Une R.'-renc.e Target L

lO-High Country News-Dec. 12, ,1983

, The Bureau showed' the Right Stuff

How of ,Glen Canyon I~

byT.]. Wolf ut above that calm and million acre-feet to 14.6 million the coolness, and the guts to operate it s a Bureau brat growing up scripted scene, above the acre-feet during the April to July under extreme conditions? Do they iri Denver in the 1950s, my Bpurr-putt of the two-cycle runoff. pave the right sruff? favorite critter was the Briggs and Stratton lawnmower That doubling threatened to spell It can be argued that more than a A beaver, my contributions engine I was in not just the end of the dam, but also dam, a federal bureau or professional to 'show and tell' at school were trouble. Glen Canyon Dam was the end of hundreds of professional careers were at stake. The Bureau of Bureau scale models of , and my shaking, vibrating madly. Tremen- careers. The engineers who designed Reclamation stands for an approach to idea of a vacation was a family trip out dous rumblings from the galleries -- Idaho's infamous, failed Teton Dam nature that says rivers, forests, into the desert where I could see the the hollow passages in the dam's were forced into retirement because resources of all kinds are there to be .river kicked in the teeth by one or otherwise solid interior -- sent security the dam's failure was actually their changed, transformed and reworked, another dam. I knew about Chuck guards scurrying to close the top of the failure. Some of them died soon after. until they respond to flicks of Yeager and the other heroes of The dam to visi tors, switches, until they go on and .off at Right Stuff. But my heroes weren't The shuddering had its origin in But if the Bureau lost Glen will, until they produce exactly what flyboys or cowboys. They were Glen Canyon's spillways. Most dams Canyon, it would be more than a dozen man wants. engmeers. spill their excess water over the top, or so engineers forced out in disgrace. Glen Canyon Dam provides a clear That was only narural since my over specially designed concrete It might be the end of the agency. The example .of this dominance over father was the Bureau engineer (in my waterfalls that present onlookers with ~ flooding Coiorado was posing the nature. Glen Canyon and Hoover are world, there was only one 'Bureau') a show when a reservoir fills and same question to the Bureau where the undisciplined "useless" who designed the powerplanr at Glen spills. engineers that space ·posed to those rushing of the river is turned into Canyon Dam on the River. It Glen Canyon Dam is different. It who woold navigate it. .Did they electricity -- a form of energy that -can was also natural that I would grow up spills inside, down spillway runnels design their technology correctly? do all the things engineers want thinking Glen Canyon Dam was a that take the water from upstream, Assuming their design is right, do energy to do .. thing of beauty and a joy forever. pass it beneath the dam itself, and they have the skills, the knowledge, The Bureau's approach torivers is "Just think of it from an' discharge it downstream from 41-foot engineer's point of view!" my father diameter spillway mouths. would say, Six..hundred feet of acurely For two decades, those spillway angled, dazzling white concrete walls mouths gaped dry and empty, ever arching up from the frothy white and since Lake Powell had begun to fill. deep green Colorado running in its red But on June 28; 1983, early in the sandstone bedrock, up into the morning, those spillway runnels were flashboard cloudless blue sky thar caps the ·at work .. work that was nor going desert. well. You could hear loud, fearsome Wha r a dam! What a site for a noises in the left gallery within the dam! With its crest at an elevation of dam and also on top, where the rising 3,715 feer above sea level, the dam sun was warming the white concrete. backs up the river to create a If you were on the bridge that marvelous hydropower head. From spans the canyon below the dam that that man-made height the water June morning, perhaps enjoying thS zooms down stainless steel' rubes to spectacle of the water jetting white out drive $200 million worth of turbines '-- of the spillway mouths, perhaps enormous, delicately balanced tur- worrying about what the spillage bines housed in the powerplant would do to your river-running friends nestled in the shelter of the dam's downstream, you would have seen a arch. sight terrifying enough to.put the fear Smoothly spinning turbines, pol- of God into anyone, but especially into lution-free power, a blooming desert, _an engineer. What more could anyone want? And ro You would have seen the steady cap it off,. as if to defy the Sierra sweep of the spillway mouths Club's sensitivities, my father and his suddenly waver, choke, cough, and friends threw in a surrealistic twist. then vomit forth half-digested gobbets Between the base of the dam and the of steel reinforced concrete (bad, very powerplant there is a fertile crescent -- bad), spew out blood-red water (My dam a flat, football-field-sized area sown God, it's into bedrock), and finally with rhe finest Kentucky bluegrass, disgorge great red chunks' of thriving on cold water, sandstone into rhesfrorhy chaos below . and carefully tended by Bureau the dam. personnel. It's the meticulous touch of You would have seen the Colorado the engineer. The sign that every· River going home, carving rock, - ' thing, but everything, has been moving deeper, as it has always done. thought of and is under control. 3176 The symbolism of that grassy field was put to hard 'use this summer. For wef can say a river is wrathful, 3135 '. a time, there was a man 'haying that then we can say Glen Canyon peculiar meadow all day, every day. It IDam was the object of the crosssection in ~hemaindiagramshows 'a A photo -ofone of the radialgates is at was a war- time routine calculated to Colorado River's wrath last summer, gate partially open. It also shows where upper...right. The upper left 'box shows a the old, plugged diversion funnel meets when flow into the Colorado River keep everyone calm; to show that gate in the shut position. Note the s.foot- the spillway. The numbers arefeet above everything was under control. basin grew from the normal 6.96 steel flashboards above the gate. The sea level. e.t Target LRT -8£4-:V2

