We found our way to the park that inhabits the largest Earthen Dam in the United States: the Oroville Dam. I'm not certain about the wisdom of having earthen dams in a earthquake prone area. I'm even more skeptical about the practice of even having dams in the Sacramento watershed. The sign below documents that 34 workers died while constructing this dam. This was in the 1960's, which seems like an inordinately high number of workers to perish:
And here is a photo of the dam in all its ugliness:
This dam is huge. Ugly, like most dams. The water insures that veggies, nuts and rice are trucked through out the United States (and, indeed, the whole world). It also helps to ensure that California's numbers of people continues to climb. The whole watershed suffers because of this dam. Might it be better to let our rivers run free? Might it be better to use our frontal lobes, rather than our gonads, to manage our numbers to live within a better, more natural carrying capacity of people living in California? If you build it, the Salmon suffer (the Sacramento river salmon are nearly extinct) and more people are able to continue their human and inhuman endeavors.
2 comments:
At some point our planet will cry "Enough! Get rid of these pestilent people." I think it's already happening. Unfortunately, the innocent suffer too.
Love your new header photo: Pedestrians Only. There's an article ion the front page of today's NY Times about an experimental community near Freiberg, Germany, that doesn't allow cars or parking on its streets and is built with all services at walkable distances and with easy access to public transportation. Maybe there's hope for the world after all.
Hey Woods,
Glad you caught the irony of the photo...good catch!
Is there hope? Don't know. Doesn't mean we don't continue to struggle, incite, protest, visualize, complain, lead, agitate, demonstrate and resonate. You never know when the 100th monkey will come along...Maybe it is you? Or me? Or whoever is reading these words right now...
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