Grand Canyon Issues
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Tell your congressional representative and Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar that science and law should be followed in Grand Canyon National Park. See our goals for specifics.
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Reclamation could operate the dam in a manner that complies with the law and limits the adverse impacts to the chub and its critical habitat, but chooses instead to provide cheap peaking power to hydropower customers. The agency refuses to comply with the ESA and NEPA.
The Bureau of Reclamation’s Experimental Plan: A Destructive 5-Year Experiment
Reclamation has chosen dam operations that maximize the production of cheap peaking power at the expense of Grand Canyon resources. Their Experimental Assessment and Plan lacks both future high flows and sufficient steady flows. It violates federal law and runs counter to recommendations made by numerous scientists.
Reclamation’s proposals ignore clearly stated opposition from the National Park Service (NPS), which has the authority and responsibility to protect the Park against any “impairment.” Describing the present impairment by Reclamation’s Experimental Assessment and Plan, Superintendent of Grand Canyon National Park Steve Martin stated in his public comments:
Analysis of [Reclamation’s] Environmental Assessment and proposed action (including strict limitations on future flows, a short-duration steady flow regime in the latter part of the monsoonal period, and other key factors) indicates these measures would likely result in impairment of the resources of Grand Canyon National Park.
The [Plan] as written appears to be in conflict with NPS 2006 Management Policies, may not be consistent with CEQ guidelines, and is significantly in conflict with our understanding of the science and inconsistent with the intent of the Grand Canyon Protection Act . . .
Ignoring the National Park Service...
Even though the NPS has the responsibility to protect Grand Canyon from illegal and damaging federal activities, Reclamation has refused to include the agency as a cooperator. Officials at the Department of Interior (DOI) continue their misguided mission to strip the NPS of its authority and responsibility. DOI is knowingly supporting dam operations that violate federal law and go against $80M worth of agency science.
Endangered humpback chub
The endangered humpback chub has survived in the lower basin of the Colorado River and the Grand Canyon for 4 million years. Yet, in just the last 45 years, Glen Canyon Dam has threatened the chub with extinction in this area. The USFW concluded in its 1994 Biological Opinion that Reclamation’s dam operations are jeopardizing the chub and adversely modifying its critical habitat in violation of the Endangered Species Act (ESA).
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