Dec. 12, 1983--High Country News-ll

almost broke free this summer

didn't produce a watt of energy. In the upper section' of those tunnels, rise to 3,700.5 feet before it can spill. as opposite as can be -to that of the normal times, that would have. been a cutting them off from the river. If water flows into the reservoir faster river runner or kayaker. IThose who than the spillways can take it away, scandal. "But this""summer, waste was ride rivers, who go with the flow, want But then they had made the and the reservoir continues to rise, the the least of the Bureau's worries. to master a river without breaking it. . downstream sections of the two ultimate spillway is the dam itself, The real worry. was that, becajsse They want to experience the river. .diversion runnels part of the new which is at 3,715 feet of elevation .. of this peculiar design, the Colorado without putting their mark on it. The spillway system. They had built new . The Bureau engineers are sure the River came close to beating the river people, and those who share tunnels down from above. They had dam can spill without suffering any Bureau, close to showing that it and its their world view, had as large a stake married the downstream part. of the damage. But the $200 million people didn't have the right stuff, by- in the drama that played out this diversion tunnel to these new slanting powerhouse and turbines at its base, getting in at the grouqd floor and summer in Glen Canyon Dam as the concrete tubes coming down from to say nothing of the fertile green blowing out the dam's soft sandstone Bureau did. above I with the' connection point upstream of the dam, right below the crescent, would be washed away like a . foundations. At stake was the way our society The underground spillways came concrete plugs. log. looks at nature. If that had been dose to providing a route for the Those new slanting spillway In addition to. the tunnel spillways, . known, all sorts of people would have reservoir to rush under the dam and tunnels rise at a 55 degree angle from the darn has twO other ways to release been standing on the bridge below the down the river, to overwhelm Hoover their merger with the old diversion water. One is through the river outlet dam ., a bridge that provides a Dam, and to continue the process, tunnels at the bottom of the reservoir. works (ROW, if you like acronyms) -- wonderful view of the dam and its toppling the other dominoes in the Then they open out into the reservoir, four steel conduits, each eight feet in spillway mouths, the grassy crescent, system -- t~e dams at Davis, Parker, 600 feet-upstream from the face. of the diameter and controlled by huge and the powerhouse. It would have Headgare Rock, Palo Verde, Imperial, dam, up against the.canyon walls on valves. been a great place for -the river Laguna, and Moreles, each of which each side. Water gets to the The third way is the only one the runners to stand and cheer on the was already dealing with desperate 41-foot-wide tunnel intakes by flowing engineers ever want to use -- through river. And [usr as great a place for conditions. Suddenly, the Salton Sea through concrete approach-channels. the steel tubes that lead to the those who feel they and society lost at in extreme southern California could The lips of the spillway tunnels are turbines themselves. For water that Three Mile Island at Teton Dam to be some fifty million acre-feet bigger. at an elevation of 3,648 feet above sea goes through the spillway tunnels or stand and cheer for the Buteau to Or the Colorado River might find a level. But even when Lake Powell the river outlet works does not show it has the right stuff. new outlet, a new way to the sea. A reaches that height, the spillways generate electricity. The Bureau don't necessarily take