This is Paul her at Arizona State University interviewing Ann Castle on
March 26th of 2018 at Arizona State University. For the interview is for
the Glen Canyon Dam Adaptive Management Program. And thank you so much for
joining us today and doing this interview. Thanks for having me. Um Could
you please start by telling us your name and the positions that you held
in the Adaptive Management Program and the years in which you participate
? Sure. My name is Anne Castle and I was the secretary's designee and the
chair of the Glen Canyon Dam Adaptive Management work group for the, the
whole time that I was employed at the Department of the Interior, which
was from the middle of 2009 through the end of 2014.
Great. And um we've divided up the Adaptive Management Program into three
main categories, scientific research, policy, and management and then uh
social engagement and institutional engagement. Would you say you were
involved in all of them or some of them? W which categories did you spend
most of your time working in? Well, I would say I was involved in all of
them. Um and I'm not sure that I could identify one that I spent more time
in than the others. And we were certainly um involved in the scientific
processes that were um uh going on in conjunction with the AM wigs work
through the Grand Canyon Monitoring and Research Center, GCMRC. Um that
was a center of the US Geological Survey and I as part of my um position
at Interior, I oversaw the US GS. And so, the Grand Canyon Monitoring and
Research Center was part of my portfolio in that sense. But, but that
scientific group worked very, very closely with the MWE to provide
scientific data and analysis that could then shape the operations of Glen
Canyon Dam to uh preserve or improve the environment downstream in the
Grand Canyon. So there was the scientific component. The cultural
component was also very significant, particularly in connection with the
participation of the Indian tribes in the Am Wag. And um the, the tribal
members of the AM wig were expressing the positions and concerns of their
tribal communities with the operations of Glen Canyon Dam and, and the
effect um that those operations were having downstream and things like um
uh archaeological sites that were being exposed to by wind erosion and,
and how to deal with those. Um I the um uh treatment of non native fish in
particularly in the upper part of the Grand Canyon and in Glen Canyon
itself. Uh and the impact of all of the operations on endangered fish
species. Those were all um significant concerns of the tribes and, and we
were constantly working to figure out how to accommodate the desires of
the tribes and, and at the same time, fulfill all the other missions and
responsibilities of the federal agencies um in connection with the
operations of the dam. So that's scientific and cultural. And then um yeah
, the policy around water balance and water um responsibilities
um was maybe the, the driving force uh because that uh the, the water
obligations of the upper basin of the Colorado River to the lower basin is
the biggest factor in determining how Glen Canyon Dam operates. And so
fulfilling those responsibilities while taking into account um the
concerns of all the various stakeholders um was really what the adaptive
management program was all about.
Yeah, let me drill down a little bit more on your duties as the Secretary
of Interior Designee. That it occurs to me that the Secretary of the
Interior stands over all of the federal agencies. So many of them that are
, you know, involved in this project, the Bureau of Reclamation which
manages Grand Canyon Dam, the National Park Service for the Grand Canyon
National Park, you know, is right below the dam. We've got the US Fish and
Wildlife Service, we have the bi A and tribal relations. All of those in a
sense you weren't representing any one of them, you sort of had to manage
, you know, the relationships between all of them as the person
representing the Department of Interior. Can you talk a little bit about
your role at, at that level? Absolutely. And, and that was a significant
issue during the time, um, that I was at interior and, and was the
secretary's designee on the AM wig. Um, when I first came to interior, um
, there was a number one lawsuit among the various AMW members. The Grand
Canyon Trust was suing the Bureau of Reclamation and the US Fish and
Wildlife Service over the operation of Glen Canyon Dam. So we had
litigation within the AM wig and the federal agencies were not on the same
page. Um And I started an interior in July of 2009. And um the first MWC
meeting that I chaired was in August of 2009. So I had a lot to learn, um
during that month. Um But previously during 2009, um the uh there had been
significant discord between the National Park Service and uh several of
the other interior agencies connected with decisions within the AM wagon,
the operation of Glen Canyon Dam. Um And
um there's a lot of history there. Uh The Assistant Secretary for Water
and Science, my position oversees the bureau of reclamation in the US GS.
