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Upstream Dam & Grand Canyon Ecosystem PHOENIX, Arizona, January 21, 2002 (ENS) - The National Park Service has agreed to revisit its management plans for 277 miles of the Colorado River and 1.1 million acres of proposed wilderness within Grand Canyon National Park, America's premier national park. Four conservation and boating groups Thursday announced the settlement of a lawsuit over a stalled public planning process for management of the Colorado River and proposed wilderness within the park.
"The settlement is a victory for all people who care about the Grand Canyon," said Willie Odem, former president of the Grand Canyon Private Boaters Association. "It allows the public to regain their voice concerning the future of the Grand Canyon." The settlement, filed in federal court in Phoenix, Arizona, resolves a lawsuit filed in July 2000 by the conservation groups and four individuals. The plaintiffs had challenged former park Superintendent Rob Arnberger's February 2000, decision to abandon work on a wilderness plan and a revised Colorado River management plan which the park had begun in 1997. The settlement includes a list of issues the Park Service must address in the renewed planning process, such as the use of motorized boats and helicopters to transport river passengers in proposed wilderness and ways to improve access to the river for non-commercial boaters. "This agreement is vital to preserving over 100 years of river running tradition," said Jason Robertson, access director for American Whitewater. "Citizens deserve a fair shot at a self guided wilderness quality float trip through the Grand Canyon and a quarter century wait for a private boater permit is unreasonably long." The settlement commits the Park Service to restarting the Colorado River Management Plan within 120 days and completing the plan in 2004. Although conservation groups pressured the park to merge the river plan with the park's 1998 Draft Wilderness Management Plan, the Park Service retained the option to prepare these plans consecutively. "The Colorado River forms the backbone of the park's 1.1 million acres of proposed wilderness" said Kim Crumbo, an individual plaintiff in the lawsuit and the park's former wilderness coordinator.
"We feel strongly that the river and wilderness management plans should be combined into one cohesive document. To do otherwise does not make sense because river issues are tied directly with wilderness issues and vice versa," Crumbo said. Randall Rasmussen, program manager for National Parks Conservation Association, said the settlement is "significant because all the parties to the lawsuit - conservation and private boating groups, the Park Service, and commercial river outfitters - agree it is important to restart a public planning process now." More than important, the situation of the Grand Canyon ecosystem is urgent, according to a new front lines environmental and social justice organization Living Rivers. The group led a rally in downtown Phoenix Friday to demand immediate action to save the ecosystem in Grand Canyon. Living Rivers was joined by the Center for Biological Diversity, the Sierra Club, the Audubon Society and other groups in calling on the Department of the Interior to start following the laws that require mitigation of the Glen Canyon Dam's adverse impacts to the Colorado River ecosystem - the heart of the Grand Canyon National Park. Interior officials and other stakeholders interested in Glen Canyon Dam and the Grand Canyon wrapped-up a two-day meeting today at the site of the rally. They were attempting to salvage a five-year old federal program that was supposed to reverse the dam's negative impact on Grand Canyon.
"The environment of Grand Canyon is being sacrificed," said Michelle Harrington of the Center for Biological Diversity. "Americans are outraged to learn that, despite five years and forty million dollars this program has made so little progress." "Several native fish species have already been lost, and one more numbers in only the thousands," David Orr of Living Rivers told the rally. "Add to this the changes in the food web that form the foundation for the Canyon's ecology and the picture is clear, the Grand Canyon is becoming the Grand Ditch." Grand Canyon National Park is an International Biosphere Reserve and has been called one of the natural wonders of the world. Yet the construction of Glen Canyon Dam in 1963 upstream of the canyon has had a severe negative impact on the Colorado River through Grand Canyon. Today the Glen Canyon Dam is a primary factor in the endangerment of native fish species, loss of beaches and sand bars, and damage to cultural resources, the environmental groups warn. Native fish species affected by dam operations include: the endangered humpback chub, the endangered razorback sucker, as well as the Colorado pikeminnow and the bonytail chub which are extirpated and endangered. Interests of water and hydropower users are generally in conflict with efforts to protect and recover endangered native fish and restore natural flows through Grand Canyon. The Western Area Power Administration markets power generated by Glen Canyon Dam. Water deliveries from the dam are governed by a complex set of statutes, regulations, treaties and court decisions collectively known as the Law of the River. In a letter delivered by hand Friday to Michael Gabaldon, deputy Interior Secretary and chair of the government program known as Glen Canyon Dam Adaptive Management, Living Rivers and seven other groups offer comments on the proposed Strategic Plan of the Adaptive Management Work Group. The other groups are: the Tucson based Center for Biological Diversity, Colorado Plateau River Guides, Flagstaff Activist Network, Forest Conservation Council, Glen Canyon Institute, the John Muir Project sponsored by the San Francisco based Earth Island Institute, the Maricopa Audubon Society, and the Sierra Club. The groups seek remedies where the program stands in violation of laws governing the Grand Canyon ecosystem, including the Grand Canyon Protection Act and National Park Organic Act. They say the program has failed to:
"It's a travesty that those involved in this program have been so negligent in fulfilling their mandate to reverse the habitat decline of this international treasure," dsifOrr. "Although we hope they will quickly address our concerns, we trust litigation may ultimately be required to force this body into action." The groups are demanding that a new environmental impact statement on Glen Canyon Dam operations be undertaken in light of new science data that demonstrate declines in key ecological indicators, including native fish, invertebrates, and sediment. Technical details from the Western Area Power Administration: http://www.wapa.gov/crsp/l6300doc/gcdrod.htm Living Rivers: http://www.livingrivers.net Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2002. All rights reserved. |
The Grand
Canyon is one of the deepest canyons in the world with a depth of one mile.
It averages nearly 10 miles in width over its 277 mile length.
(Photo courtesy 
The Colorado
River has carved the Grand Canyon into the land of northeastern Arizona (Photo courtesy
Glen Canyon Dam
(Photo courtesy 