WEBVTT 00:00:01.110 --> 00:00:05.426 This is Paul, her and Jennifer Sweeney of Arizona State University, 00:00:05.459 --> 00:00:11.316 speaking with Randy Seaholm in Arvada, Colorado on April 27th, Randy. 00:00:11.349 --> 00:00:16.506 Thank you so much for joining us today. My pleasure. Can you start out by 00:00:16.539 --> 00:00:20.227 telling us your name, your full name, the positions that you've held in 00:00:20.260 --> 00:00:25.026 the Adaptive Management Program in the years that you were involved? OK. 00:00:25.059 --> 00:00:31.056 Um My name is Randy Chol. I started working with the Colorado Water 00:00:31.089 --> 00:00:37.616 Conservation Board on Colorado River issues extensively. In 1990 I started 00:00:37.649 --> 00:00:45.649 participating in the Grand Canyon Emperor in uh 2000 00:00:46.590 --> 00:00:52.027 and I was actually, I was made the designated Twig representative on 00:00:52.060 --> 00:00:57.176 behalf of the State of Colorado in July of 2000. 00:00:57.209 --> 00:01:03.476 Mm. I also served as an alternate member to the AM wig 00:01:03.509 --> 00:01:08.686 and I only had a couple of meetings in that capacity. I retired in 00:01:08.719 --> 00:01:11.245 November 2009. 00:01:11.278 --> 00:01:16.066 Following my retirement, I was retained as a consultant by the State of 00:01:16.099 --> 00:01:24.099 Colorado to advise them on GCM activities and I remain a twig alternate 00:01:25.338 --> 00:01:32.245 to this day to this day. It's amazing to me how um much longevity, a lot 00:01:32.278 --> 00:01:36.456 of the members of the wig and Twig have. There's a lot of people have been 00:01:36.489 --> 00:01:43.346 there for decades. What keeps you motivated to stay involved for so long? 00:01:43.379 --> 00:01:48.626 I've always found Colorado River issues. Just fascinating. 00:01:48.659 --> 00:01:54.956 The GCM has thrown a couple of monkey wrenches if you will into the 00:01:54.989 --> 00:02:00.876 operations on the Colorado River, which I got to know very well and we'll 00:02:00.909 --> 00:02:07.346 go into those. Yeah. Yeah, we'll get into those. So the next question is 00:02:07.379 --> 00:02:11.987 about what aspect of the program you were mostly involved in? There's a 00:02:12.020 --> 00:02:15.957 lot of people who primarily do scientific research, other people primarily 00:02:15.990 --> 00:02:21.547 do policy and management type work. What, what was your main contribution 00:02:21.580 --> 00:02:25.666 you're making? I would consider my main responsibilities in policy and 00:02:25.699 --> 00:02:33.467 management, but I have a technical background and natural resources. So I 00:02:33.500 --> 00:02:38.495 crossed the line on occasions, but mostly policy and management and what 00:02:38.528 --> 00:02:45.245 aspect of natural resources uh are, is in your background? OK. I had a 00:02:45.278 --> 00:02:51.196 degree in watershed science from Colorado State University. So I'm neither 00:02:51.229 --> 00:02:54.327 an engineer or an attorney 00:02:54.360 --> 00:02:59.077 which is suited me. Well, 00:02:59.110 --> 00:03:02.827 that's good. Yeah, a lot of people who uh work in water policy are, are 00:03:02.860 --> 00:03:06.547 attorneys, right? 00:03:06.580 --> 00:03:11.585 I've always found it fun to uh have a good debate with an attorney and 00:03:11.618 --> 00:03:15.225 come out on top. 00:03:15.258 --> 00:03:21.376 So, um uh since this is a history project, we're um very interested in 00:03:21.409 --> 00:03:25.396 change over time. And I wonder now if you can reflect a little bit on what 00:03:25.429 --> 00:03:30.376 kind of changes macro or micro level changes that you've seen in the 00:03:30.409 --> 00:03:34.975 program over the time that you've participated. Ok. I guess I've seen the 00:03:35.008 --> 00:03:42.827 program evolve basically coming right out of the 1995 EIS and the 00:03:42.860 --> 00:03:49.656 responsibilities that determined to be that and that came out in a paper 00:03:49.689 --> 00:03:53.775 by Scott Lovelace. I don't know if you had a chance to read any of the 00:03:53.808 --> 00:03:58.717 minutes and stuff at all. Some of the more recent ones, but not all the 00:03:58.750 --> 00:04:05.656 old ones. Let me give you this. This is Scott's paper and it's in the 00:04:05.689 --> 00:04:09.386 minutes from January of 2000. 