There's another assistant secretary that oversees the Fish and Wildlife
Service and the National Park Service. The two other major federal
agencies that were involved in the AM wag. There was even concern when I
first started within the federal agencies that it was assumed that the
Assistant Secretary for Water and Science would chair the MW A and not the
Assistant Secretary for Fish, Wildlife and Parks. And there was that level
of distrust, um, and controversy among those agencies. So, uh,
I mean, it, when new people, when administrations change and new people
come in, um, they have the disadvantage of not having the history. But I
think in that particular case, it was an advantage for me because I didn't
have any history with the Park service good or bad. Um, and so it, they,
they couldn't assume that I was going to, um, act in ways that were
detrimental to their interests. Um, and I certainly tried not to do that.
Um, we tried to coordinate the, um, positions of the, um, the five
different interior agencies that, that were involved in the AM wig, um,
and started having preme meetings among just the federal agencies to talk
through the agenda and figure out what everybody was thinking and what the
different agencies were worried about or wanting to promote, uh, and
coordinating our position. Um, because previously the, uh, federal
agencies,
there are five of them involved. One of those is US GS, um, the other four
have, um, are designated members of the AM wig. So Fish and Wildlife
Service, National Park Service Bureau of Indian affairs and reclamation
are all members and we're all voting members of the, am we at the time
that I started? And, uh, they would sometimes vote uh, differently which I
felt was inappropriate. Um And I wanted to ensure that the federal
agencies spoke with one voice on the AM w that, that we had, um, discussed
and understood the positions of the various different agencies and figured
out a way that we could move forward in a coordinate manner. Um Because it
was also true that uh because the federal agencies were following
different paths, some of the AM W members, the other nonfederal members
were exploiting those differences and, you know, encouraging discord um in
order to
uh impede progress. Now, I know you may be reluctant to talk more
specifically about this. But I think um for the administrative history, it
would be helpful for uh future listeners to put a little bit of meat on
those bones in the sense that um you're talking about an important
procedural means for gaining some policy coherency among the federal
agencies. Could you talk at least in some detail about what issues you
were most deeply involved in that required this extra effort at
coordinating positions and policies? Yeah. Well, there were, there were a
number of different examples. Um
It's I think of public record that in 2008, um there was a high flow
release from Glen Canyon Dam um on uh an experiment to hopefully um stir
up sediment from the bed of the river and with high flows deposit that
sediment um higher than it otherwise would have gone on the banks of the
river to replenish some of the sand bars that previously existed that had
been eroded away by um just sort of normal operations of both the dam and
and just normal function of the river. Um Several high flow experiments
had been done before that, but there was one done in late 2008. So just
before the change of administration, the Secretary of the Interior at the
time, Dirk Kempthorne came to that a high flow release and um uh was um
espousing the position of the Department of the Interior, that this was
something that was being done to further the science to um improve the
ecosystem, to replenish camping beaches, to improve recreation. Um And he
was giving a press conference to that effect and as I understand it, I
wasn't there, but I've been told that about um 100 or 200 ft away, the
superintendent of Grand Canyon National Park was also giving a press
conference undermining the value of the high flow experiment. Um And so
that was at a time when this litigation was ongoing, the Grand Canyon
Trust suing the other two federal agencies, the National Park Service was
I should stop there. Uh Grand Canyon National Park was supporting the
litigation of Grand Canyon Trust against the other federal agencies, there
was significant discord. Um So that was, that was one of the issues that
we had to deal with others were um less uh high profile. But things like
um US GS, the Grand Canyon Monitoring and Research Center arm of us GS was
trying to do science in the canyon um around the impact of uh flows on
vegetation. So they were looking at vegetation within the range of
fluctuation of the releases from Grand Canyon Dam and comparing that
vegetation to um vegetation that is unaffected by operations and, and
seeing what they could learn about the impact of dam operations on
vegetation. Well, in order to do scientific research in the park, you have
to get a park service permit and the park service was denying those
permits to us GS. Um because they were concerned about um part of the park
is a wilderness area and they were worried that the impact of the, the
scientific cruise uh was inconsistent with wilderness values. That was one
of the concerns. There were studies that were um approved by the AM wig.