on water. They tries to only use the power plant, so nver once more. ,;:: Ironically, the ck." Glen Canyon are each guarded by two curved radial that every drop of water produces a bit fyou had stood with me and my could have caused might have spared gates, 52.5feet high. Those gates are of electricity. _. father on that same bridge at the visible part of the dam itself. The its dedication in 1959, you raised and lowered by booms I his summer, as everyone river might have carved itself a new would have been peering down into anchored into the canyon walls. When knows, the Bureau had to path downstream by ripping open the the narrow: canyon as he explained the gates are down, the water level waste water. It had to send diversion tunnels, but the dam might why the river disappeared from view must rise another 52.5 feet before it T water through _the tunnel spillways for a stretch. You would have heard can flow over the gates and get to the and the river outlet works .- water that [Continued on page 12) him say that the Bureau engineers had spillway. That means Lake Powell can routed the river in a runnel around and under the damsitc so that they could pour concrete for the dam's foundations. Carefully boring through the soft red sandstone that must do here fat bedrock, Bureau engineers had designed two concrete- lined diversion tunnels that led through the canyon walls, around the places where the dam would be married to the canyon walls (the abutments), and down into the canyon below, where the runnels spilled the Colorado back into its accustomed bed. I , If you had returned with us four years later, in 1963, to witness Lady Bird Johnson dedicate the completed dam, you would have seen a different sight. The diversion tunnels were plugged now, and the dam had e- already trapped enough of the Colorado's flow to create an infant Lake Powell -- small, but showing signs that over the next two decades it was going to become a very large reservoir indeed. This time, you would have heard my father explain how the engineers A view from above. Note especially that the rig'ht from the left. Roclf. walls back the-tllnnel mouths on the had not wasted the diversion tunnels. (lowe,r)lspiltway tunnel passes beneath the 'dam . Note three other side. The radial gates guard them from the They had poured concrete plugs into also that water can flow into the spillway tunnels only front (left). 12-High Country Neu/s-Dec. 12, 19?3 Glen Canyon .•.

(Con'inu~d from page 1Jj

have stood, whatever was gomg on beneath it. Certainly, it would stand if water spilled over it, or piled up behind ir in even greater quantities than it did this summer. Glen Canyon is a tough structure, a gravity dam that is also curved. Most gravity dams, such as the Grand Coulee on rhe Columbia, are straight and set at right angles across the river. The straight dam depends on irs weight to keep it from sliding downstream. It sets there, squat and ponderous, pushing back against the water behind it. But Glen Canyon is curved like an eggshell, wirh rhe convex parr of the eggshell pointing upstream. The result is that· the downstream force of the water is' transmitted along the eggshell to the places where the dam aburs the canyon walls. Instead of resisting the , water's force by its own brute force, it enlists the rock of the canyon to hold back the water. So rhe dam isn't simply a heavy irrigation rock set into the-canyon. It is more like a barhrub plug: the harder the water pushes on it, the more it pushes back. And in a sense .. a sense the river runners might appreciate .- the Glen Canyon Dam is made to go with the flow. Ir is built of enormous concrete blocks thar are designed to shift, to settle, to drop into openings, should they appear, as the pressure on the dam face shifts or changes.

