WEBVTT 00:00:00.790 --> 00:00:04.907 Right. My name is Paul, her of Arizona State University and we're 00:00:04.940 --> 00:00:11.876 interviewing Cliff Barrett in Salt Lake City. Today is uh May 15th, 2017. 00:00:11.909 --> 00:00:16.157 And I'm being assisted by Jen Sweeney and Josh mcfadden, both of Arizona 00:00:16.190 --> 00:00:21.646 State University Cliff. Thanks so much for joining us today to talk about 00:00:21.679 --> 00:00:25.285 your experiences. Um Could you start out by telling us your, your 00:00:25.318 --> 00:00:28.736 positions that you've held with the Adaptive Management Program and the 00:00:28.769 --> 00:00:32.286 Bureau of Reclamation and the years that you've been involved with the 00:00:32.319 --> 00:00:36.656 Bureau of Reclamation. I uh I have a whole string of positions from my 00:00:36.689 --> 00:00:41.385 whole career. Uh The ones that can apply this program probably were I was 00:00:41.418 --> 00:00:47.307 assistant commissioner for planning and operations uh in Washington DC 00:00:47.340 --> 00:00:51.496 while the bureau was studying, putting generating units on the outlet 00:00:51.529 --> 00:00:57.527 tubes. And that study produced some pushback from a lot of environmental 00:00:57.560 --> 00:01:00.707 groups, the boaters mainly because they didn't like the fluctuations and 00:01:00.740 --> 00:01:08.740 flows on the river. And so we decided to stop that study and uh begin what 00:01:09.388 --> 00:01:13.717 we call the Glen Kenyon environmental Studies. Glen Kenny, was it Glenn 00:01:13.750 --> 00:01:16.516 and Dam Environmental studies? I forget the exact name but it was, there 00:01:16.549 --> 00:01:21.516 was a studies, it was not an EIS it was an environmental studies thing and 00:01:21.549 --> 00:01:24.837 this is how I was getting started. I transferred from uh Washington to 00:01:24.870 --> 00:01:28.546 become regional director here in Salt Lake City. So that study was going 00:01:28.579 --> 00:01:34.546 on while I was regional director. And uh and Dave Wagner was in charge of 00:01:34.579 --> 00:01:40.516 those studies. We had hired him specifically do those studies. 00:01:40.549 --> 00:01:45.686 And then in uh 1989 the studies are still underway just to getting to 00:01:45.719 --> 00:01:51.525 pretty much being completed. I retired from uh the bureau and went to work 00:01:51.558 --> 00:01:55.745 as executive director of the Colorado River Energy Distributors 00:01:55.778 --> 00:01:57.885 Association. 00:01:57.918 --> 00:02:03.936 And in the next few years after that, the uh is when legislation is being 00:02:03.969 --> 00:02:06.967 written. Uh and we, we cooperated with George Miller in writing the 00:02:07.000 --> 00:02:11.707 legislation, the Grand Canyon Protection Act. And that, and as a result of 00:02:11.740 --> 00:02:17.106 that act then is when the G CD was put together. And uh that's how the 00:02:17.139 --> 00:02:21.475 Adaptive Ma Program began was a result of that act. And that act required 00:02:21.508 --> 00:02:24.666 the EIS to be done. So that, that took another several years to get the 00:02:24.699 --> 00:02:31.585 EIS done. And as part of the EIS uh creator was kind of like a cooperating 00:02:31.618 --> 00:02:34.725 agency in that whole thing. We attended all the meetings and helped with 00:02:34.758 --> 00:02:40.406 the, with the drafting of the EIS and, and all, and all that work. And, 00:02:40.439 --> 00:02:46.077 and then in 1993 before it was finished, you know, the Rod wasn't done on 00:02:46.110 --> 00:02:51.036 the, not the, the uh the environmental impact study and the record 00:02:51.069 --> 00:02:56.335 decision were done, I think until 1995 96 along in there. But in 93 I 00:02:56.368 --> 00:03:01.446 retired from uh working from, for Creta. And since then I worked as a 00:03:01.479 --> 00:03:07.495 consultant uh uh representing Creta uh initially on the AM wig for a short 00:03:07.528 --> 00:03:14.217 time and then also on the uh the uh technical work group. Yeah. So you've 00:03:14.250 --> 00:03:19.737 been involved both in AM Wig and Twig since 1996. Right. Up to this is the 00:03:19.770 --> 00:03:22.886 beginning. 00:03:22.919 --> 00:03:27.975 Yeah, there was two years. I dropped out. II I took a two year break and 00:03:28.008 --> 00:03:31.656 did something else for two years and then came back. Do you still attend 00:03:31.689 --> 00:03:35.876 any of the IW? Yeah, I do, I do all the Twig meetings. Well, the thing is 00:03:35.909 --> 00:03:41.696 I don't like for some health reasons. I, I in my family, I, I cannot leave 00:03:41.729 --> 00:03:46.066 home very often. So I do most of the twig meetings by phone. Throughout 00:03:46.099 --> 00:03:49.116 the last year, I've done all the meetings and the, the things I've been 00:03:49.149 --> 00:03:52.725 doing for the program. I've been doing my phone and internet and webinar 00:03:52.758 --> 00:03:58.585 and stuff like that. So the um the Adaptive Management Program kind of has 00:03:58.618 --> 00:04:03.066 three parts to it. There's a scientific research uh part, there's the 00:04:03.099 --> 00:04:06.725 policy and management part and then there's the sort of public engagement 00:04:06.758 --> 00:04:10.987 , the social and institutional components of it, which of those three 00:04:11.020 --> 00:04:18.176 would you say you were most uh most involved in? 00:04:18.209 --> 00:04:20.856 Well, 00:04:20.889 --> 00:04:24.406 the Air Wing deals mainly with policy issues and things like that. And the 00:04:24.439 --> 00:04:31.205 technical work group does mostly the science kind of things. And I've been 00:04:31.238 --> 00:04:35.437 pretty deeply involved in both of those when you talk about, when we talk 00:04:35.470 --> 00:04:40.217 about public outreach, I mean, uh well, the stakeholder engagement, uh the 00:04:40.250 --> 00:04:43.776 development of the set of relationships between the stakeholders, the 00:04:43.809 --> 00:04:47.546 evolution of that was kind of that was they kind of have both within twig. 00:04:47.579 --> 00:04:51.567 And I think we all try to work together each other a lot. You know, you 00:04:51.600 --> 00:04:56.387 go to a twig meeting and you sit around a table, there's Indian tribes 00:04:56.420 --> 00:05:00.836 there, there's federal agencies, there, there's Creta, there, there's four 00:05:00.869 --> 00:05:05.356 states and then there's uh the fishermen group and the park service, you 00:05:05.389 --> 00:05:08.817 know, at the park service. But the park recreation people, there's a whole 00:05:08.850 --> 00:05:12.055 group of and that whole, that whole effort I think is aimed at trying to 00:05:12.088 --> 00:05:14.926 bring these people together and work together on all these issues. You 00:05:14.959 --> 00:05:19.637 know, can you talk a little bit about how, how those relationships have 00:05:19.670 --> 00:05:22.967 developed or evolved over time in the, in the years that you've been 00:05:23.000 --> 00:05:24.976 involved? 