This is Paul, her and Jen Sweeney of Arizona State University
interviewing a longtime member of the Technical working group and Adaptive
Management working group of the Glen Kenny Dam Adaptive Management Program
in Peach Springs, Arizona on August 14th, 2018.
Um First, can you start by telling us the positions that you held in the
Adaptive Management Program and the years in which you participated? Sure.
Um From 1994 to 2007, I was a principal investigator um leading wildlife
investigation monitoring in Lower Grand Canyon. From 1997 the president
that represented been a representative on the technical work group and
from 1997 to 2017, I was an AM wig alternate.
And can you tell me how your participation in the program changed over
time, the kinds of work that you did the kinds of programs you were
involved in? Uh when I first started here, we were receiving substantial
funding to monitor a whole host of resources, fish, wildlife, vegetation,
uh recreation. Um And so that was in 1994 when they established the Grand
Canyon Monitoring and Research Center in the G CD in 1997 all that funding
got shifted to GCMRC and our funding went down the toilet. Um, so that was
a big one of the biggest changes that has occurred since the time I've
been here. And then, so after 97 and the tribes were then giving, um, I
don't know exactly what year it started, but in somewhere around then they
decided to give each 5 $95,000 to participate in the program and then
$35,000 for monitoring. So we were getting a little bit of money. So I was
able to continue my wildlife and education monitoring program until about
2007. Um just on $35,000. And that was doing five trips on the lower river.
We had our own boats, our own boatman, we had four biologists and three
fisheries biologists. And so we were able to keep that going. Then, uh
around 2007, the cultural program here, um decided they needed that money
to do their annual monitoring river trips. And so that money went away
from me and I quit doing that work. Uh um So for, for what percentage of
the time that you've been involved in the program? Have you been serving
as a kind of either formal or informal representative of the interests of
the wallaby tribe? Oh, for almost 100%. Ok. All right. By the way, I
should mention that this particular interviewee has requested um to remain
anonymous uh for this interview and that's why we're not mentioning his
name in the introduction. Um OK, so um significant events that have
occurred during your time involved in the program that, you know, had a,
an impact both on the program itself and on your participation in the wall
pipe tribes participation. Well, as I mentioned previously, just the
establishment of the Grand Canyon Monitoring and Research Center was
probably the biggest event that affected our activities here. Um
Other than that, we've had pretty consistent representation. Um Loretta
Jackson Kelly was the AMW representative for many, many years until
recently. Um Don Hubs has been the AMW representative the last couple of
years and I've been the technical work group representative that whole
time. So we've had pretty consistent representation. Um We have, we have
good support from the administration and we do an annual monitoring river
trip that the cultural department does. And uh and they, I think they have
about 35 sites that they monitor, you know, every couple two or three
years and they, they have da data sheets where they record what the
condition of the site is and what's affecting it is the human visitation,
is it uh erosion or whatever, that kind of stuff? So there's been a lot of
consistency and again, the biggest thing was when they established the
Grand Canyon Monitoring and Research Center as far as our activities. So
what are the key interests and concerns of the wall tribe that motivates
their, you know, desire to be, uh, so consistently involved in the program
over time. Well, one thing that's important to, I think all the tribes are
the condition of the riparian resources, the vegetation, the wildlife, the
birds, the small mammals, the reptiles and, and for some tribes, even the
fish, I don't think the fish are that important to the wall pipe tribe
that as much but other tribes they are. Um So we just want to know the
health of our land because being on 100 and eight miles of the Colorado
River is the northern boundary of the reservation. So they kind of feel
like that's their resources down there and they want to know how things
are going. And that's why the one the they were very supportive of our
wildlife and vegetation monitoring activities because we, we were giving
them a report on how are things doing. And I think that was great that we
were able to do that for whatever 14 years because we established AAA
database, a baseline database that in the future if something changes
operations of the dam, climate change or who knows what and we get some
more funding, unable to repeat that work, we can compare what was going on
back then to what potentially is going on in the future. Do you know
whether um resource professionals working for the tribe or even uh elders
of the tribe? Had noticed uh changes in the river because of Glen Canny
Dam prior to the creation of this Adaptive Management program,
I don't know that, but we have 30 years of interview data with tribal
elders on the river about certain places that I and I think I talked to
you about this archive program. Um So that's all been digitized and it's
being entered into a database. But my involvement in that project and Don
Hub's involvement in that project is no longer
needed apparently. And so it's been taken over by other interests here in
the department. But hopefully, that's the kind of information that is in
those interviews about places, you know, and I, I don't, I don't think
there's data from before the dam's presence, but I think there's data
starting around 1989
and going through to the present day. So, um do you remember um back when
the program was just being created and stakeholders were being identified
for participation in, in the AM Wagon twig. Do you remember um anything
about how the Walla tribe um got involved to, to sort of what extent um
were they enthusiastic about joining one of these federal advisory
committees? You know, those can be kind of, you know, boring and difficult
and complex and technical and sometimes getting travel representation can
be complex and difficult. What do you remember about those early days that
actually our participation was initiated prior to my starting here? I
think it was initiated in 1989. And I my predecessors and people that I
came to work for my bosses, they were actively involved in getting the
seat at the table and they had to be very forceful and very outspoken to
get representation on the, on the AM wig. Do you think that um that need
to be uh forceful and persistent um has carried through to the present or
was that just at the beginning to get a seat at the table? Um It required
that extra effort. But after that is a smooth sailing. No, I think it's
continued to, to this day. Yeah, we've, and it, it none the questions of
what, what surprised you when you got into this program. What surprised me
was how poorly tribes were treated and looked upon like we were minorities
in this and that didn't have an equal um an equal um
stake in the program. Well, and you felt that from the beginning of your
involvement and continuing continuing, it's gotten better over the last
few years because all the tribes are standing together now and saying, you
know, this is what, how we want to be treated in the program. Our, in our
knowledge that these tribal members have about the resources on the river.
