Impacts of Building a Dam
Growth and Traffic
© 1999 Don Gruber
To get an idea of the size of this project, visualize the dam behind the New Embassy Suites Hotel. It would be twice as tall as the hotel, 282 feet and a quarter of a mile long.
"Growth is the reason for the dam: it doesn't solve any long-term environmental problems, and it fails to supply drought reserve." - Citizens for Alternative Water Solutions, and Ventana Chapter, Sierra Club' publication "The Real Guide to the Dam."
The Carmel River was listed as one of the ten most endangered rivers in the US because of "growth and sprawl" in Monterey County.
- American Rivers, National Report, April 1999
If they build the dam, hundreds of trucks will congest and overload traffic, damaging Carmel Valley, Highway One and Monterey Peninsula roads. The daily traveling up and down the dangerous small winding roads to the dam site will almost certainly result in accidents (school buses, trucks and work commutes). 180 trucks a day and hundreds of commuting workers will use Peninsula Roads, add to that the repair and retrofitting at San Clemente Dam, and new subdivisions, it's going to be a nightmare trying to drive to work.
"Gay and Anna," People of Cachagua © 1998, Peter Hughes
"My daughter, Anna and I were waiting for the school bus and we saw a big cement mixer go by. A minute or two later, the bus pulls up. The bus driver got off the bus and lit a cigarette, shook his head and said 'I'm out of here after the first of the year, I can't take this anymore.' He pointed to a second cement truck coming and said, 'because of idiots like that!'
It was obvious that the bus had almost crashed into the cement truck a minute or two before."- Gay Heller
"There is no doubt in my mind that people will die if the dam is built. I was almost killed by a truck. In less than one second I had to choose between a head on collision with a truck coming too fast around a curve, or possibly going down the cliff to my right. I personally know two families who lost children in car accidents on Cachagua and Carmel Valley Roads." - Kira Carrillo Corser, Carmel Valley Photographic artist and teacher
