Killing the Grand Canyon

Turn on the news any day, and you can take your pick of gloom and doom stories about humans bringing about the end of the world – stories about Global Warming (now called “Climate Change” to accommodate the cooler temperatures being recorded in a lot of places) or the disappearing Honey Bee population, or how Genetically Modified Crops are turning us all into something less than human.  All of these stories began with some small grain of truth but jump to conclusions that are often suspect at best.  Of course, if there weren’t dire consequences to predict, it wouldn’t be news.

The latest in this line of stories predicts the demise of the Grand Canyon.  The erosion that shaped the canyon has been going on for at least six million years, but now Park officials and environmentalists fear that delicate balance, already stressed by the Glen Canyon Dam, might be destroyed forever by development.

Two proposed projects in the area are seen as potential disasters. 

One is a development in the Kaibab National Forest that amounts to a small city, backed by Italian investors.  After 20 years of wrangling over water rights, the developers have now pulled a legal end-around – they incorporated and filled the city offices with employees.  As an incorporated city, they now have legal access to the water in the aquifer on the north rim of the canyon.  That already limited aquifer is the only source of water at the park on the south rim (it’s a little-known fact that there is a pipeline from the north rim to the south) and the water demands of the proposed development could force the closing of the park.

The other project is a proposed Gondola Ride on Navajo land at the eastern end of the canyon.  The Gondola would take tourists from the rim of the canyon to a restaurant on the bottom. 

That one may never get off the ground.  First, because the Navajo and the US disagree on who owns the land where the proposed restaurant would go – and, second, because (assuming the Navajo won the first) the tribal council would have to approve placing a tourist trap at the confluence of the Colorado and Little Colorado Rivers, a spot traditional Navajo consider sacred.

You can read more about this story HERE.

The worst fears expressed in this story may be overblown. 

Neither project might actually reach fruition. 

But – if you’ve never seen the Grand Canyon, now would be a good time to go.