canyon cleansing?

the US Bureau of Reclamation is flushing out the grand canyon today. it's an attempt to rewind devestating environmental changes, the results of damming the river back in the 1960s. in 1971, a lone civil engineer warned that the dam would have drastic effects..."but no one listened."

so we've altered the results of 17 million years of natural history, and now we're fix the damage done by re-manipulating the river through a process called adaptive management, which involves annual flush outs like this. hmmm... a curious (and controversial) solution.

just this week i saw a sneak preview of grand canyon: river at risk (woohoo, 3d imax!), which explores the canyon and all these water issues. worth checking out.


[photo from cobalt123]