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Yahoo
24-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Feds won't flood the Grand Canyon this spring. What that will mean for the Colorado river
Federal officials have rejected a plan to release floodwaters from Lake Powell to restore Grand Canyon beaches this spring, frustrating river advocates who question the government's commitment to protecting the canyon's environment. Glen Canyon Dam has impounded the Colorado River near the Arizona-Utah line since 1963, and with it the annual load of sand that natural snowmelt floods previously churned up onto beaches and sandbars in the Grand Canyon each year. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, working through a collaborative adaptive management program to make the most of what sand a smaller tributary still deposits below the dam, has flooded the canyon by opening the dam's bypass tubes 12 times since 1996. With repeated decisions not to open the floodgates even when the sand is available, some are questioning whether the Glen Canyon Dam Adaptive Management Program is preserving Grand Canyon's ecology and recreation as required under the Grand Canyon Protection Act of 1992. 'We are failing,' said Ben Reeder, a Utah-based river guide who represents the Grand Canyon River Guides on a technical work group that considers management options for the Reclamation Bureau. 'Deeply disappointed,' said Larry Stevens, a canyon ecologist who represents Wild Arizona and the Grand Canyon Wildlands Council on the work group. Reeder and Stevens were among advocates and state agency officials who reluctantly agreed to forego a flood last fall in favor of saving the sand for a more naturally timed springtime flood. Events over the winter would interfere with that plan. Reclamation officials said in April that they would recommend that new Interior Secretary Doug Burgum not authorize the flood because a National Park Service contractor was excavating in a slough downstream of the dam to disrupt its use as a spawning bed by non-native fish, including smallmouth bass. Work on relining the bypass tubes to protect their steel pipes also interfered. On Thursday, May 22, the agency announced that the decision against flooding was final. Invasive fish: Cold water shots into the Colorado River slow a bass invasion in the Grand Canyon Those who had anticipated a rejuvenating flood said they appreciate the need to protect native fish from voracious predators like the bass, but that there's too often some reason or another to reject bypassing the dam's hydropower turbines to send water downstream, a cost to the dam's power customers around the West. In 2021, for instance, the government declined to flood the canyon to prop up Lake Powell's water level. 'It just seems like looking for any excuse not to do one,' Reeder said. The default appears to be against flooding in any given year, he said, perhaps because the team that ultimately recommends for or against does not include environmentalists or recreationalists. 'It really kind of bothers me, honestly, that we talk about the Grand Canyon in these economic terms as if it's there for human consumption,' Reeder said. Fresh off a May river trip, Reeder said beach erosion is apparent throughout the canyon. Rains from last year's monsoon particularly battered one of his preferred camping beaches, at Stone Creek. 'We have a sand-starved system,' he said. Environmentalists prefer a spring flood over fall, because it best mimics the river's natural rhythm. Angler advocates also prefer spring, as it comes at a time that can better support a tailwater rainbow trout fishery, which has suffered in recent years as low water in Lake Powell led to a warming river. More than any flood, the trout need more water in the reservoir, pushing the warm surface farther from the dam intakes, said Jim Strogen, who represents Trout Unlimited in the adaptive management discussions. 'A deeper, colder lake is the best thing for that fishery,' he said. Shortages: Hobbs says Arizona will defend its Colorado River water, wants other states to accept cuts The floods cost perhaps $1 million or $2 million in lost hydroelectric production, according to Leslie James, who represents mostly rural and tribal power consumers in the program as executive director of the Colorado River Energy Distributors Association. Last year, when there was no major flood but the dam managers regularly pulsed cold water through the bypass tubes to keep the river inhospitable to bass spawning, the agency said the cost in lost power production was $19 million. The losses deplete a fund that pays for dam maintenance and environmental programs, James noted, and drawing more from that fund this year could cause delays in maintenance. 