crg wants to thank all of you who again adopted a beach and stopped to photograph it throughout last summer. Happily, participation was back up again over the 1998 season (from 21 beaches adopted in 1998 to 36 beaches in 1999, out of 41 originally adopted in 1996)! This is excellent news because the program really needed a jump-start after 1996 and folks stepped up to help the program out. As a result we've gathered more support than ever from the funding agencies, allowing Adopt-a-Beach (aab) to continue as a monitoring program. We are incredibly grateful to the Grand Canyon Conservation Fund and many of our steadfast gcrg members for their continued support of our program since its inception. The additional support this past year from the Grand Canyon Monitoring & Research Center and Grand Canyon National Park through the Grand Canyon Association, have gone a long way to strengthen the program even more as we move into 2000! Together, we all make this program a successful one and something to be proud of!
Thanks for getting your cameras and data sheets sent back in. If your packet is still molding at the bottom of your can, please shake out the sand and send it back to gcrg! Each and every photo is important and your comments critical in identifying the trends of beach change, especially with all the wild monsoon activity that occurred in July of last summer. Evaluation of all beaches within the critical reaches of the Canyon should yield some very interesting results given that rainfall was so heavy between May and August, and that there were no high summer flows to speak of that might have deposited new, high elevation sand.
As in previous years, the new 1999 aab results will be presented at the Spring gts. This will be an excellent time to adopt a new beach for summer of 2000. Our goal this year is not only to find a steward for all 41 beaches in the aab inventory, but also to add a few and retire a few as well. As many of you have suggested in the past, there are some beaches (i.e., Talking Heads, First Chance) that either haven't changed noticeably in the last three years, or have become so depleted of sand that they are no longer useful as camps. We want to develop a new upgraded set of beaches to adopt, one that is more representative of present conditions. What do you think? If anybody has any suggestions as to sites that might be added or dropped, please contact gcrg. The idea is to have the list finalized in time for the Spring gts. And fyi, the 1999 results will also be presented in the annual report that is distributed to pertinent agencies and adopters (see below). We also present the results at Adaptive Management Workgroup meetings.
Why is the Adopt-a-Beach Program important? Why should you keep adopting a beach year after year and if you never have before, why should you begin? Because it's still the most thorough, complete rephotography program operating in the Grand Canyon. And it's not just about measuring sand loss and gain for sedimentation studies—that's the job of physical sciences at Grand Canyon Monitoring and Research Center (gcmrc)—it's about measuring the effect on recreation as well. Aab reports to gcmrc under its cultural program. Why? Because the concern is over the quality of recreational resources and therefore, the visitor experience (all of us and the folks we bring down with us). In short, we're looking at the condition of our camping beaches, noting their change over time and are attempting to identify flow release trends that are causing those affects. The information we generate by annual aab monitoring is available to the Adaptive Management Workgroup by gcmrc (cultural) and through the representation of recreational interests on the Technical Work Group (twg) by Matt Kaplinski, and the Adaptive Management Work Group (amwg) by Andre Potochnik.
So what? The key thing here is that amwg is the political conduit through which interested parties give input into Colorado River resource issues, and the operation of Glen Canyon Dam. So it's important that we guides give this input, and maintain a presence on the board that decides ultimately whether to recommend future Beach/Habitat Building Flows (bhbf) to the Secretary of Interior.
Grand Canyon National Park is also interested in the findings of our study. Last July, Nicole Corbo and I spent time on the river with the Park and its contributing social scientists. We presented information about the Grand Canyon Youth and the Adopt-a-Beach programs. There is some major focus going into visitor experience issues, primarily in the interest of developing the next Colorado River Management Plan. It's not just endangered species that dictate how the corridor will be managed; from the park's perspective, the visitor experience (read: commercial and private river runners) is also a critical component. And yet, in addition to recreational representation, aab does gather information about morphological changes to beaches in the canyon. Much information can be gleaned through rephotography about changes in elevation and shape of sand beaches. Over time, the Adopt-a-Beach program is developing a clear historical record that can be linked to the effect of regulated flow releases from Glen Canyon Dam.
One of the big things that will be focused on this next year in the program will be the degree of vegetative encroachment into common camp areas. Is the vegetation reducing campable area to the extent that it's a concern? Overall, the beaches have lost sand consistently since the last bhbf, and I expect 1999 results will be similar. We want to be able to quantify the relationship between the flow schedules, beach sand longevity and growth of vegetation over time.
We're going into the fifth year of the study now. Results of the aab may become even more important in the future as goals for the cultural program in gcmrc are more carefully defined.
Thanks again to everyone who participated in 1999!

Gary O'Brien