June 17, 2003
Water, Water Everywhere? ... Let's take five with Moira Gunn. This is "Five Minutes".
People who visit San Francisco always say they love it. They love the views. They love the food. They even love the water - as well they should, because right out of their tap comes pure Sierra snowmelt.
That's right. Snow falls in the High Sierra along the very eastern border of California, and then it melts into a huge mountain lake created by O'Shaughnessy dam. The water then flows via aqueduct across the vast central valley of California until it finally comes out the nozzle of a sprinkler watering a lawn a hundred steps from the Pacific Ocean.
It's a lot of technology, and it's a long way for water to travel. But when the city built the dam, it received a giant "two-fer," as in two-for-the-price-of-one. It could also be used to generate power, and selling water and power in California has always proved a lucrative proposition.
Imagine the mindset of San Francisco in the years after the devastating earthquake and fire of 1906. Building a dam in a far-off place, accessible only by horseback and foot, would seem like a jolly idea.
Of course, that was a century ago.
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Today, when you visit the Sierra, it's not uncommon to see old black and white photos of this beautiful valley, before the dam was built. Whenever I come upon them, I always catch myself: "Isn't that Yosemite Valley? But where's Half-Dome?" And then I realize that this is a sister valley.
Yes, it was that beautiful. And it still is. Only it's buried under water.
I came to think of it recently as another dam is coming into operation. It's the giant Three Gorges Dam in China, meant to tame the mighty Yangtze, avert the carnage caused by flooding, and bring stability to the harvests. After decades of construction, its floodgates have finally been closed, and the dam begins its work.
As you might imagine, this feat is not without loss.
As the water rises, the natural beauty of the Three Gorges recedes, just as damming Yosemite Valley would risk the majesty of El Capitan. But there is more. You see, this is not a remote wilderness project.
Ultimately, over one million people will be relocated, their family heritage lost. Ancient archaeological sites are being inundated. And there is the ambitious plan for commerce.
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Ocean-going vessels will eventually make their way to the inland port of Chongqing, hundreds of miles away, while the anticipated boom has already spawned high rises, industrial waste and sewage. The lake created by the dam has suffered unexpected increases in E. coli bacteria; its water undrinkable. New water treatment plants are forthcoming, air pollution is advancing, and one wonders where it all will stop.
The truth is the vision of the Three Gorges Dam has been around for decades, even lauded by Mao Zedong himself. And perhaps that gives us a clue.
Dams of this nature are a twentieth century invention. They were a celebration of man's ability to engineer, to bend nature to his will, to harness the forces of the planet. We had finally perfected the technology to build them, just as we were ready to gulp down the electrical energy they could generate. But the hubris of technology is also a matter of historical fact.
I understand full well what we called "progress" in the 20th century. I'm just pondering what we'll call "progress" in the 21st.
I'm Moira Gunn. This is Five Minutes.