Um Things like uh one I recall was called the near Shore Ecology Study.
That was a scientific study over I believe, a three year period where they
were looking at um what fish were present and breeding in um various
locations up and down the river, including backwaters and um back channels
and tributaries. And so trying to get a handle on where the endangered
fish species are living and breeding. Um where the trout are, uh just to
get a better feel for how these different fish communities are living in
the canyon. And, and of course, the ultimate goal was to figure out how
they're impacted by operations of the dam and might be benefited by
different types of operations. So, um the near shore ecology study
involved uh electro fishing at night. What that means is uh you have boats
in the river with great big um lamps shining bright light into the river
and attracting the fish and they put a big ball um metal ball that
conducts electricity into the water and shock the water and that brings
the fish to the surface. You scoop them up. Yeah. Um some were dissected,
some were just examined and tagged and put back into the river. Well, you
got boats roaring around at night with bright lights and a whole bunch of
scientists doing stuff in a wilderness area. Um And usually in the park
services non motor season because they Grand Canyon National Park has a
season for motor boats and they have a season when no motor boats are
allowed. So that whole scientific operation gave the park service a lot of
heartburn and uh they had to permit it. Um And so there was tension
between the AM wig and Grand Canyon National Park between us GS and the
park um over those kinds of things. That were, um everybody's trying to do
their mission, you know, and they have different missions there, different
agencies have different responsibilities and um it was a source of
controversy uh that could be allowed to fester um and uh be exploited or
uh what we tried to do was to um get the people in a room together and
figure it out and put limits on the scope of the activities that were of
concern. Um, and to allow the science to take place. But in a way that was
minimally disruptive to the values of the park were the tribal
representatives involved in that conversation at all because I know some
of them have expressed misgivings about these kinds of, you know, shocking
programs, right? And the, the um, involvement of the tribal
representatives and in the communities that they represented was mostly
around
the control of non native fish. Um, not so much. At least I don't remember
that it was around these, um, scientific investigations, but because of
the cold water releases from Glen Canyon Dam, a wonderful world class gold
medal, blue ribbon, whatever you want to call it. Trout fishery has, um,
grown up, uh, in the reach of the river just below the dam and, um,
Arizona game and fish stocked it with trout for years and years and years
, maybe they still do. Um, but turns out trout eat humpback chub. Um, and
all the federal agencies are obligated to avoid jeopardy. To endangered
species. And the Humpback chub is an endangered species in the Colorado
River. And so the scientific evidence and recommendation at the time that
I started with the MW was uh to control non native fish, which means kill
trout. And, um, you know, it, it sounds to an outsider, it sounds um kind
of barbaric, but as I understand it, game and fish departments all over
the country have been using these same kinds of methods for fish control
for centuries, not that long decades. Um And what they do is they
electroshock the fish and in this case, they're not tagging them and
throwing them back, they're killing. Um And the object is to reduce
numbers and that was being done in the Grand Canyon to reduce trout
numbers in an effort to give the Humpback chub babies, especially, uh, a
better chance. I think there was any, um, uh, results from that research
during the time that you were involved in hew. Did you get results that
led to actual decision making about, uh, releases or other forms of
management? Yeah, that was starting to happen toward the end of my time at
the interior department. And it was so interesting because for me, it was
such a lesson in um,
uh
traditional ecological knowledge of by the tribes. And it's kind of a long
story. But, um, but I'll tell you how I learned what I learned and how I
learned it. Um So the scientific consensus. Um, at the time that I started
was trout eat chub. We got non native trout. We're trying to preserve the
native endangered species. We need to get the trout numbers down. Um And
so the bureau of reclamation being the operational agency, they were, um,
carrying out non native fish control, meaning that they would, um, either
they'd usually hire, um, Arizona game and fish or, or some fish agency to
go out and electroshock the fish, um, the tribes, most particularly the
Pueblo of Zuni objected to that um, procedure because to them, the entire
Grand Canyon is a sacred place and to the Zuni, um, the confluence of the
Colorado river and the little Colorado river is their place of emerging
from the, um, from the underworld. And it's, it's a particularly sacred
place. Well, that's where the Humpback C bar in the little Colorado River.
