Great Falls
Some time ago I started the Dams & Spillways group on Flickr. I have some fascination with dams. On the one hand they’re incredible feats of engineering, but on the other they destroy landscapes and bring crops to land that should never have been tilled, as well as growth which demands more and more water that simply doesn’t exist. I would normally pick on California in this space, or perhaps Las Vegas. Today I’ll pick on Montana, where…
…there was not a single quarter section on which a farmer could subsist, even with luck, without irrigation, because an unirrigated quarter section was enough land for about five cows. The Indians accepted things as they were; that is why they were mostly nomadic, wandering toward greener grass and fuller herds and flowing water. If whites were going to insist on living there — fixed, settled, mortgaged, fenced — the best they could do with the land was graze it. (Marc Reisner in Cadillac Desert, pp. 42-43)
But we’re not going to let a silly thing like lack of water stop us from settling that land!
Yesterday this photo was added to Dams & Spillways, and I think it’s a marvelous depiction of how effective dams are at ruining the natural land. This is Ryan Dam, named for the president and founder of the Montana Power Company. It’s as if their engineers said, “What’s the most interesting natural feature of this river that we can destroy? Oh — there’s an interesting waterfall at this point. Let’s build it right above the waterfall!” Brilliant.
According to the City of Great Falls, Montana, Ryan Dam is not alone. There are a total of five dams on the Missouri River in Cascade County. You can scroll to several of them with a great deal of ease in Google Maps (link) But…
Not all of the falls have dams on them. Colter Falls were just up river from Rainbow, but that cascade is no longer visible. Colter Falls are in the pool of water behind Rainbow Dam. Crooked Falls is the only visible falls in the Missouri/Mississippi River system that does not have a dam sitting on top of it. Neither Morony Dam nor Cochran Dam sits on a falls at all. (link)
Well, I guess one unmolested waterfall is better than none.
Okay, I’m done complaining about dams for the time being.