WEBVTT 00:00:00.949 --> 00:00:05.247 This is Paul Hertz and Jen Sweeney of Arizona State University. Uh 00:00:05.280 --> 00:00:13.280 Speaking with Kurt Don Goski in Winslow, Arizona on uh August 15th of 2018. 00:00:13.978 --> 00:00:18.956 Thanks for sitting with us today. Kurt, appreciate it. Can you um start 00:00:18.989 --> 00:00:22.967 by telling us your name and the positions that you've held in the Adaptive 00:00:23.000 --> 00:00:26.076 Management Program over the years and the years in which you've been 00:00:26.109 --> 00:00:34.109 involved? OK. My name is Kurowski. Um My initial involvement with the Glen 00:00:34.668 --> 00:00:40.646 Canyon Dam Adaptive Management Program began in 1991 where I uh started 00:00:40.679 --> 00:00:46.476 work at the Hopi tribe as a tribal archaeologist. In that capacity. I was 00:00:46.509 --> 00:00:54.076 the uh representative for the Hopi tribe as a cooperating agency to um the 00:00:54.109 --> 00:00:59.436 group that was developing the Glen King and Dam Eis and impact statement 00:00:59.469 --> 00:01:04.105 of which the Adaptive Management Program became part of the final 00:01:04.138 --> 00:01:07.257 environmental impact statement and the recommendations that came out of 00:01:07.290 --> 00:01:12.227 the Rod, uh which then developed the Glen Canyon Dam Adaptive Management 00:01:12.260 --> 00:01:16.956 Program. Rod being record decision, right? Sorry. So when I use acronyms, 00:01:16.989 --> 00:01:24.989 then I'll try to remember not to. Um Then in 90 I also represented the 00:01:25.549 --> 00:01:28.846 Hopi tribe in the transition from the cooperating agencies into the 00:01:28.879 --> 00:01:36.879 Adaptive management program 96 to 97. Um And I was the alternate am Wig 00:01:38.370 --> 00:01:42.436 representative for the Hopi tribe and the Twig representative for the Hopi 00:01:42.469 --> 00:01:48.337 tribe, the technical work group. Um Did you work with Lee Kuan S Yes at 00:01:48.370 --> 00:01:54.977 that time. Oh Yeah. Uh Yeah, Lee Kuan Kuma was the individual who hired me 00:01:55.010 --> 00:02:02.076 in 91 and I worked with him closely until 2003 when I left. So um so I 00:02:02.109 --> 00:02:05.786 held those positions in the depth of management program representing the 00:02:05.819 --> 00:02:09.085 Hopi tribe until 2003. 00:02:09.118 --> 00:02:16.745 Um And also around 2000 and 00:02:16.778 --> 00:02:24.778 one or two to I think, um I think it was like 2002 to about 2005. 00:02:28.800 --> 00:02:35.967 I was the chair of the technical work group and then from, 00:02:36.000 --> 00:02:39.547 I may have to leave these dates wrong. I have to check them and then there 00:02:39.580 --> 00:02:44.585 was a, a two year hiatus and then I was the tweak chair again for another 00:02:44.618 --> 00:02:49.475 two years. I think so in total, I've been the tweak chair for five years. 00:02:49.508 --> 00:02:53.505 And then uh between when I left 00:02:53.538 --> 00:03:01.538 Trophy in 2003, I became a uh consultant to the Colorado River Energy 00:03:01.629 --> 00:03:06.436 Distributors Association Cultural Resource consultant. I was also their 00:03:06.469 --> 00:03:12.656 alternate Twig representative uh from 2003 00:03:12.689 --> 00:03:19.475 to 2000 and I think it was seven or eight 00:03:19.508 --> 00:03:21.866 in 2008. 00:03:21.899 --> 00:03:27.286 Um I then became the technical uh workgroup representative for the Pro 00:03:27.319 --> 00:03:35.319 Sunni while it was the um consultant for Creta, I also worked, was hired 00:03:35.618 --> 00:03:40.335 as a project director for Sunni Cultural resource Enterprise and work 00:03:40.368 --> 00:03:48.368 there doing contract archaeology. Um And then in, in 2008, II, I left ZCRE 00:03:50.088 --> 00:03:54.555 from 2006 00:03:54.588 --> 00:04:00.366 to 2008 and worked for Urs Corporation in Phoenix. What do they do? Urs 00:04:00.399 --> 00:04:07.286 Corporation is a, is a international engineering um 00:04:07.319 --> 00:04:12.677 environmental compliance sort of corporation. So you do archaeological 00:04:12.710 --> 00:04:17.026 clearances for them and well surveys. They, they were, they're consultants 00:04:17.059 --> 00:04:22.096 to federal agencies that need, need archaeological expertise and stuff. 00:04:22.129 --> 00:04:27.836 And so I found, um actually, I found the work with us nowhere near as 00:04:27.869 --> 00:04:32.637 rewarding for me personally as working with tribal people. So I went back 00:04:32.670 --> 00:04:38.776 to Zuni in 2008 and became the principal investigator and director of the 00:04:38.809 --> 00:04:43.447 Sunni Cultural Resource Enterprise. And at the same time became the, the 00:04:43.480 --> 00:04:47.046 Sunni Tribal historic preservation officer 00:04:47.079 --> 00:04:51.757 and the Twig represent for Zuni. And you still hold that position. They 00:04:51.790 --> 00:04:57.075 still hold that position today, right? So, um 00:04:57.108 --> 00:05:02.137 we have uh in consultation with Larry Stevens in particular, um sort of 00:05:02.170 --> 00:05:08.265 divided up the kinds of work and efforts being done by people involved in 00:05:08.298 --> 00:05:13.377 the adaptive management program into primarily scientific research or 00:05:13.410 --> 00:05:18.616 primarily policy and management or primarily social and institutional 00:05:18.649 --> 00:05:24.786 engagement. And I'm wondering, do you, where do you place your work? Is it 00:05:24.819 --> 00:05:28.786 sort of a little bit in all three or are you mainly in one of those three 00:05:28.819 --> 00:05:32.426 categories of participation? 00:05:32.459 --> 00:05:38.887 I think my work uh covers all three in terms of um science and research. 00:05:38.920 --> 00:05:44.366 I'm the one who generates the reports on um 00:05:44.399 --> 00:05:50.205 Sunni monitoring of the, of the river and taking their observations and, 00:05:50.238 --> 00:05:57.515 and concerns and perspectives and putting it into a document that then is 00:05:57.548 --> 00:06:04.296 um communicated to Federal representatives so that they try to put it in 00:06:04.329 --> 00:06:08.697 language that they'll, they'll understand and appreciate 00:06:08.730 --> 00:06:15.546 that can then influence policy and management. Yes. And then I also uh in 00:06:15.579 --> 00:06:21.106 terms of policy and management, uh provide review of documents generated 00:06:21.139 --> 00:06:24.426 by the Center, Grand Canyon Monitoring and Research Center or the Bureau 00:06:24.459 --> 00:06:31.717 of Reclamation. Um And the other one was 00:06:31.750 --> 00:06:35.866 yes uh social and institutional engagement, like, for example, Mary Orton 00:06:35.899 --> 00:06:41.586 was one of our interviewees and her primary responsibility was was to um 00:06:41.619 --> 00:06:46.836 nurture the collaborative process itself to make the Adaptive management 00:06:46.869 --> 00:06:51.596 program, you know, work in a way that's sometimes difficult when you have 00:06:51.629 --> 00:06:56.687 so many diverse interests at a table. Right? And so in, in that realm, my 00:06:56.720 --> 00:07:01.817 efforts go towards raising the consciousness of the other non tribal 00:07:01.850 --> 00:07:09.317 stakeholders to um the perspective of Zuni, but also the responsibility, 00:07:09.350 --> 00:07:13.426 the federal government, the unique responsibility the federal government 00:07:13.459 --> 00:07:18.805 has to native people. Can you elaborate on that a little bit that unique 00:07:18.838 --> 00:07:21.055 responsibility? 00:07:21.088 --> 00:07:28.137 Well, right, I mean, Um If you talk, well, um the federal government has 00:07:28.170 --> 00:07:33.986 trust responsibility to native American tribes. And it's a long history of 00:07:34.019 --> 00:07:40.937 the interaction between tribes and the federal government. Um Ultimate. I 00:07:40.970 --> 00:07:45.567 mean, initially, the federal government looked at tribes as sovereign 00:07:45.600 --> 00:07:50.705 nations that they had to negotiate with, likely negotiated with um 00:07:50.738 --> 00:07:58.738 European powers. Um And, and that was based on, I believe Spanish, the way 00:07:59.369 --> 00:08:03.455 the Spanish were originally dealing with the, the native inhabitants of 00:08:03.488 --> 00:08:11.086 North America and South America. Um But that became cumbersome for them in 00:08:11.119 --> 00:08:16.346 , in terms of westward expansion and manifest destiny. Uh So the, the 00:08:16.379 --> 00:08:22.325 relationship changed based on some of the, in the early 18 hundreds by 00:08:22.358 --> 00:08:28.895 Chief Justice Marshall, who the, his Marshall trilogy is pretty famous. 00:08:28.928 --> 00:08:33.586 But in, in that identified that there was a trust relationship between the 00:08:33.619 --> 00:08:40.235 federal government and tribes. Most federal agencies uh interpret the 00:08:40.268 --> 00:08:46.496 trust relationship as having to deal with um uh trust assets or things 00:08:46.529 --> 00:08:53.106 that you can put a monetary uh evaluation on valuation on. Whereas I 00:08:53.139 --> 00:09:01.139 believe that it goes deeper than that, it goes to preserving um 00:09:01.210 --> 00:09:05.885 traditional cultural identity, traditional cultural practices and the 00:09:05.918 --> 00:09:10.096 ability of native people to relate to their cultural landscape that has 00:09:10.129 --> 00:09:15.005 been influenced by, you know, little unilateral political decisions 00:09:15.038 --> 00:09:20.246 without the, without consultation with the tribe, by states and federal 00:09:20.279 --> 00:09:27.307 entities and private developers too. And well, uh ultimately, if a private 00:09:27.340 --> 00:09:32.366 developer is getting some sort of permit license or involvement from a 00:09:32.399 --> 00:09:35.946 federal agency, then it's a federal agency's responsibility. There's no 00:09:35.979 --> 00:09:41.657 real um relationship in terms of a trust relationship between a private 00:09:41.690 --> 00:09:47.706 corporation to fill up something and a tribal group, it's strictly between 00:09:47.739 --> 00:09:52.206 the federal government and the tribe. So this is probably a good time to 00:09:52.239 --> 00:09:58.476 ask this question. I'm wondering if you think that tribes um are different 00:09:58.509 --> 00:10:03.946 than other um quote unquote stakeholders in the adaptive management 00:10:03.979 --> 00:10:09.116 process. And you know, when, when choosing who's going to be represented 00:10:09.149 --> 00:10:14.395 at the table in this collaborative decision making process, um We hear the 00:10:14.428 --> 00:10:20.967 term stakeholders and there's recreational fisheries are at the table and 00:10:21.000 --> 00:10:26.236 uh there's the states are at the table and there's a, a sort of a series 00:10:26.269 --> 00:10:31.037 of interest groups that have stakes in the process and tribes are one of 00:10:31.070 --> 00:10:36.005 them, they've been recognized as, you know, important stakeholders. Um But 00:10:36.038 --> 00:10:39.206 some people argue that they're different than the other kinds of 00:10:39.239 --> 00:10:44.265 stakeholders. What's your perspective on that? They are? I think they are 00:10:44.298 --> 00:10:49.366 completely different from other stakeholders. Um Often times are not 00:10:49.399 --> 00:10:55.557 treated that way. But I think that the, the tribes have a deep time 00:10:55.590 --> 00:11:01.986 connection to the Grand Canyon, Colorado River and it was, and before the 00:11:02.019 --> 00:11:05.967 United States government decided that they were going to make the Grand 00:11:06.000 --> 00:11:11.657 Canyon a national Park. Um The tribes had free access and use of that area 00:11:11.690 --> 00:11:18.096 for the most part. And that, and for Zuni, the Grand Canyon the Colorado 00:11:18.129 --> 00:11:22.775 River has been significant, extremely significant to their cultural 00:11:22.808 --> 00:11:30.808 identity um since their emergence into this world. And so it goes back to 00:11:31.239 --> 00:11:39.239 such a deep time that it's, it's, it's not calculate calculable. Um And so 00:11:39.519 --> 00:11:44.015 the federal government comes in and displaces and dispossesses native 00:11:44.048 --> 00:11:47.375 people of this place that's very important to them. So you can't come in 00:11:47.408 --> 00:11:52.366 here anymore because we've determined that it's important. And so there is 00:11:52.399 --> 00:11:58.346 a history of trauma that tries to experience because of that. And now 00:11:58.379 --> 00:12:04.135 they're under federal regulations and how they access and use that place. 