10 tHE AUS DIUSB COUN BEU. Lae erey 
RAMPART DAM PROJECT 
By Mrs. Darlene Fiske 
Conservationists across the continent are concerned about the proposed 
Rampart Canyon Dam and Reservoir Project. The dam would be located 
near the geographical center of Alaska on the Yukon River. It would be 
530 feet high and have a top length of 4,700 feet. The impoundment would 
be 280 miles long, with a maximum width of 80 miles. It would extend 
upstream on the Yukon River for 400 river miles and an additional 12,600 
of tributaries. The surface area of the reservoir would be 10,500 square 
miles. 
The preliminary estimate is that the project will cost over $1.4 billion. 
It would be built by U. S. Army Engineers primarily to generate electrical 
power (more than Grand Coulee and Hoover Dams combined). Advocates 
of the project feel that this will be needed for Alaskan industrial develop- 
ment. However, because it will take about 20 years to fill the huge re- 
servoir after the dam is completed, evaluation of project usefulness must 
be based upon hypothetical conditions 30 years in the future. In this 
rapidly changing world, will atomic or solar energy make hydroelectric 
plants obsolete? What will Alaska’s industrial development be? 
Meanwhile, opposition is mounting as negative aspects of the project 
become evident. The most impressive opposition comes from those who 
have studied the issue most carefully. This is the U. S. Department of 
the Interior, Fish and Wildlife Service, as represented by the Regional 
Directors, Bureau of Fisheries and Wildlife, and Bureau of Commercial 
Fisheries. Their 138-page report is a detailed study and it recommends 
in summary that the Rampart Canyon Dam not be authorized for con- 
struction. 
“The enormity of the losses to fish and waterfowl] is of great concern. 
Nowhere in the history of water development in North America have the 
fish and wildlife losses anticipated to result from a single project been so 
overwhelming.” The effects of the project on fish would be felt not only 
in Alaska but in Canada. Based on two years of study, the critics report 
that 20,000 chinook, 50,000 coho and 200,000 chum salmon annually pess 
the damsite on their spawning runs. The dam would block this run, result- 
ing in an annual] harvest loss of between 200,000 and 400.000 salmon. 
In addition, the project would completely destroy the habitat of a 
moose herd estimated at about 5,000 animals, and other furbearers which 
yield annually about 41,000 pelts (about 7% of the entire Alaskan fur 
harvest). 
However, the most significant adverse effects of Rampart Canyon Dam 
would be upon waterfowl. “The vast area that would be inundated en- 
compasses the Yukon Flats, which contain some of the most productive 
waterfowl breeding habitat in North America.” A superb nesting habitat 
of about 7 million acres contributes each year 1.5 million ducks, 12,500 
geese and 10,000 cranes to Canada and all four waterfowl flyways in the 
U. S. This contribution is expected to increase in importance. for losses 
of nesting habitat in our north central prairies and the prairie provinces 
of Canada are expected to continue. Construction and operation of the 
Rampart Dam would completely destroy this valuable waterfowl pro- 
duction area. 
The fluctuating reservoir would have steep, wave-washed shorelines 
which would preclude formation of marshes suitable for nesting or shallow 