s we said, this summer, because of the dam' 5 A design, the Colorado River came close [Q beating the Bureau. The defense against such a technological disaster,. or victory for the river, whichever you choose, was the lining of the spillway runnels -- a barrier of concrete reinforced with heavy steel Adding its overflow to Glen Canyon Dam first thin--arch double-curvature dam. On when the dam spills because of high. water flows." bars. Alrhough the steel rubes of the was the Morrow Point -Dam: 468 feel June 29, 1983, Tom Fridmonn took this river outlet works and of the power high and the Bureau of Reclamation's picture dxring "one of the rare moments generating system were designed to take the beating of tons of water Cavitation is Bruce Moyes' special- duringJune and flushed everyone and lowered over the left radial gates and falling at 120 miles per hour, the tty. An engineer at the Bureau's everything out. That would have down into the intake. They observe concrete spillways were never meant Engineering and Research Center in solved our technical problems and some cavitation damage close to the to withstand such conditions. Denver, he headed the special team saved the dams too. point where the tunnel from above When water rushes over concrete, assigned to moniror and manage Glen "But our goal was to save the joins the horizontal diversion tunnel -- no matter how smooth the concrete, it Canyon Dam last summer. His job dams and the people downstream in right at the elbow. will erode. The erosion can cascade now is to make-engineering sense out the floodplains. Not easy. But we That leaves them with nasty and multiply when grains dug our of last summer's near-disaster and to believe we succeeded as far as choices. If they reduce flow rhrough upstream become grinding, tearing propose design solutions that can be possible under the circumstances." the left spillway tunnel, the reservoir agents downstream, ripping out ever put into concrete before next spring What were those 'circumstances?' will continue to rise. If it rises until it larger chunks under the double push brings an equally high runoff. According to Bruce it' was an ever overtops the closed gare, it might jam of air pressure and water pressure. Working in a building at the mounting flow of water into Lake the gate shut and water will spill And beyond the man-made Denver Federal Center so functionally Powell that required the Bureau to uncontrollably over the gate into the concrete tunnels was something worse ugly it has to have been designed by balance. off imponderables. The runnel. If there is too much water even -- soft Jurassic Navajo sandstone. engineers, Bruce cultivates a beard, a chronology that follows draws on his for the spillway tunnel, the reservoir composed of quartz grains and a lirtle sense of humor, and a respect for the account of the summer and on Bureau will continue to rise and might overtop feldspar. Ir is borh moderately porous power of the Colorado River. documents. the dam, washing our the powerplant and highly absorptive. Nor the best at its base. June 2, 1983. This day can be bedrock to hold back millions of tons of W~en you call Bruce's office, a taken as the start of the crisis. The To the engineers on the scene, the water, as the Colorado has been voice answers, "Concrete Dams!" in a level of Lake Powell exceeds 3,696 feet maximum reservoir height seems to proving by vrnillenia of downcurting . [Onereminiscent of one of my father's" above sea level and Bureau officials be 3,700 feet -- the top of the radial But Glen Canyon was the best physical favorite sayings: "I like people and decide that powerplanr discharges gates. But higher authorities in the .site fOf a dam .. a site so narrow and technical problems, not necessarily in alone can . no longer control the Bureau overrule them just as the river wirh . walls so high thar Bureau that order. " ' reservoir rise. They raise the left is overruling the dam. Under orders, engineers had to put their spillways In addition to his cavitation work, spillway gates and dump an additional the engineers arrange for the through the rock because there was no Bruce has a long-term assignment. He 10,000 cubic feet per second (cfs). installation of four-foot-high sheets of room for them elsewhere. keeps track of the evolution, the Over the weekend, they increase the plywood, called flashboards, onto the Spillway damage is norhing new. Ir aging, of Glen Canyon Dam, which he spill to 20;000 cfs, tops of the radial gates. In effect, .eveD has a special name .. cavitation. talks about as if it were a living thing, un~ '1J'ain personnel hear the radial gates are now 56.5 feet Hoover Darn's- own tunnel spillways a moody critter that moves and J rumbling noises and see material 'high, and the reservoir can nse had experienced ir in 1941 arid changes, keeping time with the moves shooting out of the left spillway another {our feet without flowing over Monrana's Yellowtail Dam had and moods of the Colorado. mou th. Engineers fly out from the gates and into the spi1lway experienced a 1967 episode which In the course of the day 1 spent Denver. But before they arrive, the runnels. It buys time by creating a provided rhe dara for designs to with Bruce, I related to him some of dam manager has shut down the left surcharge pool in Lake Powell. correct the potential problem ar Glen the charges made by Bureau critics runnel and opened both .rhe right Along wirh the flashboard installa- Canyon. The correction was airslots concerning last summer's record spillway gates and the river outlet -tion order comes disturbing news from builr into the tunnel walls to bleed off spills. He replied, "Hell, we could works. The Deriver team ·boards a rhe National Weather Service: inflow rhe air trapped with rhe water and have just run 100,000 cubic feet per contraption called the cart, which is fore cas rs for Lake Powel1 are reduce pressure. second down the Grand Canyon u Tart-t LRT-8E4-V2