00:12:04.168 --> 00:12:10.005 So I think that the federal government has a responsibility to recognize, 00:12:10.038 --> 00:12:15.336 acknowledge and appreciate the fact that they've done harm to these native 00:12:15.369 --> 00:12:21.186 groups by restricting them from a very important place and that they have 00:12:21.219 --> 00:12:26.657 a trust responsibility to ensure that the tribes have access and use of 00:12:26.690 --> 00:12:31.986 that place as they should have all along but were restricted from having. 00:12:32.019 --> 00:12:37.037 And that um at these meetings, they also have to recognize that when the 00:12:37.070 --> 00:12:42.456 tribes come to these meetings, there is a history of trauma that is the 00:12:42.489 --> 00:12:49.746 backdrop of their interaction with the federal government and how that 00:12:49.779 --> 00:12:54.015 stakeholder table. Um 00:12:54.048 --> 00:12:59.976 just the way it operates. Uh There is a power dynamic 00:13:00.009 --> 00:13:04.217 that the tribes are very sensitive to where the federal government holds 00:13:04.250 --> 00:13:11.096 all the cards in terms of power. And that oftentimes the just the uh 00:13:11.129 --> 00:13:18.667 interaction at a um at an, at the an wig or the twig table, one has to be 00:13:18.700 --> 00:13:25.755 very assertive and that oftentimes is contrary to the, uh, cultural, um, 00:13:25.788 --> 00:13:31.236 inclinations. Yeah, the, the way tribal people treat other people in terms 00:13:31.269 --> 00:13:36.976 of respect that you don't confront, you don't argue, you know, you don't, 00:13:37.009 --> 00:13:41.816 um, become real aggressive and assertive. Like, it's contrary to their 00:13:41.849 --> 00:13:46.557 cultural beliefs, their, their cultural norms of how to behave like a 00:13:46.590 --> 00:13:52.807 respectful zuni for instance, because there are so many trout and that the 00:13:52.840 --> 00:13:58.606 thing to do is to reduce the numbers of rainbow trout and rainbow trout 00:13:58.639 --> 00:14:03.145 are not native to that river system. They were introduced for game. They 00:14:03.178 --> 00:14:09.505 were, they were introduced, uh, as I understand it in the early sixties 00:14:09.538 --> 00:14:15.346 after the closure of Glenn King and Dam. But brown trout was introduced 00:14:15.379 --> 00:14:20.635 into the system back more like in the early part of the last century, 19 00:14:20.668 --> 00:14:24.797 twenties, maybe even earlier. And there a European trout. Is that right? 00:14:24.830 --> 00:14:31.037 Or just, I think, I think it is. Um, but, but so, and they eat Humpback 00:14:31.070 --> 00:14:35.667 job. They eat anything from what I understand. I mean, browns shaw are 00:14:35.700 --> 00:14:41.135 very voracious bull frogs eat anything. I mean, well, Humpback chub eat 00:14:41.168 --> 00:14:46.157 Humpback ch, you know, I think that if it's small enough and it's alive 00:14:46.190 --> 00:14:50.706 and swimming in front of you, you go for it. Um, 00:14:50.739 --> 00:14:56.486 so they, when I was working at Hopi, then they came out and talked to Hopi 00:14:56.519 --> 00:15:00.787 about it, what they plan to do is do electrofishing stun the fish. When 00:15:00.820 --> 00:15:04.096 the fish come up, then they, they collect all the non natives, 00:15:04.129 --> 00:15:09.255 particularly the rainbow trout and then kill them and turn them into fish 00:15:09.288 --> 00:15:14.895 emulsion. And, uh, that was offensive to, you know, it was offensive 00:15:14.928 --> 00:15:18.547 because they were going to do it at the confluence of the little Colorado 00:15:18.580 --> 00:15:24.996 river and the Colorado River. Um, and that's a sacred site for, well, for 00:15:25.029 --> 00:15:30.547 most of the tribes forum, it is as well. Um And part of it is because, 00:15:30.580 --> 00:15:36.755 well, the confluence represents a place of life um of the, the joining of 00:15:36.788 --> 00:15:41.135 two rivers and there's a lot of uh life this spawning and stuff going on 00:15:41.168 --> 00:15:48.057 there. And that, as Kuma stated, it would bring an aura of death over a 00:15:48.090 --> 00:15:56.090 sacred place. Um And so for, he said, OK, we won't do it in front of the, 00:15:57.580 --> 00:16:01.667 the confluence. We'll do it a mile up stream or a mile downstream from the 00:16:01.700 --> 00:16:04.657 confluence. But when they actually did it, they did it right in front of 00:16:04.690 --> 00:16:11.486 the confluence. They ignored, they, they claimed that it was uh a 00:16:11.519 --> 00:16:16.996 miscommunication between the federal agency and their contractor, but I 00:16:17.029 --> 00:16:25.029 doubt it. I, I don't believe it. Um Anyways, so when I uh was at Zuni uh 00:16:28.229 --> 00:16:31.275 in 2008, 00:16:31.308 --> 00:16:36.116 um a uh Sunni religious leader 00:16:36.149 --> 00:16:41.596 came in and asked me, are they still killing fish in the Grand Canyon? I 00:16:41.629 --> 00:16:46.645 said, yeah, he said, that's not right. They should stop that. And I said, 00:16:46.678 --> 00:16:54.678 well, why? And um he explained to me, well, he explained to me this, this 00:16:54.808 --> 00:17:02.275 story um that when the Sunnis emerged um at Ribbon Falls in the Grand 00:17:02.308 --> 00:17:10.308 Canyon and began their journeys. Um A as the, the Sunni that uh people 00:17:10.667 --> 00:17:15.175 were crossing a river. 00:17:15.208 --> 00:17:19.024 Some say it's the Colorado river. Some say it's the little Colorado river. 00:17:19.057 --> 00:17:25.166 It's the exact location is really not important. Um But as they were 00:17:25.199 --> 00:17:29.335 crossing, they were told to hold their Children on their backs tightly as 00:17:29.368 --> 00:17:33.176 they crossed the river as they began to, to cross the rivers, the Children 00:17:33.209 --> 00:17:36.805 started to scratch them. And so they let the Children go and the Children 00:17:36.838 --> 00:17:41.696 fell into the river and turned into a quiet beings turned into fish, 00:17:41.729 --> 00:17:48.535 turned into uh water snakes turned into frogs, turned into um tadpoles and 00:17:48.568 --> 00:17:56.476 things like that. And so everybody was um upset by that. And so the 00:17:56.509 --> 00:18:00.726 remaining people crossed, they held tighter onto their Children. Um And 00:18:00.759 --> 00:18:04.897 when they got to another part of the river, they heard the singing and 00:18:04.930 --> 00:18:11.206 stuff and realized that their Children uh we're now aquatic beings. And so 00:18:11.239 --> 00:18:17.535 this, I mean, this is a really brief rendition of the story. But um that 00:18:17.568 --> 00:18:19.756 event 00:18:19.789 --> 00:18:24.996 that all aquatic beings are Sunni Children are viewed as Sunni Children, 00:18:25.029 --> 00:18:32.305 whether they're native or non native. It doesn't matter. And so from a 00:18:32.338 --> 00:18:34.717 Sunni perspective, 00:18:34.750 --> 00:18:41.526 you are killing these fish, you are killing Sunni chiller who are killing 00:18:41.559 --> 00:18:49.285 beings that Zuni has a special relationship to. Uh and they find that 00:18:49.318 --> 00:18:57.318 offensive because as one Sunni religious leaders stated that 00:18:59.449 --> 00:19:04.666 because the, the um the Sunni is along the Zi River, the village of Suni 00:19:04.699 --> 00:19:08.545 is the Sunni river runs right through the village of Zuni and the Zuni 00:19:08.578 --> 00:19:13.627 river that's in New Mexico, in New Mexico. The confluences with the little 00:19:13.660 --> 00:19:18.406 Colorado River uh and the little Colorado river conferences with the 00:19:18.439 --> 00:19:23.196 Colorado River in Grand Canyon. Thus creating a spiritual umbilical 00:19:23.229 --> 00:19:28.776 connection to Zuni. So every morning and every night, Zis go down to the 00:19:28.809 --> 00:19:32.426 Sunni river even though it's a dry river now because they dammed it up at 00:19:32.459 --> 00:19:38.617 Rama. Um They put offerings into the riverbed and send their prayers to 00:19:38.650 --> 00:19:43.325 the Grand Canyon and so 00:19:43.358 --> 00:19:51.358 killing fish at the confluence. Uh with the only motivation is that those 00:19:51.509 --> 00:19:59.509 fish are not wanted is an abhorrent idea to Zi. And they, and they now see 00:20:01.009 --> 00:20:05.946 the cause and effect of that, of killing those fish that people in Zuni 00:20:05.979 --> 00:20:12.516 are dying early. That there is a drug cause in that relationship. The 00:20:12.549 --> 00:20:16.996 people in Sunni are dying of cancer and other um reasons. And they 00:20:17.029 --> 00:20:19.756 attribute that to 00:20:19.789 --> 00:20:23.545 during that time, they also attributed to the fact that during the time 00:20:23.578 --> 00:20:29.936 they were doing the electro fishing that the Zi policemen were uh where 00:20:29.969 --> 00:20:34.035 were they were experiencing? The uni the Zuni policemen using an increased 00:20:34.068 --> 00:20:39.936 use of tasers on Zuni people. So they saw that as a connection, the cause 00:20:39.969 --> 00:20:43.045 and effect relationships and things out of balance in nature and it has 00:20:43.078 --> 00:20:47.315 impacts on our culture, just like the interviews I was doing the last 00:20:47.348 --> 00:20:53.467 couple of days that once you start messing with, with the balance between 00:20:53.500 --> 00:20:57.305 the material world and spiritual world, you're looking for trouble. It's 00:20:57.338 --> 00:21:01.986 gotta come, you don't know where you don't know when but it will show up. 00:21:02.019 --> 00:21:09.357 Um And so based on that information, I started in 2008, raising the 00:21:09.390 --> 00:21:13.696 objection of tweet meetings saying, you know, look, the Sunni have this 00:21:13.729 --> 00:21:18.535 concern. You can't be planning more mechanical removal until you start 00:21:18.568 --> 00:21:23.996 hearing what the Sunis have to say. I was ignored, completely ignored for 00:21:24.029 --> 00:21:26.506 over a year. 00:21:26.539 --> 00:21:30.736 So we finally got their attention bureau of reclamation and GCMRC, the 00:21:30.769 --> 00:21:36.065 National Park Service and Fish and Wallet Service is that the Governor of 00:21:36.098 --> 00:21:44.098 Zuni sent a letter bureau reclamation saying your mechanical re removal is 00:21:44.709 --> 00:21:50.617 an adverse effect to a traditional cultural property which is the Grand 00:21:50.650 --> 00:21:55.857 Canyon of the Colorado River or Zuni. It's cause and you have to address 00:21:55.890 --> 00:22:00.575 the adverse effect. You have to mitigate that adverse effect and you 00:22:00.608 --> 00:22:03.887 haven't done it and you haven't consulted and then all of a sudden 00:22:03.920 --> 00:22:06.986 everybody's hair was on fire 00:22:07.019 --> 00:22:14.647 and did it lead to change? You did. It did, but it took a lot of teeth 00:22:14.680 --> 00:22:22.680 gnashing and beating your head against a wall because um 00:22:23.068 --> 00:22:31.068 as, as part of this whole um dialogue between Zuni and bureau reclamation 00:22:32.150 --> 00:22:37.357 and then he got to the assistant secretary's office. So Anne Castle came 00:22:37.390 --> 00:22:42.847 out to Zuni to talk about that to the Zuni people. Um, the Zuni tribal 00:22:42.880 --> 00:22:50.880 