Adaptive Management: Friend or Foe?

Much has been printed lately in newspapers about the state of the Grand Canyon ecosystem, the decline of the chub population, shrinking beaches, failure of the adaptive management program, etc. Based on your ballot comments and the scuttlebutt that flows downstream so very fast, it has become apparent that some of our members are not satisfied with the progress (or lack thereof) in the Adaptive Management Program (amp).

We offer the following articles as food for thought about the amp and invite you to join us in trying to figure out the complex issues surrounding the program. Please send in your thoughts, perspectives, rants, etc. There are very few of us trying to make sense of all this and represent all of you in this program. Hey, if you’re pissed off about it, get off your ass and let us know what you think—but please be reasonable—join us by mail, email, or in person.

gcrg Adaptive Management Guys

Adaptive Management at Glen Canyon:
What Has Really Failed?

Scientists Fail in the Grand Canyon! That headline and many more like it have found their way into national periodicals lately. They would leave you to believe that based on recent reports from the Adaptive Management Work Group and the administrators of the Department of the Interior that we might as well fold up our tent and let the operators at the dam go back to operating the dam anyway they want to. Who would have thought that after the destructive flows of the 1970s and all the hard work of the 1980s and 1990s that we would be back to the same spot we were in 1982?
I admit up front that I don’t have a financial stake in this argument like many of you do. Whether you are guides, researchers supported by gcmrc or the nps I understand that while you may want to do the right thing you are constrained. I purposefully have stayed away from getting involved with the Adaptive Management Program. After my gces tenure of 1982 through 1996 a new direction and focus for implementing the rod and Adaptive Management Program was desired and I stepped aside. Not quietly as some wanted, but I did leave. While I miss the Grand Canyon and my friends there, it has been and is still too difficult watching the dismantling of the science program and the progress that we had made on reoperating the dam. I had hoped that the program would find its legs after a couple of years, and that it would get back on track. On the contrary, it seems to have been derailed. From my vantage point it appears that most people are more concerned about jockeying for position and creating alliances than in doing what is needed for the Canyon. I was not a big proponent of collaboration when the Grand Canyon was being traded away.
The latest effort by a variety of experts to expound on the failure of science and the health of the Grand Canyon leaves one shaking one’s head. Even though it will never make the headline, science cannot fail. Science is a rigorous process of evaluating causes and effects and testing hypotheses. It is a process of collecting information, interpreting the information, and formulating conclusions. Where the failure comes is not from science or the scientists but from those who are charged with using the science. What has failed is the lack of vision and application to do what has been shown to be necessary at Glen Canyon Dam.
For the record, the initial concept of Adaptive Management for the Grand Canyon was presented in 1988. We knew then that no matter how much data collection we did, no matter how much time we spent in the Canyon, there was always going to be doubts on what it was telling us. The river and ecosystem are dynamic and need to be treated as such. After much research we came up with the concept of Adaptive Management and got it integrated into the eis. The need for the program became even more emphatic when the eis was put on a two-year crash schedule by the politicos. Any scientist will tell you that it is nearly impossible to collect a credible data set on natural ecosystems within that period of time. We tried everything possible to get the data, and as a result we did learn a lot. When it was clear that we would not have all the answers, the Grand Canyon Protection Act of 1992 (gcpa)was passed which mandated that an Adaptive Management Program be developed to support the EIS -Record of Decision (now that the statute of limitations is over I can speak to this). Interior brought in some high level folks to direct the development of the gcmrc program, and they quickly learned that working in the Grand Canyon is harder than sitting behind a desk or having a bunch of meetings; you gotta be there to understand it.
From my perspective what is missing is an understanding and clear articulation of what the real goal of the Adaptive Management program is. The Adaptive Management concept was not set up to make it easier for the water and power people to satisfy their clients. On the contrary, the intent of the gcpa was to ensure that the environmental components were managed equally. From my perspective what is needed now are two things. The first is a rearticulating of the environmental vision for the Grand Canyon that gets us back to the basics of understanding the ecosystem and managing it in a way that first and foremost, the environment is highest on the list. The second is for us (that’s right you and me) to stand up and say enough is enough and demand that Glen Canyon Dam be managed in a way that protects and restores, not eliminates or disenfranchises, the ecosystem.
This is hard stuff. You have got to get to your clients, to the newspapers, to Congress and tell them that what is going on in the Grand Canyon is not meeting the intent of the eis or the gcpa. We all must stand up and tell the truth. We need to develop an ethic for doing the right thing for the Canyon no matter whom it pisses off. Our job is to defend the Grand Canyon when the nps, fws and others can’t. We are compromising away the natural environment, the heritage, and the future of the Grand Canyon. They have the advantage as long as we try to play their game. We cannot compromise the Grand Canyon any longer.
The time of being nice, of being congenial and trying to work with these people is over if you are concerned about the Grand Canyon. Make a stand, get outside review of the process, and don’t let them take advantage of every opportunity that comes along. If you don’t stand up to them and use your leverage they will continue to walk all over the living systems of the Grand Canyon.
Let me know when someone wants to get off the dime and be unreasonable for the Grand Canyon, and I will back in the game in a minute.