Dec. 12, I983--High Country News-I3

are discharging 17,000 cfs with no discharges from Glen Canyon pam be destruction, just betore the spillways Glen problem. But the reservoir continues immediately raised to 70,000 cfs to also self-destruct. You can't shut down the power to rise. protect the safety of the structure. It is Canyon... june 13. The National Weather imperative that discharges from system, and you dare not shut down Service ups its predictions by 500,000 Hoover Dam be raised to 40',000 cfs a the river outlet works. So you turn the dials regulating the left spillway not (Continued from page 12) _ acre-feet and the team thinks that its soon as possible .. If the extreme forecasts will always err on the low forecas t of the NWS becomes- down, but up -- up from the 25,000 efs rate that is already performing a accelerating. Other disturbing news side. They also realize that theycan't operational, the discharges from borh tonsillectomy on the left spillway, up comes from closer by. The team / totally shut down the spillway tunnels dams must be increased." to 32,000 cfs. Your other hand revs the descends into the 'dam itself, into its by lowering the radial gates. That The team, and the dam, is between right spillway (the one you are really hollow insides, the galleries, on the would put toO' much pressure -on the a rock and a hard .place. If the trail of the rumbling noises heard jury-rigged plywood flashboards atop increased flow of water begins to afraid to use) up, up from 10,000 to 15 ,000 cfs. Counting everything, your earlier. Since the left tunnel is the gates. But Bruce Moyes says there destroy the spillway tunnels, they will dials tell you the total discharge is temporarily down, the noise has was 'one comfort: have to shut the gates. Thai will knock ceased. .Bur it doesn't 'take- a 'close "The inherent stabiliry of the dam down the wooden flashboar..ds and 92,000 cfs. What the discharge really is you have no idea. There are no flow inspection pf the watery confusion in - and its abiliry to bridge 'openings in cause a tremendous, uncontrolled gauges down in the bedrock. the galleries to shew-that _the river' the foundation gave us confidence that surge of water into." the already While you play with the dials, outlet-works coupling's are leaking, no sudden" loss of reservoir was damaged spillways, possibly destroy- and that manhole covers throughout possible. But arw direct connection (of ing them. " maybe your inner video flips far up the channel of the Colorado, far upriver die darn show increasing signs. of the reservoir through the spillway As if to underscore this concern, where the waters of the apocalypse pressurization. Everywhere, like corks tunnels to the river downstream) could the left tunnel's discharge fails again, in _shaken champagne bottles, various lead to erosion of the sandstone and even 'at 2i,oOO ofs,' which should creep towards Rainbow Bridge, some eight feet higher than the previous systems are responding' to increasing the potential for -uncontrolled release sweep blockages away. And noise all-time high water mark. Maybe that pressure from the rising wall-of water into Lake Mead was a real concern." levels in die dam and spillways are -is where the environmentalists are on behind' the dam and the huge flows In other words, the dam could hold but· high. So the ream lowers -the left this day of doom, saying: "We told through tile dam. .rbe rimnels could give way. spillway to 10,000 cfs ' and increases you so!" Prophesying from Rainbow Meanwhile, on the ..225-mili: june 15. Discharge is up to 53 ,pOO the right to 15,000 cfs. Noise drops' Bridge, crying forth in loud voice to stretch of the Colorado that winds cfs, but the reservoir is still rising six and the left discharge becomes a the empty desert., to. the rising from Glen Canyon downstream to inches a day, Babying the crucial right smooth again. - reservoir: ..Make straight the way of , Lake Mead, Park Service helicopters tunnel, the team increases the left A June 23 memo answers the the Lord. Let the river flow." drop the news, about the increasing runnel by 7000 cfs, upto 12,000 cfs, question: Would overtopping of the Maybe such voices sou~ in your releases to .river runners: "Camp and the reservoir as a whole up to radial gates be serious. mind back in the control room, as you High! Be cautious!" . 60,000 cfs. 