Pressure the Restore River Corridor Intensifies: Greewire

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Greenwire Thursday, August 12, 2004 GRAND CANYON Pressure to restore river corridor intensifies April Reese, Greenwire Southwest correspondent Page 1 of 3 Environmentalists monitoring an 8- year -old federal program to restore the Grand Canyon below Glen Canyon Dam this week called on the government to better define its strategies, conduct more on- the - ground restoration and revise the environmental impact statement (EIS) governing the effort. In a letter to the Glen Canyon Dam Adaptive Management Work Group, the nonprofit group Living Rivers ticked off a litany of complaints about the restoration program and urged its managers to rethink its strategy for the lower canyon. The work group is comprised of 26 stakeholders with some management responsibility for Grand Canyon National Park's river corridor. The restoration program was enacted by the Clinton administration to meet provisions of the Grand Canyon Protection Act, which directed the Interior Department to "protect, mitigate adverse impacts to, and improve the values for which Grand Canyon National Park and Glen Canyon National Recreation Area were established." Participants in the work group range from Bureau of Reclamation officials to independent fisheries biologists, environmentalists, hydropower interests and tribal representatives. The stakeholders periodically examine the latest scientific information on the river and make management recommendations to the Interior secretary, who decides whether to implement them. The letter, written by Living Rivers policy director Dave Haskell, a former director of Grand Canyon National Park's Science Center, charges the work group with failing to review the latest scientific data on the canyon's resources. The program's charter instructs the work group to annually evaluate monitoring data to assess conditions in the canyon and to determine if the program's objectives are being met, Haskell noted. The letter states that scientists have identified three critical actions that are necessary to restore pristine conditions in the Grand Canyon: annual inputs of large amounts of sediment, seasonal variability of water flows and seasonal variability of water temperature. Living Rivers and about 200 other environmental groups have asked BuRec to examine a range of alternatives to meet those goals, including the decommissioning of Glen Canyon Dam. But so far no serious consideration has been given to that proposal, critics say. Living Rivers maintains that other attempts to improve conditions in the canyon have largely failed and that a new EIS should be drafted to address new and emerging concerns, including the dam itself. Haskell urged the group to exercise its authority to recommend undertaking a new review. "Considering the continued decline of the ecosystem taking place in Grand Canyon National Park, it is imperative that the AMWG rededicate itself to achieving the goals of the Grand Canyon Protection Act, or recommend a new program that can," Haskell wrote. http: / /www.eenews. net/ GreenwireBackissues /081204/08120412.htm 8/12/2004