Dave Wegner
Former Manager of the Glen Canyon Environmental Studies
and Proud of It

Your Vision for the River’s Future
It’s easy to get so caught up in the details of your life that you forget to step back and see how your life is going in general. You know what I mean? You are so busy going through the motions that you aren’t really focused on where all that flurry of activity is taking you; you just want to get things done.
The same thing is happening with the Glen Canyon Dam Adaptive Management Program. The program has been around for almost eight years now, and it has gotten to the point where it is so busy going through the motions that in some ways it isn’t really focused on where it is headed. I know that some of you have sensed that, because some of you have told me that the amp doesn’t seem worth your time and interest because it doesn’t seem to be accomplishing anything. It has become process-oriented instead of results-oriented.
So what do you do about this quagmire of process? Is this a fatal flaw? Do you wash your hands of the amp and abandon it to the bureaucrats and those of us who may be nutty enough to keep going to meetings with them? You could. Of course that would not change a thing. Either for the amp or for the river and its resources.
Or you could help bring the focus back onto the results.
You could breathe new life into the amp by adding your voice and telling the bureaucrats and the stakeholders exactly what you expect the amp to accomplish.
Step back from the way you look at the river on a day to day basis. Close your eyes and see, not how the river is, but how the river could be. What would it look like if river resources were being improved? What would you see as you looked downstream? More beaches? Less camelthorn? Fewer tamarisk? Look more carefully. Would you see less erosion at cultural sites? More backwaters? Imagine looking underwater. Would you see more humpback chub? Fewer trout? Fewer carp and catfish? More organic matter drifting in the current? Perhaps even river otter swimming in the eddies?
Take a few minutes to share your vision with us. Tell us what you think the river corridor should look like, and what the amp ought to be accomplishing. It will help those of us who advocate on behalf of the river in the Adaptive Management Program to hold the program to some results-oriented standards. Go get a piece of paper and a pen, or belly up to the computer, and get ready to write. Tell us how the Colorado River ecosystem in Grand Canyon should look and/or function. Be as specific as possible, and consider saying something about any or all of the following resources:
• Flows from the dam
• Beaches (#, size, distribution, texture, etc.)
• Sandbars
• Backwaters
• Sediment storage
• Humpback chub
• Other native fish (razorback sucker, flannelmouth sucker, bluehead sucker, speckled dace, etc.)
• Trout
• Other non-native fish (carp, catfish, red shiner, fathead minnow, etc.)
• Species no longer found in Grand Canyon (river otter, Colorado pikeminnow, bonytail, roundtail chub)
• Kanab ambersnail
• Southwestern willow flycatcher
• Other birds (bald eagle, peregrine falcon, osprey, belted kingfishers, waterfowl, neotropical migrants, etc.)
• Native riparian vegetation (cottonwood, willow, hackberry, oak, catclaw acacia, mesquite, etc.)
• Marshes
• Non-native vegetation (tamarisk, camelthorn, etc.)
• Archaeological sites and historic properties
• Traditional cultural resources (certain springs, landforms, mineral deposits, plants and animals of significance to tribes)
• Recreational experience (access, safety, quality and quantity of recreational opportunities, etc.)
• Hydroelectric power
When you’ve said it all, mail it to me at the following address: Pam Hyde, Colorado River Coordinator, Grand Canyon Wildlands Council, P.O. Box 1845, Flagstaff, AZ 86002. Or e-mail it to me at tapeats@aol.com. And thanks for making a difference.

Pam Hyde
Grand Canyon Wildlands Council’s representative to the Amwg

How Do We Save Grand Canyon?

We think that participating in the Adaptive Management Program (amp) is our best chance to meet the main goal of this organization—protecting Grand Canyon. The process is not fast and easy, nor is it perfect. It’s slow, frustrating, tricky business, with plenty of room for improvement. But, until somebody offers a better way, we will continue to participate and argue for science-based management of the river.
The amp has recognized, based on solid science, that the Record of Decision flows since 1996 are not meeting the intent of the Grand Canyon Protection Act. That’s why the current debate is all about what to try next. So, what do you try next? How do you protect and restore the ecosystem? Can you? While it’s great to keep things in mind like, “we can’t compromise Grand Canyon any longer,” figuring out a detailed plan of attack for how to actually get there is not so simple. For example, one of the aspects of the long-term plan is to try out steady flows vs. fluctuating flows to see if it benefits the native fish populations. Steady flows will warm and stabilize the near shore habitats and lower the amount of sediment transported to Lake Mead. But steady flows have also been shown to benefit non-native fish, promote tamarisk growth along the lower beach elevations, perhaps promote the spread of the Norwalk Virus, and warmer water means warmer beer. So what do you do? The basic premise of adaptive management is to learn by doing. Change things if they are not working, continue them if they are. We think we’ve got to be patient, try new flow scenarios and see if they work. Science can help us define the risks and answer whether or not whatever we try is helping or hurting.
The sky is not falling. The native Humpback chub population has declined, but all indications show that the population has stabilized at the present level. The chub are still endangered and still in trouble, but there is no need to panic. We are aggressively removing non-natives from the chub’s favorite playground near the mouth of the Little Colorado River. We’ve altered flow releases to reduce the numbers of rainbow trout to the benefit of both the non-native and trout populations. We’ve got an experiment in place to see if we can conserve sediment through controlled floods. We are putting together a plan of attack for the next 16 years to try something other than current operations. We are learning by doing. Working together and engaging in critical discourse with all the players to solve difficult problems does not equate to compromising Grand Canyon. It is a constructive, reasonable way to go about things and affect positive change. If you’ve got a better idea, we’re listening. In the meantime, we’ll be actively participating in the program.

Matt Kaplinski
Andre Potochnik
John O’Brien
Gcrg’s Amwg Guys
gcrg[at]infomagic.com