Bureau of Reclamation, on the basis that “building the dam would not only destroy a unique wilderness area, but would set a terrible precedent for exploiting resource in America’s national parks and monuments.” In the mid-1950s, the USBR agreed not to build the two dams, which was an act widely hailed as a major victory for the American environmentalist movement. In fact, Brower and the Sierra Club supported the expansion of the proposed dam at Glen Canyon to replace the storage that would have been provided by the Echo Park dam on the Green River. The Colorado River Storage Project was authorized in April 1956, and Glen Canyon Dam began in October of the same

The Klamath River Basin has been fraught with political and legal battles over naturel resources for more than a century (Most 2006). Clashes between diverse interests for the waters of the Klamath River Basin have occurred in court rooms, picket lines, and in the state house, as irrigators, environmentalists, tribes and fishermen vie for position as the user with the most legitimate moral and scientific claim. The Klamath is not an anomaly in the Western United States as the recent occupation at Malheur National Wildlife Refuge as demonstrated that tensions over resources in the West often culminate in extra-legal actions by multiple parties. At Malheur ranchers, who were not landowners in Harney County, protested the abuse of federal power and expressed a feeling of entitlement to the lands that are administered by the federal

Ron Jacobsma, the Friant Water Authority general manager, said “The settlement provides water-supply certainty. It provides financial certainty. They’ll be paying no more than what they would have otherwise paid,” (Weintraub 2). Jacobsma, an authority in the Friant Dam, knows that the project will supply water. Meaning that even after replenishing the water to the lake it will go as far as supplying water to the people. A professor from UC Davis specifies the amount of ground we would have to cover and where it will lead, “You’ve got 150 miles of river where roughly half of it was drying up every year. The lowermost section has essentially been treated as an agricultural drain … We’re doing more than just bringing back a few fish into the system. We’re creating a river,” (Weintraub 3). The professor, Peter Moyle, with knowledge of the spectacle that waits ahead, believes that bringing fish back won’t be their only success but recreation as well. Someone of Moyle’s intellect can see the possible ends to this project, they, like Moyle, used their reasoning and prior knowledge to make these