00:04:09.419 --> 00:04:17.419 And it has a lot of questions that the uh and we asked for some direction 00:04:19.619 --> 00:04:24.507 on to see where we can, you know, where, where we needed to focus our 00:04:24.540 --> 00:04:32.046 efforts and kind of work. Um The bottom line is we should be focusing on 00:04:32.079 --> 00:04:39.055 dam operations and not the existence of the damper. And that was been a 00:04:39.088 --> 00:04:46.026 hard distinction to uh keep as we've gone along and not one that a lot of 00:04:46.059 --> 00:04:53.296 the environmentalists in particular were interested in trying to abide by. 00:04:53.329 --> 00:04:59.627 Can you clarify for us a little bit more? The what you mean by that 00:04:59.660 --> 00:05:04.486 distinction between the operations of the dam versus the dam? Just say a 00:05:04.519 --> 00:05:10.986 little more. OK. The existence of the dam caused a number of things to 00:05:11.019 --> 00:05:15.656 change in the k. So it cut off the sediment supply that had come down the 00:05:15.689 --> 00:05:20.447 river and it caused a lot of 00:05:20.480 --> 00:05:28.480 the beaches to become hardened with, with the river rock and stuff. Um 00:05:29.259 --> 00:05:33.046 And that's not something that you can really change through operations of 00:05:33.079 --> 00:05:39.245 the dam without interjecting additional sediment supply. 00:05:39.278 --> 00:05:47.278 And with respect to operation of the dam, um that is generally operations 00:05:47.759 --> 00:05:52.387 that I think that you can make, that can actually have an impact on the 00:05:52.420 --> 00:05:58.476 environment of the canyon. So 00:05:58.509 --> 00:06:03.067 for example, you can operate the dam in a manner that allows you to 00:06:03.100 --> 00:06:08.596 conserve the existing sand supply that comes in, put it up on beaches and 00:06:08.629 --> 00:06:16.366 that's what a lot of the experiments have aimed at doing. Going from beach 00:06:16.399 --> 00:06:21.276 habitat building flows, which we call them at the outset habitat 00:06:21.309 --> 00:06:26.947 maintenance flows. And as the reservoir dropped to a variety of different 00:06:26.980 --> 00:06:34.075 experiments which we're now looking at in the temp. 00:06:34.108 --> 00:06:38.555 And so um you were saying that uh uh some interest groups including the 00:06:38.588 --> 00:06:46.588 environmentalists were um interested in talking about the existence of the 00:06:47.269 --> 00:06:52.325 dam. You're suggesting that other interest groups want to have the dam 00:06:52.358 --> 00:06:57.166 accepted as a de facto reality and talk about operation of the dam only. 00:06:57.199 --> 00:07:01.687 Well, in all the documents that you look through the existence of the dam 00:07:01.720 --> 00:07:06.656 is a given it's supposed to be there and all the existing laws and 00:07:06.689 --> 00:07:12.916 everything that impacted operations of the dam were to stay in place. So 00:07:12.949 --> 00:07:17.596 as we go through the Adaptive Management Program, we are looking for 00:07:17.629 --> 00:07:23.067 operations that can be done within what we refer to as the law of the 00:07:23.100 --> 00:07:29.546 river. How much water we in the upper basin or I say basically above Glen 00:07:29.579 --> 00:07:37.579 Canyon have to make sure um that goes down the river to maintain the 10 00:07:37.769 --> 00:07:43.336 year running average flow at Lee Ferry. 