Ben Knight's Damnation

1084 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Essays on protecting endangered species

The narrator of DamNation, Ben Knight, said it was sad how little he knew about dams when he started this film, but I think it’s sad how little everyone knows about them. “Dams and hydropower represent a pivotal time in US history, but just like any other research development in the US we took it too far,” said Ben Knight. In 1889, one of America’s worst disasters in history happened; Pennsylvania’s South Fork Dam failed without any warning. “A Roar Like Thunder” explained how Johnstown was leveled taking 2200 lives. The only thing slightly comical about this was that they called it a natural disaster, but there is nothing natural about creating a wall to stop the flow of a river. In 1902, the promotion of the West began to take over the United …show more content…

Dams continued to take over our nation’s rivers. After seven years of protests from environmental activists, I found on Wikipedia that Congress still gave the go ahead to flood Yosemite’s National Park in 1913. Then during the great depression, America started its two biggest projects, The Hoover Dam and The Grand Coulee Dam. According to John Harrison in “Grand Coulee Dam: History and Purpose”, both these dams created thousands of jobs and were thought of as national treasures. World War II created a huge demand for hydropower for building plans, ships, and bombs I found out from the article “History of Hydropower Development”. If it flowed it was dammed. At one point half of America was being powered by hydropower. Our country was becoming more and more dependent on electricity and technology struggled to keep up. Finally president Nixon passed the endangered species act. The Endangered Species Act Overview explains that this act protects animals that are affected by economic development. If any dam is at fault for endangering a species they are accountable by …show more content…

Yet, there is no such thing as “clean hydro power,” with the exception of very small-scale hydropower dams at the individual or neighborhood level. Hydro powered dams can cause major fluctuations in downstream flows, and even dewater the stream channel, leading to direct death of fish and other species. The main effects of a dam on a river is that it disrupts flows, lowers water quality, blocks the movement of rivers vital nutrients and sediment, destroys fish and wildlife habitat, and eliminates recreational opportunities. Reservoirs slow and broaden rivers, making them warmer, reducing water quality, and harboring destructive nonnative species that scatter throughout the watershed and prey on and compete with native wildlife. The environmental, economic, and social impacts of a dam and reservoir may run the entire length of the river from the highest mountain peaks that feed the headwaters to the river’s outlet at the ocean according to

Show More
Related

  • How Did The Hoover Dam Affect The Three Gorges Dam

    367 Words  | 1 Pages

    The one feature common to the Hoover Dam, The Mississippi river and the three gorges dam is that they all tried to control nature’s swings, specifically in the form of flooding. Before the Hoover dam was built, the Colorado river “used to flood spectacularly…but after 1900 the Colorado provoked a vehement response” (Pg 177). The response was simple, but large. The U.S. built several large dams, including the Hoover dam, on the Colorado to decrease its flooding and increase power and irrigation. Unfortunately, just as human control of the Colorado’s flooding increased, its organisms and habitats were detrimentally influenced, and the water became more and more salinated.

    Read More

  • Dorothy Case: A True Healthcare Professional

    1916 Words  | 4 Pages

    The South Fork Dam collapsed and unleashed 20 million tons of water from its reservoir. A wall of water, reaching up to 70 feet high, swept 14 miles down the Little Conemaugh River Valley, carrying away steel mills, houses, livestock and people. At 4:07 p.m., the floodwaters rushed into the industrial city of Johnstown, crushing houses and downtown businesses in a whirlpool that lasted 10 minutes. (New York Times, 1889).

    Read More

  • It's Time to Drain Lake Powell

    863 Words  | 2 Pages

    The negative aspects of Glen Canyon Dam greatly exceed the positive aspects. The dam’s hydroelectric power supply is only three percent of the total power used by the six states that are served by the facility. There is a surplus of power on the Colorado Plateau and with more and more power-plants being created in the western hemisphere, Glen Canyon Dam’s power is not needed (Living Rivers: What about the hydroelectric loss). Although the ‘lake’ contains twenty seven million acre feet of water, one and a half million acre feet of water are lost yearly due to evaporation and seepage into the sandstone banks surrounding the ‘lake’ (Living Rivers: What about the water supply?). The loss of that much “water represents millions, even billions of dollars” (Farmer 183). If the government were to employ more water efficient irrigation practices, as much as five million acre feet of water per year could be saved.

