Glacier View Dam
| Glacier View Dam | |
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Glacier View Dam as proposed
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 Location of Glacier View Dam in Montana
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| Location | Flathead County, near West Glacier, Montana, USA |
| Coordinates | 48°36′42″N 114°09′11″W / 48.61167°N 114.15306°WCoordinates: 48°36′42″N 114°09′11″W / 48.61167°N 114.15306°W |
| Construction began | Proposal only |
| Operator(s) | U.S. Army Corps of Engineers |
| Dam and spillways | |
| Impounds | North Fork Flathead River |
| Height | 416 ft (127 m) |
| Length | 2,100 ft (640 m) |
| Spillway type | Gated side-channel spillway |
| Reservoir | |
| Creates | Glacier View Reservoir |
| Total capacity | 3,160,000 acre feet (3.90 km3) |
| Surface area | 48 square miles (120 km2) |
| Power station | |
| Turbines | 3 x 70 MW turbines |
| Installed capacity | 210 MW |
Glacier View Dam was proposed in 1943 on the North Fork of the Flathead River, on the western border of Glacier National Park in Montana. The 416-foot (127 m) tall dam, to be designed and constructed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in the canyon between Huckleberry Mountain and Glacier View Mountain, would have flooded in excess of 10,000 acres (4,000 ha) of the park. In the face of determined opposition from the National Park Service and conservation groups, the dam was never built.
The Glacier View project was proposed after an earlier proposal by the Corps of Engineers and the Bonneville Power Administration to raise the level of Flathead Lake by damming its outlet was rejected following local protests. Located in a relatively unpopulated area, the Glacier View reservoir would have flooded lower Camas Creek and would have raised the level of Logging Lake by 50 feet (15 m), inundating much of the winter range for the park's white-tailed deer, elk, mule deer and moose. The proposed reservoir was to extend nearly to the Canada–US border, at an estimated cost of $94,962,000. The dam was supported by Montana Representative Mike Mansfield and Flathead Valley interests, but was opposed by former Senator Burton K. Wheeler, local ranchers, the National Park Service, the Glacier Park Hotel Company, the Sierra Club, Society of American Foresters and the Audubon Society. Public hearings were held in 1948 and 1949. Turnout at the 1948 hearings at Kalispell was influenced by extensive flooding then occurring in the Flathead Valley. Exploratory drilling took place in 1944 and 1945 at Glacier View and Foolhen Hill. The project was terminated by a joint memorandum between the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of the Army on April 11, 1949, but Mansfield introduced an unsuccessful bill later in the year directing the Corps of Engineers to proceed with the dam, stating that the dam "would not affect the beauty of the park in any way but would make it more beautiful by creating a large lake over ground that ... has no scenic attraction." The Corps of Engineers report on the project noted:
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