"That is all it would take, that democratic groundswell, to insure that Dinosaur and the other superlative places will be passed on, unimpaired, to our grandchildren's grandchildren." - Alfred A. Knopf (from This Is Dinosaur, 1956)
As a result of the Echo Park Dam Controversy, today Dinosaur NM was saved from flooding. Geological features, plant life, prehistoric sites, potential future fossil finds, and natural beauty would all have been submerged under a reservoir. The free-flowing rivers in Dinosaur NM would not exist.
While there is no dam in Dinosaur NM today, river patterns and wildlife have been altered due to the construction of Flaming George Dam upriver. Fish populations have been altered, leaving certain species on the brink of extinction. Other species have had to adapt to the new water temperatures and sediments amounts.
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"I really appreciate that I am floating the same river and seeing the canyons in about the same way as say, John Wesley Powell saw it back in the 1860's."
- NPS Ranger Tiffany Small, 2017