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:-",., . .,~ "I'U nevecget over the feeling." But built it was, and Glen Canyon be. came a symbol and rallying cry for radical environmentalists who decried the losses that came with compromise. In his book The Monkeywrench Gang, Edward Abbey built a romantic adventure around the' prospect of dynamiting Glen Canyon .Dam to liberate the mighty river. The envllufltnental group Earth First! took Abbey's lead and pioneered "monkey. wrenching" tactics of environmental sabotage. with Olen Canyon Serving as the paramount example of a deserving target. At ceremonies marking the dam's 20th an. niversary in 1983, a nervous Interior Department took extraordinary security measures for Secretary James Watt's ap; pearance. However, no sabotage occlllUd thaI day. '~,L . ,'. , ,.: ',I. ~'i. ',. ,i, '- . After The D.ni~;'''l'''','.''''')''-r.'' j;:~";":' f,41I:n!t. .. In th.17y.... from 1963'0 1980, wh.n Lake Powell was filling, the Grand Canyonan~ Its environs became a changed ecosystem. Thday; fishermen object to the dam's fluctuations for its effects on one of the greatest trout fisheries in America. But the rainbow trout, a cold water fish was introduced after the dam 's constru~tion and survives there because of it ' The great red muddy river, 'the Colorado, used to be "too thick to drink too chin to plow," according to autho; Philip Fradkin, In the parlance of the ' hydrologists, the pre-dam river nows had wide seasonal variations In magnitude sediment load, and temperature: Thousands of cubic miles of rock have washed from the Colorado Plateau into the river, leaving the wonders of the South. west and providing the sediment carried by the river. But today, the water that passes through Glen Canyon Dam is clear and cold, 99.5 percent free of the! pre--dam sediment which will conoct in Lake Powell for ~ estimated 700 years. Average annual peak flow was reduced from 93,400 cubic feet per second (cfs) to about 29,000 cfs during the filling of lhe lake. The capaclry of the generators is 31,500 cfs, and operators en- deavor to route all flows through the money-making powerplant. According to the Department of Inter- ior, "the change from wann, sediment- laden water to cool, clear water has ch~nged the aquatic food base in the river." 11l1s has been good for introduced trout but debimen~ to native and endangered fish species. In addition, managing for peak power production results in daily fluctuations between 1,000 to 31,500 cfs, causing the river level to rise and Call by 7 to I1lCfe than 13 feet, depending on the width of the river and the-dlsiance downstream from the 710 foot high dam ~e c~mulativeeffects ofthesechang~ ~ slgmfic~t, and from SOme points of View, benefiCial. Lany Stevens author of The Colorado River: A Guide Through the Grand Canyon, says that "totally by acci- denl, Glen ~yon'Dam has produced the largest belt of nparian habitat in the South. west An~ that ~ntribu~(m, biologically; has been mcre(bble. We have 210 speCies of migrant birds that ha:ye been observed there, at least 4000 species of insects and probably more like 10,000, a whole ~Iew. of ma~als, some of the densest reptile populations anywhere in theSouthwesl." , . SanifiJars, . - .i:'..-" ''', . Por lhe rivermnners, and the'restof the ' c.any?" inhabitants, the sand bars along the over s edge are a bellwether for life after the dam. Today's daily double fluctuation of high and low water is sawing away the b:eaches along the shore. Before, seasonal variations both eroded and redeposited sand and gravel throughout th'e length of th~ canyon. Now, with sediment being Withheld by the dam, there, is little new material to replenish the bars; :Frof?, a recreationill viewpoint, ,the result is fewer and smaller CamPgrounds along the w~y. Scientists say the beaches m:ealsp cruCial for maintaining vegetation i? ~e!.cany~:m, which in turn.provides npanan habItat for aniniallife. Sirice the filling of Lake_ Powell, high flows have been more frequent and erosion has inten~; sifted. as the dam is managed Cor peaking power. Jack Dav;is, Super~n:t(:ndent, of Grand C1Ulyon J~4ational Parie;' says, :'the sand bars have already. been altered' ,they'l~ never be what they were before ~ dam was built," . Prof.ssor Jack SchnUd&"p' ,wogi~lill . ~I~I~burY CoII~ge in Verm~nt, 'Ras'l'eeif.';" I ~ (lnnclpal chromcler oftlte trends govern. mg alluvial sand depQSits inSide the Grand Cany~~~,.As part of the U.S. Goological Survey, team" Sc1unid~ found that "fluc~ tuati~g~flows..; cauSed erosion~u'ghout the park." Today, aft.r a Januaiy 1989 re- se~h ~p down the COlorado, Schmidt says that "I am astonished at the extent of beach ;Ioss during the last three years' of -opel!'tJ~~. .~e beache~ really are, disap- peanng.,It IS tIme to act; the Grand Canyon i cannot wait forever." . .,-------...-.,.... Legal.Action, .. .- ,,:::.';, J\~e~Iyas 197J4,}eg!'l~tionp&d'begun aga!nst ,Ute Department of tnterior. allt;g~ ing violations of the, National Environ~ mental Policy Act (NEPA) for failure to prepare an environmental impact state- ment on the effects of operations at Glen Canyon Dam.' ,Martin Lition, founder of Grand Canyon Dories, the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit, says "-We forgot that the u'J\wlstream COIl sequences could be just as bad as.: dams themselves in the Grand Canyon." They sued, he says, because of the e(fe~ts the dam was having on wildlife, vegetallon, beaches and stream flows, ad- ding "it was Ute most unnatural thing in the world, in a place where nature is supposed to be the most important." The case was dismissed by an appellate court as not ripe for judicial review, because the Depart. ment, had not yet addressed whether to apply NEPA. In 1980. the Navajo Nation filed a similar suit, on the grounds that no en- vironmental impact statement had been prepared for continuing operations of Glen Canyon Dam. On appeal" Interior responded that it had not conducted a Glen Canyon IDS because comprehensivestudy was about to be undertaken for the entire Colorado River basin. The court accepted Interior's argument The following year, in 1981, the En- vironmental Defense Fund sued to force the cotnprehensive study. the Department continued with the next stage of its "bureaucratic shell game". as one environ- mentalist put it, by asking the judge nol to order a comprehensive study because it was about to prepare a series of site-' specific EIS's. Again the court accepted J~~.ri_()r's _explanation., ' , Since then, no environmental impact statement - basin-wide or ~iter.spec.fic n has been prepared, nor is..one pianned. In" 1982, when the Bureau' of Reclamation decided it wanted to expand Glen Canyon's generating capacity, it was . ~1?J;C.ed.tp,acknpwledge ,that,enYtr~J.1,*, p.. study was necessary. A len~thy"Gleri; Canyon Environmental Studies" (OtES) '/ process was begun, and in January~1988," it produced _an interagency report' whiCh concluded that "flood releases and flue. tuating rrleases were found to have sub- stantial adverse effects on downstream resources." '{'_: .".".,'-'" However, because th~ arialys'i~"'fook place oulside the NEPA process, ,the Department was able to sar_thattthis study was not intended nor designed' td lead directly to changes in dam ppelJltions:: In fact, 15 years after the ofigirial legal' ac- tions, Interior has announced"plahs:for' i Phase II and 1ll studies, which could effec- tively pre-empt lhe initiation _l?fNEPA prO- cedures or any change in' the -way ofdoing business until the mid odate.' 1990's. t t. Colorado river ronDen are Of"R,aoizhil to reform operatioo ~t Glen Canyon Da'~.. ARTA photo