00:07:43.369 --> 00:07:48.645 And so we're keenly interested in that and then from the standpoint of 00:07:48.678 --> 00:07:56.616 power generation of all the reservoirs we have above Lee's ferry. Glen 00:07:56.649 --> 00:08:03.187 Canyon is the biggest one provides the most hydroelectric energy and power 00:08:03.220 --> 00:08:09.736 revenue and that power revenue is necessary to not only maintain Glen 00:08:09.769 --> 00:08:15.116 Canyon but all the other primary units of the Colorado River storage 00:08:15.149 --> 00:08:17.265 project 00:08:17.298 --> 00:08:23.757 which include Blue Mason Navajo and Flaming Gorge are the primary as, as 00:08:23.790 --> 00:08:29.346 well as Glen Canyon. And then we have a number of participating projects 00:08:29.379 --> 00:08:35.436 that were built with CRSP power revenues. The RSP is the Colorado River 00:08:35.469 --> 00:08:41.645 storage project. I will use acronyms. So make me clarify whenever you have 00:08:41.678 --> 00:08:46.417 a question. Everybody uses that. 00:08:46.450 --> 00:08:51.135 But uh so we have a number of what we call participating projects. The 00:08:51.168 --> 00:08:55.297 last one that was completed was the animus who platter project down there 00:08:55.330 --> 00:09:01.515 by Durango. So CS CRSP revenues have to go towards the maintenance of that 00:09:01.548 --> 00:09:09.548 project as well as 20 some other projects throughout the upper basin. And 00:09:09.690 --> 00:09:16.226 then in addition, the power of revenues have to uh serve the upper 00:09:16.259 --> 00:09:20.645 Colorado River recovery programs, both the upper Colorado itself and the 00:09:20.678 --> 00:09:28.678 San Juan. Um and it provides the bulk of the, the money for those 00:09:28.690 --> 00:09:33.096 endeavors. And then it also contributes money to the Colorado River 00:09:33.129 --> 00:09:40.596 salinity control program. So we have all these interests in the power of 00:09:40.629 --> 00:09:47.486 revenues. And so we try very hard to make sure that the revenues are 00:09:47.519 --> 00:09:53.515 maximize like the Hawk calls for it, but at least maintained enough to 00:09:53.548 --> 00:09:56.486 feel your obligations. 00:09:56.519 --> 00:10:01.226 And if you can't do it, then your choice is either cut back or raise power 00:10:01.259 --> 00:10:03.787 revenue rates 00:10:03.820 --> 00:10:11.820 and uh raising any rate these day and age is not terribly popular. 00:10:12.149 --> 00:10:16.846 I was wondering, so you, you represent the state of Colorado and their 00:10:16.879 --> 00:10:23.385 water interests, but it sounds a little bit like the hydropower aspect of 00:10:23.418 --> 00:10:29.167 the water flow is perhaps the most important factor in policy making. No, 00:10:29.200 --> 00:10:33.816 I wouldn't say the most important, but it's probably equally, it's 00:10:33.849 --> 00:10:39.496 important. Glen Kane gives us the flexibility because it's such a large 00:10:39.529 --> 00:10:44.996 bucket to make sure we can maintain the 75 00:10:45.029 --> 00:10:53.029 make an acre feet plast. Yeah, leaf ferry in any given 10 year period. Um 00:10:53.460 --> 00:10:57.797 So it's very important in that aspect and I'd say water rights probably 00:10:57.830 --> 00:11:02.525 just a little bit more important, but the power revenues are extremely 00:11:02.558 --> 00:11:07.505 important. So, can you clarify? So, in the upper basin states, there's, 00:11:07.538 --> 00:11:12.596 there's quite a number of them. New Mexico, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah. Um 00:11:12.629 --> 00:11:19.816 can you clarify Colorado's more specific interest in, in water and power 00:11:19.849 --> 00:11:26.846 in this program as compared to the other states? Colorado gets 51 and 00:11:26.879 --> 00:11:32.186 three quarters percent of the depletion that have been allocated to the 00:11:32.219 --> 00:11:38.417 upper basin. So we have the, the lion's share of that and that's probably 00:11:38.450 --> 00:11:43.407 the, well, it is the biggest reason that operations at Glen Canyon, the 00:11:43.440 --> 00:11:49.846 other reservoirs upstream or um the most important the other three states 00:11:49.879 --> 00:11:54.807 divvy up the remaining percentages. 00:11:54.840 --> 00:12:02.840 And uh uh New Mexico really has all of their apportionment. Consumptive 00:12:04.190 --> 00:12:08.706 use apportionment accounted for with their settlement agreement with the 00:12:08.739 --> 00:12:16.759 Navajo nation. Uh Utah has plans in place for real.