And that's where the most um concentration of trout control was being
employed. So the Pueblo of Zuni objected um forcefully to that practice
because, uh, the taking of life in a sacred place is anathema and, and the
fish control was taking the life of the trout. And it's, it was, um, at
the time, I thought it was like a perfect law school exam. Um, because the
federal agencies are bound by law to avoid jeopardy to endangered species
, the scientific consensus is in order to fulfill that responsibility, you
must control the trout numbers and here's how you do it. The fish and
Wildlife Service was saying that they're the protectors of endangered
species. And they were saying you got to control the trout and the tribes
to whom all of those agencies owe a trust obligation. They were saying you
can't do that in our sacred cultural space. And so it was, it was a very
difficult dilemma. I went to the Pueblo of Zuni and met with the tribal
council and the tribal elders to, um, to try to see what we could do. Um,
it was not a particularly productive meeting. Um, they were pretty mad at
me. Um,
I think they were glad I came. But, um, but we didn't reach any sort of
solution or even a consensus on a path forward. But one of the things they
said to me was one of the, the tribal religious elders said,
you're saying trail each up will chub eat chub. These fish have existed
together for decades. Why do you have to interfere? Big fish eat little
fish? That's just the way things happen. Um,
at the time, my scientific, um, buddies were saying, well, yeah, but, um,
trout eat chub in greater numbers than chubby chub. Um And so you gotta
control the trout.
As, as my time with the AM wig went on, the scientific consensus started
to turn and toward the end, the scientists at the Grand Canyon Monitoring
and Research Center were saying,
trout chug big fish big fish eat little fish. But we don't know if the
predation of trout on chub has an effect at the population level. So we
know there's this interaction, but we don't know if it has a population
effect and that's what we're interested in as the population effect. And
at the time, I thought that's what the elders were saying. And, and yet
the scientific community had a very hard time,
um, figuring out a way to formally incorporate tribal ecological knowledge
into their regimen. Um And I think that's still a source of um discomfort
in the scientific community. So, anyhow, um that was, that was a big deal
while I was at interior. One of the things that we did during that time
was we did an environmental assessment on non native fish control and the
tribes were very much involved in that. They didn't like the first result
that the federal agencies um came up with, we had some sort of facilitated
process to, to try to get everybody's um opinions on the table and, and to
get them to work together to come up with a solution that they could,
everybody could live with. And at the end of the day, we finally came up
with something that, that seemed to work while that process was ongoing.
The scientific community hadn't yet changed its mind and they were still
saying we think we need to electroshock the trout. Um But there were
things that were agreed to like,
um, we'll try to avoid it. We really try to avoid doing it at the
confluence of the Colorado and the Little Colorado. If we have to do it,
we're gonna talk to you about what we do with those fish. We'll try, we'll
, we'll investigate live removal, which means you scoop them up and you
helicopter them out, which is really expensive, but they rear reclamation
said we'll investigate that. Um, And if, if that is just not feasible,
we're gonna work with you to figure out how we can deal with the dead fish
in a way that honors them, for example, use it for fertilizer on, um,
tribal agricultural lands or some, something like that. Um, so that was
all in the environmental assessment. Uh And, and that was ultimately, um,
something that, that seemed to work for most of the parties involved, but
they've never done another electroshock since that, as far as I know,
since that environmental assessment process started and the science was
evolving. What year did that start? Do you remember?