council and the religious leaders, we had a tribal resolution um in 2010 00:22:51.439 --> 00:22:58.026 that um was geared towards the mechanical room and told, um, the bureau 00:22:58.059 --> 00:23:03.637 reclamation exactly, uh, what soon he wanted because they had, we 00:23:03.670 --> 00:23:11.075 criticized their science. Their science was circumstantial that rainbow 00:23:11.108 --> 00:23:15.535 and brown trout were telling too many humpbacks were affecting the, the, 00:23:15.568 --> 00:23:20.026 the humpback chub population viability. We were saying, well, you know, 00:23:20.059 --> 00:23:24.976 what portion of any spawning population would just normally die because 00:23:25.009 --> 00:23:29.696 they couldn't make it to reproductive age from either disease or predation 00:23:29.729 --> 00:23:36.147 or who knows what, um, tell us what those percentages are and tell us, um 00:23:36.180 --> 00:23:42.236 , what affect the predation and competition it's having on them. And they 00:23:42.269 --> 00:23:46.426 couldn't. I said yet, 00:23:46.459 --> 00:23:51.756 I mean, we're essentially saying, show us a smoking gun and they didn't 00:23:51.789 --> 00:23:56.575 have one. We keep, and we kept hammering this at him and we kept saying, 00:23:56.608 --> 00:24:04.006 well, they, they showed this one, article where they developed a model 00:24:04.039 --> 00:24:08.387 based on the stomach contents of the trout that they killed, they killed 00:24:08.420 --> 00:24:11.976 like something like 20,000 trout. And, you know, they took the stomach 00:24:12.009 --> 00:24:16.555 contents out and analyzed them. Well, there was a very, it was less than 00:24:16.588 --> 00:24:21.835 1% that they could actually identify as Humpback job. The, the rest were, 00:24:21.868 --> 00:24:26.717 um, assumed to be Humpback chub or ones that they just, they couldn't 00:24:26.750 --> 00:24:34.750 identify. And so based on that, they made a model that said, um, what was 00:24:36.059 --> 00:24:38.825 it that, that 00:24:38.858 --> 00:24:43.545 one Humpback or one Humpback chub would be eaten by one rainbow trout 00:24:43.578 --> 00:24:47.377 every day or something to that effect. Let's go back and read it. But the 00:24:47.410 --> 00:24:50.706 model was, 00:24:50.739 --> 00:24:56.887 was not a well substantiated model. Nor was it proven through, um, good 00:24:56.920 --> 00:25:03.065 ground truth things. And so their, their ex, their predictions of the 00:25:03.098 --> 00:25:08.295 impact of rainbow trout on, on back chug populations, I think were 00:25:08.328 --> 00:25:15.117 erroneous a bit best. And it was 2010, you were saying or later between, 00:25:15.150 --> 00:25:17.617 yeah, around 2009 00:25:17.650 --> 00:25:21.696 10 because they, at that time, they were proposing to add mechanical 00:25:21.729 --> 00:25:29.729 removal in out your, um, scopes of work for the, for the center. 00:25:29.939 --> 00:25:33.956 So you, you pointed out earlier that they originally thought the water was 00:25:33.989 --> 00:25:38.496 too cold and that was why the Humpback chubs were suffering. And then they 00:25:38.529 --> 00:25:42.736 decided that it was predation from rainbow and brown trout. Um, but they 00:25:42.769 --> 00:25:47.637 didn't have great data for either of those hypotheses. Um, what do they 00:25:47.670 --> 00:25:52.766 think it is now? And is this an example of adaptive management in practice 00:25:52.799 --> 00:25:57.565 ? You come up with a hypothesis, you try something, you monitor, you re 00:25:57.598 --> 00:26:02.526 evaluate you tweak and you try again, is that kind of what adaptive 00:26:02.559 --> 00:26:07.367 management is all about. And where are we now with our understanding of 00:26:07.400 --> 00:26:12.016 why the Humpback Chub is not doing well. Well, the Humpback Humpback chub 00:26:12.049 --> 00:26:18.127 actually is doing well. Yes, right now, uh, yeah. And in fact, um, several 00:26:18.160 --> 00:26:21.256 years ago, the Humpback Chub populations are going up. So, were the 00:26:21.289 --> 00:26:25.996 rainbow trout population at the same time? And so you, you, well, how can 00:26:26.029 --> 00:26:32.766 that be? Right. Um, I think, is this a good example of adaptive management 00:26:32.799 --> 00:26:39.676 ? I don't know. Um, I'd have to think about that. Um, for quite a while 00:26:39.709 --> 00:26:44.555 before I really would render an opinion on that. I think initially 00:26:44.588 --> 00:26:50.026 reclamation went for the, the trout as the culprit because it took the 00:26:50.059 --> 00:26:52.617 folks off the dam 00:26:52.650 --> 00:26:55.347 because they're in charge of the water and the spill. So, if it's cold 00:26:55.380 --> 00:26:59.486 water is the problem, the bureau of reclamation takes the responsibility 00:26:59.519 --> 00:27:05.075 responsible. And so I, you know, it's not the dam anymore. It's those 00:27:05.108 --> 00:27:10.246 pesky trout, right? But here's the thing too that you said, Zuni said, 00:27:10.279 --> 00:27:12.627 look, 00:27:12.660 --> 00:27:16.746 you can consult with us about building the dam. You didn't consult with us 00:27:16.779 --> 00:27:21.555 about stocking brown trout. You didn't consult with us about stocking 00:27:21.588 --> 00:27:26.967 rainbow trout. You did these three things without considering our 00:27:27.000 --> 00:27:35.000 perspective and now base and now because you've done that your, um, 00:27:35.689 --> 00:27:42.276 management paradigm has changed from privileging sport fish because they 00:27:42.309 --> 00:27:46.746 tried to kill the native fish in the system before, uh, to get rid of the 00:27:46.779 --> 00:27:50.815 Humpback chub and the, the speckled days and that sort of thing. So they 00:27:50.848 --> 00:27:57.825 could promote sport fish. Um, but your management paradigm has changed and 00:27:57.858 --> 00:28:02.436 now you favor biological diversity, particularly native biological 00:28:02.469 --> 00:28:09.597 diversity. Um, and, and do you wanna get rid of the, the non natives yet? 00:28:09.630 --> 00:28:13.467 The non natives have been there for almost 100 years. So we don't view 00:28:13.500 --> 00:28:20.127 them as native or non natives anymore, But yet your management actions are 00:28:20.160 --> 00:28:24.805 having a direct effect on us in a negative way 00:28:24.838 --> 00:28:27.766 and 00:28:27.799 --> 00:28:33.055 they never federal government didn't accept the position right away. 00:28:33.088 --> 00:28:39.805 Um They thought I was putting the zoomies up to it. 00:28:39.838 --> 00:28:44.607 I mean, really, I was like, are you kidding me? Shoot the messenger. Yeah 00:28:44.640 --> 00:28:52.640 , exactly. And yeah, pushing documented that story. I told you back in the 00:28:53.279 --> 00:29:00.055 18 eighties. So it's not like something the Zuni is just whipped up um as 00:29:00.088 --> 00:29:04.127 a way to irritate the federal government or something that I just came up 00:29:04.160 --> 00:29:08.717 with. I mean, it's documented, it's been documented for a long time. Um 00:29:08.750 --> 00:29:12.946 And so it's consistent values that Zis have in their relation to that 00:29:12.979 --> 00:29:19.416 place. But it was, it was really hard to get the Federal Government Bureau 00:29:19.449 --> 00:29:27.449 reclamation and, and others to accept that and to um acknowledge and treat 00:29:27.939 --> 00:29:32.206 uh in a respectful manner, the Zuni position. 00:29:32.239 --> 00:29:37.647 So you bring up a couple of um thorny issues in adaptive management. One 00:29:37.680 --> 00:29:44.276 is the difference between being listened to and being influential. And um 00:29:44.309 --> 00:29:49.506 you mentioned that it took a long time to get the federal agencies 00:29:49.539 --> 00:29:55.835 involved in the Adaptive Management Program to respectfully listen to and 00:29:55.868 --> 00:30:01.815 accept the perspectives of the Hopi and the Zuni, for example, you work 00:30:01.848 --> 00:30:09.016 for. But then the question remains, did they change management strategies 00:30:09.049 --> 00:30:14.627 or policies as a result of finally listening to and respecting those 00:30:14.660 --> 00:30:21.285 perspectives to a degree? So now um they have 00:30:21.318 --> 00:30:27.347 uh more severe triggers bef you know, before the implement me mechanical 00:30:27.380 --> 00:30:34.166 removal. So, um, the Humpback chub numbers really need to start declining 00:30:34.199 --> 00:30:37.726 and the rainbow trout numbers need to really start coming up before they 00:30:37.759 --> 00:30:43.406 decide to implement mechanical removal. So that's positive. 00:30:43.439 --> 00:30:48.055 But they've also remember when that was that they made that, I think it's 00:30:48.088 --> 00:30:54.226 , um, it began in the, um, 00:30:54.259 --> 00:31:00.776 in a non native management plan that was developed by reclamation back 00:31:00.809 --> 00:31:03.295 around 00:31:03.328 --> 00:31:05.607 2011, 00:31:05.640 --> 00:31:12.456 12. Ok. Uh, but then it was, um, implemented in the, uh, l temp the long 00:31:12.489 --> 00:31:17.607 term experiment management plan. Eis. Ok. So it's part of that now, but 00:31:17.640 --> 00:31:22.776 they've also included trout management flows, right? Which if they, when 00:31:22.809 --> 00:31:28.617 the trout spawn, they lower the water from the dam so that they strand the 00:31:28.650 --> 00:31:34.166 eggs and they, they desiccate right? 00:31:34.199 --> 00:31:39.026 Toi you're just killing them at a different stage of life, right? For, for 00:31:39.059 --> 00:31:43.055 no reason just because you don't want them there, you know. Um, so they 00:31:43.088 --> 00:31:49.637 object to that too. Um, So at meetings, I said, you help, you've heard 00:31:49.670 --> 00:31:57.670 from Zuni that can removal and drought suppression flows. 00:31:58.598 --> 00:32:00.986 It's still 00:32:01.019 --> 00:32:06.406 uh in uh negatively affecting Sunnis. In fact, they believe Sunni lives 00:32:06.439 --> 00:32:12.526 are being taken. You still maintain those as viable management actions 00:32:12.559 --> 00:32:17.266 that, that are in your toolkit to do the mechanical removal work. I asked 00:32:17.299 --> 00:32:21.117 the federal government, what's the message you're sending Zuni that 00:32:21.150 --> 00:32:25.416 Humpback ju lives are more important than Zuni lives. 00:32:25.449 --> 00:32:30.226 And I get no answer. They don't know how to answer that but that, but 00:32:30.259 --> 00:32:35.118 isn't that the message they're sending them? From my perspective? It is. 00:32:35.759 --> 00:32:37.759 Well, that's the second thorny issue in adaptive management and all other 00:32:40.180 --> 00:32:43.186 kinds of natural resource management decision making in complex 00:32:43.219 --> 00:32:49.607 environments with a complex social uh stakeholders. What, what do you 00:32:49.640 --> 00:32:57.640 think is the appropriate way to move forward when for example, a uh cult, 00:32:58.348 --> 00:33:04.387 traditional cultural property and what those who care about that 00:33:04.420 --> 00:33:09.637 traditional cultural property want done with it. Conflicts with s for 00:33:09.670 --> 00:33:14.617 example, the Endangered Species Act. So, you know, early on the federal, 00:33:14.650 --> 00:33:19.726 you know, the US Fish and Wildlife Service is required to not increase the 00:33:19.759 --> 00:33:24.967 jeopardy on any endangered species and their best available evidence as 00:33:25.000 --> 00:33:31.246 weak as it was at the time suggested that predation was, was a problem. 00:33:31.279 --> 00:33:36.315 And so they interpreted their legal responsibility as we've got to reduce 00:33:36.348 --> 00:33:42.137 predation. When the Zuni said, we don't like that particular strategy 00:33:42.170 --> 00:33:45.746 because it's harming us significantly. 