Unsettling Histories of Glen Canyon Dam

This talk will explore the ways that settler colonialism transformed the Colorado Plateau, dispossessed the region’s Indigenous peoples of their land and water, and laid a foundation of “magical thinking” that has only exacerbated the existing drought. As the water in Glen Canyon Dam’s reservoir, Lake Powell, threatens to reach “dead pool” status, the region must grapple with a future where water is increasingly scarce. We cannot begin to find new ways of thinking about and managing the West’s water supply, without reckoning with the inequities of the past.