The EIS Alternatives:
Send One Boat Down the Other Run

   When you stand on a rock at the top of a really mean rapid for the first time and stare down into its foamy waters, what you really want is some folks you can trust up there with you. When you contemplate the options, you’d like everyone to agree on the run. The trouble is often guides will choose different runs, each absolutely confident in their choice and equally adamant against the others. And when one tells you that you can’t miss that hole if you try that run, well, you’re very concerned. You hate to leave that rock until all agree.

   Such was my fear of the outcome of the Glen Canyon EIS. I was afraid that, like so many confident boatmen, the EIS Cooperating agencies (NPS, BuRec, WAPA, AZ. Game and Fish, US Fish and Wildlife Service, and 5 Native American tribes) would arrive at the choice of a preferred alternative with a difference of opinion as wide as the Canyon. But to their credit that is not the case. As Steve Carothers pointed out in the last issue of The News, the nine alternatives have been narrowed to two: Seasonally adjusted steady flows, and Low-fluctuating flows. In fact all but one of the cooperators have agreed to support the Low Fluctuating alternative. It seems like a good run, so why the split opinion?

   Its not sediment. For beaches the twin goals are to restore the dynamic processes of erosion and deposition to the Canyon’s beaches and make sure there is enough sand stored to feed that process. Both alternatives are designed to provide a net gain in total sand storage over time and the annual habitat rebuilding flows will attempt to periodically replenish the beaches and backwaters. It’s not vegetation, or trout, or cultural resources or recreation either. All are well addressed by both alternatives. And if you guessed that the objector represents the power resource you’d be wrong. The lone dissenter is the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the agency charged with the welfare of the Canyon’s native fishes and the Humpback Chub in particular. The debate centers on the benefits of warm backwaters and goes something like this:

   Many native fish biologists believe that in pre-dam times quiet pools were created behind many large beaches during the receding waters of the Colorado’s big spring floods. And that these provided a valuable food resource and nursery for the juvenile chub. These pools, or backwaters, warmed by the summer sun, became the home for algae which protected the small fishes and provided the base for a rich food chain. Sedimentologists believe that annual habitat maintenance flows provided in all alternatives can physically recreate these backwaters. Biologists feel that the necessary biological habitat and ecosystem can best be reproduced by releasing steady or near steady flows from the Dam. But potential downsides exist as well. First of all, the chub may not use the backwaters. Second, even if these warmer backwaters do help the chub these quiet pools may also be beneficial to the exotic species which prey on the chub. And increasing numbers of predators may do more harm than good. And finally, seasonally adjusted steady flows severely limit the hydropower resource. This uncertainty of benefits is what the debate is all about. The majority of the cooperators are skeptical. But fisheries biologists believe its important to test this hypothesis before supporting any fluctuating flow alternative.

   Are they right? No one knows for sure. Given the Canyon’s well-known summer heat, there is little doubt that the quiet backwaters will warm. Strong evidence supports the historic importance of backwaters to the chub. And since many of the predators we are concerned with today existed in pre-dam river as well they may not gobble up the young chub. The question is what will these post-dam backwaters look like biologically? Biologists argue that the hypothesis can only be tested under steady flows because it takes time for the biological community to form. (It’s important to note that there is no expectation that this will lead to a second population of chub in the mainstem, an important component to ensuring the endangered species’ future in the Canyon. To create the conditions necessary for large-scale spawning in the mainstem may require considerably warmer river temperatures and simply adjusting operations cannot provide that change. Studies separate from the EIS will be made on the practicality and advantages of taking warmer water off the upper levels of the lake with a multiple-level intake structure.)

   One possible solution
   There is really no reason it has to be one or the other, no reason we cannot operate the dam according to our present knowledge of the system and test the backwater hypothesis. The EIS team, scientists and cooperators have done a commendable job of finding agreement out of confrontation. We are not charged with determining all future operations of Glen Canyon Dam. There will be a mechanism, called adaptive management, for adjusting operations based on information collected by further studies and the long-term monitoring program. The Low fluctuating flow alternative can be adopted with the stipulation that experimental steady flows be provided over the next 3 or 4 years so that backwater productivity be analyzed. Since the most critical time is during the summer, it’s possible that experimental steady flows need only be instituted during that period. Not only could this analysis answer the question of backwaters, but it could provide valuable information for the longer-term attempt to establish a second population of chub in the mainstem with further efforts to seasonally warm the river. And by testing steady flows instead of implementing them, any adverse effects like increased predation can be carefully watched.

   Certainly those skeptical on the importance of backwaters need to have confidence that the question will be addressed and answered in a timely fashion. To ensure this I suggest the fishery biologists design and submit a specific study that will allow backwater productivity to be analyzed before the EIS is completed. And that criteria be established on which a management decision will be made at the conclusion of the study period. With these completed I urge that the Low fluctuating flow alternative with a 3 to 4 year study of summer steady flows included be forwarded to the Secretary of Interior as the Preferred Alternative. The Grand Canyon Protection Act determines the direction of the EIS. It’s mandate is to operate Glen Canyon Dam in such a way as to minimize damage to the resources of Grand Canyon National Park. And while I agree that downstream resources should have priority, the goal should be to find a balance that maximizes all resources. As one who feared the worst, that we’d end up split like a twig figurine over the preferred alternative, the process has been a real success. The fact that we have come so close to consensus is proof that diverse interests can come together.

It’s not surprising that we have some differences of opinion. After all these rapids have not been run before. And we need not commit ourselves to a final run now. We can send most of our boats down the low fluctuating flow run that seems best to most of us now. And still send one boat on steady flows to see what that does for the chubs.

Tom Moody