'We weren't asked our views on (a spring flood), she said, 'but if asked we would say that we always have concerns about bypassing hydropower generation.' James said a repeat of last summer's cool releases to combat bass seems unnecessary, as bass so far are generally restricted to the 15 miles below the dam and are not showing up dozens of miles downstream at the confluence with the Little Colorado River, a haven for native humpback chubs. Reclamation officials said they will decide in June whether to pulse cold water through the canyon this summer. The agency reported that last year's cool flows appeared to have worked, preventing any detectable growth in bass numbers by keeping the river mostly below 16 degrees Celsius — the temperature at which bass reproduce successfully — as far downstream as the Little Colorado. It also projected that without bypass flows this summer, temperatures in the river likely would rise above 16 degrees. A federal biologist working on chub conservation told The Arizona Republic it would not be surprising if bass reach the Little Colorado by fall and reverse gains in the native fish population that allowed the government to downlist the chub from endangered to threatened in 2021. The floods, achieved with blasts of water that jet across the canyon below the dam, can give the erroneous impression that water is lost downstream. In reality, while the floods do temporarily reduce Lake Powell's elevation, they do not harm irrigators or municipal water providers. Lake Mead captures the water on the Grand Canyon's west end and stores it for later use in Nevada, Arizona, California and Mexico. Want more stories about water? Sign up for AZ Climate, The Republic's weekly environmental newsletter Reclamation officials initially told participants in the adaptive management collaboration that a flood was unlikely in April, when Program Manager Bill Stewart said every attempt had been made to schedule it. When the groups and agencies had agreed to put off a flood last fall, he said, it had appeared there would be a window in May when both slough modifications and dam maintenance would be done. The plan was to flood the canyon for 60 hours, with a peak flow of 40,400 cubic feet per second, compared to routine flows in May ranging from 8,000 to 13,382 cfs. During the transition in presidential administrations, work in the slough was delayed, leading to heavy equipment remaining in the river corridor throughout the month. Dam maintenance also lasted into the timeframe when a flood was envisioned, leaving some of the bypass tube capacity unavailable. 'We really did make every effort to make this happen,' Stewart told flood advocates tuning in to April's virtual meeting. Some participants, including Arizona Game and Fish Department biologist David Rogowski, said the program needs to improve its scheduling. 'We need to be better about planning for the future,' Rogowski said. 'We aren't doing (a spring flood) because of poor planning.' Stevens agreed, saying Reclamation should incorporate planned floods into its routine maintenance schedule. A river scientist who previously led the U.S. Geological Survey's Grand Canyon research team said the Reclamation Bureau's continuing trend of skipping opportunities to flood the canyon jeopardizes Grand Canyon National Park's sandbars — a feature he said is as vital to the park's natural environment as the sandstone walls looming above the river. 'It is disturbing that sand bars always come out second,' said Jack Schmidt, a Utah State University researcher and former head of the Grand Canyon Monitoring and Research Center. 'It's removing an entire landscape element.' Brandon Loomis covers environmental and climate issues for The Arizona Republic and Reach him at Environmental coverage on and in The Arizona Republic is supported by a grant from the Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Trust. Follow The Republic environmental reporting team at and @azcenvironment on Facebook and Instagram. This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Grand Canyon advocates lament lack of environmental flows this spring
USA Today
03-03-2025
- Business
- USA Today
'Feat of mankind': Hoover Dam turns 89 and faces an uncertain future
'Feat of mankind': Hoover Dam turns 89 and faces an uncertain future Show Caption Hide Caption The Hoover Dam on Lake Mead: 200 years in the making Putting a massive dam on the Colorado River on the state line of Nevada and Arizona took decades of planning. The Republic Saturday commemorates the 89th anniversary of the Hoover Dam's completed construction, considered by most experts "a modern miracle" and one of the most visited sites in the world. The 726-foot-high arch-gravity dam stretches 1,244 feet across the Black Canyon and was built over five years starting in 1931, helping provide water and hydroelectrical power to the West. The now-second-tallest dam was proposed to prevent flooding from Rocky Mountain snow-melting waters into the Colorado River, stretching south to the Gulf of California for more than 1,000 miles. Constructed along the Colorado River at the border of Nevada and Arizona, more than 21,000 workers helped erect the dam, situated about 30 miles southeast of Las Vegas, during the Great Depression, one of the nation's most turbulent times in history, said Robert Glennon, a water policy and law expert and emeritus professor at the University of Arizona. Construction on the dam was completed on March 1, 1936, according to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. "It is an American icon if there ever was one," said Glennon, author of the book, "Unquenchable, America's Water Crises and