We, we need to integrate that knowledge into the activities of all the
investigators. Can you be a little more specific about some experiences
that you had um that gave you the sense that your perspectives were not
being fully respected or integrated. Well, I can remember specifically
this was five or six years ago and it was a, I think, a toy meeting, I
believe. And we were just discussing an issue and I'd had my hand up
almost for hours and I was never called upon and they ended the discussion
without ever getting to say what I wanted to say. You know, I was just
like, really? So it's, it's like discrimination I felt discriminated
against for ever since I've been in the program and it is getting better,
but it's like, like we're not on an equal level or something. Um Do you
think that there is a hierarchy among the stakeholder groups? Uh or is it
just, uh you know, I, um you know, most of the groups were established
when I first came in. So I'm not, I don't know exactly the relationships
between them all, but it does seem to be kind of like clicks in the
program, like the States kinda hang together and other, other groups hang
together. But um you know, it's not necessarily bad. It's just um that's
just kind of the way it is and the way it evolved. So you mentioned um
that the tribes more recently have um created a little bit of their own
click to, to gain some power and influence. Can you talk a little bit more
about how and why that happened? And what, what the benefits of that have
been. Well, I think certain issues have pushed the tribal perspectives to
the forefront, like killing of mechanical removal of fish for some tribes
, especially the Zuni and their Hopi. I mean, it, it, it affects the
health of their communities. And so I think, you know, people like Kurt
Danowski have been very vocal in saying no, it's not. Ok, you can't do
this. And so that's kind of brought the tribes to a rallying point that we
need to be heard and, and we're not going away, but I think we felt that
way for a long time. I don't think that we've been as vocal until recently.
Um Have there been different periods in which there are different um
leaders in the Am Wig and Twig program that have been some more willing to
facilitate tribal involvement and others? Less so, or is it kind of always
the same? I think um there's been certain people that have supported
tribal participation more than others and I can't think of specific names
right now. But, and then I think there's certain people that still don't
think that we should be in the program. At least I've been told that by
others and, and it's for whatever the tribes have lived on this land for
thousands of years, you know, it was their land before the park took it,
you know, before that was established. And so it's like they are the most
um of anybody that should be um working with the resources and being heard
, it should be the tribes because this, they have a way closer association
to the river and the resources than Western scientists do.
So. Um I'm thinking about um travel perspectives and travel issues, some
people. So the folks that are represented on AM wig are often referred to
as stakeholders and you know, in the states are one stakeholder and the
recreational community has their representatives. Stakeholders, fisheries
biologists have their, do you think that tribes are in that sense, a kind
of a stakeholder group with a, with a coherent set of interests and issues
or are they different than these other stakeholder groups? And
I, I think the tribes, I have a lot of similar interests and concerns
about resources as other groups, but I think they have a way more
fundamental relationship with the canyon, way more fun and I have only
recently really appreciated the extent to which that is true. Um Hearing
about the creation stories of the Hopi and the Zuni where individuals
actually turned into the fish and individuals turned into the other
organisms. The wall creation story is down by Spirit Mountain in the lower
Colorado River area and it's a similar story but it's, it's not in the
canyon. But um yeah, so fundamentally, those are their relatives down
there and that's different than any other stakeholder group. This might
seem speculative then. But could you
paint a picture for us of what it would look like if the tribes had uh an
appropriate amount of respect and influence in, you know, the evolution of
the Adaptive Management Program and the decision making process, if
instead of being marginalized, they were central to the process, what do
you think it would look like? Well, I think there'd be a lot more
participation in all of the resource monitoring uh that goes on from the
physical resources, sediment and everything to the biological. Um I think
there'd be a lot more elder involvement in the decision making process of
what type of work should go on down there. What type shouldn't go on down
there? How would that be facilitated the elder involvement just through a
funding mechanism, being able to get those people to, to meet the meeting
, getting people to come out here and go down to Diamond Creek and talk
about issues and stuff like that. Anything else that would change if there
was what you would consider to be full participation
at this point? I can't really, really say, but um just how might that be
facilitated any ideas along those lines besides the additional funding
mechanism? Let me explain what you mean by that. A little bit more. Well,
you have to have money to do anything pretty much stuck. We pay our elders
when we take them on the river trip, we pay them so much a day and
actually for a two week river trip that ends up being about $30,000.
