[Awclist] [Fwd: RRFW Riverwire - INTERIOR GIVING UP ON GRAND CANYON?]

[Tom Robey]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: 	RRFW Riverwire - INTERIOR GIVING UP ON GRAND CANYON?
Date: 	Wed, 28 Feb 2007 20:38:19 -0700
From: 	Riverwire <riverwire at rrfw.org>
Organization: 	River Runners for Wilderness
To: 	<Riverwire at rrfw.org>



PRESS RELEASE: LIVING RIVERS//CENTER FOR BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY

Giving up on Grand Canyon! Groups Demand Interior Department Revamp Approach

For Immediate Release: February 28, 2007

Contact: John Weisheit, Living Rivers, (435) 259-1063, (435) 260-2590 (cell)

Michelle Harrington, Center for Biological Diversity, (602) 628-9909

MOAB, Utah– In a 21-page letter sent today to Interior Secretary Dirk 
Kempthorne, conservation groups Living Rivers/Colorado Riverkeeper and 
the Center for Biological Diversity demanded that the Secretary revise 
his plan to support a failing Colorado River restoration project in 
Grand Canyon National Park.

A 12-year-old program that was established to mitigate the impacts of 
Glen Canyon Dam, upstream of Grand Canyon National Park, is undergoing 
environmental review for a new set of experiments. The groups charge 
that continuing activities under the current framework would be a death 
sentence for the remaining native species trying to survive the 
extensive ecological changes the dam’s operations have brought to Grand 
Canyon.

“If their approach doesn’t change, the end result will be more of the 
same,” says John Weisheit, of Living Rivers. “Study after study clearly 
illustrates the current program is a disaster.”

Citing findings from the National Research Council, U.S. Fish and 
Wildlife Service, U.S. Geological Survey and former Interior Secretary 
Gale Norton, the groups outline how the Glen Canyon Dam Adaptive 
Management Program has failed in its mission to reverse the decline of 
cultural and natural resources in Grand Canyon National Park as directed 
by the 1992 Grand Canyon Protection Act.

• Habitat conditions for endangered native fish like the humpback chub 
have not been improved, so its numbers have declined since the program 
began. Plans to reintroduce other endangered species lost to Glen Canyon 
Dam’s operations have stalled.

• Requirements of the Fish and Wildlife Service to operate the dam more 
consistently with the river’s natural water levels and rates of flow are 
repeatedly ignored.

• Hydroelectric-power interests override conservation objectives and 
hamstring progress.

• Recommendations by scientists are ignored and critical studies, such 
as the 2000 low summer steady flow experiment, are left incomplete.

The main problem, the groups point out, is not how to mitigate the dam’s 
impacts to allow Grand Canyon’s recovery to begin, but the deeply flawed 
decision-making structure that impedes sound science from fulfilling the 
objectives of the Grand Canyon Protection Act.

“Glen Canyon Dam has caused the nearly complete loss of the natural and 
cultural resources in Grand Canyon’s Colorado River corridor,” says 
Michelle Harrington with the Center for Biological Diversity. “The 
Adaptive Management Working Group has failed in its work and needs to be 
cut off.”

Prior to Glen Canyon Dam, the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon 
supported one of the most unique fish communities in the world — eight 
species that existed together nowhere else on earth. Four are already 
gone, one has not been seen since 1992, and another, the humpback chub, 
has declined to the brink of extinction with just a few thousand fish.

This Environmental Impact Statement process was launched as part of a 
settlement reached in September 2006 between the Center for Biological 
Diversity, Living Rivers, Glen Canyon Institute, Sierra Club and Arizona 
Wildlife Federation, and the Department of Interior to address the 
worsening habitat conditions for endangered native fish in Grand Canyon.

“We chose to settle the lawsuit with the understanding that the 
environmental review would comprehensively address immediate recovery 
needs for endangered species in light of the documented failings of the 
Adaptive Management Program, but it appears Interior had no such 
intention,” adds Harrington.

The groups have asked Secretary Kempthorne to abandon the Environmental 
Impact Statement’s focus from a hastily conceived set of experimental 
options prepared by the Adaptive Management Working Group to a broad 
examination of the Adaptive Management Program process to date. They 
urge removal of the Bureau of Reclamation as an adviser on Grand Canyon 
issues, establishment of a truly independent scientific research and 
advisory mechanism to ensure ecological integrity, and a thorough 
examination of all options available to improve habitat conditions, 
including decommissioning Glen Canyon Dam.

“It’s time to stop pretending that this program can work,” concludes 
Weisheit. “Let’s either agree that the public does not care about Grand 
Canyon National Park’s unique river ecosystem, and spend these so-called 
conservation resources elsewhere, or get serous about reviving them as 
Congress mandated through the Grand Canyon Protection Act.”

Living Rivers is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the restoration 
of the natural hydrological and ecological processes within the Colorado 
watershed to protect native species and their habitats.

The Center for Biological Diversity is a nonprofit conservation 
organization with over 32,000 members dedicated to the protection of 
imperiled species and their habitats.

###

Additional Information:

Letter to Interior Secretary Kempthorne from Living Rivers and Center 
for Biological Diversity:

http://www.livingrivers.org/archives/article.cfm?NewsID=759

Information about the Environmental Impact Statement for Long-Term 
Experimental Plan on the operations of Glen Canyon Dam and its impacts 
on Grand Canyon National Park:

http://www.livingrivers.org/archives/article.cfm?NewsID=753

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