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~fn Canyon Dam (Bureau of Reclamalion photo by AriIiD'..... Ingebretnn .uddenly found himself rid- ing a.wave. Calls came in from around the country. colle,. profeuors wanting to debate the move in their claurooma:; studeuts, river runners and desert rab wanting to get involved.. Within a year, Ingebretsen dropped his medical practice to focus on the institute. "I must have pU5hed the right button at the right time,. he says. .Somet!mes you just need someone to hold the partiell. That's what rve done. Tvejust reserved tbe room aDd ordered the cookies." But not everyone wanted to attend the parties. This September, Western lawmakers held congreuional hearings to drown the idea. Sierra Club president:Adam Werbach aDd the ilUltitute's David Wegner got a beat- ing from politicians and experts wbo dis- missed the plan as -loony," -impractical" and "certifiably nutty" (HCN, 10/13/97), Tbe bearings may bave backfired. Tbe Arizona Daily Sun editorialized, "Draining the lake is no laugbing matter ... (The Glen Canyon lnatitute and the Sierra Club) are neither scientific nor public relations IiJbt- weights" 'The San DUgo Union ran an opin- ion piece arguing that draiaing Lake Powell could save almost a nUllion acre-feet of water.each year that is lest to ~aporation and seepage into the ground. A week after the hearing, the New York 1imu published an opinion piece by Dan Beard, Conner head of BuRee, praising the proposal as "'breathtaking," and something worthy of consideration. -rhe dam-building era in the United States is over: he told a crowd at the Glen Caayon Institute's third annual meeting in October.-Seani, who now works for the National Audubon Society, compared dams to nuclear power plants: They provide imme- diate, -dean- benefits, but carry huge costs over the long baul. . -A dam can leave a 1egacy of environ- mental destruction that will take hundreds of yean to correct, " he said. "'Why not apend (the milli0D8 or dolJU'lI we're already putting into mitigation for the Glen Canyon Dam) on rest.oriDI the canyon?" It'. a good question, a&yIi David Wegner, an ecologist who spent 22 years with the BuRet. Beginnm.- in 1982, Wegner headed the Glen. Canyon Environmental Studies, a massive study on the effects of the dam on the Grand Canyon ecosystem. His findings led the 8uresu to Rood the Grand Canyon in the spring of 1996 to wash sediment out of the river and rejuvenate the beaches (}lCN, 7122196). For the first time at Glen Canyon, the Bureau,had taken the environment into account, rather than catering to power users. But the "Flood of'96" was only a Band-Aid, says Werner. Within a year, more than 80 percent of the new beaches bad. washed back into the river. "'It wu- not a panacea. It was not a loog- term aoJuticO. We knew that all along, It be I8)'L "If you want to restore the Grand Caftyon ecosystem, removing the dam is the only lonl-term lSOIution." Not surprisingly, the BuRec shied away from Wegner" ideas. Soon after the flood, it dosed the Glen Canyon EnvlronmebtaI Studiea office and offered Wegner a job else- wben. "It W8I an insult; say8 Weper. -It wam't sdence. It wasn't what I was interest- ed in.. So he left and joined Richard Ingebretsen in hopes of puahing the Bureau one step further from the outside. If Ingebretsen '"reserves the room and orders the cookies: Wegner is the life of the part)t Driven and. eloquat, Wes:nez, says there is a "windcw of opportunity; in which Glen Canyon and. the GnlIld Canyon tan be saved. Endangered fish such as the razorback suclter and bumpback chub still survive in river tributaries and murky backwaters. If we restore the Colorado River, these fish may recover, he says, but if we do nothing, "'20 years from now, they may not still be here.. The same is true {OT other creatures swm as the endangered southwest willow flycatcher and leopard frog. As for Lake Powell, says Wegner, -it has- n't become a toxic wasteland yet," but over time, it may. Glen Canyon will never be restored to its original state, he 1ll)'lI, but much of the river system can still be sal- vaged. 1b make their vision a reality, Wegner and lngebretsen want to do the job the BuRee never did: take a close look at the environmental costs oftbe Glen Canyon Dam. Their tool is a -Citizens' EDvironmental Assessment," modeled after the stolfies that agencies put together under the National Environmental Policy Act, Over the next few years, the institute will pull together existing studies and information on Glen Canyon, put them into a report and take it to the public for review. "'If the public says 'we're happy with what we\re gut,' we~l, that's an answer,. says Wegner. "But at least it's based on public input and scientific infonnation aad not based on what a couple of politicians back in Washington thought up." He hopes the Citizens' EA will prompt the BuRee to do a more extensive environmental impact .tate- ment, aad to consider drainia( the lake. So far, neither the DuRee nor the Clinton administration has shown any.ign of budging on the wue. Elliot Diringer, a spokesman for the President" Council GO Environmental Quality, is skeptical of the institute's approach. "It may be a way to muster sapport for their cause," be says, "but I know of no legal basis for this sort of EA leading to aDY action." Wegner acknowledges that the institute is up against an ot\en immovable Bureau, multimillion-dollar tourist and power indus. tries and a century of accumulated water law, but he is still hopeful. The flood of 1996 demonstrated that the BuRee tan change. 'Thurists can, too; they can turn from. floating the lake to running the river and hikin&" in the canyons. Likewise, the demand for electricity can be satiated through coal power, alternative energy sources and c:onaeivation; I'inally, bill 883'So ir the pubUc . decides to drain Powell, the linchpin of the . Colorado River Compact, the laws wiJl have to change to accommodate it "Nobody is going to CO up to Lake Powell and pull the plu, on it tomorrow,. says Wegner. -nus is going to take time to do it right. All we're doing is starting the debate" The end 01. desert lake? On Lake Powell, hordes of boaters flock to the Wabweap Marina for the long Utah Education Asaociation Wftkend. The stene resembles s jacht club on San Francisco Bay more than the Utah desert. Folks loaf alODJ:" the doeb slathered in sunscreen and fuel up their houseboats and jet-skis. A pack of kids chases a football. Many here baven't heard about the push to drain the lake, but those who have take the idea very seriously. ~t would be a travesty," says one man wbo has been coming here for 20 years. "A lot of people erUoy this lake. "The trouble with that is, you get enough people talking about it, and some day they just might do it,- . "Glen Canyon was a peaceful ' ., and pl"Otective place. The more you got to know it, the more you fell in love with it." - Katie Lee BECOMING A TOXIC WASTRAND? More than 2 million peoJ,lle \lisil Lake Powell each year (Greg Hanscom photo) High Country N~ - Novcmlx'r 10. 1997 - II