Prez Blurb

After I finished the article on the Draft Colorado River Management Plan, the National Park Service (nps) released another series of documents on the crmp website with some more information—posters and handouts for the series of public meetings. If you missed the meetings, you might want to take a look at these; they contain some more of the details that were left out of the 813-page primary document.
While I’m just beginning to digest these, I did find one thing of interest: some of the questions I’d emailed the planning team about how various features were going to work are now being asked of the general public. For example, with respect to the proposed registration process to measure demand:
“As part of the registration process, what questions would you like to see asked, and what data would you like to see recorded?”
and
“What safeguards could be put in place to help ensure people do not artificially stack the system or generate additional demand?”
Measuring demand to adjust the split allocation is a pretty central part of the Colorado River Management Plan, yet it appears the nps still doesn’t know how this will work. The outfitters are pretty alarmed, and for good reason: while they could lose summer launches to the non-commercial sector, it would be impossible to get them all back again, assuming changes are made under this system. This will adversely impact their businesses, our jobs, and access to the canyon for the folks who depend on, and enjoy, the services we provide.
On another subject, there’s been an exciting development in the form of another experimental flood, a couple days before Thanksgiving: 41,000 cubic feet per second (cfs) for sixty hours beginning on November 20th.
After the criteria for triggering an experimental flood was set, we had a couple of low runoff years in which the sediment contribution from the Paria river fell below expectations, making the sediment researchers wonder if they were ever going to get their flood.
The beaches in Grand Canyon continue to dwindle, and recent research has show that the campsite area above the 25,000 cfs waterline has decreased significantly in the past couple years, in large part due to the encroachment of vegetation. At the same time, lower summer flows have been steadily chewing away at beaches currently in use, down next to the river’s edge, while the sediment entering the system above Marble Canyon continues to wash on through to Lake Mead, where it’s not needed.
Meanwhile, the power people were wondering about the impact of a possible flood on power revenues, which are already down due to the lower surface level of Lake Powell. The plan was that once the sediment trigger was reached—measured in tons of silt and sand washed out of the mouth of the Paria River over the season—flows would be reduced to a steady 8,000 cfs for the remainder of the year, and the experimental flood would happen early in the new year. But the steady 8,000 cfs would prevent fluctuating flows during the month of December, when the Bureau of Reclamation would produce some valuable revenue.
Having seen the prospects of a Beach and Habitat Building Flow all but disappear at a recent meeting of the Adaptive Management Work Group, our sediment advocates came up with the idea to do the flood earlier, which would achieve the dual purposes of getting sediment up high before it could wash out of the system, and at the same time allowing resumption of fluctuating flows during the months of December where the power people could gain some badly needed revenue.
Mother nature also cooperated, with a couple late season storms helping push the contributions of the Paria River to the stage triggering the flood. As I write this, Matt Kaplinsky is packing his bags to go monitor the flood and document the results.
And the drought continues. Total unregulated inflow to Lake Powell in water year 2004 was only 51 percent of average. Unregulated inflow in water years 2000, 2001, 2002, and 2003 was 62, 59, 25, and 51 percent of average, respectively. Although water year 2005 is off to a good start in September and October, as of November 8, 2004, the current elevation of Lake Powell is 3,570.5 feet (129.5 feet from full pool). Current storage is 9.2 million acre-feet (38 percent of live capacity); current projections show the lake reaching an elevation of about 3,565 feet on January 1, 2005. Of course, lake levels will continue to decline until the runoff picks up again, usually in April.
Lately, there’s been speculation about what happens next if the drought continues. Jeri Ledbetter recently said, “When I went to work for Glen Canyon Institute, we set out to drain Lake Powell. When I left, we were halfway there!” If the above forecast for January is right, we’ll be 75 feet above the level at which power plant operations will have to shut down—3490 feet elevation—a scenario the pessimists see happening in as little as two years.

If the drought continues, the optimists (“faith-based climatologists?”) hope it takes at least few more years, and occurs under a Democratic administration, so they can blame it on Bill Clinton, or perhaps Hillary, and let them take the rap for the inevitable tax increases. Loss of power-plant revenue will be a serious fly in the ointment, to the tune of nearly $2 million a week.
When Lake Powell is high, Glen Canyon Dam hydropower generates about 75 percent of all the revenue of the entire Colorado River Storage Project, as much as $95 million a year. As you might imagine, that buys a lot of stuff—including dam maintenance and operations here and elsewhere, all those pesky scientists and their projects, programs for native species, to mention a few things—actually when you add it all up, it’s a pretty long list.
And then there’s all those thirsty folks downstream, still expecting their seven and a half million acre feet per year, even though in recent years the inflow has been between 4 and 5 million acre-feet. Recent studies of southwestern paleoclimates suggest that drought conditions might persist another ten, twenty, or more years—long enough to exhaust the rest of the “live” storage behind Glen Canyon Dam.
If the power plant shuts down, it’s still possible to release water through the four eight-foot diameter river outlet “jet-tubes” and drain Lake Powell as low as 3374 feet to utilize another 116 feet of water stored below the power plant intakes. After that, there’s no way to drain any more. Seven and a half million acre feet is a steady 11,000 cfs year around release, well within the capacity of the river outlets, and plenty of water for Colorado River trips.
But the storage remaining below the point at which the current power plant operates is definitely limited, and if the rains don’t return, it will make sense to think about cutting back releases to a steady state operation—water in, minus some withdrawals (minor) and evaporation (significant), equals the water out for the lower basin—and hope that all the folks downstream can learn to cope. The alternative, turning the river off (or lowering the lake to a level where there is no way to release any more, which amounts to the same thing) is unthinkable.
The lower basin states have already started talking about who is going to get what, if the rains don’t resume and Glen Canyon Dam is forced into some sort of steady state operation. Based on the last few years, that could be something more on the order of four million acre-feet annually, equivalent to a steady state release a little less than 6,000 cfs year round.
Now there’s talk of building a new power plant that could utilize water from the river outlets, and generate at least some revenue to ease the transition a bit, at least as far as power revenues are concerned. And this is where it starts to get really interesting, because that would mean fluctuating flows—“load following” or “peaking power”—to maximize revenues. Daily lows could easily slip well under 5,000 cfs, low enough to make motorized boating problematical, and a two week rowing trip into an endurance contest. Of course, everyone would try to make the best of the daily peak flows, but at some point downstream they’d be going by in the middle of the night.
It’s impossible to guess the likelihood of this “worst case scenario,” but every year the drought continues and lake levels decline it makes it seems more possible. It could be that in the worst of all possible worlds, the water for river trips will run out before the current controversies over carrying capacity, allocation, allotment, motors, wilderness, and the non-commercial permit system are resolved to everyone’s satisfaction.
On a lighter note, if you missed the gcrg Fall Meeting and/or the Historic Boat Project Masquerade Ball later the same day, you can read about them elsewhere in this issue. And if you want to look at some of the costumes in glorious color, you can find them at the following website: www.geocities.com/shioshya/thumbs/untitled.htm

Drifter Smith