    Read More

  • Grand Coulee Dam

    789 Words  | 2 Pages

    Grand Coulee Dam is a hydroelectric gravity dam on the Columbia River in Washington State, built by industrialist Henry J. Kaiser It is among the most famous dams in the United States. The reservoir it created is called the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Lake. The reservoir is named after the United States President who seemed to love dams and hydroelectric power and who was involved with the project through to the final completion of the dam. The dam was built as part of the Columbia Basin Project as a way to irrigate the desert areas of the Northwest United States. The dam started during the 1930s as a public works project and finished toward the beginning of World War Two. The initial construction plan was reconfigured during construction for more height. Its height was determined by the point at which the water from the reservoir began backing up into Canada. The scope and size of the dam is hard to comprehend. It is over a mile long and taller than the Great Pyramid of Giza, in fact, all the pyramids at Giza can fit within the base of the Grand Coulee Dam. The dam is so large that a truck at the base looks like a toy, this creates some perspective into the dam's true size. When the dam was completed in the early 1940s it was the largest dam in the world.

    Read More

  • A Knight Has Cracked the Code

    722 Words  | 2 Pages

    In life we have many choices. Some choices may be more difficult than others. At times as human beings we make the wrong choice, but also there’s times when our choice is the correct or the better one. Talking about choices the choices we make can affect our entire life overall or can just affect a small aspect of our life. Of course, with choices there are also consequences behind the choice if the wrong decision is made. This can sometimes re-shape our entire life and flip it upside down. Sometimes these consequences can be harsh punishments such as serving jail time for example. Through these consequences no matter how difficult they may be to overcome a lesson can almost always be taught. In The Wife of Bath’s Tale by Geoffrey Chaucer a Knight who has raped a woman and now will suffer consequences such as death. He escapes these consequences with the order of the queen to find out what most women want in life of course, The Knight thinks he’s off the hook yet some may argue that his punishment has just begun. The Knight committed a terrible crime by raping a woman and he did not receive punishment he deserved by what happened in the end of the story, the choice he had was very interesting and the Knight understands the nature of women.

    Read More

  • The Construction of Wivenhoe Dam

    3513 Words  | 8 Pages

    Based on the events that lead to the devastating floods in Queensland and the eventual case that was brought against the engineers of the dam, there have been views from both sides of the divide as to whether or not the actions taken by the engineers were actually ethical or otherwise. We have explored this avenue and have found that both sides of the divide have good reasons to justify their actions. Firstly, we shall explore the avenue that the engineers decisions were appropriate and ethical. It can be said that the engineers did employ act utilitarianism in their decisions and actions, hence causing these decisions to be ethically correct. Act utilitarianism is essentially doing the right thing, which would benefit the majority of people, based on the situation that is currently taking place. One of the reasons that explains why the actions taken could be considered as ethically fine, was that if the dam was not opened, there would have been no other way to solve the increasing water levels in the dam. If no action was taken, there could have been seriously devastating effects, like the dam wall eroding due to water spilling over the dam wall, thus weakening the structure, or a loss of water flow control. Professor Hubert Chanson, a professor in hydraulic engineering in the University of Queensland, mentioned that the Wivenhoe Dam was actually designed as an embankment dam, hence it should not be overtopped, that is water should not be allowed to flow over the limits of the dam (Andersen 2011). Despite there being a secondary spillway, however it is recommended that spillway is not put to use, as the use of that spillway would mean that there would be a surge of water leaving the dam, and a loss of control of the water flow, w...

    Read More

  • The Johnstown Flood

    824 Words  | 2 Pages

    Dams made from dirt are very weak and the South Fork dam was built entirely with dirt. From an engineering standpoint dams made with dirt needed to be built ...

