It is ironic that he seems to miss the larger context in which the McPhee Dam exists: being in the arid American West, where farming with reckless irrigation projects is both unsustainable and damaging to the downstream ecosystem. On the way from its headwaters to its confluence with the Colorado River, the Dolores River flows through amazingly beautiful and intimate canyons for 230 miles. There are gorges filled with ponderosa pine trees, untouched Native American ruins, red sandstone cliffs towering a thousand feet over the river and a rich riparian ecosystem that requires nourishing river flows.

Thanks to McPhee’s “fill and spill” policy, there has not been a spring release for the past three seasons, and the flow for much of the year is a mere trickle below 20 cubic feet per second. This is the kind of environmental disaster that none of us who love wild places should tolerate.

The river desperately needs this spring surge of water to flush out sediment, sustain native fishes, nourish its graceful willows and provide water in which river otters can frolic. The Dolores Water Conservation District defends the economic benefit of the dam with little regard for the devastation wrought on the river below. If the last few years and the water district’s unapologetic stance are indicative of the future, it seems that only state or federal protection will save this precious river from the damage it is experiencing. I encourage Preston to open up the gates on the dam and allow a boater to row him through the wild and beautiful canyons of the Dolores so he can develop an appreciation for the ecosystem that he and the McPhee Dam are strangling.

Karl Kamm

Silverton