Um, I'm gonna say 2011,
but I may not have that right. It's a plus or minus a year. And did they
ever, um, do the studies to show whether the trout predation on the chub
had an effect on the chub populations? Well, they were trying to do those
studies. Um, yeah, and, and I think they were g leaning from the studies
that had already been done that, that might be the case. Um So I, I don't
know if they've done further work on that. Um But uh I just remember that
the chief of GCMRC at the time, John Hammill saying to me,
we're not sure anymore that this predation hasn't affected the population
level and it may not. So given that and given the position of the tribes,
I don't know why you do it. That's a great story and very illustrative of
the core of the Adaptive Management Program is collaboration. And that's
just a wonderful example of an effort to collaborate on a difficult topic
in which people start out in conflict with each other and come closer to
an understanding what people can move forward, everybody can move forward
in the sense that their concerns were heard and that decisions were
modified to try to have the best possible. Yeah, it was a real lesson
learned for me. Um First of all about how scientists can be absolutely
sure of something and then change their minds. And so, you know, a healthy
skepticism will serve you well. Um And, and secondly,
such a real world example of traditional ecological knowledge that I mean
, people sort of agree with that concept in principle, but I saw it acted
out and it was, it's something that um has really informed the way I think
about um tribal involvement in those kinds of what we think of from our
sort of Western scientific point of view as scientifically determined.
Can I ask you? Um I, I wanna dig a little deeper both on your experiences
incorporating the tribes but also your experiences. As so you were head of
water and science and the US Geological Survey is kind of the center for
collecting the research that supports the program. And you were, you know
, a, a representative of one step above them and over them. Can you talk a
little bit about what kinds of science were being prioritized when you
came in and whether the kinds of research that was being done evolved or
changed over the time that you were there?
Um
Well, I can, I can talk a little bit about it. I'm not sure I can answer
the question about um an evolution of the science over the time that I was
there. Um The um the way the AM wake functioned um when I came in was
every year, the staff of the AM wig together with Grand Canyon Monitoring
and Research Center would come up with a budget and work plan and the
budget for the AM wig comes from two sources from uh the Bureau of
reclamation money um for upper Colorado River operations. Um But they also
get revenues from the power generated by Glen Canyon Dam that goes into
the Upper Colorado River Basin Fund. And um there's a, a fixed pot of
money that comes out of the basin fund every year that that funds most of
the science through GCMRC. And uh that's, that was about $10 million a
year. So it's a well funded program with very uh steady and reliable
funding. So it's not subject to the ups and downs of appropriation, that
money just comes out of the basin fund. Um So the budget and work plan
would rely on the funding from reclamation, which was a smaller number and
the funding from the basin fund and they needed to fund the, the staff
involved in the operations of the my. But that's a very small number,
mostly what they were funding was the science. And so they needed to
figure out $10 million worth of science every year. Um And you can fund a
lot of science with $10 million a year, especially if you know that it's
going to be there year after year after year. Um
So the things they were working on when I came in were like this near
shore ecology study. They were surveying the sandbars because the, the
loss of sandbars from erosion was a big concern, particularly of the park
service because the sandbars are where people who float the river camp at
night. And if there aren't any sandbars anymore, the whole river
recreation um is impacted. Um And, and not only were the sandbars being
eroded, they were being more overtaken by vegetation because the Grand
Canyon was not getting the same kind of flood flows that it used to
receive before the dam was built. And so the vegetation, whereas it used
to be scoured by the spring floods, it was now encroaching farther and
farther down into the um, into the banks. Um So they were, they were
surveying the sand bars. Um And there are just a million different studies
going on. I mean, I bet at any given time there were
30 line items, budget items of different studies through Grand Canyon
Monitoring and Research Center. Um So all of that had to be figured out
every year and, you know, the MW only meets twice a year. And so one of
the meetings would be, here's what we're going to propose for the budget
and work plan and the other one was ok. Now, vote on it and, and that
would take up a lot of time. Um So, yeah. Right. Right. And the twig, the
technical work group would be involved. But um there was also a budget, a
ho group but it was still way too much. So, um part of what we did while I
was there was um to change that to a biennial process, an annual process
and then ultimately to a triennial process so that you only had to think
about it once every three years and there were opportunities to change
course in midstream if something wasn't going well or, or something new
needed to be done. But, but for the most part, it um it has to be done
less frequently now. Um So,
uh
in terms of evolution, uh there was this evolution in the thinking about
the predation of the non native fish. Um I, I can't remember how that
played out in terms of scientific studies. Uh
And it seemed like we were always learning more and it may be one of the
best studied reaches of river in the world, but there was always more to
investigate and more to learn. Um Jack Schmidt when he took over as the
chief of GCMRC
was
trying to make it more responsive to the needs and express desires of the
different Amway participants. Uh And
um and he certainly did that in terms of reporting. Um For example,
another thing that was going on at the same time as this non native fish
control environmental assessment was we were trying to uh do the
environmental compliance for a protocol for high flow releases from Glen
Canyon Dam. Previously, they had had three different high flow releases, I
think in um 1994.
