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7 We have decided that we are going to sustain this geological resource, lime's legacy. There have been repeated attempts to build Bridge Canyon and Marble Canyon dams, to flood most of the Grand Canyon, which would make a superb reservoir, but we have decided against those efforts. The Grand Canyon is the World's University of Geology and we mean to keep it that way. There is anotller kind of resource in the canyon country that we are beginning to recognize more fully and it, too, has direct relevance for water policy. It is not just at Nav'\io Dam that we have flooded the old Anasazi and Freemont sites. Glen Canyon Dam buried tens of thousands of ancient sites, and nearly every impoundment on the Plateau's rivers has cost us scores of archaeological sites. Yet now we may be rapidly approaching the day when we count these as the most valuahle of all resources on the Colorado Plateau. I can surely say that there is no place on earth for which I would fight as hard as for the upper reaches of a side canyon on BLM land where my son Philip and I found a perfect kiva -- roof still on, ladder still intact, the color still a1l ablaze on the interior mortared walls n and where we spent an hour by ourselves, silent, each with our own thoughts in this thousand-year-old sacred place, chipped by hand deep into the red-rock sandstone. The Colorado Platean is also the World's University of Archeology and increasingly we seem to be of a mind to recognize that, also. IV. Conclusion Let me finish off by briefly saying this. For all the progress that is being made, we need to recognize that gone forever are the times of the thunderbolt actions. The limes when Stephen Mather could go to Glacier and, when told that the portable mill was cutting logs because it had originally cut timber -- lega1ly -- to build a public lodge but had just stayed on, illegally cutting more limber for private gain, and Mather could say, "I want that mill dynamited by nightfall," and it was. Or when Teddy Roosevelt, in the face of the fury of every last western senator, could create millions of acres of forest reserves out of his love of the land and the force of his pen. Or when Aldo Leopold or Bob Marshall could essentially will the creation of wilderness. Or even when, with the great act of 1964, Howard Zahniser could essentia1ly will a whole wilderness system. Gone. Those limes are gone. These are complex times, ambiguous times. NEPA. NFMA. FLPMA. Freedom of Infonnation. Public hearings. Takings arguments. Wise Use. Ancient Forest Brigade. Four years before you can get data on the just- released smolt. Inconclusive data on acid rain. Good ranch families, bad riparian protection. Yet I would ask you to accept this context, not just because it is, indisputably, the context, but because there is another side to these times .- which is that we are making history. Granted, we are making it by bits and pieces rather than by thunderbolts, but we are breaking down a century and a half of boundaries and opening up our rivers and lands to a new, fresh, and better approach. Riffle by riffle, beaver pond by beaver pond, monocline by monocline, Ana,azi site by Anasazi site, we are making progress, slow but sweet progress. And perhaps it is not quite so slow. Think back five years. Ten. Twenty. Hasn't it been worth it? In the long run, can't we valne a ten or twenty year steady crusade as much as a thunderbolt? A year ago this Thursday, I went back to Washington to pay tribute to Wallace Stegner, who had just died. Bruce Babbitt set up a simple ceremony in the old Interior building auditorium. He asked Terry Tempest Williams, Tom Walkins, and myself to say a few words because we knew and loved Wally. Bruce said that he wanted the program to be for Interior Department employees, to remind them of part of their heritage, since Wally was Writer in Residence under Stuart Udall. Hundreds of people, most of whom worked for Interior, turned ont to honor Wally. Terry Tempest Williams recalled a lime when Wally came to Utah to dedicate a new wetlands, put into protected status by The Nature Conservancy. Afterward, Terry took him to the airport. At the gate, she said, "Thank you for coming." Wally paused. Then, knowing the difficulty of being a conservationist in Utah, he said simply, "Thank you for staying." Terry then thanked the great many Interior employees in the audience for staying, for staying during the twelve years of the Reagan and Bush Administrations, when caring for the rivers and lands did not come firSt. Rivers Without Boundaries 1994