00:05:25.009 --> 00:05:30.825 Well, yeah, I think so. I think, you know, originally there was 00:05:30.858 --> 00:05:35.015 uh a lot more contention and you might think there was a lot of country 00:05:35.048 --> 00:05:38.236 where, where it was coming from, you know, and what were their bottom line 00:05:38.269 --> 00:05:43.236 ? And then why were they there to begin with? You know, and, uh over the 00:05:43.269 --> 00:05:49.116 years we, we worked our way through a lot of that. I think in, with this 00:05:49.149 --> 00:05:53.697 last, uh, the long, the LTEIS, 00:05:53.730 --> 00:05:58.187 uh there was a little bit more conflict there anyway, because I think 00:05:58.220 --> 00:06:01.645 basically because one of the things they had to do was decide what was the 00:06:01.678 --> 00:06:04.205 goals of the new long term management program? Well, everybody had 00:06:04.238 --> 00:06:09.265 different set of goals in mind, you know, and uh just an illustration, I 00:06:09.298 --> 00:06:13.426 think during the development of the dep management program, one of the 00:06:13.459 --> 00:06:17.887 early steps was to develop what we call the desired future conditions for 00:06:17.920 --> 00:06:23.325 each resource. And we had quite a bit of conflict over some of that. We 00:06:23.358 --> 00:06:29.257 finally got it all ironed out. And I, I tell you some of the conflict was 00:06:29.290 --> 00:06:31.955 when we first started out on that, we tried to form a committee to 00:06:31.988 --> 00:06:35.846 determine what the future goals for hydropower would be. And we were told 00:06:35.879 --> 00:06:41.026 there was no future goal for hydropower flat out denied. So we fought that 00:06:41.059 --> 00:06:43.796 a little bit and then, then we finally got hydropower put in the desired 00:06:43.829 --> 00:06:47.866 future conditions. And then as we go into the L temp process, they were 00:06:47.899 --> 00:06:51.586 trying to get ready to ignore that a little bit. From the hydropower 00:06:51.619 --> 00:06:56.015 viewpoint, there's been a lot of push and shove, but also a lot of 00:06:56.048 --> 00:07:00.555 compromise, you know, and uh in the end we got where we were but we ought 00:07:00.588 --> 00:07:05.476 to be. What do you think is the reason for the success in overcoming 00:07:05.509 --> 00:07:11.476 initial conflict and getting to a, a more cooper uh result in the end 00:07:11.509 --> 00:07:15.765 listening to each other, uh listening to each other and talking and, and 00:07:15.798 --> 00:07:19.075 you know, to review the law, review, the legislation, legislation even 00:07:19.108 --> 00:07:22.437 says I your powers of source or resource, you know. So we, we had a lot of 00:07:22.470 --> 00:07:25.656 things like having to deal with. But yeah, I think mostly it was a matter 00:07:25.689 --> 00:07:33.689 of overcoming uh strong feelings of bias and uh I like a feeling of 00:07:35.069 --> 00:07:37.567 thought that hydropower was hurting everything and therefore it shouldn't 00:07:37.600 --> 00:07:41.796 be a goal at all. You know, and we kind of proved that it wasn't true. So 00:07:41.829 --> 00:07:49.829 , um that seems to be the purpose of these um uh uh uh collaborative 00:07:50.488 --> 00:07:56.736 efforts to get different stakeholders with different interests and values 00:07:56.769 --> 00:08:00.825 together to talk to each other and hammer out compromises. So you feel 00:08:00.858 --> 00:08:05.717 that, that, that effort worked out, it was successful. It, it's working. 00:08:05.750 --> 00:08:09.296 Sure. You know, I think we had had that we would have been, the whole 00:08:09.329 --> 00:08:12.676 program would have been in shambles, I think without that. Yeah, we would 00:08:12.709 --> 00:08:15.937 have spent millions and millions of dollars on lawsuits, I think, and we 00:08:15.970 --> 00:08:19.156 sit down and talk out, work it out. 00:08:19.189 --> 00:08:22.796 That's, that's very helpful. 00:08:22.829 --> 00:08:26.075 So, um what do you think have been the significant changes that have 00:08:26.108 --> 00:08:30.075 occurred in the program over the years, it's gone through some 00:08:30.108 --> 00:08:38.108 evolutionary stages. How do you see that evolution? Well, I think 00:08:43.269 --> 00:08:47.875 two or three things, I think, I think the, the scientific knowledge which 00:08:47.908 --> 00:08:52.826 is being developed has demonstrated some things aren't cast in country as 00:08:52.859 --> 00:08:57.236 other people thought they were. You know, for example. Well, I think, for 00:08:57.269 --> 00:09:00.135 example, the 00:09:00.168 --> 00:09:05.066 uh that the hydropower fluctuating flows were completely destructive of 00:09:05.099 --> 00:09:10.057 beaches and, and everything was initially, I think almost everything was 00:09:10.090 --> 00:09:14.885 the fault of hydropower fluctuating flows. And we found out now that 00:09:14.918 --> 00:09:18.356 that's not necessarily true. Anyway, we're still learning more and more 00:09:18.389 --> 00:09:21.907 about that as we go along, we're, we're finding more and more so as the 00:09:21.940 --> 00:09:24.967 science is progressing, we're getting answers that says, well, you know, 00:09:25.000 --> 00:09:28.706 maybe things aren't as black and white as we all thought they were. That's 00:09:28.739 --> 00:09:35.346 one reason that, that, that, that, that has changed, I think is the uh the 00:09:35.379 --> 00:09:38.025 result of the science is showing you that's not, that's not necessarily 00:09:38.058 --> 00:09:42.005 the way it is 00:09:42.038 --> 00:09:47.596 any other. Uh you said there were three significant changes that you can 00:09:47.629 --> 00:09:51.706 think of. One is the development of scientific information, that one and 00:09:51.739 --> 00:09:55.287 another, another big change that took place pretty early on in the program 00:09:55.320 --> 00:09:59.375 was originally the, the Grand Canyon Monitoring and Research Center was a 00:09:59.408 --> 00:10:03.566 bureau of reclamation organization. Oh, it was, yes, I didn't know that. 00:10:03.599 --> 00:10:06.657 Well, not many people do, but it's true. It was a bureau of reclamation 00:10:06.690 --> 00:10:12.816 organization. And some of the group thought that, that put it huge bias on 00:10:12.849 --> 00:10:16.667 it. And so 00:10:16.700 --> 00:10:19.895 they pushed hard to have it taken away from the bureau and given to the 00:10:19.928 --> 00:10:24.826 park service for somebody, us GS and it ended up being US GS. Yeah. And 00:10:24.859 --> 00:10:28.217 that, that was a pretty big change because it changed the, changed the 00:10:28.250 --> 00:10:32.336 makeup of the GCRC and their mission quite a bit, I think. Do you remember 00:10:32.369 --> 00:10:35.287 when that was that they made that I'm trying to remember. No, it was, it 00:10:35.320 --> 00:10:39.645 was pretty early on in the game. Uh, but the, the first couple of 00:10:39.678 --> 00:10:46.106 directors of the GCRC, we Bureau of reclamation employees, not old time 00:10:46.139 --> 00:10:48.736 bureau, but they were hired by the bureau of reclamation to do that job, 00:10:48.769 --> 00:10:52.307 you know. And then, then it turned out they, they formed the GCMRC as a 00:10:52.340 --> 00:10:55.456 part of the geologic survey and made it a, a branch of the, what's it 00:10:55.489 --> 00:10:58.366 called? The Southwest? 00:10:58.399 --> 00:11:03.606 Their headquarters go south with geo geologic something rather than anyway. 00:11:03.639 --> 00:11:06.826 So they, they don't, they don't work for beer reclamation. I make quite a 00:11:06.859 --> 00:11:11.336 difference. What difference did it make 00:11:11.369 --> 00:11:17.967 people of people? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Its quite different, I think. 00:11:18.000 --> 00:11:23.996 And then, uh the other things I think happened was, 00:11:24.029 --> 00:11:26.586 uh 00:11:26.619 --> 00:11:33.956 we're seeing now a lot of, I care for the words I use. We're seeing a lot 00:11:33.989 --> 00:11:39.226 more input from Indian tribes than we had in the beginning. They're much 00:11:39.259 --> 00:11:44.775 more interested in it than they ever were before. And there is a big push 00:11:44.808 --> 00:11:50.356 for what they call, uh, don't use western 00:11:50.389 --> 00:11:54.826 science, use what they call traditional ecological knowledge, I think, 00:11:54.859 --> 00:11:58.996 which is their view of what happens in the Grand Canyon. And there's quite 00:11:59.029 --> 00:12:03.717 a bit of, quite like it, I've seen in the last, in the last two years. Uh 00:12:03.750 --> 00:12:06.476 , a big 00:12:06.509 --> 00:12:11.086 push from them and a lot of support from the department on that. So I 00:12:11.119 --> 00:12:16.177 think that, that we're seeing some changes there. We, we'll see more of 00:12:16.210 --> 00:12:20.657 later on. I think, what do you think is resulting or might result from 00:12:20.690 --> 00:12:25.025 that particular shift? I'm not