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I think what we need to talk about eventually is sustainable power and non-sustainable power. What is non-sustainable is coal and natural gas and other extractive sources of electrical power. What is sustainable is wind, although it has its environmental effects, and solar and hydroelectric power. I don't suggest that we build Marble Canyon Dam in order to meet power needs in the Southwest. In fact, my usual story here is to say, don't build a dam for power. If you're going to build a dam for other purposes, put a power facility on it. And that, I think is the case with Glen Canyon Dam. Glen Canyon Dam was not built to generate power. Glen Canyon Dam was built to satisfy Upper and Lower Basin water issues and they put a power plant on it. One other quick thing. With respect to the balance achieved, or the source of your question, the balance of the Glen Canyon Process. It turns out that that preferred alternative had pretty widespread support. In fact, Western Area Power Administration, the Bureau of Reclamation, other cooperating agencies and some of those customers who buy firm electric power from Glen Canyon supported the preferred alternative. It turns out, though, that that negotiations at Glen Canyon appear not to be over. The adaptive management program there is continu- ing to wrestle with a whole variety of issues, almost as important as the issue that originally brought about the preferred alternative for Glen Canyon Dam. In fact, there are proposals being floated now which are different from the preferred alternative but which have odd political bedfellows. The Cook- Moody proposal exceeds the parameters of the record of decision and was the brainchild of the Executive Director of the Upper Colorado River Commission and the representative from the Grand Canyon Trust. So with respect to this question, I think it's important to notice that balance is an ever-going process and it's not over. RINNE: A quick point from an operational standpoint. One of the things that occurred to me is that with energy deregulation, the challenge of balancing among users increases. At Hoover Dam, we actually have an informal agreement with the power customers. Since the early '90s we have worked on managing levels of Lake Mojave below Hoover Dam to coincide or to try to better fit, with the spawning of the razorback suckers as well as grow out and harvesting of razorback suckers in Lake Mojave. What I see is a new challenge, or an additional challenge, energy deregulation. Under energy deregulation, ideally there would be a desire for greater flexibility to accommodate power demands in the marketplace. At the same time, greater flexibility changes the way water is moved through the system. This is sometimes more difficult to balance with the environment needs. SWAN: Just what we need is another overlay. I laugh about these things. These meetings are so difficult and we all do that, we all go to these hard meetings, whether they be the California water negotiations or Glen Canyon Adaptive Management, or whatever. And my joke is that everybody has to bring their own bottle of aspirin or you don't get admitted. At Glen Canyon, I think Mother Nature sort of plays tricks on us because there, with the new dam, you create this fabulous trout fishery. So you have very strident trout fisherman, who are part of the process, who say, "We have to maintain this fishery." Then, of course, you have others who say, "We really need to get back to the native species." So just to emphasize the problem, it's exceedingly difficult. Our next question has to do with what I find to be a very interesting challenge that comes up fre- quently in these conversations about Greater flexibility changes the way water is moved through the POST COMPACT ISSUES system. This is some- times more difficult to trying to give respect to the environmental needs of this river. I find that in - Bill Rinne balance with the environment needs. conversations, we hear this particularly in the context of the Lower Basin of the MSCP, people say, "You should go back to the natural hydro graph. That's really what's going to be good, not only for the fish but for the terrestrial species and for the habitat." So the question is: When attempting to adjust the balance in order to accommodate environment needs, it's often noted that the river corridor would benefit by river flows which reflect the natural hydrograph, or in other words, a flow regime which is similar to pre-dam conditions. Given the existing physical and institutional structures, is this an achievable goal? SNAPE: I think this is just the more specific application of the balance question that we started out with. Are we going to get back to pre-dam conditions in terms of the natural hydro graph? I don't SYMPOSIUM PROCEEDINGS SEPTEMBER 1999 o