The International Harvester Company in cooperation with the United States Department of the Interior Bureau of Reclamation presents “A Bridge to the Future,” the story of the construction of the Glen Canyon Dam, a concrete arch-gravity dam (mark 03:00) near the town of Page, Arizona. The 710-foot high dam was built from 1956 to 1966 and forms Lake Powell, one of the largest man-made reservoirs in the United States. Although the film begins with the 1959 opening of a bridge over Glen Canyon in Northern Arizona — one constructed on ancestral Navajo Indian land — a spectacular steel arch spanning the Colorado River “like a gleaming cathedral in the wilderness” (mark 02:18), the bridge was just part of a larger project. Respected NBC newscaster Chet Huntley serves as narrator, and he explains that the story of “winning America’s West” is essentially a tale of its dams. Without dams, he explains, water would never have found its way to the parched earth. The dam is the product of more than 35 years of planning by engineers, he explains at mark 04:45, with the camera zooming to a three-dimensional scale model at mark 05:26 and a discussion of the dam’s construction. The remote location presented a variety of problems, Huntley explains, first requiring the construction of a simple footbridge (mark 07:50). As the film continues, Huntley continues to explain the challenges and how they were overcome. Trucks are shown hauling away tons of rock blown from the canyon walls (mark 13:25), a process that took nearly two years. A tunnel constructed to relocate the path of the Colorado River nears completion in 1959, as is shown at mark 16:02. With a temporary dam in place (mark 21:50), the town of Page, which sprung up as a housing community for workers and their families during the construction, continued to grow as the film shows an aerial view of the community at mark 22:00 before visiting the town swimming pool, grade school, churches, and hospital. At mark 24:05 we see the first bucket of concrete for the dam deposited during a ceremony on June 17, 1960, and workers prepare to construct the dam itself.
Glen Canyon Dam is a concrete arch-gravity dam on the Colorado River in northern Arizona, United States, near the town of Page. The 710-foot (220 m) high dam was built by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) from 1956 to 1966 and forms Lake Powell, one of the largest man-made reservoirs in the U.S. with a capacity of 27 million acre feet (33 km3). The dam is named for Glen Canyon, a series of deep sandstone gorges now flooded by the reservoir; Lake Powell is named for John Wesley Powell, who in 1869 led the first expedition to traverse the Colorado’s Grand Canyon by boat.
During years of drought, Glen Canyon guarantees a water delivery to the Lower Basin states, without the need for rationing in the Upper Basin. In wet years, it captures extra runoff for future use. The dam is also a major source of hydroelectricity, averaging over 4 billion kilowatt hours per year. The long and winding Lake Powell, known for its scenic beauty and recreational opportunities including houseboating, fishing and water-skiing, attracts millions of tourists each year to the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area.
In addition to its flooding of the scenic Glen Canyon, the dam’s economic justification was highly questioned; with what critics saw as unnecessary damage to the wilderness, it became “a catalyst for the modern environmental movement,” and was one of the last dams of its size to be built in the United States.The dam has been criticized for the huge evaporative losses from Lake Powell and its heavy impact on the ecology of the Grand Canyon, which lies downstream; environmental groups continue to advocate for the dam’s removal. Water managers and utilities state that the dam is a major source of renewable energy and provides a vital defense against severe droughts.
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