quite sure what it's gonna do. It's gonna 00:12:25.058 --> 00:12:29.206 be very hard, it's pretty hard for the scientists to deal with and people 00:12:29.239 --> 00:12:31.846 like me who are all time engineers is a little bit hard for us to deal 00:12:31.879 --> 00:12:35.765 with. But on the other hand, all those people have, uh they've gained a 00:12:35.798 --> 00:12:39.385 lot of political strength they've not had in the past. You can see that in 00:12:39.418 --> 00:12:44.816 a number of ways. But, uh, do you think that'll have any influence on the 00:12:44.849 --> 00:12:48.657 operation, the annual operation of the river or the dam or the, I don't 00:12:48.690 --> 00:12:53.086 know if it will or not. I don't know. I don't know. Well, see what we've 00:12:53.119 --> 00:12:59.025 tried to do is to confine the whole program to what we think was what the 00:12:59.058 --> 00:13:05.375 legislation said. You, you, you study the effects of damn operations and 00:13:05.408 --> 00:13:09.486 uh, in, in a rather direct way, you know, and, you know, some of the 00:13:09.519 --> 00:13:12.395 tribes are pushing, well, they want to go rim to rim on vegetation and 00:13:12.428 --> 00:13:16.616 stuff like that. You know, we have no trouble with that. Frankly, we, we 00:13:16.649 --> 00:13:21.346 have a lot of trouble with that because, you know, the funding of the 00:13:21.379 --> 00:13:25.657 program is limited legislation such as sitting on much money and being all 00:13:25.690 --> 00:13:30.586 paid for our power revenues by the way. But the it sets a ceiling on that. 00:13:30.619 --> 00:13:34.696 And if we're trying to get studies done on what is the actual effect of 00:13:34.729 --> 00:13:39.547 DMR operations on the river and the resources which are directly impacted 00:13:39.580 --> 00:13:42.917 by the river. We have a little trouble seeing where to go, room to room on 00:13:42.950 --> 00:13:45.635 vegetation and things like that. So there's, there's some struggle going 00:13:45.668 --> 00:13:49.686 on there. Now, 00:13:49.719 --> 00:13:55.976 can you think of any specific events that occurred over the years that had 00:13:56.009 --> 00:14:02.366 uh that caused a significant shift in emphasis or policy or relationships 00:14:02.399 --> 00:14:08.956 or, or the scientific research being done? 00:14:08.989 --> 00:14:15.275 Well, I think one might be the selection of directors for GCMRC, 00:14:15.308 --> 00:14:20.576 you know, uh Jack Schmidt, who was the one they had before they have now 00:14:20.609 --> 00:14:27.226 came in and he has, he was deeply involved in settlement and settlement 00:14:27.259 --> 00:14:33.246 transport and that was his, his strong suit. And I saw, I thought that a 00:14:33.279 --> 00:14:39.836 little shift in the whole program towards that issue and away from some of 00:14:39.869 --> 00:14:43.866 the other things. And then as he's now left. I think I'm seeing a shift 00:14:43.899 --> 00:14:48.336 back because he, he was. But they don't think Jack Schmidt's a great guy, 00:14:48.369 --> 00:14:53.206 but it was his focus. His focus was on the, I can remember going to am wig 00:14:53.239 --> 00:14:57.446 meetings and him putting up his chart of the shoot of sand, going down the 00:14:57.479 --> 00:15:04.736 river, you know, and uh he was just very big into that. So, um looking 00:15:04.769 --> 00:15:11.586 back at the various directors of GCMRC, what kinds of emphasis do you see 00:15:11.619 --> 00:15:17.797 that evolve with the changes of directors? We, we have the sediment. 00:15:17.830 --> 00:15:24.145 Are they, have there been any other I assume? Well, job is because of the 00:15:24.178 --> 00:15:30.677 Endangered Species Act, not because of who is director of GCMRC. And uh so 00:15:30.710 --> 00:15:33.816 there's always, there's always a lot of emphasis on, on, on the Humpback 00:15:33.849 --> 00:15:41.467 Chip. Uh So I don't think that's what would change. 00:15:41.500 --> 00:15:44.657 Uh 00:15:44.690 --> 00:15:52.690 Love but Love Parents, we saw online as an aside, we saw a website online 00:15:52.719 --> 00:15:58.236 that had um before and after pictures of sand bars along the Colorado 00:15:58.269 --> 00:16:05.255 river below Grand Canyon after the HFE. That was a really interesting. 00:16:05.288 --> 00:16:10.635 Yeah. And then the HFE experiments are, are really interesting and that's 00:16:10.668 --> 00:16:15.807 been, that's been a big push. And uh is that recent or? No? No, we did the 00:16:15.840 --> 00:16:20.086 , I think we did. The first one was back in the, I'm trying to think when 00:16:20.119 --> 00:16:24.885 we did the first HFE. It was quite a little while back, but it was a huge 00:16:24.918 --> 00:16:32.596 press event, you know, news and dignitaries here watching. And, uh, and I 00:16:32.629 --> 00:16:36.686 think that may be part of the charm of it. I think it, I'm being cynical 00:16:36.719 --> 00:16:39.206 now 00:16:39.239 --> 00:16:42.657 but there was so much fun. They did as a kid. 00:16:42.690 --> 00:16:46.746 But, you know, 11 of the things about the HFES was the, was that they 00:16:46.779 --> 00:16:51.217 hoped they would build beaches for campers, 00:16:51.250 --> 00:16:55.667 uh, for, for boats to camp all that. They said, well, we, we're building 00:16:55.700 --> 00:16:59.407 backwaters so Humpback chub can use these backwaters as breeding grounds 00:16:59.440 --> 00:17:03.066 and it turns out the back job, don't use backwaters, but they still kept 00:17:03.099 --> 00:17:06.686 going because they need the beaches anyway. You know, so you see a lot of 00:17:06.719 --> 00:17:11.535 that, uh, but when you, when you really study those photographs, what you 00:17:11.568 --> 00:17:16.126 find out is that when you do a big HFE about, I guess a little bit less 00:17:16.159 --> 00:17:20.105 than half the beaches grow some, get smaller because of the flows and it 00:17:20.138 --> 00:17:24.284 really not really last terribly long. That's why you have the, the annual 00:17:24.317 --> 00:17:28.626 HFE push these days is to keep the beaches going. I think one of the 00:17:28.659 --> 00:17:33.377 things we're seeing in the whole program is, 00:17:33.410 --> 00:17:39.186 you know, the law required, you take care of the Humpback job and, and 00:17:39.219 --> 00:17:42.387 those kinds of things. 00:17:42.420 --> 00:17:45.976 But a lot of the program is aimed towards benefiting recreation and 00:17:46.009 --> 00:17:54.009 boating, which is really good thing to do. But, uh, 00:17:54.630 --> 00:17:59.206 I get pretty, I get pretty cynical here a lot of, a lot of, a lot of what 00:17:59.239 --> 00:18:02.785 we do is hiding under the scared Dangerous Species Act where it's really 00:18:02.818 --> 00:18:06.785 doing it for, for fishermen and boaters and they're becoming more vocal 00:18:06.818 --> 00:18:10.456 these days too. And which is good. It's good. Let's get out and talk. 00:18:10.489 --> 00:18:12.535 We're already talking about here and make it public what we're already 00:18:12.568 --> 00:18:18.186 talking about here. So I think that's, 00:18:18.219 --> 00:18:21.456 and, and they got some really great people working for John Jordan and 00:18:21.489 --> 00:18:24.545 John Hamel and that crowd, they, they're smart. John Hall was at one time 00:18:24.578 --> 00:18:29.357 GCRC director. Yes. And now now he's uh a lot of spokesman for the 00:18:29.390 --> 00:18:33.006 recreational fishing people and he knows what he's talking about and, and 00:18:33.039 --> 00:18:36.367 that's good and we have a lot of respect for John and we, we, you know, 00:18:36.400 --> 00:18:44.400 we're getting back what we already talked about what's going on. Instead 00:18:47.338 --> 00:18:52.387 you in your oral history interview that the Bureau of Reclamation did with 00:18:52.420 --> 00:18:59.016 you. Brit story did in 1996 there is a significant section in there about 00:18:59.049 --> 00:19:05.217 the 1982 83 floods during that El Nino period. Oh, yeah. Do you think that 00:19:05.250 --> 00:19:13.250 that flood had any impact on dam operations on the developing G ce S the 00:19:13.289 --> 00:19:21.289 environmental studies program? Was that an event that caused some shifts? 