Plans for the development quickly became highly controversial, and the issue came to a head in 1979. The people’s movement against development of the Alta Kautokeino river system organised demonstrations in Oslo and Alta, and at the construction site in Alta, a thousand protesters faced off against hundreds of police officers in a confrontation that received wide press coverage. Angle cutters were used against links and chains when the Government decided to fight fire with fire.

A key argument against the development was the Sami people's indigenous rights to land, water and grazing areas for reindeer. Norway's Supreme Court dismissed the claim that this issue had been inadequately addressed, and the Alta power plant was finally built and put into operation in May 1987. The intensity of the environmental protest led to more stringent standards for river system development, and the final design of the power plant was impacted by the new principles that emerged from the debate over its construction. In retrospect, the Alta campaign stands as the prime symbol of resistance to Norwegian hydropower development, even more so than the Mardøla campaign ten years earlier.