And so just to get the people involved, they have to be compensated. And
of course, the logistics are expensive and all that kind of stuff. But,
and our, our government doesn't really get, our government leaders doesn't
really get involved with the ongoing aspects of the Glen Canyon program.
And I think that that would be the tribal council could have a lot of good
input into this decisions and the decision making process. And the, and
let people know what their views on issues are. Do you think um their um
modest level of involvement is because of funding shortages or our
different priorities?
I think, well, to me, it seems like they've entrusted us with representing
the tribe and so they feel like they're in good hands and they have to
deal with a million other issues all the time. And so I, I think that's
the way I look at it that there. But I think it would be valuable if they
could have more input. Can you think of a few instances in which uh wai
tribal input and representation yielded some, you know, significant
beneficial outcome? A few examples of that? Um
I'm sure there's plenty but um
well, well, I don't know that it's really affected it, but we've always
talked about um things like high flow experiments and how they impact the
resources of the tribe. And there really hasn't been a, a response by the
government or anyone to actually listen to our voice and say, oh, you're
right. We just caused you a half a million dollars a by ruining that flag.
And, uh, that's a place where we could have a beneficial outcome, not
only for the tribe, but for the resources because every time you do a
flood, all that San ends up down Wallie land. Uh, and so, and I don't know
what that does is to the fisheries or to a lot of the other resources. But
, and no, and nobody, that's another big point is nobody. Look, this does
much work below Diamond Creek. They're just starting to do a little bit
with now that they found a bunch of humpback chub down there. Oh really?
Yeah. Well, now they're paying attention now they're paying a little bit
more species. But so there's, there's a lot of opportunities for a tribe
to get beneficial outcomes. It's just a lot of times it hasn't happened
yet. Well, it's interesting that you mentioned um high flow events as
potential negative impact on travel resources because the program's
general orientation towards HFES as they clone acronym is that this, we
have to do this to try to recover some of the lost beaches and sand bars
upstream. I've never heard anybody mention anything about the impacts of
the high flow events downstream. And you know, yeah, they're trying to
build beaches up in Marble Canyon and, and up there and 90% of the sand
ends up down here instead of all up on the beaches and say it causes
problem. You know, we have a river up river running operation. We have to
replace lower units on boat motors because they're hitting sandbars all
the time and other equipment damages. And then I don't know if you're
familiar, but we have tourist destinations on the river where people get
flown in a helicopter and we have docks down there and stuff and those
docks get tore up all the time during the high flow event. And that was
kind of things. Um, have you been able to bring those issues up? We've
brought those issues up repeatedly and we don't, what's the response? Well
, usually little or no response. And then we kind of have a problem
internally. It's because
I don't know if you're familiar with all of that. We have the tribal
government and then we have the corporation, the Grand Canyon Resort
Corporation. And so they run all the tourism activities too. Yeah. And so
they don't want to divulge any financial information so they don't want to
tell what the financial costs of a float is to them, even if they could
get, even if they could get compensated. Which to me is interesting. Yes.
So there's different hurdles to be overcome that,
well, you know, that reminds me that there isn't always a win, win outcome
in every natural resource decision that comes up. I wonder if you can talk
a little bit more about instances because this is the first time I've
heard this in one of our um interviews so far that a really sort of
central goal of the Adaptive management program may be good for one set of
stakeholders and not good for another set of stakeholders. Have you run
into any situations like that with other decisions or other resource
management issues that people are talking about where it's not easy to
determine what the right path is because it has different impacts on
different stakeholders. Well, I think, and I I haven't documented this or
don't know for sure, but there's a lot of potential to erode
archaeological sites down on the lower river every time you run a flood.
And uh the very, I was here for the very first flood in 1996 and, and
everybody thinks in the back of their mind, the river stops at Separation
Canyon. Um Where, where John Wesley Powell pulled out, you know, that's he
pulled out after that, but that's where the two people left. Yeah. OK,
because that's where the influence of Lake Mead comes in. Uh But we, when
they ran that first flood we documented. So that's um river mile 240. And
then we documented that the flood actually affected resources all the way
down to mile 254.
