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issue of the natural hydrograph is actually extremely important. For those of you who are not perhaps as aware as you might be of the whole basis of the ecosystem and the biological needs of the Colorado River system, the Colorado River system is unique in that it was a system based essentially on disturbance. It's a system in which there are times when there is a lot of water and there's high concentrations of sediment in the system. There were times, this is pre- dam, when it was very low flow, not much water, very, very war, and almost hot in the lower desert reaches. This is the system as a whole ecosystem and this is the disturbance basis that was the adaptation of all the species in the system. What you have now in the system is that we've taken away those disturbances. If you think of the natural hydro graph as this squiggly line where you have peaks and lows in terms of what's coming through, we've chopped off the top and the bottom. Essentially what the ecosystem needs, probably more desperately than anything else, is some of those natural processes to come back. They need the highs and the lows and they need some of that sediment loading. The reason the environmental community is pushing for this natural hydro graph or natural flows or natural processes coming through the system is because this is the most basic need of the environ- ment for the Colorado River system. This is actually one of those things where, to achieve balance, you can't necessarily say, "Well, maybe the natural hydro graph isn't that important because we need to balance it with human needs." This is one of those things that's really important. Going to the question: Given the existing physical and institutional structures, is this an achievable goal? Probably not, so go back to the question and question the givens. That's part of what Glen Canyon Institute is doing. That's something I challenge everybody else to do. If we're trying to achieve some balance, why do we restrict ourselves to the givens? Let's think outside the box a little bit. What other ways can we meet human and environmental needs? Maybe we need to do it with new infrastructures, new physical and institutional parameters. TuRNEY: I don't think the natural hydrograph is possible. The only way you can really do it is to tear down the dams and go back to pre-development conditions. But I do agree with Pam. We can re- operate those reservoirs to try and accomplish certain goals and I think we should do that. At least on the San Juan River it helps us to have a large enough reservoir on that river to be able to re-operate the dam. What we're trying to do there is to get the big block releases in the spring, run it up to 5,000 cfs and see if there's enough energy in the water for some beach building purposes. But it's very difficult when you start to operate these dams in a different way than people have been accustomed to. On the San Juan River, we're trying to achieve a certain minimum flow in the Shiprock area or the Four Corners area, and we have an unregulated river, the Animas, that comes in above that area. What we're trying to do is change the release rates out of Navajo Dam so that we get this natural hydrograph down in the Shiprock area. Yet, when you start dropping the flows out of Navajo Dam, the trout fishermen come out of the woodwork and get very, very upset that we're going to hurt their high quality waters. Con- versely, if you start running these hydrographs really high, the irrigators get mad at us because we're blocking off the diversion points. I have a wildlife refuge down there, the guy calls me and says we are flooding his Canadian geese nests and eggs. It's very difficult when THE BALANCING ACT you start to operate these dams in a different way than people have been accustomed to. - TOm Turney SWAN: It's interesting to hear from someone who's office is where the buck stops. Tom is obviously dealing with the balancing issue on a day-a-day basis. I didn't pick the seating arrangement, but here we have Pam Hyde sitting right next to Clayton Palmer. Clayton's WAPA organization, as I understand it, gets 80 percent of its power from Glen Canyon Dam. I know that he's on the environment side ofWAPA but ... Murn: I just want to toss out a reminder here that restoration of the Colorado River and recovery of the endangered species is far more than just providing more natural flows in the river. There are many factors that have contributed to the demise of the system and among those, perhaps the greatest, is non- native fish. The restoration issue needs to be tackled on several fronts, not just providing natural flows in the river. SWAN: My next question, sticking with dam removal, is about the fact that that's a hot topic around the United States. On the Colorado River, SYMPOSIUM PROCEEDINGS SEPTEMBER 1999 o