00:33:45.779 --> 00:33:50.256 What what would you say is the appropriate way to move forward in a 00:33:50.289 --> 00:33:56.075 situation like that? 00:33:56.108 --> 00:34:00.506 In terms of that, I, I would, 00:34:00.539 --> 00:34:08.539 I'm not convinced that there was rigorous in compelling science. 00:34:08.860 --> 00:34:16.287 Um And I'm not convinced that the scientists or the managers at first 00:34:16.320 --> 00:34:23.425 seriously took the Zuni values as being valid, credible and something that 00:34:23.458 --> 00:34:29.776 they wanted to deal with. I think they saw Zuni and it's position as being 00:34:29.809 --> 00:34:34.684 a thorn in their side and they just wanted to be done with it. Thank you, 00:34:34.717 --> 00:34:40.686 Robert. I mean, um I mentioned the resolution passed by the tribal council 00:34:40.719 --> 00:34:46.486 on this issue. With that resolution was appended a statement on the issue 00:34:46.519 --> 00:34:50.936 by the Sunni religious leaders and it was signed by over 30 some Sunni 00:34:50.969 --> 00:34:57.046 religious leaders. You know how unique that is from Zuni to get something 00:34:57.079 --> 00:35:04.747 like that document. Very unusual, very unusual. Um And the Zuni Governor 00:35:04.780 --> 00:35:11.655 had it to the uh the systems for water and science and castle at the time. 00:35:11.688 --> 00:35:14.577 She just took it. You can hand it to the director of the Bureau of 00:35:14.610 --> 00:35:19.526 Reclamation. Do you even look at it? I found that incredibly insulting in 00:35:19.559 --> 00:35:23.126 front of the zoomies. I don't want 00:35:23.159 --> 00:35:27.727 later. She came back and no, I mean, or no. Well, like I said that the 00:35:27.760 --> 00:35:33.086 rhetoric is there all the right rhetoric is there in terms of talking 00:35:33.119 --> 00:35:36.727 about Zi values and how the government's real sympathetic to it. But just 00:35:36.760 --> 00:35:39.736 that mechanical action 00:35:39.769 --> 00:35:44.655 at least to me signal that she really didn't care. Uh She really, this was 00:35:44.688 --> 00:35:49.816 really something she wasn't that concerned about. And I think it, it was 00:35:49.849 --> 00:35:56.327 demonstrated throughout her whole tenure as the uh with a designee. Uh huh. 00:35:56.360 --> 00:36:02.077 So, um you're, you're suggesting that, um, tribes and tribal 00:36:02.110 --> 00:36:09.876 representatives were not, um granted equal weight at the table and in 00:36:09.909 --> 00:36:14.936 negotiations, they weren't granted full respect as stakeholders. Uh At the 00:36:14.969 --> 00:36:20.977 beginning, at least I've heard you suggest that things changed over time 00:36:21.010 --> 00:36:25.017 that there were some improvements. Uh looking at from the early 19 00:36:25.050 --> 00:36:30.345 nineties to the present. Do you think there has been progress made in at 00:36:30.378 --> 00:36:36.327 least granting a fuller, you know, respect and status for tribal 00:36:36.360 --> 00:36:43.936 representatives on the Adaptive Management Program teams. 00:36:43.969 --> 00:36:50.986 I think that um well, if you go to the, the AM wig or the twig and they do 00:36:51.019 --> 00:36:57.345 a vote. So the tribe has the same sort of voting power as any other 00:36:57.378 --> 00:36:59.506 stakeholder. 00:36:59.539 --> 00:37:07.365 But I think if you talk about um the issues that are raised by the tribe 00:37:07.398 --> 00:37:15.336 in a setting like that, um that there is more um deference given to you 00:37:15.369 --> 00:37:20.626 Western Science, Western Science, but also the position of the basin state 00:37:20.659 --> 00:37:26.986 representatives. Ok. Over the drives. So there's a kind of a hierarchy. 00:37:27.019 --> 00:37:32.836 The federal agencies are really the power center, the state 00:37:32.869 --> 00:37:37.276 representatives in the Colorado River Basin, maybe right behind them in 00:37:37.309 --> 00:37:42.445 terms of being influential and then the rest of the stakeholders, 00:37:42.478 --> 00:37:47.236 including the tribes kind of underneath that is that the schema you're 00:37:47.269 --> 00:37:51.436 suggesting in terms of the power differentials 00:37:51.469 --> 00:37:55.977 and that's been consistent over the three decades, no significant change 00:37:56.010 --> 00:38:03.456 in shifts in those power positions in your mind. I mean, there has been um 00:38:03.489 --> 00:38:08.905 a recognition of the need to have the drives at the table um because they 00:38:08.938 --> 00:38:14.217 do fund the tribes at a base amount, do they do that for other 00:38:14.250 --> 00:38:17.606 participants in the program? 00:38:17.639 --> 00:38:21.017 Other than the federal agency, they certainly have their own funding too. 00:38:21.050 --> 00:38:27.256 I think they reimburse uh state representatives and some other folks for 00:38:27.289 --> 00:38:32.405 their travel and expenses um to go into AM wig meetings or trade meetings. 00:38:32.438 --> 00:38:37.296 There's a certain amount of budget um that reclamation has for the other 00:38:37.329 --> 00:38:45.006 stakeholders. Um They actually give the tribes um money annually for 00:38:45.039 --> 00:38:50.865 participation, although that amount of money hasn't changed since it was 00:38:50.898 --> 00:38:54.146 identified in 1999. 00:38:54.179 --> 00:39:00.796 So it, it hasn't fluctuated, you know. And so they continue to ask the 00:39:00.829 --> 00:39:07.166 tribes to do more with less, much more with much less. And so the same 00:39:07.199 --> 00:39:13.307 thing with the funding Zuni monitoring in river trips, which I'm in the 00:39:13.340 --> 00:39:18.356 process of trying to arrange one that, that money hasn't changed either, 00:39:18.389 --> 00:39:25.956 the the amount for that hasn't changed either. So, while it's um 00:39:25.989 --> 00:39:33.146 it's appreciated, at least from Zuni that this funding is there that helps 00:39:33.179 --> 00:39:38.115 to support Sunnis participation and presence at those meetings. Um It's 00:39:38.148 --> 00:39:44.247 certainly inadequate funding to probably participate at a level that Zuni 00:39:44.280 --> 00:39:47.695 would like to participate. 00:39:47.728 --> 00:39:51.997 Well, let's, um, let's shift gears just a little bit. And I'd like to ask 00:39:52.030 --> 00:39:57.436 you, um, what significant changes in the program you've seen over time and 00:39:57.469 --> 00:40:02.936 the broader Adaptive Management program itself? Um, are there any stages 00:40:02.969 --> 00:40:08.477 through which it's evolved in your mind since the 19 nineties? 00:40:08.510 --> 00:40:14.115 I think, um, the GC Mercy, 00:40:14.148 --> 00:40:16.666 that's the Grand Canyon Monitoring Research Center in some respects has 00:40:16.699 --> 00:40:22.046 become a monster that's out of control. In, in what sense in developing 00:40:22.079 --> 00:40:28.046 the science and um the research and monitoring programs? Do you mean that 00:40:28.079 --> 00:40:34.445 they have too much control over what gets funded for, for scientific study 00:40:34.478 --> 00:40:40.376 or something else to, yeah, to a large extent there's that. Um but I think 00:40:40.409 --> 00:40:48.195 they're um they become a bureaucratic. Uh Frankenstein. 00:40:48.228 --> 00:40:53.256 Can you explain what you mean by that? A little bit more? I'm not sure 00:40:53.289 --> 00:40:58.345 that if you read the EIS in 1995 00:40:58.378 --> 00:41:02.425 it said that the Grand Canyon Monitoring Research Center was going to 00:41:02.458 --> 00:41:09.836 essentially have a core of four or five people. One would be the chief, 00:41:09.869 --> 00:41:15.706 then there would be a um physical resource program manager, a biological 00:41:15.739 --> 00:41:22.695 resource program manager, a culture resource program manager, and then um 00:41:22.728 --> 00:41:29.276 an administrative assistant helper sort of person. And uh all the science 00:41:29.309 --> 00:41:35.106 and monitoring research was to be contracted out uh competitively. Uh But 00:41:35.139 --> 00:41:41.175 now the US GS has created this, this monster with all these people in it. 00:41:41.208 --> 00:41:45.155 So the US Geological survey took over the Grand Canyon Monitoring and 00:41:45.188 --> 00:41:50.967 Research Center a few years after it was created, it was, 00:41:51.000 --> 00:41:55.316 he was either supposed to go to, it was gonna either be housing 00:41:55.349 --> 00:42:00.256 reclamation or in the US GS. And I can't remember who it was, who was 00:42:00.289 --> 00:42:05.916 walking out the door during the Clinton administration that signed it into 00:42:05.949 --> 00:42:10.146 US GS. Yeah. And, 00:42:10.179 --> 00:42:17.287 and at the time, it seemed like a fairly good idea because people's who is 00:42:17.320 --> 00:42:23.345 my, you can only speak for me. I just trust and reclamation was low that 00:42:23.378 --> 00:42:27.436 they would do the right thing. Um 00:42:27.469 --> 00:42:32.195 And so the US GS is 00:42:32.228 --> 00:42:36.727 and maybe it's because I deal with consultation with federal so much on 00:42:36.760 --> 00:42:42.896 behalf of Zuni that they are uh 00:42:42.929 --> 00:42:46.296 callous to criticism 00:42:46.329 --> 00:42:51.595 us GS is. Uh and they don't like to hear it. You, they don't like to hear 00:42:51.628 --> 00:42:57.456 it. Now on day 10, they also don't think they have uh well, there's a 00:42:57.489 --> 00:43:02.365 whole lot of things but um that I have against the US GS. But uh in terms 00:43:02.398 --> 00:43:10.356 of that, but I think that the center itself has become arrogant um and has 00:43:10.389 --> 00:43:17.827 be, has focused on things that I don't think are important to the program 00:43:17.860 --> 00:43:25.860 such as, um well, since 2003, I've been arguing uh with the center about 00:43:27.099 --> 00:43:34.727 the research on trying to quantify windblown sand in terms of 00:43:34.760 --> 00:43:42.046 archaeological site preservation. Uh I thought the hypothesis was uh not 00:43:42.079 --> 00:43:50.079 supportable. What was a hypothesis? The hypothesis was that um the, um 00:43:50.869 --> 00:43:56.606 the reason archaeological sites are eroding in the Grand Canyon is because 00:43:56.639 --> 00:44:01.876 there are no longer uh seasonal floods and there's no longer the sediment 00:44:01.909 --> 00:44:05.836 in the system because it's trapped behind the dam that would come up and 00:44:05.869 --> 00:44:10.057 deposit more sand on the archaeological sites and protect them from 00:44:10.090 --> 00:44:14.037 erosion, protect them from erosion. So the sand is going away and there's 00:44:14.070 --> 00:44:18.296 nothing replacing it. And so they, they felt that ok. So what we can do is 00:44:18.329 --> 00:44:21.206 we do our um 00:44:21.239 --> 00:44:26.776 our um experimental flows, the floods, she put the sand on the beaches and 00:44:26.809 --> 00:44:33.517 then the wind comes and blows the sand onto these sites and that preserves 00:44:33.550 --> 00:44:35.836 the sites. 00:44:35.869 --> 00:44:43.546 And I said, well, you know, wimble and sand um could leave the site that 00:44:43.579 --> 00:44:46.956 the site, the sand that's been contributed to the site could be gone by 00:44:46.989 --> 00:44:49.307 the next wind event. As long as the winds coming from a different 00:44:49.340 --> 00:44:53.626 direction or the next precipitation event could wash the sand, there's 00:44:53.659 --> 00:45:01.336 nothing there to armor the sand to stay on the site. Um And 00:45:01.369 --> 00:45:03.767 um 00:45:03.800 --> 00:45:10.876 they're just spending a lot of money doing this trying to quantify it um 00:45:10.909 --> 00:45:16.436 by using Lidar and uh toll station mapping and stuff like that. I said, 00:45:16.469 --> 00:45:23.666 well, that, that seems, that seems to be um a lot of money spent um gazing 00:45:23.699 --> 00:45:28.595 at your navel. Um It's, you're really not being effective. I didn't 00:45:28.628 --> 00:45:33.736 believe it was. And so I continued to criticize it. Did you have some 00:45:33.769 --> 00:45:38.537 suggestions for what you thought would be more valuable research? I, I 00:45:38.570 --> 00:45:45.276 told them, um why don't you look at past excavations that have been done 00:45:45.309 --> 00:45:48.615 in the Grand Canyon archaeological excavation and look at what the Strat 00:45:48.648 --> 00:45:55.046 gray is of archaeological sites and determine how much is, is caused by 00:45:55.079 --> 00:46:01.155 floods and how much is caused by wind deposit in terms of preservation. 