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..; . . , Page 3 WRW washn x x x power The first problem is that the EIS team does not know the effect that test flows agreed to at the 11th hour by Bu/Rec at the insistence of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) to protect the endangered fish in the area will have on the hydropower resource. (See last week's WRW.) The modified low fluctuating flow proposal backed by the EIS team as the preferred alternative appears to have been selected to take into account as many of the problems of the various agencies and interests as possible, with a break given to the recreationists. It would provide for minimum releases of 8 million cubic feet per second (cfs) of Colo- rado River water between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. and 5000 cfs at night; maxi- mum releases would be 20,000 cfs; allowable releases over 24 hours would range from 5,000-8000 cfs. The hourly ramp rates would be limited to 2,500 cfs in increases and 1,500 cfs in decreases. The ramp rate is the rate of change in river flows up and down as demand fluctuates. This is similar to the regimen that the dam has operated under since Nov. 1, 1991, altho the draft EIS proposal is more restrictive. At the insistence of the USFWS, further studies of the linkages be- tween the endangered fish--the humpback chub and razorback sucker--in that part of the river, their habitat, and Colorado River flows would be carried out. It would require research flows to be between 8,000 and 20,000 cfs, with higher, steady flows in the spr ing and low, steady flows in the summer in five low release years when the annual release of water from Glen Canyon Dam is 8.23 million acre-feet. It could take up to 10 years to complete this research because low-release years vary with the weather. While much was made at the press conference on Jan. 6 about the entire draft EIS being based on science, several sources have told WRW the value of these test flows was not established by the scientists on the EIS team prior to the release of the draft EIS. Dif- ferences developed among the scientists from the various agencies at the Jan. 20 meeting of the EIS team in Phoenix over whether these proposed test flows would actually help or harm the endangered fish species. So a decision was made on Jan. 20 by the EIS team for its scientists to review this fish study proposal at a meeting before the end of February. This .wild card" tossed into the draft EIS at the last minute is of great concern to the Western Area Power Administration (WAPA), which markets CRSP, including Glen Canyon, power, according to David Sabo, WAPA's lead manager on the EIS team, stationed in Salt Lake City. Asked by WRW what other major concerns that WAPA has about the draft EIS, Sabo listed them as sharp increases in the CRSP power rate; "the loss of our prime peaking power resource in the Southwest. We are going to end up operating Glen Canyon as a base-loaded power plant"; the length of time it takes to schedule changes in demand by power customers "from hour-to- hour to three days"; and the need to provide for replacement power. The restricted operations proposed for Glen Canyon in the draft EIS would result in a rate increase of about 26 percent. CRSP customers see the costs of Colorado River environ~ental studies ballooning. Costs of studies for Glen Canyon, Flaming Gorge Dam in Utah and the three CRSP dams in Colorado will total $99.7 million by the end of fiscal 1995 (Sept. 30, 1995), all paid for out of the hydropower revenues generated by these dams, notably Glen Canyon Dam, members of the EIS team were told in phoenix on Jan. 20. Users of CRSP power already have seen their rates nearly double from 9.8 mills per kilowatt hour in 1990 to 16.7 mills in 1992 with another mill increase expected in the next year, according to Colorado River Energy Distributors Association (CREDA). (more)