And so we would get bearing in the vegetation, we would get scattering and
the vegetation all the way down there. And there's, you know, these are
some, there's TCP S down there and there's archaeological sites and I
don't know if, if they've been damaged. But, um, there's potential for
that. What kind of management of, of the dam, uh management actions,
adaptive management actions of Glen Cannon Dam uh would be helpful to the
goals of the Wall tribe.
Yeah, that's a hard one.
Uh Well, things that reduce the, the damage to resources in the lower
canyon, the, the tourism operations. Um and what you know, what, you know
, the L temp with the L temp rod, we have a greater potential for many
more HFES in the future and but never evaluated what impact that might
have on all of our resources. L temp being long term experimental imagine
management plan. And that's when they make decisions about high flow
events and when the timing of them, what they actually look like, how, how
high the flood is and all that good stuff. So, um even without high flow
events, there's gonna constantly be sediment coming down the river and
depositing at the upper end of slack water behind Hoover Dam. Um is this
uh what's the long term perspective of the tribe on dealing with the
increasing sedimentation along the river up the river? Well, there's
potential for dredging and I've already, I've suggested that in the past,
you know, maybe we need to look at some dredging going on. Um, and that
doesn't give much mileage with the government or anybody really, is
anybody opposed to it? Or people just, you know, don't wanna talk about
that option. They don't really want to talk about that. Uh, um, there's
been all kinds of crazy things, you know, pump the sediment back up in the
stream, you know, that would be expensive and that would be expensive. But
, you know, there's talking about temperature control devices and stuff
like that, that are very expensive or load it in the trucks and drive it
back up there or something. You know, there's been a lot of speculation or
talk about what kind of things could be done, but none of us has been
addressed really seriously.
Um Let me go back to the standard list of questions there. So I went in
here about um key reports and documents that you think were really
important to the program and its evolutions. Yeah, I can, I can address
that. Um I worked on several committees that um put together. I don't know
if you've heard of them desired future conditions for different resources
. I thought that was a very important effort um that the strategic plan
was written that doesn't get me mileage anymore. Nobody brings these out
of the closet and looks at them anymore. When were those two produced?
Late nineties, early two thousands. Ok. We'll pull them out for
administrative history. And make them available. And then, uh um you know
, the documents that deal with um Cultural Resources, Programmatic
Agreement, the historic preservation plan which they are underway
developing right now or that were supposed to be developed back in 90 6,
97 when the program started and they never were there all these things
that were supposed to have been done. If you go back to the original
Programmatic Agreement, there's a bunch of things that were supposed to be
done and almost none of them were ever done, which is really amazing.
And then um just the annual reports from the Banking and Monetary and
research Center and reclamation. Um so, and of course, the record of
decisions for the U I is so the first one you mentioned the desired future
conditions um that was late 19 nineties, you're saying, well, I can't say
exactly what I'm thinking late nineties or early two thousands, but they,
they were saying that those reports they were only completed for a few
resources. I think one was completed for um Humpback chub like a certain,
we want a certain number of tubs and of certain size and that's kind of
narrow. Yeah, I thought this would be an integrated view of all the
resources. But you're saying that for very specific targeted resources
that they're trying to manage like beaches and yeah dangerous species. And
so yeah, there was, I don't remember exactly how many resources were
addressed, but not all of them after it was terminated. And I don't know
why or how, but the powers to be somewhere and said we shouldn't be doing
this anymore or something. I don't know. But uh I thought it was a very
worthwhile exercise and then, you know, there's a lot of conflicting. You
can do good for one resource and might do bad for another. You know, like
there was an effort to um uh return extirpated species species that no
longer can be found in a canyon back like river otter. And, but you can't
have river rotters and native fish coexisting very well. I actually
studied river rotters from the master's work in the Verde River system and
that was their favorite food was native fish.
So I don't think it's a good idea to the river otters back in there. There
was a conflict too about um uh you know, the invasive species tamarisk is
taking over a lot of the lower canyons in the southwest and a lot of
people were concerned about trying to get it out and then it turned out
the endangered Southwester will. A flycatcher likes tamarisk. And are
there any other examples like that that you've worked on or that the Walla
are interested in where, you know, there's some resource conflict.
I I
one thing I, I want to mention, it's not necessarily tied to resource
conflict, but we've had huge changes in the vegetation community in the
lower Canyon. So since I've been involved, it used to be uh Tams
monoculture. And then for some reason, uh when Lake Mead Rose and the f
the dam was operating, how it was operating, the Taras got reduced in the
willows and Cottonwoods are crazy. And then without any human intervention
intervention really. And then now it's back to a mixture of willows and
cameras, but nobody knows what that meant to the wildlife communities. Um
Nobody besides when we got, when we finished monitoring wildlife in 07, uh
, the park does a little bit of wildlife monitoring. Not much. But, um,
nobody really is looking at that and that's one of the, the resources
that's very important to all the tribes, the CRE the creatures. Well, and
the monitoring is essential to adaptive management too. You can't adapt if
you're not monitoring to see what the effects are. You know, they're
monitoring environmental conditions or, or your decision making. Right.