00:19:23.318 --> 00:19:28.206 I, I don't really think so. Not that much because it was, and that was, 00:19:28.239 --> 00:19:32.295 that was not the fault of people operating the dam that was, that was 00:19:32.328 --> 00:19:36.416 caused by this huge amounts of water had been passed through the dam in a 00:19:36.449 --> 00:19:41.857 , in a, in a design fault in the spillway which caused a huge problem 00:19:41.890 --> 00:19:44.936 which had to be corrected. And it was kind of a heroic effort, putting 00:19:44.969 --> 00:19:48.916 that together and getting the job done and saving the dam. But I think the 00:19:48.949 --> 00:19:54.535 impacts down the river were uh 00:19:54.568 --> 00:19:59.815 is that equivalent to a high flow event? 00:19:59.848 --> 00:20:03.867 Much more of a high flow, even more of a high event. Yeah, much more of a 00:20:03.900 --> 00:20:08.795 high flow event. The big change in dam operations I think came as a result 00:20:08.828 --> 00:20:12.897 of the uh the original eis you know, when, when they did the record of 00:20:12.930 --> 00:20:17.686 decision and set ceilings on how much you could release from the dam, you 00:20:17.719 --> 00:20:22.166 actually lost about a third of your generating capacity in the dam because 00:20:22.199 --> 00:20:25.387 you just can't let that. You can't the generator area and you wouldn't 00:20:25.420 --> 00:20:27.607 even let as much water go through the generators would hold because you 00:20:27.640 --> 00:20:33.676 had the ceiling on it. And so why was that? What was the rationale for? 00:20:33.709 --> 00:20:36.847 They, they want to cut down the fluctuations. 00:20:36.880 --> 00:20:40.545 So they set a ceiling on how far you could go and see how low you can go 00:20:40.578 --> 00:20:45.075 and then that reduces the amount of fluctuation. 00:20:45.108 --> 00:20:48.637 Yeah, same thing in the, the rod for the L temp study is the same thing as 00:20:48.670 --> 00:20:51.835 it's got, it's a different set of numbers and actually a little bit better 00:20:51.868 --> 00:20:56.976 for us than they were before. But they're, 00:20:57.009 --> 00:21:00.717 they didn't raise the ceiling. So you, we were still sitting with through 00:21:00.750 --> 00:21:04.446 the generating capacity unused. 00:21:04.479 --> 00:21:10.565 So um the high fluctuations and releases from the dam prior to the EIS 00:21:10.598 --> 00:21:15.666 were designed to maximize benefits for the hydro power system to maximize 00:21:15.699 --> 00:21:18.717 the value of the power. Yeah. Yeah. You did globe following. You generate 00:21:18.750 --> 00:21:24.325 , you generate electricity when you need it, when you don't need it, when 00:21:24.358 --> 00:21:29.315 you need it, you need. Oh, you can't to meet that need. Yeah. And so the 00:21:29.348 --> 00:21:36.746 EIS then led to a situation in which um uh the dam operators had to stop 00:21:36.779 --> 00:21:40.555 the parameters load following and well, they, they still do load following 00:21:40.588 --> 00:21:44.506 but not as much as they did. Yeah, they, they still try to maximize their 00:21:44.539 --> 00:21:51.045 power. There's and I think it when, when the, when the record decision for 00:21:51.078 --> 00:21:54.436 this lament is fully implemented, we will have better low follow than we 00:21:54.469 --> 00:21:59.976 had before but the top and the bottom are still set, you know, the, the 00:22:00.009 --> 00:22:05.847 and, and some of that is not uh uh I'll give you an example that the uh 00:22:05.880 --> 00:22:10.825 the maximum daily changes like I'm trying to think this now make, make 00:22:10.858 --> 00:22:16.976 sure I get this right 8000 cubic feet per second 00:22:17.009 --> 00:22:22.377 between these ranges and that 8064 hour period. Yeah, that 8002nd feet 00:22:22.410 --> 00:22:25.406 daily change comes out in the environmental study which was done clear 00:22:25.439 --> 00:22:30.266 back in the nineties for the, the original EIS based on the survey, 00:22:30.299 --> 00:22:35.397 basically, recreationists don't want any more than 8002nd foot change 00:22:35.430 --> 00:22:38.276 because it makes the water level up and down when they're trying to go 00:22:38.309 --> 00:22:41.555 down the river. And, you know, I took a trip down the river with a bunch 00:22:41.588 --> 00:22:44.946 of one time. Then they, they, they made it, they moved their point. That 00:22:44.979 --> 00:22:48.696 was before we do the EIS. But, you know, they put their beaches on the 00:22:48.729 --> 00:22:52.367 boat at night and they'd be high and dry in the morning. They're high and 00:22:52.400 --> 00:22:58.795 dry. Yeah, that's, that's the issue. Yeah. So, well, that's uh, a lot, a 00:22:58.828 --> 00:23:03.387 lot is driven by, driven by recreational interest. But just for 00:23:03.420 --> 00:23:08.486 clarification, can you tell us how much capacity the dam can do? Is it a, 00:23:08.519 --> 00:23:12.617 is it 16,000 or 20,000? I don't know, per second. And, and what a maximum 00:23:12.650 --> 00:23:15.897 power? Like a big power day? What would you need? Well, I don't have those 00:23:15.930 --> 00:23:20.246 figures in my head right off the top. I mean, I have no idea how it works. 00:23:20.279 --> 00:23:24.555 So, you know, I, I'm trying to think like 00:23:24.588 --> 00:23:29.456 it has two cubic feet per second and I'm thinking we could really go up to 00:23:29.489 --> 00:23:37.489 about 35,000 CFS and we're down now to um, 20. So, yeah, so since you work 00:23:38.779 --> 00:23:45.357 for Creta, you're familiar with the larger hydropower uh system. Um Do you 00:23:45.390 --> 00:23:52.506 , can you tell us a little bit about how the larger power planners adapted 00:23:52.539 --> 00:23:59.387 to having, you know, Glen Canyon dams operations constrained in terms of 00:23:59.420 --> 00:24:02.315 their fluctuation to meet demand. But how did they make up for that? The 00:24:02.348 --> 00:24:07.637 only thing you can do is more generation. You know, you, so you build coal 00:24:07.670 --> 00:24:12.575 fired plant or oil fire plant and you build transmission lines to replace 00:24:12.608 --> 00:24:15.976 it. You know, the, the I don't have the numbers in my head, but there's 00:24:16.009 --> 00:24:20.575 some really good economic studies done in the, in the Lltebis about what 00:24:20.608 --> 00:24:25.147 it cost to replace that power because you have to go out float bonds and 00:24:25.180 --> 00:24:30.127 build another plant. And uh another thing that I think is changing is as 00:24:30.160 --> 00:24:35.035 we get down the line a little bit is the impact that all that has on what 00:24:35.068 --> 00:24:39.367 we're calling our global warming and air quality control because, you know 00:24:39.400 --> 00:24:44.736 , uh hydropower is a renewable resource which does not produce any air 00:24:44.769 --> 00:24:51.785 pollution and it is being replaced by coal or oil which does. 00:24:51.818 --> 00:24:56.436 And uh there's some pretty good studies in the LFEIS on that issue. In 00:24:56.469 --> 00:25:00.996 fact, there's a show some pretty dramatic numbers. I think. What, what the 00:25:01.029 --> 00:25:06.986 , the tons of uh what was the bicarbonates, whatever it is that I was put 00:25:07.019 --> 00:25:13.426 in the CO2. Yeah, or the result from decreasing generation and replacing 00:25:13.459 --> 00:25:16.847 it with which, which is the most practical source of replacement. You know 00:25:16.880 --> 00:25:21.186 , you can't replace Hyder with wind because you have to, something goes 00:25:21.219 --> 00:25:24.516 all the time, you have to have a coal fired plant or oil plant to replace 00:25:24.549 --> 00:25:30.085 that baseload. Yeah. So that, that's, that's part of the issue. I think 00:25:30.118 --> 00:25:33.887 the Navajo the coal fired Navajo generating station was built in the 19 00:25:33.920 --> 00:25:39.535 seventies and it was built to integrate with the existing hydropower 00:25:39.568 --> 00:25:45.357 system. Do you know much about how those were integrated together? And? 00:25:45.390 --> 00:25:49.325 Well, I think the, 00:25:49.358 --> 00:25:53.647 the Navajo generating station basically was built to provide pumping power 00:25:53.680 --> 00:25:57.815 for the Salt River project in Arizona and the central Arizona and the 00:25:57.848 --> 00:26:01.467 Central Arizona project. Yeah. Yeah, because they, there's a huge pumping 00:26:01.500 --> 00:26:05.535 plants down the lower river where they pump the water out and uh that's 00:26:05.568 --> 00:26:11.506 what that was basically for. Yeah. What to do that with now that's just 00:26:11.539 --> 00:26:17.585 AAA minority of the, of the power. Um although Nava Generating station is 00:26:17.618 --> 00:26:21.367 slated to close down, shut down in here. Yeah, it's gonna shut down, you 00:26:21.400 --> 00:26:25.315 know what they'll do to replace it. But I think, you know, the emphasis 00:26:25.348 --> 00:26:28.926 that's coming these days on global warming and global climate control, 00:26:28.959 --> 00:26:34.206 things like that. We'll find more and more uh thought being given to 00:26:34.239 --> 00:26:37.397 regarding hydropower as a renewable resource, it not to be protected in 00:26:37.430 --> 00:26:40.315 time. 00:26:40.348 --> 00:26:44.467 You think decisions related to the management of the river are going to 00:26:44.500 --> 00:26:50.967 begin to Reprioritize clean energy hydropower generation as clean energy 00:26:51.000 --> 00:26:55.496 for. Well, what has that hope? I don't know if it'll work or not, but I 00:26:55.529 --> 00:26:57.766 think you know, this administration I think is probably more open to that 00:26:57.799 --> 00:27:03.726 than the last group was. We're kind of waiting to see who fills in all the 00:27:03.759 --> 00:27:09.656 slots and department and see about that taking some time. Yeah. Yeah. Um 00:27:09.689 --> 00:27:15.506 uh another question for you, uh can you mention uh or alert us to any key 00:27:15.539 --> 00:27:20.026 reports or documents that you think were particularly important to the 00:27:20.059 --> 00:27:25.085 development of the adaptive management plan? You've mentioned the EIS is 00:27:25.118 --> 00:27:27.887 there anything else that we should be aware of that? Do you think was 00:27:27.920 --> 00:27:31.815 significant in the development of the program? I can't open in my mind 00:27:31.848 --> 00:27:38.545 right away? No. All right. And how about key individuals? 00:27:38.578 --> 00:27:43.117 You mentioned uh the gentleman who was head of uh GCMRC as being 00:27:43.150 --> 00:27:46.696 significant in shaping the direction of some of the research, any other 00:27:46.729 --> 00:27:54.729 key individuals that really made a difference in the program? 00:27:55.479 --> 00:28:02.815 That was David Wagner in uh no, the CMRC director was Jack Schmidt Schmidt. 00:28:02.848 --> 00:28:07.607 Yeah, Dave Wagner was, he was head of the Grand Canyon Environmental 00:28:07.640 --> 00:28:13.347 Studies, which is the program. The bureau did those. Yeah. Yeah, he was 00:28:13.380 --> 00:28:16.226 with the bureau then, then he left and went to work for some congressional 00:28:16.259 --> 00:28:20.367 staffers. I think, I don't know where he is now. He's in Tucson. Yeah, 00:28:20.400 --> 00:28:28.400 he's in Tucson. We're gonna interview him sometime this year. Uh 00:28:29.380 --> 00:28:33.016 Any other big reports that you have to look at. I, I can't really tell off 00:28:33.049 --> 00:28:38.706 the top of my head uh there's some interesting work that they, that the AM 00:28:38.739 --> 00:28:42.526 wig did, which, which kind of influence the program on there. And I don't 00:28:42.559 --> 00:28:45.506 know if they rewrote reports on that, but there was the whole stay on 00:28:45.539 --> 00:28:51.357 desired future conditions that might be worth looking at. When was that? 00:28:51.390 --> 00:28:55.627 I'm thinking that was in the 00:28:55.660 --> 00:28:59.406 early stages of the, of the Deputy Management program. It was, it was 00:28:59.439 --> 00:29:03.367 after I left and went to work as a consultant instead of drinking, it was 00:29:03.400 --> 00:29:08.607 done after that. Uh So I would say um 00:29:08.640 --> 00:29:13.847 9899 somewhere along in there. I don't know. But they, they did do a paper 00:29:13.880 --> 00:29:17.335 on that. And there, there's a, there's a desired future Conditions report 00:29:17.368 --> 00:29:22.217 which is fed into the study. Uh Was there only one of those, I think there 00:29:22.250 --> 00:29:26.397 was only one, there was one for a lot of drafts, but the final, the final 00:29:26.430 --> 00:29:29.897 one which was adopted. Yeah, it might be interesting. I think it was 00:29:29.930 --> 00:29:34.766 adopted by the Air Wing by vote. It was a very future conditions thing. 00:29:34.799 --> 00:29:39.276 Great. Well, 00:29:39.309 --> 00:29:43.266 I can't think of any other one off the top of my head. There's something 00:29:43.299 --> 00:29:49.736 interesting in economic studies done. Uh 00:29:49.769 --> 00:29:56.246 you know, we thought that uh in the A T process that that power was being 00:29:56.279 --> 00:29:59.976 pretty much undervalued 00:30:00.009 --> 00:30:06.996 in the economic studies. And so Western administration 00:30:07.029 --> 00:30:10.776 uh found out that the University of Oklahoma and some other people were 00:30:10.809 --> 00:30:16.217 doing a study on the environmental and economic impacts of hydropower. And 00:30:16.250 --> 00:30:19.686 that study is certainly worth looking at. I think it paints quite a 00:30:19.719 --> 00:30:24.986 different picture than the old T did. 00:30:25.019 --> 00:30:28.357 And then there's, uh, 00:30:28.390 --> 00:30:36.390 I'm trying to think if there's anything else on the, 00:30:38.630 --> 00:30:42.305 well, not right off the top of my head. I can't think of any. And since 00:30:42.338 --> 00:30:45.887 some of the documents that might be useful to look at would be, uh, you 00:30:45.920 --> 00:30:49.815 know, when they did the, uh when they did the regular decision, they had 00:30:49.848 --> 00:30:56.156 to do a biological assessment, then a biological opinion on endangered 00:30:56.189 --> 00:30:59.486 species, you know, endanger species. But those are kind of worth looking 00:30:59.519 --> 00:31:06.565 at too because they put a little different spin on things. Yeah, 00:31:06.598 --> 00:31:13.906 looking back at all the years that you've been involved. Um you, you said 00:31:13.939 --> 00:31:18.617 that uh you were kind of a representative of Creta and the hydropower 00:31:18.650 --> 00:31:23.516 interest. What do you think you were able to accomplish in those years as 00:31:23.549 --> 00:31:30.656 a representative of that? Well, I think, I think Creta, uh I'm not trying 00:31:30.689 --> 00:31:34.236 to pat myself on the back here because I, I think created a lot, a lot of 00:31:34.269 --> 00:31:40.555 input into the George Miller's work on the Grand Canyon Protection Act. We 00:31:40.588 --> 00:31:43.617 had quite a bit of input into that, which was from our viewpoint, pretty 00:31:43.650 --> 00:31:47.916 successful. And then George Miller, he uh after it was all over here and I 00:31:47.949 --> 00:31:52.377 shook hands and said this is, we, we did a good job here, you know, uh 00:31:52.410 --> 00:31:57.305 what kind of influence or impact on the legislation itself? Did, did you 00:31:57.338 --> 00:32:03.156 work on you and you talked about uh funding of the program? That's how it 00:32:03.189 --> 00:32:06.706 came to be funded out of our revenues. 