AN ASSESSMENT OF A HISTORIAN'S RESEARCH ON
THE FIGHT TO KEEP THE GRAND CANYON FREE OF DAMS
THE FIGHT TO KEEP THE GRAND CANYON FREE OF DAMS
To start his 2019 book on the Grand Canyon dams fight of the 1960s*, Byron Pearson describes interviewing David Brower in July 1997. Their only personal encounter, Pearson offers (p.xi) "graciously received", "patiently answered", "in frail health" (he died aged 88 on 5 November 2000), as descriptors of Brower to set the mood. During that interview, Brower suggested that Pearson might want to interview me**. He did so in March 1998.
At that interview, we discussed the 1966-8 political history as I remembered it of how this nation, acting through Congress, decided to keep the Grand Canyon free of any more dams. Pearson told me that he and his completed doctoral dissertation were fully committed to his idea that the Canyon was saved, not by "the massive public outcry" generated by the Sierra Club (led at that time by its Executive Director David Brower) and other environmental organizations, but because of the unyielding and insurmountable opposition of a key Senator, Henry Jackson of Washington.
I remember Pearson as somewhat surprised, even nonplussed, to learn from me that not only had advocates for the Canyon recognized Jackson's crucial role, but as a consequence of his overall conservationist stance, he and we worked extremely closely with his office and other key Northwesterners during this intense period of legislative struggles over the dams and other what are now called environmental issues.*** I think I would have tried to convey how important to me personally this sub rosa alliance was in our efforts. He expressed regret (I think it was regret) that he had already completed his writing and could not adjust his views.