And, and they, they're monitoring vegetation, they're still doing that,
but they, they're not linking that to what's happening with the wildlife
populations. And we, we would like to start that program up again. It's
just, um how would you do that? What would like walk us through the steps
of when somebody recognizes a research program that needs to be done? Um
How do you try to get that research funded? We've been most successful by
working direct directly with reclamation uh Salt Lake City. Ok. Give them
proposals and they've been able to find money here and there. But in
addition, we, we have some base funding in our natural resource department
from the BI A. We have a Wildlife Fishers and Parks program that is funded
directly by BI A and there's, you know, there's a little money in there
that we can use as matching funds if we can leverage other funds for like
reclamation and uh and do the project. But that's how we've been so most
successful recently. Like I just, they funded the archive project for the
next two years. Um And good. Yeah, so I just hope that's archiving all
those digitized uh interviews with elders about conditions on the river.
Great, see how that works out. Um uh So when you mentioned the the
desired future conditions reports that were done a few decades ago, um you
said that they were focused fairly tightly on certain resources, you also
mentioned that they were doing a cultural resources kind of inventory. Was
that focused on different uh tribes or were they trying to do a
comprehensive cultural resource inventory of that, that they and did they
finish it? Well, there has been a comprehensive cultural inventory done
primarily by the park way back when? Ok, in the early beginnings of the
program, uh and I wasn't involved with that at all. Uh huh, I can't really
speak to that but um what did they, OK, you, you don't know how well, they
integrated tribal elders and oral tradition and stuff. No. OK. I was a
biologist back then. Um But it would be great if you could interview
people like Don Hubs, Loretta Jackson, Kelly Bundler and get their
perspectives on what was happening. I mean, Loretta was there back in the
beginning. Um And that's some of the people that I just made a note to add
Loretta to my interview list. I think she'd be, she'd be excellent. That's
one of the later questions I was gonna ask is who, who else do you think
we should, we should talk to? So, thank you for bringing these names up.
Sure. Yeah, and Loretta works for the corporation now. Uh So I think I'm
pretty sure she'd be available. Great and yeah, and it'll be great to talk
to Kurt and Mike and sure you have those on your list. Yeah, we're looking
for, we're talking to Kurt. Ok. Yeah, looking forward to it. Yeah,
actually he should have a good input for him. Um One of the questions on
my list is, uh what do you think you accomplished uh personally and as a
representative for the Walla tribe, anything in particular that? Well, as
I mentioned before, those 14 years that we collected based on wildlife
population data, um that was that data is still available and can be used
to compare the future um, surveys or whatever so that we might get a
better handle on on how things are changing under different, under
different climate, under different dam operations, under more of more
frequent high flow events under different vegetation chain regimes. And I
think, you know, that database is, is one of the things that I
accomplished that I uh I think is important to the program and we know not
doing anything with it now, but someday in the future, maybe that will be
worth looking at again, You feel confident that um about the value of, of
collecting baseline data based on scientific information. And we, so we
did a synthesis in 2007. Of all. Our years of surveying and GCMRC should
have that report. I it's at my old office and I, I don't think I could
find it anymore but, and that's for the lower river. Yeah, that's for
below Diamond Creek. Ok. Yeah, we'll look for that. Yeah. Awesome.
Um So, and then I've tried to, you know,
get the, get the people to listen to the tribal perspectives and try to
integrate tribal knowledge, tribal perspectives into the program. And I
tried to get people to focus more below Diamond Creek too. I don't know
that I was successful in some of those things, but I, I, I've been trying
to, to, to some extent you feel like you've made some headway. Not enough
, not enough.
But um and keeping the tribe informed about what the issues are and what's
, what's important and what things are coming up that they need to know
about and, and that kind of thing so that they can make their decisions on
what their positions are. So, despite some of the lack of progress, some
of the frustrations, um do you feel like um this overall effort to create
a collaborative group of diverse stakeholders to, you know, come together
to try to determine how to manage Glen Canyon Dam to protect and recover
downstream resources. Do you feel like that's been a worthy endeavor? I do.
Yeah, because I think when what they've realized that it's a very complex
ecosystem and it's very difficult to predict what the outcomes of
management actions or DA M operations are on all the various different
resources and that there's very complex linkages between resources that
you know, are gonna take a lot more work to understand.
And I, um but I think overall the program has been moving forward and
doing good things for the resources and it's just very complex ecosystem.