What To Do About It." "Given that it was built during the Depression, I consider it a modern miracle." The Hoover Dam captures water from the Colorado River and fills Lake Mead. The dam also generates enough energy each year to serve 1.3 million people in Nevada, Arizona and California, the Reclamation Bureau said. "That dam and the water stored became a very important piece of almost all of the uses in those lower basin states," said Jennifer Gimbel, a senior water policy scholar for the Colorado Water Center at Colorado State University. "They are controlling the water and move their economies forward to get water when they wanted it and helped the economies in all three of those states. "The dam helped build Nevada, as the state felt that building it would bring economic development," Gimbel added. Glennon said the dam is largely responsible for the growth of Las Vegas, then known as a major railroad hub of about 5,000 residents in a broad, underdeveloped desert valley situated between Utah and California. Now, with its bright lights, casinos and ubiquitous nightlife that attract millions of visitors each year, Las Vegas is known as the entertainment capital of the world. "If there's no Hoover Dam, I strongly believe there's no Las Vegas," Glennon said. "Because Vegas back then was just a train stop until after the Dam was built, you had a water and an electrical supply that Vegas could tap into. Look what became of that." The dam is a National Historic Landmark and has been rated by the American Society of Civil Engineers as one of America's Seven Modern Civil Engineering Wonders. On September 30, 1935, President Franklin Roosevelt officially dedicated the dam and famously said, "I came, I saw, and I was conquered, as everyone will be who sees for the first time this great feat of mankind." How did the dam get its name? The Hoover Dam was named in honor of Herbert Hoover, the nation's 31st president. As commerce secretary, Hoover had a pivotal role in proposing the dam's construction on the Colorado River in the 1920s. As construction of the dam was initiated on Sept. 30, 1930, then-Interior Secretary Ray Lyman Wilbur ordered the dam to be named after Hoover. Congress made it official five months later on Feb. 14, 1931, according to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation's website. When Hoover left office in 1933, the names "Boulder Canyon Dam" and "Boulder Dam" were frequently used when referring to the dam, the website said, allegedly because the new secretary of the interior did not like Hoover. However, the dam's name was never officially changed. The naming of the dam was considered controversial at the time, Glennon said. "It was all about politics, even back then," Glennon said. "Despite a lot of back-and-forth, Roosevelt's Cabinet really wanted to acknowledge the former president and they fought hard to get it through." An uncertain future As the Hoover Dam was built to control water use, there are concerns that the giant reservoirs of the Colorado River, Lake Mead (the largest reservoir in the U.S. in terms of water capacity) and Lake Powell, remain far below their capacities because of drought conditions in the West. The lakes, which provide the water that 40 million Americans depend on, are now only about 35% full, climatologist Brian Fuchs of the National Drought Mitigation Center told USA TODAY in February. Fuchs said that while the lakes are "in slightly better shape than a few years ago when they were at record lows and it really was a crisis situation. They are still only holding about half of the water compared to the average over the last 40 years." Glennon said municipalities will somehow have to find ways to use less water from the lakes. He compares it with "having too many straws drinking out of a milkshake." 'Mother Nature needs to do her part': Water crisis in West still looms as Lakes Mead and Powell only 35% full "It's going to require political will and moral courage to solve the problem," Glennon said. Gimbel agrees. "The dam has been really important in helping us survive the megadrought we've been forced with since 2001," she said. "But there are harder times to come, and the leaders are still trying to figure out how to the best operate the dam for a sustainable Colorado River in the future." Yet, the dam overall remains a key attraction, as more than seven million people visit the site each year, according to Two guided tours of Hoover Dam, a 40-minute Power Plant Tour and an hourlong Dam Tour, are offered to visitors, Lane Whitlow, Hoover Dam tour operations manager, told the Arizona Republic. "Both tours begin with a 10-minute introductory film and include visits to the original construction tunnels, the 30-foot-diameter penstock and power plant balcony," Whitlow told the publication. Gimbel is amazed the dam is still a strong tourist attraction. "It is so cool, you think of these guys building this in the 1930s and the fact that it is still there and operating when it's been nearly 100 years," Gimbel said. "Look at the engineering marvel that is the dam as well as and the environmental and recreational aspects it has held." Contributing, Doyle Rice, USA TODAY, and Tiffany Acosta, Arizona Republic