'The answer must be a qualified . increase the flow in the righr spillway The Bureau was takirig its-own june I6.-Someone figures that only yes ... expansion of the damaged area up to 27,000 cfs, and wait. Then you advice. on 'caution' as this report 200 feet of soft Jurass!c sandstone could affect the stability of the canyon hear it. Outside, the little two-cycle summarizing the early summer appre- separate the spillway tunnels' from walls. This is even more critical in the Briggs and Stratton lawnmower hensions shows: "The intial concern the dam abutments, right tunnel since its elbow is further engine labors on, shaving the upon the June 6 report was noises june 17-21. Anticipating lawsuits upstream" and therefore closer to the bluegrass down to putting green from the left tunnel was for the safety and Congressional investigations, the dam abutments. qualiry. Comforting, especially as you of the dam and its foundation. This team establishes a memo system to june 27. Heavy rains and high , realize you can hear it because the concern predominated throughout the document how decisions are being temperatures in the, upper Colorado terrible thundering and vibrating has spill' period." reached. That system comes quickly River Basin force the te-am to go from June 7. The team brings the into use when the left spillway the already high 70,000 cfs up to stopped. For now. Downstream from this sudden powerplantflows up to 28,000 cfs -- 20 discharge falters on June 18 and 80,000 cfs. But raising the spillway peace,. the new Colorado has turned percent over normal capacity. They disappears on June 19. "Ihey take a gates and actually getting the flow are deadly serious. Since normal flow is hold the river outlet works to 15,000 chance and lift the left radial gates two different things, The discharge cfs. That keeps water speed down to further, hoping more water will blast from the left spillway is very weak. 25,000 cfs, a release at 92,000 efs only ~Omiles per hour. And they hold out the obstruction. It works and the And there is booming and vibrating moves like a tidal wave through the Grand Canyon. Pontoon rafts forty the right spillway to 4000 cfs. They water discharge downstream of the throughout the galleries on the left feet long capsize at Crystal Rapids, want to keep it low because it occupies dam resumes. side of the dam. ~-\'"v ..Put' yourself in -the control-room providing some passe ng'ers -wirh a, d9:ng,erQu~_.,P.'~i¥,g~~~tf~am f~OIll.I - I... june-;: 2~2. Bureau Gommissioner eight-mile-long lifejacket rides the dam's foufldal10n. If the right Robert Broadbent and all the .big that June 27 morning, when you feel through seven other major rapids spillway tunnel broke through to Bureau chiefs, decide in Salt Lake Ciry frantic about the left spillway bedsock, it would threaten the dam's to go from the present 61,000 efs up to discharge, and you are under orders to before they reach shore. Though helicopters evacuate foundation. 70,000ds at Glen Canyon and to begin reduce the clam's noise and vibration around 150 people from the Canyon, They also get organized. They set spilling at Hoover. The team is told: before the turbines start to wobble on -- up twice daily inspections of both "We strongly recommend that their axes and spin themselves into (Continued on p age 14) spillway portals, of dam abutment leakage (warer flowing through joints where the dam meets 'the canyon), and a more technical evaluation of dam noises They' have been using: "Scares rhe hell out of me!" for serious sounds. From Bruce Moyes' account, you imagine the team members like men 10 battle, experiencing feelings of elation and camaraderie alternating with convic- tions of isolation and doom. Noah and Jonah jokes abound. June 8. The-left radial gates are fitted with their flashboards. Attention rums to the right' radial gates. Hydraulic computations give addi- tional reasons to baby the right . spillway. So long as 'the water erodes straight down, everything is safe. But damage patterns, the computations show, also like to spread out laterally, or horizonally. Since the right tunnel elbow is near the' dam, horizontal damage spreading .. out from the tunnels could threaten it. -'.,I~ A related worry is that damage to the concrete plug in the right tunnel could create a direct connection bem,een Lake Powell and the river via the old diversion monel.