And
um
and I think the tribes can be of great help to understanding some of those
linkages. And I, I think it's important to get more tribal members
involved, not just representatives of the tribe, tribal members whose
families have lived on the river. For, for example,
I think that would be a positive thing, but I mentioned that a little
earlier. Can you give a few more examples of ways in which you would like
to see more tribal members actually involved in the program itself.
Besides taking, you mentioned taking elders down the river and, and
getting more people involved in monitoring resources, any other ways that
you can see it would be beneficial to get tribal members involved.
Well, personally, I think it would be nice to hear, to be able to sit down
with tribal members and hear what their thoughts are on different issues.
What do you think about these floods that they're doing down the river?
How do you think about the, what do you think? And maybe that will come
out of the archive project? Maybe those questions have been asked in the
interviews. I, I personally haven't listened to any of those interviews. A
lot of them are in Wallie and they need to be translated as well. But, um
, and, and so maybe there's some valuable information that can be used.
But just me personally, I would just like to hear what Dan to say about
how, how the river is and how operational dam does or doesn't affect the
resources. And I'm guessing that uh, no, I don't know. I'd be guessing. Um
, uh, you're professional biologist with training. Um, what do you think
about citizen science? I think it's great, you know, the work that they've
done with the bugs and stuff that the river I think been really helpful. I
mean, that's an easy way to collect a lot of data and, yeah, and it'd be
really expensive to get, have professional biologists out there doing it,
you know. So I think it's really good. Um, and I'd like to see it used
wherever possible, you know, bat monitors or something like that. I don't
know. And people love to go on the river and do stuff like that, you know.
So I think wherever it can be promoted, it should be and people can be
trained in uh proper ways of recording and collecting data. It's not
rocket science, it's for sure.
Crowdsourcing we call it. No. Uh So, um you, you mentioned earlier uh a
surprise. Um One of the questions is, what did you encounter any
environmental or social, political or scientific surprises during your
tenure? And you did mention that you were uh most surprised at um the way
that tribes were um maybe not uh treated as, um you know, full fledged uh
equal members of, of the stakeholder groups. Uh Any other things that you
didn't, you found that that were unexpected?
I'm trying to think of something biological that I found. Well, I wasn't,
it has, it was surprising how large a change in the vegetation community
that happened over the, you know, several decades. That was very
surprising. Can I ask you about that? Um You said when the water was
higher, um you, you had a suppression of tamarisk and a recovery of
cottonwood and willow, I'm assuming, you mean, you know, from like 1983
when there was a huge flood and uh and the reservoirs were almost full
again, at least. Um you know, Glen Canyon Dam and the Lake Paul behind it
were full in 8384. From those huge rain events, I assume Hoover was too,
was it that decade from 83 to 93 or whatever where that happened? And then
as drought reduced the reservoirs, the Taris came back in again. I think
it was, I know the lake was full. Lake Mead was full in the year 2000. So
it was the years leading up to that. And then, so it's only been since
2000. That Lake Mead has lost all that water because it's, I think it's at
37% capacity right now and it's been sitting there for four or five years
at least. Yeah, that's sort of rapid drawdown. Yeah. In 2000 when the
drought hit then uh we had a wet year in 2005. But other than that, it's
been drought every year. So it's been drought for the past 1617 years. So
that's the period in which you had the tamarisk again, reasserting itself
and along the river. I believe so. Yeah. Well, for sure we lost the
Willows when the lake went down. Was that because of um uh
uh Tamarisk are not Freytes like Cottonwoods and Willows. They can survive
without their root systems being in water all the time. They're better at
that. Yeah. Ok. So that's why. So, um this kind of a climate change
question for you. Um, as a biologist, it sounds to me like one of the
implications of um, of a warming and drying climate. Uh it is, uh, is the
spread of more tamarisk and the loss of some of our native uh cotton wood.
The only saving grace is the tamarisk leaf beetle that's affecting the
cameras along the river now. Right. I'm not sure we've seen widespread
mortality, but we are losing tam risks along the river due to the leaf
beetle and do cottonwoods and willows come back in when the tamarisk is
suppressed like that. I don't think we've had enough time to see that yet.
