CHAPTER 9
FLAMING GORGE DAM AND RESERVOIR Like most battles over the environment, there were no winners or losers, only bargainers. In order to save Echo Park and, by extension, the national park system, another canyon had to be sacrificed . . . the only loss in the case of the Flaming Gorge Dam, it seemed, was to a few ranchers, farmers, and sheepmen. —ROY WEBB
-T laming Gorge Dam redefined life in Daggett County. To some it is an engineering miracle that transformed a remote corner of the West into a national playground. Others m o u r n the loss of the freeflowing Green River and its beautiful canyons, and a few still bristle over the federal taking of homes and ranches. For good or ill, this massive project has changed the landscape, economy, and way of life in the three-corners area. Its story is a complex tale of power politics, the national parks, and America's growing preservation movement. If any number of things had happened differently, the dam might never have been built. Flaming Gorge Dam, like most of the great western water projects, traces its origins to the Newlands Reclamation Act of 1902. 189
