Hydropower Roads

[adam921]

Sorry rlown, that came in as I was writing the other response.
The paper is just a research paper, and there's no "goal"; that would ruin the point of a research paper.

I guess I'm not clear on what you meant by "i'm not seeing it as the roads had to be built to do the work. " ?

[rlown]

well.. there were 2000' of pretty vertical penstock put in there that needed to be done from the top of the mountain. That required a road. and then even a railroad.

Then there's the hydropower stations.. they required roads. The crane was the longest ever carried on the main road. The transformer was the heaviest load ever carried on that road.

[adam921]

Maybe you're misinterpreting my question? I know the the roads had to be built to build the dams- what I'm trying to get at is whether you think the wilderness is better off because of the roads. Is the people traffic a good thing or bad thing? (in terms of the environment)

[rlown]

Maybe you're misinterpreting my question? I know the the roads had to be built to build the dams- what I'm trying to get at is whether you think the wilderness is better off because of the roads. Is the people traffic a good thing or bad thing? (in terms of the environment)

It's good if they know how to use it correctly.

[adam921]

Definitely, but would you say most people do?

[rlown]

Is this an interview? most do. Some do their own thing. Can't control that; that's why we have laws and rules.

Read the book!

[adam921]

You don't have to answer questions if you don't want to. All I'm trying to do is to get some perspective here.

As far as I can tell the book is history. That's helpful, but not for this question specifically.

[rlown]

Hi guys, back to stir up trouble again (just kidding, hopefully not).
I'm doing a research paper on the Big Creek hydro system. For anyone not familiar, that's the system with the road over Kaiser Pass and the dams making Florence, Edison, Shaver, and Huntington Lakes (and more).
At this point i'm fairly certain that the roads would not have existed without the system; a local forester said the timber value just wouldn't be worth the hassle.

That leaves this final question; are the wilderness areas worse or better off because of the roads up there? For the sake of argument, let's assume the road would end at Huntington Lake, and everything beyond that somehow became wilderness.

You first need to define wilderness. Hetch Hetchy redefined wilderness. so does highway 120 for me. If you give people access, they will use it.

It'd be more interesting to look at the option of taking the access away.

[adam921]

I'm just talking about Wilderness Act wilderness. Going into our own definitions would be a really controversial thing I'm sure

[rlown]

so.. define that for us..