    Read More

  • The Damnation Of A Canyon by Edward Abbey

    923 Words  | 2 Pages

    Beyond all of Abbey's personal feelings and emotional memories, let us not forget about what these dams and reservoirs are providing us with-power. Electricity is extremely important to everyone. It is the reason for seemingly everything people consider vital to their lives; cars, computers, TV, running water through the faucet, everything. It is not something we can just forget about because of an author's emotional attachment to a certain strip of land sacrificed to make thousands of other people happy sitting safe in their home with electricity.

    Read More

  • Johnstown Flood

    1184 Words  | 3 Pages

    The state offered to sell the canal, the railroad company bought it for the right of ways yet had no need to maintain the dam, which due to neglect, broke for the first time in 1862. McCullough stresses that man was responsible for the dam and its weaknesses nearly thirty years before the great flood as he explains how the initial repair work was carried out by unqualified people and how the discharge pipes were blocked up.... ... middle of paper ... ... McCullough makes a firm argument for the responsibility of man, and asserts the blame on the necessary people, therefore I feel he makes a fair and accurate assertion which I would agree with.

    Read More

  • The Nile River-Egypt

    1175 Words  | 3 Pages

    Pottinger, Lori. "Environmental Impacts of Large Dams: African Examples." International Rivers. N.p., 1 Oct. 1996. Web. 04 May 2014.

    Read More

  • Hydropower

    1514 Words  | 4 Pages

    Hydropower, the use of water to power machinery or produce electricity, provides the most renewable energy in the United States, and uses alternating current in most modern plants ("Hydropower…”). Hydropower relies on the water cycle and is a clean fuel source; it doesn’t pollute the environment like plants that burn fossil fuels. It is by far the most efficient way to generate electricity, being half the cost of using nuclear power, two-fifths the cost of using fossil fuels, and a quarter the cost of using natural gas ("Wind and Water…”). Also, hydropower is not subject to market fluctuations of embargos, and the average lifespan of a facility is 100 years. Hydropower also has many non-energy benefits such as water supply, flood control, navigation, irrigation, and recreation. However, it does face many environmental challenges such as impacts to aquatic habitats, aesthetic alterations of landscapes, changes to water quality, and interruptions of marine life ("Hydropower…”).

    Read More

  • Dams

    1223 Words  | 3 Pages

    The paragraphs below will prove that the construction and presence of dams always has and will continue to leave devastating effects on the environment around them. Firstly, to understand the thesis people must know what dams are. A dam is a barrier built across a water course to hold back or control water flow. Dams are classified as either storage, diversion or detention. As you could probably notice from it's name, storage dams are created to collect or hold water for periods of time when there is a surplus supply.

    Read More

  • Renewable and Non Renewable Energy

    672 Words  | 2 Pages

    Hydroelectric Power Plant is when electricity is generated when water in an uphill reservoir flows downhill. The gravitational potential energy of the water changes to kinetic energy of the flowing water which drives the turbines to generate electricity. The efficiency is more than 90%. The environmental impact is Floods large area and affects the ecology of the area, May cause drought downstream if not managed properly, does not cause ai...

    Read More

  • Hydroelectricity Essay

    2396 Words  | 5 Pages

    Hydroelectric power seizes the buoyancy released from descending water. Two thousand years ago, Ancient Greeks utilized wooden water wheels to convert kinetic energy into mechanical energy because that’s all they had back then. However, in 1882, the first hydroelectric power plant was constructed in the United States using a fast flowing river. During that time, humans began to build dams to reserve water at the most suitable places or areas in order to best apply the power capacity. Engineering and structural changes have been increased in designing a more efficient hydroelectric power plant, but in order for that to happen they had to go through a very difficult process which can cause much conflict. (http://www.ems.psu.edu/~elsworth/courses/cause2003/finalprojects/vikingpaper.pdf)

    Read More

  • Renewable Energy Essay

    1034 Words  | 3 Pages

    Third of all, the water that falls in the dam can also generate electricity. For instance, 19% of world electricity comes from water. Regardless of the fact that hydroelectric power has low maintenance costs and does not pollute the environment, it can cause earthquakes, and destroy wild rivers. Only 0.3% of world energy comes from Earth.

    Read More

More about Ben Knight's Damnation

Open Document