No, that's not right. Any hill three of them. Last one was in 2008.
Yeah. No, no, these I'm talking about um intentional high flow releases.
So it might have been,
I don't know, 9498 and 2008, something like that. Um I know two of them
were four years apart and then there was a gap um but they had to do
independent environmental compliance for each one. And so you had to gin
up uh EIS or an E A and do all the public notice and, you know, have the
um uh participating cooperating agencies and uh hearings and, you know,
it's a big deal to do environmental compliance like that. And actually,
when I first came in to um be the secretary's designee,
um so this is 2009, there had been a very contentious meeting of the AM
wig in March or April of 2009, at which there was a lot of controversy.
And uh it was about um high flow releases and non native fish control. Uh
And the um the operations of the dam in um the fluctuations that are done
twice daily to follow the um the load requirements of the electrical grid.
Um And that March of 2009 meeting resulted in a report to the secretary
that said, here's what we recommend and a minority report that says we
disagree and we recommend, you know, plan B. Um So one of the things that
I did was uh read those reports um before I chaired the first AM wick
meeting in August of that year. And I remember very well. One of the
minority reports was written by the Grand Canyon River guides who were at
the time represented by Andrei Potocnik. And it seemed to me to be a very
well reasoned letter with recommendations and one of the recommendations
in that report was we need to find a way to do these high flow releases
when conditions are right without having to do environmental compliance
for each one. And, and at the time, I thought, well, that makes sense. And
um so it, it wasn't immediately um at, at that first meeting, but uh we
started to talk about having a protocol for high flow releases. So we
would examine the conditions in the river and see how much sediment was
residing on the bed of the river. And if there was a lot of sediment that
could be spread up higher and replenish the beaches and offset the erosion
, then we would do a high flow experiment. So we did the environmental
compliance for that protocol and that remains in place today and allows
reclamation and GCMRC to determine if conditions are right and if they are
to do a high flow release, and it even has a matrix for the um flow rate
and duration of the high flow release based on how much sediment um they
find in the bed. So, um so that was all uh going on. And the point of this
story is that um because they were having more regular, you know, high
flow releases under the protocol, people were really, really interested to
see if it was having an effect on the sand bars and the camping beaches.
And you know, is it doing what it is supposed to do. And so GCMRC, I think
as part of the push to be responsive to the, the needs of the AM wig
representatives in, in their, in their agencies, uh set up um, cameras
that, that take photos, you know, on some regular basis and they're
looking at sand bars, um, so they could take before and after pictures and
then GCMRC would publish before and after pictures on their website pretty
quickly after a high flow release took place and then they could monitor
it over time and see. Ok. Well, we got, we replenished this sand bar, but
then what happened? Um did it last or did it just get eroded away? And are
we doing any good? Um And so that was just an example of um how I saw the
science at GCMRC being adapted to be more responsive to operational needs
and um
uh to measure whether we were succeeding, you know, and whether we should
keep going with these experimental treatments. There is a wonderful
website that the GCMRC manages now that collects all of those before and
after photos from the different HFES.
And uh it's very accessible and easy to um you know, explore anybody
that's open to the public. And it's to me, one of the best examples of
making science accessible uh to the interested public. I love that website.
Yeah. So it's uh it's interesting to me to hear that you were um you know
, chair of amw at the time when, when that uh effort began. Yeah,
absolutely successful. Yeah. And they developed as part of that whole
process. They developed a model that um would um predict the amount of
sediment on the bed of the river based on inflows and sediment
measurements from the Korea River and the little Colorado. Yeah. Right. So
that's something that I think is, you know, maybe unique in the world. Uh
I'm not sure. And they didn't have anybody to crib from, in building that
model.