June 9. Total discharge is at 48,000 cfs and the National Weather Service revises irs predictions upward. The team decides that the river· outlet- works couplings are going to hold. June 10-II. The right spillway radial gates have .their flash boards . Hoover Dam's Nevada Spiilway ran at feet above the spillway gates. What was every summer sinr::e 1941. This picture Total discharge'is held at 48,000 cfs. peak capar::ityt'his summer, overflowr'ng amazing, say Bureau' of Reclamation was taken by IE. Kinsley 'on July 22, •·..1. 1983. June 11-12, The river outlet works at 13,941-r::ubr'r::feet per ser::ondand 4.5 of/;"r::ials,is'that the sprtlway had been dry Lllllt R tw.nca target l

> 14-High Country News-Dec. 12, 1983

Glen much more damage than expected. In July 23. With the reservoir at providing me with access to Bill fact, the cart cannot proceed through 3707.8 feet above sea level, the Anderson and Bruce Moyes. Though C.nyon... the tangle of twisted steel and spillway gates on both sides are all of the Bureau publications and concrete. The water stilI in the tunnel slammed shut. The eight,foot.high .internal documents I have examined prevents an exact evaluation. But they steel flashboards hold. It is 8 A.M. for this article are accessible to the (Continued from page 13) know there's a: lot. Crews prepare for immediate descent public, I never would have been able Most disturbing, they find damage into the spillway tunnels to begin to sort out key materials without the dozens are hurt and one drowns. Also much higher in the tunnel than expect- planning repairs. help of Bureau personnel. I alone, dsowned out and scoured away is the ed: This suggests that rockfalls have Epilogue however, am responsible for the new (since 1963)riparian habitat made occurred in the tunnel due to interpretation given them. possible by Glen Canyon's once steady horizontal, or sideways, damage hen the spillway runnels releases. The Park Service is mad.- , ·0 towardthe dam. were finally completely River runners are mad. July 8. Today they ride the cart W dewarered in September, T.J. Wolf is a freelance writer If the unregulated Colorado was inspectors found considerable darn- into the now-closed right spillway. living in Fort Collins, Colorado. This someching that had to be controlIed age. article was made possible by the High with dams, what do you calI this? They find the damage on this side starts lower down than it did on the I wish to thank Chief Engineer Jim Country News Research Fund. June 29. Good news. Forecasts say left. So' they proceed down the' Brown of the Bureau for raking the Copyright 1983 by T.J. Wolf and flow into Lake Powell is peaking. So time to answer my questions and for H,gh Country News. the team drops the Glen Canyon slanting elbow of the tunnel into the discharge to 87,000 cfs. horizontal section. There they attempt July 2. With both spillway tunnels to launch a rubber boat over the small at 20,000 cfs, the right discharge lake filling an eroded portion of the Bureau downplays damage falters. It is upped to 24,000 cfs in an concrete. But they lose the boat to strange currents and decide it makes attempt to sweep it clean. Bur inside 'The U.S. Buteau of Reclamation' carry about 10 cubic yards of the dam, in a gallery, drainholes begin more sense to return to the surface. says it will cost $10 to $15 million to material. to bubble violently. Great sighs of air They have no desire to be swept out of repair the two Glen Canyon Dam The work requites the boring of and water surge from the drain holes the tunnel and into the river. Back at spillways damaged last spring. The 'runnels into the canyon walls to gain in the gallery nearest the right tunnel the surface they open the radial gates, Bureau expects the repairs to be access to the horizontal section of the .; the tunnel that comes closest to the sending a modest 5000 cfs down each completed by mid'; une, hopefully in spillways. Th; left spillway repair is to dam's foundation. The team cuts the spillway. time to handle peak spring runoffs. be completed by mid-April 1984 and right spillway to 15,000 cfs. The "Damage (to the left spillway) iu- The repaired spillways should be the less severely damaged right surges calm, but no one knows what dudes a massive hole into the sand- more resistant to the 120 mile per hour spillway by mid-june 1984. has happened. Until the plywood stone to about 36 feet below the tunnel flows. Air slots ate being installed to Clifford Barrett, the Upper flashboards are replaced with eight. invert. The ups t r earn-downstrearn reduce the likelihood of damage Colorado Regional Director, said that foor- high strong steel ones .. a job in length of this hole was about 150feet. caused by cavitation. . the extensive repair work necessary progress .. they don't dare shut the It extended laterally (horizonally) to Most of the damage was suffered I .didn't mean the dam had been in radial gates. And until they shut the about 15 feet beyond the full runnel by the left spillway. About 1000 cubic serious trouble. gates, they can't go into the runnels width. " yards of debris .. concrete, steel and "Despite the damage, which first and inspecr the damage. In the-right spillway tunnel, a large bedrock torn out of the spillways and had been observed early in June, July 4. Holiday visitors to the dam hole extended ten feet horizonally be- rhe canyon walls .. will first have to be neither the dam nor the spillways were can watch the construction company yond the full runnel width, according removed ..Large amounts of water will in danger of failing. And while there working around the clock to install rhe to a report. also have to be pumped out of the was serious damage to the spillway steel flashboards .. which will be July 15. The reservoir finally peaks holes. lining. it was confined to a small area stronger and four feet higher than rhe at 3708.4 .. some sixry feet above the The Bureau estimates that 4000 to and at no time would it have caused us plywood ones. spillway tunnel crest of 3648, and a 5000 cubic yards of concrete will be to shut down the spillways. Consider- July 6·7. Thesteel is in place and mere 7 feer below the crest of the dam needed just to fill the holes. An equal ing all rhe water that was spilled (4.4 the lefr runnel shut down. The team is itself. Discharges ca'; now be dropped amount will be needed to repair the million acre- feet, including the bypass swung into the tunnel over the radial- from 61,000 cfs to 51,000 cfs, where damaged concrete lining. For compar- tubes), it was remarkable how well the gates on the cart. There they find they remain. ison, a large construction truck can spillways performed." Ob! Weatherby (with apologies to Sir Walter Scott's Lochinvar)

Oh! Young Weatherby is come out of the West, To quote from HeN a verv short line. Here is his passion, it brings out his best. There are lands in Alaska less sullied, you, bet, And save his good backpack, he gadgets has none, That will gladly be home to this hiker and ferret. , .;'> He hikes all alone and he kayaks for fun. But when told of danger to a Wilderness free, So the hearing boss said yes, BLM unwound, He determined to fight, did Young Weathetby. And }'oung Weatherby took the podium with a bound. . He stayed not for Watt, he stopped not for "..~ So stately his form, and so steady his pace, Reagan, ~ That never a heating such a gallant did grace. He swam the Snake River where bridge there was /" The BLM fretted, the Forest Service scuffed, none. ;(/ "The firms sat dangling all their permits and stuff. But ere he alighted at BLM's gate, For the public whispered, '