But, um,
I don't know if, you know, reclamation has supported a pilot project from
this department to plant uh willows and cottonwoods down on the river. And
we at two sites this summer we've planted, I don't know how many trees,
sixties, the only trees and we were watering them. And, um, so hopefully,
you know, even if we have to do it that way we can, um, get the native
species back. Do you have the money to um, both continue that program and
monitor its effects we can monitor. Um, I'm not, um, not sure what year
that, that funding runs out. I think this is the last year for that
funding. Um, so we've got a plan at least and they're doing good. Um, let
me just see if we can keep that going. Are you thinking in any other ways
about how, um, the
climate change? It's the likely directions that we're going. I mean,
nobody knows what the climate is exactly going to be like in 1015, 2030
years. But we have a pretty strong idea of the trends. We know we're
warming and drying almost certainly. And precipitation patterns are
shifting and we're likely to have more periods of drought but potentially
heavier rains when they do come. Are you thinking both as a biologist and
a representative of the Walla Tribe about, you know, uh adaptive
management in the future to sort of adapt to these potential changes based
on climate change? Well, that's 11 reason that we're doing this
restoration project is maybe in the future, we will have to go down and
physically plant removed. Well, we remove cameras and we physically plan
native riparian species. So in the future, we might have to adapt in that
manner. Um, but how about wildlife or me personally, I, I'm thinking like
, well, like you said, it's gonna get hotter and drier and I haven't
really looked to that far down the road thinking what, what's gonna happen.
But again, having AAA database baseline data from back in the nineties
and two thousands, we can, if we get funding in the future, we can see if
it's, if it, what it's doing to the wildlife populations. Do you know if
the wai tribe has created a kind of their own desired future conditions,
statement or document? I, I do not believe so. Would that be something
that you think would be useful? I do think it would be useful.
Um And that would be a good way to get the tribal council involved and the
elders. What, you know, because this is your land, what is your vision for
the land?
And, and we've never had that kind of input
and I would think all the tribes might want to go through a process like
that.
So you acknowledge that you think uh the program um with all its flaws,
the program has been valuable, it's worthy. Do you think it should be
continued? And if so what improvements might you make to be even more
satisfied with its results?
I do feel it should be continued. Um
Well, I think
if there could be more integration of tribal perspectives and tribal laws
into the program that would be helpful, um I would hope that there would
be less
divisiveness among stakeholders, like there has a better, a better way to
work together instead of thinking that everybody has their own agenda and
which kind of the way it seems it is now, everybody has their own agenda.
And if we can all look at other people's perspectives and try to
understand where they're coming from and if we could all work together
better. I think that would be beneficial to, can you think of any specific
ways that that could be promoted?
How might the, the sort of the human dimensions of the Adaptive Management
Program be tweaked in order to encourage more of this sharing of goals and
perspectives rather than competition? I think, um, recreate some of these
committees that we had in the past where people are working together to
get desired future conditions, stuff like that. And I don't know why. Well
, those committees were disbanded when they were. But um I thought it was
beneficial for me to sit down with other stakeholders, get their
perspectives on things and work towards a common goal of improving back to
habitat or improving segment resources or whatever they need. So let me
ask you to clarify how that would be different than um all the
stakeholders sitting around in one room at the MW I meetings and a smaller
number of technical people sitting together in the twig meetings. I think
it just gets uh uh less, it's more informal and smaller groups and that
can be more effective at uh go hashing out the issues and, and then, and
then they ultimately bring it back to the twig and the twig discuss it.
And so I think it's just a uh a smaller scale process. So sort of like
committees and subcommittees that hash things out and then bring them back
, you can get more, you learn more about each other. You can negotiate
more face to face than in the great big rooms or, like you said, in some
instances, you raise your hand for an hour and a half and nobody calls on
you. That doesn't happen in a small group. And that's right. Ok. I get it.
So, are you hopeful that? Well, you know, the, the program is funded by
the federal government through hydropower revenues from Glen Canon Dam. Um
There's a, I don't know, there's a significant chance that, you know, 10
or 15 years down the road. Glen Cannon Dam might not even have enough, or
Lake Powell might not have enough water to even be generating hydropower
if this drought continues. Are you hopeful that the program will continue
very much? So? But, um, one of your questions um with the current
administration, current president administration, I'm very fearful that
the program might not get the support that it needs. And I'm hoping that
there's enough laws on the books, the Grand Canyon Protection Act and the
Native Species Act and the National Historic Preservation Act that they
can't just cut up, cut off the funding for the program. I'm hopeful. But
what we're, we heard recently was that the, the uh whatever that is, um
directed wa A to send money back to the General Fund Us General Fund
instead of that's usually earmarked for Glen Canyon program and other
environmental programs. And that's gonna be an issue that's discussed at
the next analy meeting next week. Really? That's gonna be like the first
topic address because, yeah, they're pulling the plug on the program. I
remember right after the Trump administration came in, they also put a
hold on all expenditures by federal advisory committees and this is under
faca F ac A and there is a period of time, several months long in which
the folks, the am wig people didn't even know whether they would be
allowed to meet and they had this meeting scheduled, they had to postpone
it. So, um so you're hearing this is continuing under the Trump
administration kind of hostility to implementing programs. And so we just
received last week our funding for 2018 participation in the Glen Canon
program from and we're in the 2019 fiscal year right now. 2019. Yeah. So,
and a lot of that was because of the Trump administration said if anything
over $100,000 we need to review and evaluate it. And so that was a very
long process. And so I don't know what it's gonna look like in the future
, but it's kind of scary. It'll be interesting. I'm not gonna be at the
meeting, but it'll be interesting to hear what the results of the
discussion are. And then the Federal government so far has been kind of
dancing around it. Not only sitting there, they're all saying we really
don't know what's gonna happen. We don't really know, know what's gonna
happen and somebody's got to know because we're, it's right around the
corner, you know, the end of September a new fiscal year and all the um
all the, so as I understand it from a previous interview with Dave Garrett
that uh research programs are funded for in five year chunks. It's 33 year
chunks, ok, reviewed every year though they reviewed every year. And so
people are waiting for ongoing research programs um to get the next chunk
of funding for the next year of work and nobody knows whether that money
is going to be held up or. Yeah, and this is June 2019. We're funding,
we're talking about uh which is the last year of the three year funding
cycle and then we'd be going through another planning process for the next
group of three year projects.
