Customer Reviews

Echo Park (Colorado): Struggle for Preservation

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The battle to stop the proposed Echo Park Dam in Dinosaur National Monument is part of the essential lore of the environmental movement. Though the basic facts are familiar to many of us, it's good to have a book-length treatment of the story. Fortunately, Cosco made the decision to tell the story very briefly, in about 120 pages. As a result, it's a good, fast read that covers all the key points in this story.

Cosco concludes with an evaluation of the costs - - the environmentalists accepted other dams in the overall Upper Colorado project in exchange for getting Echo Park (and Split Mountain) removed from consideration. This compromise meant acquiescing in the Glen Canyon Dam, which destroyed a beautiful canyon and continues to harm the Grand Canyon downstream, and the Flaming Gorge Dam, which has damaged the Green River in Dinosaur. On the other hand, rejecting any compromise would probably have failed to stop any dams at all. That's always a central issue for the environmental movement, and this book does very well to end with it.