Dams: A pro-dam view from Emery County
I grew up in rural Utah in the small town of Elmo. Elmo is part of spacious Emery County. This area is a desert and water is non existant during the heat of the summer except for the use of irrigation water that flows from the many reservoirs in the region.
When Emery County was settled many of the establishments didn't last due to a lack of water. Being a poor county comprised of coal miners and farmers without much water they couldn't pay for their own dams. A project to build several dams was authorized as a participating project of the Colorado River Storage Project by the Colorado River Storage Project Act of April 11, 1956. The users weren't forced to eat all of the costs of the construction signing a contract to only repay 3 million of the 8 million dollars used to construct the project.
Certainly environmental changes have occurred since the construction of the dam but I believe the economic benefits that have come to the county as a result of these reservoirs far outways any environmental impacts.
For example, since the building of the dams 2 coal powered power plants were built in the region that utilize water year round from these reservoirs. These plants provide electricity to a large part of the western U.S..
Farming has prospered and the area has survived. Without the dams the county would be one large sandbox and the population would be even closer to zero.
posted by Kent @ 1:33 PM
2 Comments:
Kent, why is it valuable to keep people in Emery County? Would the power plants have not been built at all or would they have gone somewhere else? In terms of total social value why do we care if they are in Emery County?
I don't believe that it is important to have Emery County populated. It isn't a place that I am planning on returning to live. To those who live outside of Emery County the building of the dams doesn't effect us much. But to the locals it means that they can continue their farming and way of life. As far as any major social or industrial benefits of having people in the area - I can't think of any except for running the power plants. The observation that I made is that due to the construction of dams power plants were brought into the area. These power plants are steam powered by heating water by burning coal. Without the dams and the year round water supply they would have built somewhere else.
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