00:46:01.188 --> 00:46:06.095 Have they done that research yet? Well, the last time we've had, we had 00:46:06.128 --> 00:46:12.106 this conversation, it was about a year ago. Uh a little more. So you're 00:46:12.139 --> 00:46:19.836 still advocating. Well, I quit because um I I it's one of these other 00:46:19.869 --> 00:46:22.956 issues that I keep pounding my head against the wall and nothing's 00:46:22.989 --> 00:46:28.695 happening. You know, I keep, I think I bring up legitimate uh issues 00:46:28.728 --> 00:46:33.497 regarding this and they had um 00:46:33.530 --> 00:46:35.997 had a recent 00:46:36.030 --> 00:46:39.666 technical work group meeting where we are voting on the next two year 00:46:39.699 --> 00:46:44.945 budget work plan. The majority of the Tweed representatives voted to kick 00:46:44.978 --> 00:46:51.967 that out, take that, that program out and no longer do it. And then 00:46:52.000 --> 00:46:59.037 the center um the program that US GS was that you described that. So not 00:46:59.070 --> 00:47:04.077 you were proposing, right. Well, so I was criticizing the continued a on 00:47:04.110 --> 00:47:08.267 monitoring alien san monitoring and saying, you know, I don't think it's 00:47:08.300 --> 00:47:13.345 producing the benefits that we want or is it it's going and for it to 00:47:13.378 --> 00:47:19.256 actually, um, be validated in an archaeological site. You're going to have 00:47:19.289 --> 00:47:24.425 to, you, you gonna be doing this for 100 200 years, you know, a long time 00:47:24.458 --> 00:47:28.345 to make sure that it's a, it's a geomorphology process that's going to 00:47:28.378 --> 00:47:33.845 preserve the site. This is ridiculous. You know, all you need to do is 00:47:33.878 --> 00:47:39.217 look at it and see whether or not the site is eroding and do something 00:47:39.250 --> 00:47:44.836 about it and to sit and try to figure out this process. I also said, if 00:47:44.869 --> 00:47:51.066 you think putting sand on a site is going to preserve it, why don't you 00:47:51.099 --> 00:47:56.497 get shovels and wheelbarrows and just go down instead of light? I Yeah. 00:47:56.530 --> 00:48:00.307 Well, I, and put sand from the beaches in it and go up and dump them on 00:48:00.340 --> 00:48:06.376 the sides and then watch what happens and watch what happens. Yeah. So, 00:48:06.409 --> 00:48:11.816 and they defunded that recently that no, they actually, when the, when the 00:48:11.849 --> 00:48:15.727 technical work group voted on whether or not to keep that in the majority 00:48:15.760 --> 00:48:20.646 wanted to take it out. But then the center made a unilateral decision, 00:48:20.679 --> 00:48:25.247 said thanks for the input. But we're not gonna do that because we think we 00:48:25.280 --> 00:48:31.666 know better than you precisely what the, the chief of the center said. And 00:48:31.699 --> 00:48:34.115 I so 00:48:34.148 --> 00:48:38.577 so much for democracy. So you'd like to one of the changes that you've 00:48:38.610 --> 00:48:45.896 seen in the program over time is an increasing, uh degree of, of power and 00:48:45.929 --> 00:48:50.057 insularity on the part of us gs in determining what gets funded and what 00:48:50.090 --> 00:48:55.675 doesn't. And we'd like to see more of the funding decisions controlled by 00:48:55.708 --> 00:49:00.776 the stakeholder groups, by Am Wig and Twig. Yeah. Well, ultimately, um the 00:49:00.809 --> 00:49:06.256 stakeholder groups are just making recommendations. So the actual uh 00:49:06.289 --> 00:49:10.675 decisions for funding in theory comes to the sector of the interior. Uh 00:49:10.708 --> 00:49:15.827 huh. Um So it's all centralized decision making anyway. And the 00:49:15.860 --> 00:49:22.916 consultation. Well, and um who has um more avenues to the sector of the 00:49:22.949 --> 00:49:28.936 interior Federal agencies, not the stakeholders. How would you change that 00:49:28.969 --> 00:49:31.986 if you could? 00:49:32.019 --> 00:49:34.695 What I mean, I think 00:49:34.728 --> 00:49:42.728 what I've seen over time is that the center um 00:49:43.659 --> 00:49:51.659 uses a tautological rhetorical argument about science and its authority. 00:49:52.458 --> 00:50:00.458 So it says the program values science in making management decisions 00:50:01.079 --> 00:50:07.057 were the science provi so and we are the science providers. So we tell you 00:50:07.090 --> 00:50:12.115 about the science because the science is considered important by the 00:50:12.148 --> 00:50:20.148 program. And so we are the authority. You're not. So we know better and 00:50:20.159 --> 00:50:26.526 you're not. And I, and I think that from what I see is that it's not just 00:50:26.559 --> 00:50:33.396 science, it's competition for a limited amount of money. So, and in the 00:50:33.429 --> 00:50:37.066 years from 00:50:37.099 --> 00:50:45.099 99 or 97 to today, the center for the most part slammed the door on tribes 00:50:46.989 --> 00:50:54.989 from 1997 to the present. Yeah, there was, was the door open prior to 1997. 00:50:55.059 --> 00:51:01.296 We thought it might have been, but with each um consecutive chief of the 00:51:01.329 --> 00:51:06.006 center that door has been shut and locked. 00:51:06.039 --> 00:51:12.925 Um And I think it's because the center views tribes as a source of 00:51:12.958 --> 00:51:17.327 competition for a finite pot of money. Ok. In terms of doing research and 00:51:17.360 --> 00:51:20.967 monitoring 00:51:21.000 --> 00:51:25.385 at one, at one point in 00:51:25.418 --> 00:51:33.418 2001, 2002, the center, um in terms of riparian ecosystem monitoring 00:51:34.449 --> 00:51:38.836 invited the tribes to participate with them. 00:51:38.869 --> 00:51:46.869 But the whole design of the monitoring was done by the center and, and the 00:51:47.659 --> 00:51:52.026 places selected was done by the center, the tribes were just to come along. 00:51:52.059 --> 00:51:58.287 So again, there's this power dynamic where the tribe doesn't have a say 00:51:58.320 --> 00:52:03.086 the center is controlling the design of the system. And so how can you 00:52:03.119 --> 00:52:08.727 adequately integrate tribal values or concerns or perspectives when it's 00:52:08.760 --> 00:52:13.756 completely structured in a Western science perspective? 00:52:13.789 --> 00:52:19.675 It's not gonna happen and, and that effort didn't pan out very well. In 00:52:19.708 --> 00:52:24.905 fact, it didn't work at all. Um In fact, most of the tribes I think felt 00:52:24.938 --> 00:52:29.526 um disenfranchised from the process. 00:52:29.559 --> 00:52:37.559 Um There's something I was going to say, I it slipped my mind. Now, um 00:52:41.780 --> 00:52:46.026 our interview with Kerry Christensen who works with the Walla tribe. Uh He 00:52:46.059 --> 00:52:54.059 mentioned that um uh they got elders of the tribe down along the river to 00:52:54.139 --> 00:52:58.307 uh sites that they were familiar with and interested in and they helped to 00:52:58.340 --> 00:53:04.195 select which sites would be monitored and for what reasons. And he was 00:53:04.228 --> 00:53:09.557 talking about trying to hoping that there could be greater involvement of 00:53:09.590 --> 00:53:16.086 tribal members both in the design of the science. But also in what's often 00:53:16.119 --> 00:53:22.537 called citizen science is non trained professionals doing observations. 00:53:22.570 --> 00:53:26.206 And he thought that it would be nice if there was a lot more of that. It 00:53:26.239 --> 00:53:31.686 sounds like you would agree that there's a role for tribal members to play 00:53:31.719 --> 00:53:38.256 in collecting data in influencing research design and participating, you 00:53:38.289 --> 00:53:43.456 know, start to finish in the scientific studies. Yes or no. Yes, I do. I 00:53:43.489 --> 00:53:47.717 think there could be and I think it, it's something that we have tried to 00:53:47.750 --> 00:53:53.925 advocate for. Um However, 00:53:53.958 --> 00:54:01.796 it's been my experience that mostly the um the center is interested in 00:54:01.829 --> 00:54:08.486 training native people to be Western scientists rather than being open to 00:54:08.519 --> 00:54:10.776 a collaborative 00:54:10.809 --> 00:54:17.106 co management or, or co research initiative that takes Western science 00:54:17.139 --> 00:54:21.807 perspectives and values and indigenous perspectives and integrates them 00:54:21.840 --> 00:54:28.925 together to create a more holistic, if you will uh approach to research 00:54:28.958 --> 00:54:34.307 and monitoring, that's not happening, they're still, they're still a way 00:54:34.340 --> 00:54:38.936 apart. And you're saying the reason that's not happening yet is uh the 00:54:38.969 --> 00:54:45.175 oversized influence of the director of GCMRC in determining how studies 00:54:45.208 --> 00:54:48.776 are designed and what gets funded. I don't think it's just the director uh 00:54:48.809 --> 00:54:54.425 chief Center. I think it's the attitude of scientists who work there. Yeah 00:54:54.458 --> 00:54:59.977 , I think it's, I think it's the attitude that um 00:55:00.010 --> 00:55:05.106 there is only one way to understand that ecosystem. And that is Western 00:55:05.139 --> 00:55:11.385 science because Western science equals truth 00:55:11.418 --> 00:55:15.936 and that infuriates me to no end because there are multiple ways of 00:55:15.969 --> 00:55:20.956 relating to the world. There are multiple ways of knowing the world. 00:55:20.989 --> 00:55:25.336 Science is just one way of trying to understand cause and effect. The 00:55:25.369 --> 00:55:30.595 sunnis have a 00:55:30.628 --> 00:55:35.106 uh their own perspective of the ecosystem and identifying cause and effect 00:55:35.139 --> 00:55:39.865 , which we talked about a little bit earlier 00:55:39.898 --> 00:55:45.876 just because this society privileges Western Science. Doesn't mean it has 00:55:45.909 --> 00:55:51.175 a unique monopoly on understanding reality. 00:55:51.208 --> 00:55:54.865 Um Much of what Western science has done, especially when he's talking 00:55:54.898 --> 00:55:57.827 about ecosystem science. 00:55:57.860 --> 00:56:02.695 You can't tell me about fish populations when what you're doing is 00:56:02.728 --> 00:56:09.166 sampling fish from being caught in weirs or, or electro fishing and you're 00:56:09.199 --> 00:56:12.376 only grabbing a few and then trying to extrapolate what the entire 00:56:12.409 --> 00:56:17.467 population is doing underwater that you can't see. 00:56:17.500 --> 00:56:25.445 Um I find that to be really kinda squishy science. But the thing is, is 00:56:25.478 --> 00:56:30.175 that what I'm getting at is that um 00:56:30.208 --> 00:56:36.776 I think you need to assist the, the, the program to be very effective and 00:56:36.809 --> 00:56:43.936 democratic if you will needs to treat native perceptions of the ecosystem 00:56:43.969 --> 00:56:48.376 on an equal basis. It does. I don't advocate that it's a, it's a better 00:56:48.409 --> 00:56:53.456 way of knowing the ecosystem. Um But it needs to be treated as equally 00:56:53.489 --> 00:56:59.385 with Western science that's not happening. Uh I think uh much of the, the 00:56:59.418 --> 00:57:06.706 scientists in GCR Cy are arrogant and are of that mindset that we are 00:57:06.739 --> 00:57:10.546 after truth. 