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<br />6
<br />
<br />And, as ever, Wallace Stegner was able to treat our wbole regional past and present in full depth and then boil it
<br />all down in a few taps of bis creaky old typewriter. The Colorado Plateau, be wrote, is a land that "fills up the
<br />eye and overflows the soul."
<br />
<br />They, and many others, bave enricbed us and belped open our minds to our possibilities bere in the West.
<br />
<br />III. New Views of Water on the Colorado Plateau
<br />
<br />The new ideas, the many new lenses that we uow use to view our rivers and our lands, really are beginning to
<br />take bold. Tbese are some specific actions on the Colorado Plateau that are playing out in different forms all
<br />across the West.
<br />
<br />The Endangered Species Act is being employed to protect the endangered fisb throughout the Colorado River
<br />watersbed. Most specifically, the just-released draft environmental impact statement, prepared WIder the auspices
<br />of the Grand Canyon Protection Act of 1992, will almost certainly lead to a new flow regime from Glen
<br />Canyon Dam. Already, interim operating criteria are in effect. Tbe purpose is to protect the fish and the sandbar
<br />communities that are of importance for fish habitat, recreation, and other plant and animal communities. These
<br />are all resources that we now expect to sustain in our rivers.
<br />
<br />There bas been hard work done on addressing the pollution from energy development !bat bas obscured the 200-
<br />mile vistas on the Colorado Platean, reducing them to 120 miles, 100,80, or less. In 1991, the Environmental
<br />Protection Agency ruled that the Navajo Generating Station, located just upriver from Grand Canyon, must
<br />reduce its sulpbur dioxide emissions by ninety percent by 1999. The Grand Canyon Visibility Transport
<br />Commission, composed of representatives from eigbt states, is in an open fact-finding and bearing process
<br />designed to make recommendations to remedy the adverse impacts on viSibility in the Grand Canyon caused by
<br />current or projected air pollutants. Tbe idea is that BPA will ratify the Commission's work and that the result
<br />will be a "negotiated ru]e-making" rather than unilateral federal action.
<br />
<br />In 1992, as part of the omnibus water legislation, Congress lOOk on one of the Plateau's old-style water projects
<br />-- the Central Utllh Project -- scaling it back, adopting provisions to protect fisb and wildlife, and attempting to
<br />fulfill treaty promises made to the Ute tribe of Utah. The CUP piece of the 1992 Act, wbicb in all bad more
<br />than forty titles, reflected the themes evidenced throughout the ]egislation: that conservation and water marketing
<br />ougbt to be strongly preserved over new construction; that subsidies for water development ougbt to be allowed
<br />only sparingly; that instream and recreation values of rivers sbou]d be promoted; and lbat promises to Indian
<br />tribes ougbt to be bonored.
<br />
<br />In recent years, we bave come to realize the many values of riparian areas and that our treatment of them __
<br />wbether througb grazing, logging,or other forms of development -- is a significant aspect of water policy. In
<br />December, 1993, a federal administrative law judge ordered a bait to all grazing in five side canyons draining into
<br />Comb Wash in southern Utah. Tbis major decision may well prove to be a turning point in grazing policy with
<br />respect to fragile desert watersbeds. This is coupled with the 6-6 Process in Arizona and the Colorado Resource
<br />Roundtab]e, wbicb have belped bring people together on grazing reform and wbicb stand for the many open,
<br />consensus-building efforts underway in the West.
<br />
<br />The State of Colorado bas continued to improve its instream flow program on the waters of the Plateau.
<br />Significantly, Tbe Nature Conservancy and the Trust for Public Land bave been making major acquisitions of
<br />water rights, to be dedicated for instream flows. Tbere are many frustrations with state instream flow programs __
<br />including the fact that most acquired rigbts are junior rights -- but we must remember that this effort is very
<br />recent, still not a quaner of a century old. Tbe marriage of a market system, througb whicb senior rights can be
<br />purcbased, with lbe state instream flow programs is a most promising note.
<br />
<br />At mile 77 below Lee's Ferry, you careen through the spray and boulders of Hance Rapid '. a ten, the higbest
<br />rating on the Grand Canyon scale -- and you enter into the Visbnu schist, wbicb is so deep and bas been there so
<br />long, and bas been compacted so much, that wben lbe mid-day sun bits it rigbt, it lookS like vast slopes of
<br />black, polisbed steel. You bave descended one mile into the earth by now, working backwards into time, layer
<br />after layer, era after era; by the time you bave reacbed the Visbnu scbist, you have observed, displayed on the
<br />walls of the Grand Canyon, 1.7 billion years of the planet's bistory.
<br />
<br />Americ{ln River Mlmagement Society
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