EDF Praises Measures to Protect the Grand Canyon

(9 October, 1996 — Oakland) The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) today applauded the Secretary of Interior’s decision on how to operate Glen Canyon Dam.

“Today is a victory for the Grand Canyon and all those who care about our natural heritage,”said Spreck Rosekrans, economic analyst in EDF’s Oakland, California office. “Given that the dam is in place, the secretary has made some great strides in protecting the Colorado River by implementing scientifically proven operating criteria for the dam upstream. For the foreseeable future, the protection and restoration of the canyon’s beaches and fish habitat will be considered a top priority in determining the pattern of flows released from Glen Canyon Dam. The devastating daily fluctuations, scheduled to meet the peak demands of designated electric power customers, will no longer be allowed to occur.”

Since 1988, EDF has worked with the Bureau of Reclamation and others to pioneer new water management methods to balance the ecological health of the Grand Canyon with the energy needs of the surrounding region. For decades, Glen Canyon Dam has been operated primarily to provide cheap electricity to preferred customers, who today pay about half the national average wholesale electric rate. Operations scheduled to coincide with electricity demand have resulted in large daily fluctuations, dramatically changing the flow patterns of the Colorado River, eroding its beaches, threatening archaeological sites, and destroying the habitat of native species downstream.

“We are pleased that occasional high beach and habitat-building flows, like the successful experimental flood last April, are part of the Secretary’s decision,” said Rosekrans. “Our only concern is that the ecosystem needs may not be the primary basis for determining whether some of these healing flows can occur. Instead, the regional water interests may be able to prevent many of the beach-building flows from occurring, even though these flows would have no impact on either the delivery of water or the end-of-year storage in Lake Powell or Lake Mead.”