00:57:10.579 --> 00:57:14.486 And I think it's encouraged, I think it's encouraged in university 00:57:14.519 --> 00:57:18.445 settings where they, where they teach people to be scientists. And then 00:57:18.478 --> 00:57:23.865 when they get into work, it's reinforced 00:57:23.898 --> 00:57:26.695 person. 00:57:26.728 --> 00:57:32.356 It, as we talked earlier too, there's something I think there's a lot of, 00:57:32.389 --> 00:57:38.655 a lot of uh benefit that Western Science could take from the Zuni 00:57:38.688 --> 00:57:44.095 perspective of this sense of stewardship and the sense that the 00:57:44.128 --> 00:57:48.175 environment that you're dealing with is composed of multiple sentient 00:57:48.208 --> 00:57:56.208 beings and that your actions on that environment have consequences, 00:57:56.760 --> 00:57:59.706 long term consequences. 00:57:59.739 --> 00:58:03.217 I think it would really make scientists much more respectful of the 00:58:03.250 --> 00:58:07.967 animals, they handle how they treat them, how they deal with them, what 00:58:08.000 --> 00:58:15.066 sorts of projects they, they want to uh design. 00:58:15.099 --> 00:58:23.099 Um Let's uh let's step back, bigger picture and uh ask, I'd like to ask 00:58:23.409 --> 00:58:29.756 you to reflect on whether you think the program has been overall a 00:58:29.789 --> 00:58:37.789 beneficial effort. Uh Good use of time expertise and funding over the 00:58:38.760 --> 00:58:42.787 years. 00:58:42.820 --> 00:58:45.686 Yes, 00:58:45.719 --> 00:58:51.606 it has been because because at least despite its flaws, despite its flaws 00:58:51.639 --> 00:58:56.327 , yes, it has. I think it has overall been a positive program, positive 00:58:56.360 --> 00:59:03.026 effect because it has um various stakeholders, a wide range of 00:59:03.059 --> 00:59:08.675 stakeholders coming to a common table and discussing the issues in spite 00:59:08.708 --> 00:59:14.336 of these um the problems at that table. I think it's better. It's it's 00:59:14.369 --> 00:59:17.856 always positive when people are together talking about it. And the 00:59:17.889 --> 00:59:24.106 alternative to this, that you think would not be as beneficial is what you 00:59:24.139 --> 00:59:27.767 were criticizing earlier. 00:59:27.800 --> 00:59:35.800 Too few people making to insular decisions is that, or the, or the, the, 00:59:36.039 --> 00:59:38.646 uh, alternative 00:59:38.679 --> 00:59:45.086 to the adaption management program would be lawsuits. Uh, 00:59:45.119 --> 00:59:49.925 most of the time you cannot get a federal agency's attention unless 00:59:49.958 --> 00:59:52.445 they're in court. 00:59:52.478 --> 00:59:59.217 Um, and I, and I believe from over 25 years of working in consultation 00:59:59.250 --> 01:00:05.385 with federal agencies on behalf of drives that um 01:00:05.418 --> 01:00:09.646 if they don't think the tribe has the wherewithal or the potential to sue 01:00:09.679 --> 01:00:15.787 them, they ignore him. Yes. 01:00:15.820 --> 01:00:20.095 So this adaptive management program is valuable as an example of 01:00:20.128 --> 01:00:25.695 collaborative democratic decision making. Uh Even though you see lots of 01:00:25.728 --> 01:00:30.336 ways that it could be improved, um It should be, you think it should be 01:00:30.369 --> 01:00:36.577 sustained primarily for that reason that it's, 01:00:36.610 --> 01:00:40.796 it brings people of diverse perspectives to the table, forces them to 01:00:40.829 --> 01:00:47.017 listen to each other attempts to get to a resource set of resource 01:00:47.050 --> 01:00:51.787 management decisions that are based on a broader set of values, right? 01:00:51.820 --> 01:00:58.546 Overall. Uh I, I might uh if I were king for a day 01:00:58.579 --> 01:01:03.456 redesign the Science Center, uh huh. 01:01:03.489 --> 01:01:09.106 Draw that up if you can, what, what, what would that look like? Well, um 01:01:09.139 --> 01:01:14.486 you, well, I might put it under reclamation directly or under the National 01:01:14.519 --> 01:01:19.686 Park Service because, um 01:01:19.719 --> 01:01:27.115 because I think that those agencies would be more um responsive and 01:01:27.148 --> 01:01:31.497 accountable if you will to the stakeholders, to the stakeholders but to 01:01:31.530 --> 01:01:39.530 the tribes. Ok. Than the US G is, is, can you suggest why Bor or Park 01:01:41.668 --> 01:01:46.267 service would be more responsive to tribes than Us GS? Because they have a 01:01:46.300 --> 01:01:51.557 history of consultation with tribes? OK. And working with tribes, US GS, I 01:01:51.590 --> 01:01:57.327 don't see that it does. In fact, the US GS sees themselves as not a land 01:01:57.360 --> 01:02:02.655 manager, right? Um Not an action agency but a science provider. They don't 01:02:02.688 --> 01:02:05.747 have their own land base that they're responsible for managing. They're 01:02:05.780 --> 01:02:12.916 just a science agency. Ok. That makes sense. And that, and that um I think 01:02:12.949 --> 01:02:17.736 that makes them callous to understanding tribal consultation and tribal 01:02:17.769 --> 01:02:23.537 values. Interesting. Um I know they have tribal programs but again, that 01:02:23.570 --> 01:02:31.327 is to turn tribal members into Western scientists. It's not too uh so, I 01:02:31.360 --> 01:02:34.776 mean, it's, it's another form, right? It's another subtle form of 01:02:34.809 --> 01:02:38.506 assimilation. 01:02:38.539 --> 01:02:44.756 Yeah. Um There's a lot of people that don't think the Western scientific 01:02:44.789 --> 01:02:50.017 perspective is part of a culture, they think it's uh separate and 01:02:50.050 --> 01:02:55.977 independent from culture and it's, yeah, it's hard to change. Well, I know 01:02:56.010 --> 01:03:00.747 it's when they say, well, I'm I'm objective. No, you're not all the data 01:03:00.780 --> 01:03:04.486 that you look at, you're looking at through your own cultural lens. You 01:03:04.519 --> 01:03:11.905 can't do anything but that and so, I mean, um 01:03:11.938 --> 01:03:16.836 you need to be more reflexive 01:03:16.869 --> 01:03:21.936 on how you do that. You have to take into account that you have bias and 01:03:21.969 --> 01:03:27.155 how is the bias that you have affecting your conclusions of your end 01:03:27.188 --> 01:03:33.537 result needs to be sort of like a feedback loop. 01:03:33.570 --> 01:03:39.986 Yeah, there's a, uh there's a couple decade long tradition of scholarship 01:03:40.019 --> 01:03:45.486 in the history of science and technology um that examines the ways in 01:03:45.519 --> 01:03:52.467 which science and technology are cultural constructions. And uh it took a 01:03:52.500 --> 01:04:00.276 long time for those scholars um like Sheila Yao at Harvard, um it took a 01:04:00.309 --> 01:04:04.936 long time for those scholars to um make inroads in the scientific 01:04:04.969 --> 01:04:09.816 community itself to help them understand the ways in which they do their 01:04:09.849 --> 01:04:17.695 work and see the world are not, you know, objective, unfiltered truth, but 01:04:17.728 --> 01:04:23.736 are, you know, a, a sort of a construction of particular culture and time 01:04:23.769 --> 01:04:27.747 and place, right? And I've become very sensitive to that in terms of 01:04:27.780 --> 01:04:33.695 archaeology. Mhm Most archaeologists are white and they approach it from a 01:04:33.728 --> 01:04:38.217 Western science perspective. And so they're looking and interpreting the 01:04:38.250 --> 01:04:46.135 artifacts features um from their cultural bias. And so when you take 01:04:46.168 --> 01:04:50.537 zoomies out to sites that have been excavated, and archaeologists pick up 01:04:50.570 --> 01:04:57.646 the the the most common artifacts, right? Ceramics, brownstone and lithic 01:04:57.679 --> 01:05:00.365 or flakes, stone. 01:05:00.398 --> 01:05:05.956 And as soon as you look through the deck, uh back dirt files and find uh 01:05:05.989 --> 01:05:10.217 mineral concretions and stuff like that. What do they throw? These are, 01:05:10.250 --> 01:05:16.287 these are important. And so there's a for, and then we interpret the 01:05:16.320 --> 01:05:20.727 archaeological record, we write narratives about prehistory that is 01:05:20.760 --> 01:05:24.256 completely divorced from the descendants. 01:05:24.289 --> 01:05:28.776 It's their heritage, but we don't talk about them. 01:05:28.809 --> 01:05:33.456 You're talking about Western archaeologists do that. 01:05:33.489 --> 01:05:40.217 So, um uh narrowing down again to something more specific, can you um just 01:05:40.250 --> 01:05:45.456 give us uh the names of some of the more important documents that have 01:05:45.489 --> 01:05:49.526 been produced that you think should be highlighted in an administrative 01:05:49.559 --> 01:05:53.057 history and some of the more important people who have been involved in 01:05:53.090 --> 01:05:57.845 your opinion, that have shaped the program in significant ways, make sure 01:05:57.878 --> 01:06:05.878 that they get highlighted in administrative history. 01:06:15.239 --> 01:06:18.905 I'm not sure who I would documents. I mean, there's been a lot of 01:06:18.938 --> 01:06:26.938 documents that are produced by the center uh or in, produced by the Twig 01:06:28.599 --> 01:06:33.106 or the Am wig or in combination of the Twig and Am wig with the center and 01:06:33.139 --> 01:06:40.796 stuff. And there are supposed to be documents that guide the program, but 01:06:40.829 --> 01:06:48.356 they then ignore it and they don't um desired future conditions is one 01:06:48.389 --> 01:06:52.227 that have been, you're the second person to mention the or, and it's now 01:06:52.260 --> 01:06:58.126 just sort of uh there, there was sort of like developing this plan and I'm 01:06:58.159 --> 01:07:03.606 not sure what's happened to that. Um 01:07:03.639 --> 01:07:08.037 Yeah, you know, this might be a little bit off track, but I want to bring 01:07:08.070 --> 01:07:13.037 it in is that in 1999 01:07:13.070 --> 01:07:18.977 the GC Mercy um 01:07:19.010 --> 01:07:25.287 contracted for a uh a peer evaluation battle to do the cultural resource 01:07:25.320 --> 01:07:30.827 program of this center. And also the compliance program under um the 01:07:30.860 --> 01:07:35.997 programmatic agreement uh of reclamation 01:07:36.030 --> 01:07:41.776 the external peer review panel, external peer review panel and the peer 01:07:41.809 --> 01:07:45.057 review panel made recommendations. 01:07:45.090 --> 01:07:49.287 One of the recommendations that the peer review panel made was that the 01:07:49.320 --> 01:07:55.396 program needs a Native American consultation plan. All right. So that was 01:07:55.429 --> 01:08:01.606 in 2000, like a strategic plan for how to consult with and, and you know 01:08:01.639 --> 01:08:05.776 how that would work out. They, they felt that that the engagement of the 01:08:05.809 --> 01:08:13.217 tribes was not very effective and the consultation was not um mapped out 01:08:13.250 --> 01:08:16.866 if you will for the entire program because you had reclamation doing 01:08:16.899 --> 01:08:21.226 consultation, you had Park service doing consultation, you had GCRC doing 01:08:21.259 --> 01:08:28.326 consultation or not. Um And so they asked for that, 01:08:28.359 --> 01:08:33.576 the reclamation contracted the drafting of a consultation plan to the wall 01:08:33.609 --> 01:08:41.609 by tribe and uh the Wallie um contracted Dean swag uh Beck East. Who's uh 01:08:42.208 --> 01:08:46.986 how do you spell his last name? Suagee, 01:08:47.019 --> 01:08:54.726 I think, and he's a lawyer who um has dealt with the wall of pie but dealt 01:08:54.759 --> 01:08:59.076 with tribal issues for years and years. Highly respected lawyer in terms 01:08:59.109 --> 01:09:07.015 of trial issues. The Wallabies is drafted a 44 page document that aligned 01:09:07.048 --> 01:09:12.674 it and um submitted it. It was real comprehensive. Yeah, to the other 01:09:12.707 --> 01:09:17.437 tribes and to the other federal agencies for comment. 