00:32:06.739 --> 00:32:11.785 Oh, we talked about the need for, you know, the, the adaptive management 00:32:11.818 --> 00:32:16.256 involving stakeholders in the whole program that was part of the effort we 00:32:16.289 --> 00:32:22.867 had there. So I think it, it was a, an official relationship there. Yeah. 00:32:22.900 --> 00:32:28.496 Do you think we should try to interview George Miller at some point? Do 00:32:28.529 --> 00:32:34.315 you think he would have valuable uh in uh uh perspective on the? Well, he 00:32:34.348 --> 00:32:37.686 certainly has a very powerful perspective on it. Yeah. Yeah, it was, it 00:32:37.719 --> 00:32:42.117 was his push for the legislation. Yeah, he, he might give you some 00:32:42.150 --> 00:32:48.916 different viewpoints that I'm giving you on it. But yeah, 00:32:48.949 --> 00:32:52.906 and he was the key sponsor and the negotiation over what would go into the 00:32:52.939 --> 00:32:58.585 bill was, you know, between him and his staff and what everybody in and 00:32:58.618 --> 00:33:03.156 Ham wig or key people. Well, it was not an then because the major program 00:33:03.189 --> 00:33:06.426 didn't exist after the legislation. That was part of that was part of the 00:33:06.459 --> 00:33:10.785 good things, legislation. We, we got into, we got put into a major program 00:33:10.818 --> 00:33:13.785 so it didn't get locked down tight forever in one piece of legislation, 00:33:13.818 --> 00:33:19.305 you know, so that was a good piece of work. Uh But this, I think basically 00:33:19.338 --> 00:33:22.647 involved in, in drafting legislation was the bureau was represented a lot 00:33:22.680 --> 00:33:28.085 by David Wagner in US and in the Western Power administration was involved 00:33:28.118 --> 00:33:32.736 in it. So, yeah, 00:33:32.769 --> 00:33:40.769 but there were a park who was deeply involved also. 00:33:42.529 --> 00:33:47.256 Was there anything that you hope to accomplish that you weren't able to 00:33:47.289 --> 00:33:51.446 and why 00:33:51.479 --> 00:33:54.196 we all know? 00:33:54.229 --> 00:33:59.666 Uh That's some unrealistic hope. Yeah. But no, I think, no, I think it 00:33:59.699 --> 00:34:07.699 came out about as good as I thought we could get it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, 00:34:11.019 --> 00:34:15.456 you've touched on this a little bit earlier. Um But I wanna ask you again 00:34:15.489 --> 00:34:20.506 , what do you think has been the value of the program over time? The value 00:34:20.539 --> 00:34:27.017 of the Air Weight program? I think it has produced a lot of 00:34:27.050 --> 00:34:30.865 understanding and co-operation between people who have completely 00:34:30.898 --> 00:34:36.756 different views. What ought to be happening? Blow the dam. Why the dam is 00:34:36.789 --> 00:34:40.506 the way it is? You get involved. Four states actually involved. All seven 00:34:40.539 --> 00:34:46.925 states are involved in the ma program. You know, because they, 00:34:46.958 --> 00:34:50.126 the way the Cord River is operated is basically driven by the Cord River 00:34:50.159 --> 00:34:54.017 compact, which is a compact between the bay and states that says that 00:34:54.050 --> 00:34:57.845 decides how much water you can run down in a year. You know, those kind of 00:34:57.878 --> 00:35:03.456 , you know, the, uh because they were compact and the uh the later interim 00:35:03.489 --> 00:35:07.695 operating agreements and all those things. Uh They have a big impact on 00:35:07.728 --> 00:35:11.885 what happens here and I think the AM would help bring all those kind of 00:35:11.918 --> 00:35:16.816 people together a little bit more. Uh, he built a little bridge between 00:35:16.849 --> 00:35:21.936 the upper base and the lower base on some of these issues. Oh. And I think 00:35:21.969 --> 00:35:28.276 it also built some bridges between, uh, reclamation in the park service 00:35:28.309 --> 00:35:34.595 who, at one time I think were not very much speaking to each other. Well, 00:35:34.628 --> 00:35:37.486 they did but they weren't, they weren't listening to each other that a 00:35:37.519 --> 00:35:42.706 better way of putting it. And then, and then bring in the, uh, the 00:35:42.739 --> 00:35:46.327 fishermen groups and the boating groups because they, they all have a deep 00:35:46.360 --> 00:35:50.307 interest which a lot of people don't understand and that gives them a 00:35:50.340 --> 00:35:54.905 forum to lay out their, their issues and their problems. And then, then 00:35:54.938 --> 00:35:59.986 you have, uh, in the Indian tribes who I think are listened to so much 00:36:00.019 --> 00:36:05.425 more now than they were before. Uh, and, and so I think the, the program 00:36:05.458 --> 00:36:10.727 has produced a lot of good in, in bringing people together and I think 00:36:10.760 --> 00:36:14.736 it's working, it's working. I would really hate to see the fa thing kill 00:36:14.769 --> 00:36:19.135 the Amway program. I don't think it will, but because I think cooler heads 00:36:19.168 --> 00:36:24.256 will prevail, you know, fa being a federal advisory committee act, the 00:36:24.289 --> 00:36:28.146 Trump thing you know about, we're gonna stop all the f activities until 00:36:28.179 --> 00:36:32.695 September, which is really a problem because we were right in the middle 00:36:32.728 --> 00:36:36.046 of putting together a budget for GCMRC and the Bureau for the next three 00:36:36.079 --> 00:36:40.287 years. And we would like to at least get the next year done. But, you know 00:36:40.320 --> 00:36:45.557 , their fiscal year starts in October and October 1 is beginning the 00:36:45.590 --> 00:36:49.615 fiscal year and, uh, if they don't come up with something, they, they're 00:36:49.648 --> 00:36:53.416 in deep trouble. And so this order from the Trump administration to 00:36:53.449 --> 00:36:57.977 suspend the activities of amw for a while that is going to stop the 00:36:58.010 --> 00:37:00.816 budgeting process. I don't think so because they have to go, they'll have 00:37:00.849 --> 00:37:07.767 to go ahead without us. They'll have to go ahead without us. But I think 00:37:07.800 --> 00:37:11.776 based on some conversations we've had, I think we're gonna, they're still 00:37:11.809 --> 00:37:15.456 gonna talk to us about it. But we, we will, we will have a formal meeting 00:37:15.489 --> 00:37:18.796 or formal webinars. But I think that they almost have to talk to us 00:37:18.829 --> 00:37:23.037 because I'll tell you what GCMRC and the bureau came in with their first 00:37:23.070 --> 00:37:28.017 draft budget. They were 30% over sealing for the first year, for the first 00:37:28.050 --> 00:37:31.836 year 18. They are 30% over ceiling. So they got to reduce their budgets by 00:37:31.869 --> 00:37:34.287 30%. 00:37:34.320 --> 00:37:38.845 And how we, how do they pick which ones to keep, which ones to let go? If 00:37:38.878 --> 00:37:43.276 they don't ask this, if they don't ask the stakeholders, they're gonna be 00:37:43.309 --> 00:37:46.037 in real trouble, I think, and I think they will, I think they will ask us 00:37:46.070 --> 00:37:49.445 about that. In fact, I, we see some indications that they'll be willing to 00:37:49.478 --> 00:37:52.046 talk to us about it because, but they have to move forward. They can't 00:37:52.079 --> 00:37:54.717 just stop the program 00:37:54.750 --> 00:38:01.037 as much as some parts of some might want that some budget concerns. 00:38:01.070 --> 00:38:04.845 Basically, this, I think a lot of the f stuff they were thinking this is 00:38:04.878 --> 00:38:10.086 wasted money, you know. But, uh in, in this instance, is not wasted money. 00:38:10.119 --> 00:38:14.816 This is, in fact, most of, most of the people fund their own 00:38:14.849 --> 00:38:17.787 participation. We don't, we don't get paid to do that by the federal 00:38:17.820 --> 00:38:21.296 government. We get paid by the power users for me to go to it and the 00:38:21.329 --> 00:38:24.586 voters pay for their guy to go to it. The fish guys pay for their guys to 00:38:24.619 --> 00:38:27.456 go to it. So it's not costing the government a whole lot of money except 00:38:27.489 --> 00:38:31.026 some federal employees who are involved in it. But their total budget is 00:38:31.059 --> 00:38:33.666 pretty high. But I think people just don't realize that's, that's the 00:38:33.699 --> 00:38:37.756 document program, not the, not the federal committee program. Right. 