What is 186 miles long, has 1,960 miles of shoreline, can store 27 million acre-feet of water, has nearly 3 million visitors each year, 400 million in annual revenues and has over five million cubic yards of concrete or enough to build a four-lane highway stretching from Phoenix, Arizona to Chicago, Illinois? It is none other than beautiful Lake Powell located in Northern Arizona adjacent to the Glen Canyon Dam. The Sierra Club and the Glen Canyon Institute which are both located in California and Arizona respectively have created a combined initiative to drain Lake Powell in a foolish and vain attempt to restore Glen Canyon to what it used to be. The Glen Canyon Institute states that it is "Dedicated to restoring a free-flowing Colorado River through Glen Canyon and the Grand Canyon". My speech is on why we not only shouldn't drain Lake Powell, but how draining it will affect many people in many states economically as well as financially. GCI and The Sierra Club, who are the driving forces behind the idea of draining, would have us believe that Lake Powell is not necessary and "counterproductive" to the uses it was intended for. This idea is twin sister to the dream that Glen Canyon can be restored to the way it was before Lake Powell was filled. The land beneath the lake is full of sand and sediment and will not return to its former state. There is too much that relies on it in its current state and future generations will rely on the benefits Lake Powell and the Glen Canyon Dam provide for years to come. I would like to cover some of the main reasons why draining Lake Powell is the wrong answer.
The first and most important reason is the revenue that it brings in for the Navajo and Hopi Indian Nations as well as many people in Northern Arizona. Every year, 3 million visitors come to take in the opportunities for recreation that this beautiful federally managed land provides.