01:09:17.470 --> 01:09:21.616 So that was 01:09:21.649 --> 01:09:29.649 uh and say that let's say that was in 2002, 2003 quite a while ago. 14 01:09:30.569 --> 01:09:35.937 iterations later and same amount of years. 01:09:35.970 --> 01:09:38.406 Um, 01:09:38.439 --> 01:09:42.546 when the document got to the federal government, the federal agencies, the 01:09:42.579 --> 01:09:44.916 federal agencies 01:09:44.949 --> 01:09:50.345 had a problem. They weren't willing to commit to anything. 01:09:50.378 --> 01:09:55.946 All right. So I went back and forth, back and forth. Um, and what was 01:09:55.979 --> 01:10:03.979 actually, um, finalized as the consultation document, 01:10:04.319 --> 01:10:12.319 um, back in 2016, I believe was less than six pages. 01:10:12.479 --> 01:10:16.305 It was essentially a policy statement because the federal government 01:10:16.338 --> 01:10:22.845 didn't want to um commit itself to anything to the tribes. 01:10:22.878 --> 01:10:29.946 And I remember at one meeting, um the solicitor said, well, we also want 01:10:29.979 --> 01:10:34.506 to put in this consultation thing that nothing in this consultation plan. 01:10:34.539 --> 01:10:39.326 Um Hereby gives the rights to the, gives the tribes the right to sue the 01:10:39.359 --> 01:10:42.845 federal government. 01:10:42.878 --> 01:10:49.706 I said, wait a minute, the federal government, the entity they cause 01:10:49.739 --> 01:10:57.107 genocide displacement, forced assimilation, structured racism 01:10:57.140 --> 01:10:59.836 doesn't trust the tribes. 01:10:59.869 --> 01:11:06.237 Are you kidding me? And um 01:11:06.270 --> 01:11:10.055 II, I was appalled that the federal government wanted that in there. Let 01:11:10.088 --> 01:11:16.425 me ask for clarification. Did they, did this document want um to be 01:11:16.458 --> 01:11:21.796 insulated from lawsuits over the consultation itself or was it much more 01:11:21.829 --> 01:11:26.107 broader insulation that was written into that? It was a very general 01:11:26.140 --> 01:11:30.527 statement. So it wasn't sure what it was focused on? Ok, just that it was 01:11:30.560 --> 01:11:34.726 unclear what they would be in what kind of litigation in and it hadn't 01:11:34.759 --> 01:11:40.326 actually been put in the document the solicitors were asking to do that. 01:11:40.359 --> 01:11:45.607 But, but the document then became 01:11:45.640 --> 01:11:51.647 just sort of like um uh it's more of a philosophy about consultation 01:11:51.680 --> 01:11:57.206 rather than an actual consultation plan. Was it ever formally adopted? 01:11:57.239 --> 01:12:02.796 Yeah, it's just in draft form, I think it was formally adopted. Well, that 01:12:02.829 --> 01:12:08.546 it would be interesting to go back and, and ask questions of the different 01:12:08.579 --> 01:12:14.156 federal agencies that looked at and commented on that draft plan to see 01:12:14.189 --> 01:12:17.737 how it evolved over time. That would be an interesting story. I'm sure it 01:12:17.770 --> 01:12:22.135 would and and that information was not shared with the tribes, what the 01:12:22.168 --> 01:12:26.885 internal dialogue was among the five interior agencies. 01:12:26.918 --> 01:12:32.366 So your, your judgment is this 2016 consultation plan that was eventually 01:12:32.399 --> 01:12:37.876 adopted doesn't have any teeth in it. Um It was a worthy effort uh started 01:12:37.909 --> 01:12:42.546 out better than it ended up and you still think like what could be 01:12:42.579 --> 01:12:49.786 improved in the consultation plan. Well, so what, so what that sent tells 01:12:49.819 --> 01:12:54.246 me is that 01:12:54.279 --> 01:12:56.536 the federal government is interested in having the tribes at the table, 01:12:56.569 --> 01:13:01.826 but only so far they're only willing to, to listen to tribes in terms of 01:13:01.859 --> 01:13:07.916 co management codecision making only to avoid they're not willing to 01:13:07.949 --> 01:13:12.756 commit themselves to anything to the tribes. And so it tells me, tells me 01:13:12.789 --> 01:13:16.987 that they're still uh intending on 01:13:17.020 --> 01:13:23.376 keeping the tribes to some level disenfranchised from the process. 01:13:23.409 --> 01:13:28.765 That's what I read. So there's a direction for improvement in the program 01:13:28.798 --> 01:13:35.425 in the coming years. Um less of that hierarchical power differential that 01:13:35.458 --> 01:13:41.536 you were talking about earlier and more uh shared authority and shared 01:13:41.569 --> 01:13:47.546 decision making equal level. That's what I like to see or at least I like 01:13:47.579 --> 01:13:52.696 , I mean, knowing full well that the way it's structured, the final 01:13:52.729 --> 01:13:57.717 decision making it's done by the sect interior or reclamation at some 01:13:57.750 --> 01:14:01.885 point. Um So that 01:14:01.918 --> 01:14:07.717 because it's a legal decision and ultimately, you can't sue the entire 01:14:07.750 --> 01:14:13.015 Adaptive Management program, you, you sue an agency that, that final 01:14:13.048 --> 01:14:18.836 authority rests with the, with an individual agency um or an individual. 01:14:18.869 --> 01:14:26.869 Um But I think it would be helpful if the decision making process up 01:14:28.529 --> 01:14:35.256 towards the top was more transparent on how tribal concerns were 01:14:35.289 --> 01:14:42.305 considered and uh put into the equation most of the time dealing with 01:14:42.338 --> 01:14:45.286 federal agencies and even with this program, the tribal concerns go into a 01:14:45.319 --> 01:14:49.006 black box and what comes out of that black box sometimes doesn't even look 01:14:49.039 --> 01:14:55.095 like anything the tribe uh ask for or their concerns were expressed. It 01:14:55.128 --> 01:15:00.385 doesn't look like anything that you've looked at. 01:15:00.418 --> 01:15:06.076 So, um who, who would you say have been some of the most important um 01:15:06.109 --> 01:15:11.027 participants in the program in your time? And who do you think we should 01:15:11.060 --> 01:15:15.996 be sure to interview if they're not already on our interview lesson? I 01:15:16.029 --> 01:15:20.546 think Larry Stevens something you already talked to him. He was our first 01:15:20.579 --> 01:15:26.166 interview. Yeah. The wealth of information. Yeah. Um And he's largely 01:15:26.199 --> 01:15:30.647 responsible for this administrative history being done. He pushed for it 01:15:30.680 --> 01:15:33.956 for eight years 01:15:33.989 --> 01:15:38.217 um 01:15:38.250 --> 01:15:41.265 to rally. 01:15:41.298 --> 01:15:48.286 Yes, he is on the list, but we have not interviewed him yet. And if he uh 01:15:48.319 --> 01:15:51.967 tell us a little bit about who he is and why you think he's been an 01:15:52.000 --> 01:15:58.635 important player. Um Dennis first start out with Arizona Game and Fish 01:15:58.668 --> 01:16:06.668 department and did some research, think on fish in the Grand Canyon. Um 01:16:08.079 --> 01:16:12.937 And then, and he, 01:16:12.970 --> 01:16:17.946 I think you may have been a technical representative to the Arizona Game 01:16:17.979 --> 01:16:20.635 official representative to the technical work group. But I'm not, I don't 01:16:20.668 --> 01:16:26.217 quite remember, but then he was hired by reclamation 01:16:26.250 --> 01:16:33.217 and um to do research along the river. No, to actually think you became 01:16:33.250 --> 01:16:38.937 the for a while, the Chief of the Adaptive Management Program. 01:16:38.970 --> 01:16:46.970 And so uh he was uh representing reclamation when I was Tweet chair 01:16:48.128 --> 01:16:56.128 and the thing I like about Dennis, it's that he is uh very knowledgeable 01:16:58.529 --> 01:17:05.357 and very patient and taking time to explain things to the stakeholders. 01:17:05.390 --> 01:17:12.675 Um Those are good qualities for an adaptive collaborative process. And um 01:17:12.708 --> 01:17:20.107 all right, anybody else that uh you think was had a particular valuable 01:17:20.140 --> 01:17:26.567 impact on the program 01:17:26.600 --> 01:17:33.036 um or is particularly knowledgeable about something. 01:17:33.069 --> 01:17:41.069 Do you have Mike Barry, Michael Berry? He was a regional archaeologist. Um 01:17:41.270 --> 01:17:49.270 B er Ry. Yes, rbarb er Ry Michael Barry archaeologist. Yeah, he's in it's 01:17:49.319 --> 01:17:57.319 Durango, I think he's retired now. Um He's a very smart archaeologist and 01:17:58.520 --> 01:18:05.555 um I think he was there b from, I'm guessing 2003 01:18:05.588 --> 01:18:09.166 till about 01:18:09.199 --> 01:18:12.357 maybe 2010. 01:18:12.390 --> 01:18:15.987 That's probably why he isn't yet on our list because we're trying to get 01:18:16.020 --> 01:18:21.006 the people who have been involved from the beginning while they still have 01:18:21.039 --> 01:18:25.987 good memories of, of the program and sort of, you know, record and 01:18:26.020 --> 01:18:31.946 preserve those memories and uh then move forward in time, Michael Berry 01:18:31.979 --> 01:18:36.967 archaeologist Durango. And so um 01:18:37.000 --> 01:18:44.425 Rick Gold, she, he was the uh regional director for reclamation during the 01:18:44.458 --> 01:18:51.876 , the EIS. And then the first part of the I think he was still there 01:18:51.909 --> 01:18:56.256 during the first part of the adaption menu, 01:18:56.289 --> 01:19:00.897 Steve Carruthers. Yeah, Steve's been mentioned by a number of people and 01:19:00.930 --> 01:19:06.876 so Steve Caro um was more or less my mentor in this program because Steve 01:19:06.909 --> 01:19:12.055 Carruthers was hired by the Hopi tribe uh when the Hopi tribe became a 01:19:12.088 --> 01:19:17.956 cooperating agency. And so um Steve and I used to go together to 01:19:17.989 --> 01:19:23.277 cooperating agency meetings and he was able, he was because I was 01:19:23.310 --> 01:19:27.217 completely a neophyte to this whole, the Grand Canyon and everything like 01:19:27.250 --> 01:19:29.296 that 01:19:29.329 --> 01:19:36.897 and the whole ecosystem management. And so he help me understand 01:19:36.930 --> 01:19:42.656 the positions of the federal agencies and what a lot of the biological 01:19:42.689 --> 01:19:48.256 issues were and stuff. So he had a lot of research contracts in the early 01:19:48.289 --> 01:19:56.289 years, I suppose before GCMRC took over more of the scientific research 01:19:56.588 --> 01:20:01.357 before GCRC there was a G ce S. Right. Right. Glen Ky environmental 01:20:01.390 --> 01:20:07.706 studies and that was Dave Wagner who interviewed him in Tucson, who came 01:20:07.739 --> 01:20:15.027 to Hopi to get Hopi as a cooperating agency. And so he's Dave Wagner is 01:20:15.060 --> 01:20:20.586 also one that was very influential and instrumental in my understanding of 01:20:20.619 --> 01:20:25.946 the program. Yeah, he had a lot of experience at the federal level with 01:20:25.979 --> 01:20:32.446 the agencies and yeah, it was a very interesting interview. 01:20:32.479 --> 01:20:40.479 OK. Yeah. These, and that's a good name as who else? Um, what's his name? 01:20:41.529 --> 01:20:45.527 Um, God, I can't think of his name. The guy who worked for Ariz, I gave 01:20:45.560 --> 01:20:50.805 him fish as well. Then move to GCMRC. 01:20:50.838 --> 01:20:57.006 He was, I think the second Twig chair. 01:20:57.039 --> 01:21:02.237 I can't stay. 01:21:02.270 --> 01:21:06.237 Let's pause for a second. 01:21:06.270 --> 01:21:11.967 All right, resuming recording. 01:21:12.000 --> 01:21:18.237 So, Kurt, are you hopeful about the program's future? And do you think it 01:21:18.270 --> 01:21:21.976 should be continued because it is quite an investment of time and money 01:21:22.009 --> 01:21:27.937 for the federal government? Well, I mean, it's, is paid by, uh, power 01:21:27.970 --> 01:21:33.656 revenues. So the federal government is not really putting any, that much 01:21:33.689 --> 01:21:38.666 money into it directly. It's paid by ratepayers. 