00:38:37.789 --> 00:38:41.925 That's all the research and monitoring taking plan which has to take place. 00:38:41.958 --> 00:38:47.307 You have to research and labor. Yeah, you can't learn 00:38:47.340 --> 00:38:49.345 otherwise. 00:38:49.378 --> 00:38:54.695 Um, if there are any, uh you have a fairly positive view of the, of the 00:38:54.728 --> 00:38:59.077 program and its accomplishments. Um, are there any key limitations that 00:38:59.110 --> 00:39:04.686 you'd like to see? I mean, uh, overcome, is there anything any changes 00:39:04.719 --> 00:39:07.376 that you'd like to see in the program in the future that would make it 00:39:07.409 --> 00:39:12.146 work even better? 00:39:12.179 --> 00:39:20.179 Hm. Yeah. 00:39:22.228 --> 00:39:25.506 But right off the top of my head. I, I just can't, you know, it's, it's, 00:39:25.539 --> 00:39:28.756 it's working, give, give what you have to work with, you know, what the, 00:39:28.789 --> 00:39:35.977 what the challenges are. I think it's working pretty well. Uh So, 00:39:36.010 --> 00:39:39.756 so you're hopeful about the future of the program? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 00:39:39.789 --> 00:39:42.956 About the future of Bureau of reclamation, the future of management of 00:39:42.989 --> 00:39:48.557 the Colorado River. Step back a little bit. Any, are you optimistic or 00:39:48.590 --> 00:39:53.445 pessimistic about the larger picture about Colorado river management in 00:39:53.478 --> 00:39:56.537 the seven basin states? 00:39:56.570 --> 00:40:01.436 I try to be optimistic but I think, you know, there there is 00:40:01.469 --> 00:40:07.017 as we come down and, and this is not, this is not a Glen Canyon Dam issue. 00:40:07.050 --> 00:40:13.316 This is more a color river operations issue as you come down if, if the 00:40:13.349 --> 00:40:18.945 drought continues and it turned out to be a long term permanent shift in 00:40:18.978 --> 00:40:23.816 how much water we're gonna have. I think there's gonna be some real issues 00:40:23.849 --> 00:40:28.186 on the Colorado River. And I think the States are gonna have to work that 00:40:28.219 --> 00:40:34.666 uh States in Mexico, they are involved in all that. And uh that could be a 00:40:34.699 --> 00:40:38.477 real challenge. It could be a real challenge because there's, you know, 00:40:38.510 --> 00:40:44.787 the upper basin is not using all their water but they save it. Glen Canyon 00:40:44.820 --> 00:40:48.796 Dam in case they want to use it in the lower basin states. They're using 00:40:48.829 --> 00:40:53.577 every drop of water and running short. So you may sometimes see some 00:40:53.610 --> 00:40:56.376 shifts in, 00:40:56.409 --> 00:41:01.905 I really hate to think that happens. But one solution that we renegotiate 00:41:01.938 --> 00:41:04.706 the car of the basement compact. You know, I don't know if that will ever 00:41:04.739 --> 00:41:08.416 happen or not, but there is a lot of, uh, there's a lot of things there 00:41:08.449 --> 00:41:14.106 and then also the use of power revenues to support these studies, uh is 00:41:14.139 --> 00:41:18.175 very deeply impacting the upper Basin States because they, they, they get 00:41:18.208 --> 00:41:23.827 under, under the, under the Colorado Basin Project Act, uh, they have 00:41:23.860 --> 00:41:27.945 projects which are authorized or could be authorized, which are entitled 00:41:27.978 --> 00:41:31.977 to a share ba revenues. Well, the basin revenues go down because there's 00:41:32.010 --> 00:41:35.747 no power generation and there's no way for them to share. And that could 00:41:35.780 --> 00:41:39.477 be, that could be one huge issue someday. I don't see it happening anytime 00:41:39.510 --> 00:41:43.086 soon. But if you're looking way down the line, there could be some real 00:41:43.119 --> 00:41:49.296 problems. Yeah. Any lessons in, um, the success of a way. Are there any 00:41:49.329 --> 00:41:54.217 lessons in there that could be applied to, um, the, the states negotiating 00:41:54.250 --> 00:41:58.436 over shortages on the Colorado River? I think it's a different kind of 00:41:58.469 --> 00:42:01.756 program all together. I think the states have done a pretty good job of 00:42:01.789 --> 00:42:06.856 negotiating out their, their colors and things like that. You go back to 00:42:06.889 --> 00:42:10.787 the, the days that they were negotiating on the compact and in 19 forties 00:42:10.820 --> 00:42:14.945 , I think it was when they did all that and they work together very, very 00:42:14.978 --> 00:42:19.095 well. And I think they they can still do that. They, they just have to 00:42:19.128 --> 00:42:25.175 recognize it, dude, somebody has to win. Somebody has to lose, you know, 00:42:25.208 --> 00:42:29.486 but is the United States together? We're winners. You know, I've seen, you 00:42:29.519 --> 00:42:36.456 know, do you have any advice for um new members who would be joining Am 00:42:36.489 --> 00:42:41.526 Wig or twig? Those one of the things we're gonna produce is an orientation 00:42:41.559 --> 00:42:46.066 packet for new members so they can come up to speed on on the program and 00:42:46.099 --> 00:42:49.276 progress. Uh Do you have any key pieces of advice you would give to 00:42:49.309 --> 00:42:55.905 somebody joining the program? 00:42:55.938 --> 00:43:00.227 I was to just say, listen carefully and be patient with each other because 00:43:00.260 --> 00:43:03.126 you, 00:43:03.159 --> 00:43:06.405 I see it. You know, the people I work for, there's a lot, a lot, there's 00:43:06.438 --> 00:43:11.146 some impatience with other people in the, in the end week. And I want to 00:43:11.179 --> 00:43:14.445 be like, wait, you know, where these guys come, where they're coming from 00:43:14.478 --> 00:43:17.095 on this. Yeah, I think we just need to have a little bit more 00:43:17.128 --> 00:43:22.296 understanding and a little bit more patience. And uh again, I think 11 of 00:43:22.329 --> 00:43:26.655 the real challenges we're gonna have in the not too distant future is 00:43:26.688 --> 00:43:31.376 accommodating the Indian tribes and their whole different approach to this 00:43:31.409 --> 00:43:36.405 whole thing. And I think we just really have to sit down and listen and 00:43:36.438 --> 00:43:39.526 not be so quick to judge 00:43:39.559 --> 00:43:43.695 and uh may, may, maybe we can work this out. I don't know. It, it's hard 00:43:43.728 --> 00:43:48.296 to tell can you expand on that? And you mentioned traditional ecological 00:43:48.329 --> 00:43:53.175 knowledge earlier and can you expand on maybe some ways that? Well, but 00:43:53.208 --> 00:43:57.327 those two different ways of thinking about science can be in the natural 00:43:57.360 --> 00:44:00.756 world. Well, yeah, because I I'll give you an example that kind of jumps 00:44:00.789 --> 00:44:05.595 out. But every third meeting we have is, you know, one of the, one of the 00:44:05.628 --> 00:44:10.655 things that brown, the brown trout, which is not a native species in the 00:44:10.688 --> 00:44:16.956 rainbow trout, which is definitely not a native species or killing 00:44:16.989 --> 00:44:22.095 in some situations, they go downstream and eat the baby humpback chub. So 00:44:22.128 --> 00:44:27.247 the immediate reaction from the western science perspective is, well, 00:44:27.280 --> 00:44:31.526 let's just get rid of the rainbow trout, brown trout and control them. And 00:44:31.559 --> 00:44:33.997 when there's too many of them, we'll have electro fishermen take them out 00:44:34.030 --> 00:44:37.967 of the river and they won't go down each out, back up, which makes a lot 00:44:38.000 --> 00:44:43.396 of logical sense. Western science viewpoint. But the Indian tribes say, 00:44:43.429 --> 00:44:48.517 wait, you're taking life in the Grand Canyon and the Grand Canyon to them 00:44:48.550 --> 00:44:52.666 was a very holy and spiritual place and you don't go down there and kill 00:44:52.699 --> 00:44:54.905 things. 