So
that's a little scary. Um But I'm hoping like those laws that are in place
that they can't just say no, we're not gonna monitor the Grand Canon
resources anymore. There would certainly be several lawsuits, several
interest groups if they tried to do that, I'm sure. Well, I guess we'll
have to wait and see. Yeah. Um One of the uh last important questions is
um asking you for advice on what you, what advice would you give to uh new
members of the technical work group or the a wig uh pe new people coming
on to represent. Like, let's say, for example, you stepped down as the
Wallie um representative on the twig in the next few years. Um What would
you say to your replacement about, you know, how to be an effective member
, how to understand the process? I would say that it's important to get to
know all the stakeholders, get to learn what their perspectives are, learn
where they're coming from, get to know the river where there's issues
where things are happening and what's going on and, and be open to working
with a diverse group of stakeholders and um be open to working with people
that don't have the same viewpoints as you might have. That's I think that
would be my main message, I think and, you know, it's all about the
resources to, to uh to me and us and it's not, it's about the resource
preserving resources. That's just keep that in perspective as well. When
you say uh preserving the resources, can you um sort of identify the key
resources that you're most concerned about preserving? Um Personally, I'm
most concerned about the riparian vegetation. The riparian species is, you
know, I was trained as a riparian Ecologist in the past, but, but I think
it's important to ask the, the tribes and ask those stakeholders what's
important to you. And you know, this, this program is driven a lot by the
laws, the Endangered Species Act. We do a lot of stuff for up and back up.
We do a lot of stuff for beaches because of recreational rafting
interests. And we do a lot of stuff for, um, culturally important
resources because there's a law that protects them as well. So, but, but I
think to the Wall Tribe, all the resources are important,
is there anything else you'd like to add as we get close to wrapping this
up?
Any other people? Other people? Yeah. Clay Bravo. I don't know if you're
familiar with him. He's on the tribal council. He was one of the first
ones that got the tribe a spot at the table, Clay Bravo Bravo. And he is
he still on the tribal council? He's in the tribal council.
I mean, like I mentioned, um, Don Rubs, whose office is right over there?
Loretta and Peter Mongar. He's the new director here. Um Hub Bs. Yeah. And
uh I met her at an AM wig meeting that you were at when we talked about.
Ok. And she's, she's currently the representative that she's been replaced
by, um Peter Bungler and I'm being replaced by a council member as the
alternate.
I'm still on the twig as far as I know,
as far as I know.
Um, I don't know if you've heard the name Steve Carruthers. Yes, he was
recommended by a couple other people and he's on my list as, as a
possibility. Yeah, he's worth Canon. Um, and, um, some of the people that
I think are important people like Larry Stevens, um Cliff Barrett and Don
Osler, Leslie James.
Right. Um Who's Don Osler? And who's he represents Don Osler represents
Colorado Esther James represents Creta.
Um They've been, they're very outspoken and they're very level headed and
they, and then they kind of look at the big picture
and then there's people that are no longer in the program. That would be
good. Um Amy Houston was really good. She was a bi a employee. How do you
spell her last name? He US, Elan
Lan or Inan? And she was with the Blmbiabi A. Ok.
And you probably know Steve Spangle just retired from official online
service. Steve Spangle. See you on our list. I don't think so. I cool.
You're giving us all kinds of good news. Christy, uh S pe ng Les Pangle.
He's in the Phoenix area. Amy's in the Phoenix area
and, uh, Spangle is a US fish and wildlife service. So he'd be involved in
the endangered species. Uh, fish work. Ok.
And I don't think there's anything that I have written today I haven't
talked about kind
and I appreciate you coming here. Yes. Thank you very much for the
interview. Pleasure getting to know you better and I hope, hope and dreams
for the program. Yeah,
I hope it helps.