01:21:38.699 --> 01:21:42.527 Um, yeah, ultimately. And of course, all the federal government money is 01:21:42.560 --> 01:21:49.067 paid by taxpayers. It all comes from us, doesn't it? Um, the only really, 01:21:49.100 --> 01:21:55.376 um, appropriated money, uh, is the money that is provided by the 01:21:55.409 --> 01:22:00.336 Department of the Interior to help support tribal participation. 01:22:00.369 --> 01:22:06.635 And that's, I think, begrudgingly given by each of the five interior 01:22:06.668 --> 01:22:11.647 agencies that are part of the program, uh, out of their regular budget. I 01:22:11.680 --> 01:22:16.687 would. I think so. Yeah, I, I don't know how that it took many, many years 01:22:16.720 --> 01:22:22.345 to get that going. Um, I guess to answer your question, it depends on 01:22:22.378 --> 01:22:27.647 which day you ask me and whether I've just been to a, uh, frustrating twig 01:22:27.680 --> 01:22:34.536 meeting or not. But now the, as I give you today may be different from an 01:22:34.569 --> 01:22:38.135 answer. I give you next Friday after I get come away from the amid 01:22:38.168 --> 01:22:45.187 meetings, right? Or even on Wednesday morning after I've been to the, um, 01:22:45.220 --> 01:22:53.220 pre am wig tribe. Do I agency meetings? Uh, you know, um, but I think, um 01:22:54.770 --> 01:22:57.987 , 01:22:58.020 --> 01:23:06.020 I'm a hopelessly optimistic about things, uh, in spite of my cynicism, um 01:23:06.640 --> 01:23:12.107 , I do think that when people are talking 01:23:12.140 --> 01:23:17.027 across the table to each other that, that is beneficial. That's when we 01:23:17.060 --> 01:23:22.746 stopped talking and you start to get into trouble. Yeah. Yeah. In a sense 01:23:22.779 --> 01:23:27.126 , this is a sociopolitical experiment, this adaptive management program. 01:23:27.159 --> 01:23:33.147 It's an attempt to do natural resource decision making differently than 01:23:33.180 --> 01:23:38.586 we were doing in decades prior. And just like a scientific study. If it's 01:23:38.619 --> 01:23:42.607 not producing results, you can have that conversation about whether the 01:23:42.640 --> 01:23:45.976 money ought to be spent money and time ought to be spent more wisely 01:23:46.009 --> 01:23:49.866 somewhere else. So that's why I always ask this question of people who 01:23:49.899 --> 01:23:53.976 have been involved. You know, it is a struggle there are disappointments 01:23:54.009 --> 01:23:59.817 and frustrations. It does cost money. And uh so I always want to know from 01:23:59.850 --> 01:24:03.836 people. Do you feel that it should be continued? Is it worth the 01:24:03.869 --> 01:24:09.857 investment? I do. Um But I also think that the program needs to be more 01:24:09.890 --> 01:24:16.616 reflexive. It needs to be, it needs to spend time analyzing how it 01:24:16.649 --> 01:24:21.937 operates, analyzing how it gets to decisions. It needs to take a look at 01:24:21.970 --> 01:24:26.496 what the power structure is within there and how that power structure 01:24:26.529 --> 01:24:32.116 works to disenfranchise and silence voices. 01:24:32.149 --> 01:24:37.226 You know, a long time ago, Mary Orton, uh in her interview with us, she 01:24:37.259 --> 01:24:42.305 told us about a very important river trip that members of the program took 01:24:42.338 --> 01:24:47.866 together to try to get over a hump in which there was a time in which 01:24:47.899 --> 01:24:52.256 relations were strained. There were some strong personalities, there was a 01:24:52.289 --> 01:24:57.437 lot of conflict and they needed to resolve those things and move forward. 01:24:57.470 --> 01:25:03.496 And it took a river trip with everybody together outside of their daily 01:25:03.529 --> 01:25:08.126 lives and uh talking through things. And uh apparently everybody who was 01:25:08.159 --> 01:25:13.476 on that trip thought that it was a really remarkable experience. Were you 01:25:13.509 --> 01:25:19.345 by any chance on that? Do we, do you think we need another one of these 01:25:19.378 --> 01:25:24.987 sort of uh long term soul searching, reflexive, look at ourselves and 01:25:25.020 --> 01:25:29.706 reimagine ourselves kind of experience. Would that be worthwhile? That 01:25:29.739 --> 01:25:36.956 could, it depends on how long lasting that effect is because I think that 01:25:36.989 --> 01:25:44.989 while you may be emotionally uh influenced at that time, once you get back 01:25:46.449 --> 01:25:50.897 to the hard reality of your office and dealing with decision making in 01:25:50.930 --> 01:25:55.836 that level where there's politics going on, that sort of Kumbaya feeling 01:25:55.869 --> 01:26:02.885 kinda precipitate goes away. So, yeah. Well, that, that river trip 01:26:02.918 --> 01:26:10.918 resulted in a document that set the path for the program's evolving future. 01:26:12.689 --> 01:26:16.696 Uh And um I can't remember exactly the name of it. I'll have to go back 01:26:16.729 --> 01:26:23.687 and look, I, I know what you're talking about and um yet came up with this 01:26:23.720 --> 01:26:29.976 sort of preamble. Yes, for that document. Yeah. But like all documents 01:26:30.009 --> 01:26:37.687 with this program, even though they are, are drafted, revised, finalized 01:26:37.720 --> 01:26:43.737 and adopted, they're not power. Yep, they go on a shelf, they go on a 01:26:43.770 --> 01:26:47.317 shelf, they're not followed. And so 01:26:47.350 --> 01:26:54.956 all that work um doesn't seem to pay off, especially when you, 01:26:54.989 --> 01:27:01.616 when you get a science program that becomes bureaucratized 01:27:01.649 --> 01:27:06.726 and that it's more interested in self preservation than it is in anything 01:27:06.759 --> 01:27:14.759 else. And that's what I see has happened. And I didn't, I read a article 01:27:15.609 --> 01:27:19.226 on American anthropologist by a woman named Laura Ogden who did an 01:27:19.259 --> 01:27:23.805 anthropological study of the debt of management program of the Everglades. 01:27:23.838 --> 01:27:27.095 And she saw the same thing happening. I mean, that's where I went. Wow. 01:27:27.128 --> 01:27:32.055 Yeah, that's what's happening here. Can you send me a link to that 01:27:32.088 --> 01:27:39.885 article or at least the author and title after, after the interview? Um 01:27:39.918 --> 01:27:47.918 um One second, we can find it right here. 01:27:47.970 --> 01:27:53.175 Mm 01:27:53.208 --> 01:27:57.336 Now that's the value of a personal library, mention something and then 01:27:57.369 --> 01:28:05.369 pull it off the shelf. Well, this, this is not that um 01:28:05.458 --> 01:28:13.458 let me look out where it is here. This is something 01:28:16.359 --> 01:28:20.647 OK. 01:28:20.680 --> 01:28:28.680 So this is something that um I co-authored but um confluence of values, 01:28:29.378 --> 01:28:33.196 the role of science and native Americans in the Glen Cannon Dam adapted 01:28:33.229 --> 01:28:38.906 management program. Great. And so this is actually 01:28:38.939 --> 01:28:45.857 um describes exactly a lot of what I was talking about. And then um the 01:28:45.890 --> 01:28:48.805 nurse 01:28:48.838 --> 01:28:56.476 since the reference, 01:28:56.509 --> 01:29:04.456 uh there's the Ogden article you mentioned right there. OK. Um I'll, we'll 01:29:04.489 --> 01:29:08.857 make a copy of this or get you a PDF of that article. That would be 01:29:08.890 --> 01:29:13.286 perfect. Really? If I get your uh I got your email address, so I get it. 01:29:13.319 --> 01:29:20.046 All right. Great. Uh uh Last question, let's say uh you decide to retire 01:29:20.079 --> 01:29:23.765 in the coming years and somebody else is gonna take over as a 01:29:23.798 --> 01:29:28.607 representative of either the Hopi or the Zuni tribe you've worked for both. 01:29:28.640 --> 01:29:32.326 What advice would you give the next person coming in to do the kind of 01:29:32.359 --> 01:29:37.166 job that you're doing? Now, what advice would you give them? It takes a 01:29:37.199 --> 01:29:41.437 long time to understand the issues. I mean, I've been doing this now for 01:29:41.470 --> 01:29:46.317 over 20 years and it took a long time to try to understand and follow the 01:29:46.350 --> 01:29:54.350 issues. And uh so it takes a lot of, of um 01:29:54.770 --> 01:29:59.126 a lot of work to get up to the, the right speed to just even participate 01:29:59.159 --> 01:30:05.027 in the program because there's been um so much that is going on and the 01:30:05.060 --> 01:30:08.397 resource issues are very complex. 01:30:08.430 --> 01:30:13.626 So read up a lot, be patient. Well, it's become knowledgeable and it's 01:30:13.659 --> 01:30:17.647 good to have someone who can act as your mentor to help explain things, 01:30:17.680 --> 01:30:21.866 not just the science what's going on there, but to also explain the 01:30:21.899 --> 01:30:27.666 political dynamics that are going on with individuals. Because more than 01:30:27.699 --> 01:30:32.166 agencies, it's the individual that represents the agency that you're 01:30:32.199 --> 01:30:38.586 dealing with, that is really influential, whether they're open to you 01:30:38.619 --> 01:30:45.546 other opinions, whether they're open to um considering um different views 01:30:45.579 --> 01:30:51.425 and different aspects, whether they're really entrenched in for their 01:30:51.458 --> 01:30:54.467 agency, 01:30:54.500 --> 01:31:00.786 aren't willing to uh waiver either way. How did you find a mentor? Well, 01:31:00.819 --> 01:31:06.345 right, Steve Crothers was hired by the op so, and you were working for 01:31:06.378 --> 01:31:12.376 Hopi at the time. And uh so Steve and I went to meetings together. So find 01:31:12.409 --> 01:31:19.366 somebody who has similar interests, who has more experience, who you can. 01:31:19.399 --> 01:31:24.536 Well, I mean, if, if you are taking over for someone who's representing a 01:31:24.569 --> 01:31:29.527 tribe or an organization in the Adaptive Management program, then your 01:31:29.560 --> 01:31:33.635 agency or organization needs to put you with that person for at least a 01:31:33.668 --> 01:31:38.416 good year to attend these meetings and stuff so that they can explain to 01:31:38.449 --> 01:31:42.397 you what's going on, you can start to see the situation and hear it and 01:31:42.430 --> 01:31:46.406 listen to it and start to feel comfortable with it. If you just get thrown 01:31:46.439 --> 01:31:50.906 in it, you're gonna be lost. Uh huh. That's gonna be real intimidating. 01:31:50.939 --> 01:31:54.135 And the other thing is, 01:31:54.168 --> 01:31:56.885 don't be shy 01:31:56.918 --> 01:32:01.845 because it's, you know, you have to be willing to, to, uh, put some skin 01:32:01.878 --> 01:32:09.878 in the game and be willing to, um, put your neck out and you, it's gonna 01:32:11.109 --> 01:32:18.279 get chopped and you're gonna take some bruises, but it's all a part of it. 01:32:18.878 --> 01:32:20.878 You can't take it personally. 01:32:21.970 --> 01:32:24.326 Good advice. 01:32:24.359 --> 01:32:31.385 Anything else you'd like to add or any closing thoughts? 01:32:31.418 --> 01:32:34.967 No, you, you'll be gone and I'll think of all sorts of things I told you 01:32:35.000 --> 01:32:39.746 and send them via email. Yeah, Jen and I are gonna work on an 01:32:39.779 --> 01:32:43.385 administrative writing and administrative history over the next six months 01:32:43.418 --> 01:32:49.506 or so and, uh, we, we're happy to have any additional ideas or advice as 01:32:49.539 --> 01:32:54.777 they come to you. Hope this has been beneficial for you. Yes. Yeah, I 01:32:54.810 --> 01:32:58.876 really appreciate you giving us your time today. Kurt. Oh, my look, thanks. 01:32:58.909 --> 01:33:02.128 Thank you. Let's see.