00:44:54.938 --> 00:44:59.756 No. What do you do? 00:44:59.789 --> 00:45:04.026 Yeah. But something has to be done because you can't, you can't just 00:45:04.059 --> 00:45:07.727 ignore them 00:45:07.760 --> 00:45:12.586 an interesting conundrum. It is, it's tough. And, and, but you find those 00:45:12.619 --> 00:45:18.336 and they say, well, the archaeological sites, you know, they'll say, uh, 00:45:18.369 --> 00:45:21.405 the archaeology sites are being destroyed. Well, we say who's destroying 00:45:21.438 --> 00:45:24.316 it. Well, the campers coming in and walk around and kick the stones over. 00:45:24.349 --> 00:45:28.477 You know, now that's a, that's a stretch of it. People going to look at 00:45:28.510 --> 00:45:32.626 the archaeological sites hurt the archaeological sites, like we say, well 00:45:32.659 --> 00:45:36.666 , why is that an effect of damn operations? 00:45:36.699 --> 00:45:39.405 Well, we have to take care of it anyway because it's within the, you know 00:45:39.438 --> 00:45:41.477 , 00:45:41.510 --> 00:45:45.396 so there's all kinds of things that need to be worked out. And I would 00:45:45.429 --> 00:45:51.566 suggest that in the next few years, we need to have a lot more patients 00:45:51.599 --> 00:45:57.186 understanding and trying to understand that because they, like I said, the 00:45:57.219 --> 00:46:01.986 , the Zuni and some other tribes are just really coming out of their boxes 00:46:02.019 --> 00:46:05.956 and talking about this and wanting to do stuff about it. And the 00:46:05.989 --> 00:46:08.956 Department and the Bureau of Reclamation are trying to accommodate them as 00:46:08.989 --> 00:46:15.106 much as they can. And uh so you just had to go along with that and, and 00:46:15.139 --> 00:46:19.126 help with that situation 00:46:19.159 --> 00:46:25.566 that reminds me of um the shift that occurred in the 19 seventies and 00:46:25.599 --> 00:46:31.945 eighties in terms of um managing the Colorado River. Uh in your oral 00:46:31.978 --> 00:46:36.905 history interview with Britt's story in 1996 you mentioned that prior uh 00:46:36.938 --> 00:46:43.307 to the 19 seventies, at least it was kind of a family affair. And uh 00:46:43.340 --> 00:46:48.006 people with the Bureau of reclamation would talk to representatives from 00:46:48.039 --> 00:46:53.106 the States and decisions would be made pretty quickly and efficiently 00:46:53.139 --> 00:46:56.787 about how to manage the river to meet the needs of, of the States, 00:46:56.820 --> 00:47:01.727 etcetera. And, and you mentioned that uh sometime in the seventies and 00:47:01.760 --> 00:47:05.365 early eighties, that there was more and more pressure from 00:47:05.398 --> 00:47:10.396 environmentalists to insert themselves and broader publics into the 00:47:10.429 --> 00:47:14.796 process. And I think you even mentioned that you had kind of misjudged 00:47:14.829 --> 00:47:19.997 that, that change as it was coming along. And can you talk a little bit 00:47:20.030 --> 00:47:24.675 about that, that important shift? And, well, I guess how it happened, I 00:47:24.708 --> 00:47:32.708 think it just, it will, 00:47:35.329 --> 00:47:38.577 I think is 00:47:38.610 --> 00:47:44.967 over time that we developed water projects to develop an economy in a 00:47:45.000 --> 00:47:49.236 society which was developing and, and, and they wanted the water really 00:47:49.269 --> 00:47:52.026 bad because they need to have their farms, they need to have their 00:47:52.059 --> 00:47:55.345 factories, they need to have their electricity and all that. And then as a 00:47:55.378 --> 00:47:58.736 society, we got all these things, we get more comfortable. Then we now 00:47:58.769 --> 00:48:01.756 have time to say, oh, but you know, maybe we need to worry about the 00:48:01.789 --> 00:48:05.655 Humpback chub now and maybe we need to worry about these other things now. 00:48:05.688 --> 00:48:12.537 And I just really never really fully grasp in those earlier years, the 00:48:12.570 --> 00:48:16.077 impact that would have on the program, how, how strong those things would 00:48:16.110 --> 00:48:19.925 be. But I think it's because 00:48:19.958 --> 00:48:24.967 I had a good way to put. This is when you, when you solve a problem that 00:48:25.000 --> 00:48:27.057 people don't have to worry about that problem and they can worry about the 00:48:27.090 --> 00:48:30.486 next one. And they're not so worried about the water anymore because they 00:48:30.519 --> 00:48:32.856 got all the water they need and they get all the electricity they need and 00:48:32.889 --> 00:48:35.756 they got food and they've got money. So now we can worry about these other 00:48:35.789 --> 00:48:39.425 things. But when you start worrying about those things, the things that 00:48:39.458 --> 00:48:43.095 are making the, making it possible are also hurting these other things and 00:48:43.128 --> 00:48:47.316 you need to go back and rethink some of those things. And I think, I think 00:48:47.349 --> 00:48:51.436 our, as a society, our, our whole society is much more oriented towards 00:48:51.469 --> 00:48:55.655 environmentalism and, and uh protecting these things. I'm not saying 00:48:55.688 --> 00:48:58.186 that's bad, but that's just the way it is. They're much more oriented 00:48:58.219 --> 00:49:02.425 toward out than they were before. And you and we have learned to deal with 00:49:02.458 --> 00:49:07.925 that. It sounds a little bit like um the, the same thing is happening now 00:49:07.958 --> 00:49:15.086 with the growing influence of the tribes that it wasn't a central part of 00:49:15.119 --> 00:49:19.566 the decision making process before. Now. It is. And there's this 00:49:19.599 --> 00:49:22.945 adjustment period, we can afford to do it now that we could, we could do 00:49:22.978 --> 00:49:28.655 it before you. I think that's right. Yeah. Is there anything else that you 00:49:28.688 --> 00:49:32.436 think we're not paying attention to yet that we're gonna have to start 00:49:32.469 --> 00:49:36.385 paying attention to that? But right off top my head, I know we got too 00:49:36.418 --> 00:49:40.595 much to pay attention to now. Yeah. So I think it's gotten pretty 00:49:40.628 --> 00:49:44.166 complicated. It has got very complicated. Yeah. We talk about that a 00:49:44.199 --> 00:49:48.997 little bit. How has decision in your mind? Um, you know, there's pros and 00:49:49.030 --> 00:49:54.425 cons to every change. Some people win, some people lose. We have more 00:49:54.458 --> 00:50:00.467 participation, more voices, more values represented. What's the downside 00:50:00.500 --> 00:50:04.885 to that? Is, is it all good or have we lost something in the process of 00:50:04.918 --> 00:50:06.925 that? 00:50:06.958 --> 00:50:09.916 Well, yeah, you talk about the decision making process. I think what, what 00:50:09.949 --> 00:50:13.967 , what I'm seeing happening is decisions that used to be made at the 00:50:14.000 --> 00:50:18.307 bureau level in the Park Service level. If you like sir level now raised 00:50:18.340 --> 00:50:22.276 up, they're being made at the assistant secretary level or the secretary's 00:50:22.309 --> 00:50:28.247 designee level, you know, like uh am Wing submits its suggestions to the 00:50:28.280 --> 00:50:31.896 Secretary of Interior, not to the commission of reclamation or the 00:50:31.929 --> 00:50:36.747 Director of Park Service. So you've seen a centralization, centralization. 00:50:36.780 --> 00:50:40.905 It's a, it's a centralization of power. Yeah. Is that good or bad? What 00:50:40.938 --> 00:50:46.296 are the pros and cons of that slows things down quite a bit I think 00:50:46.329 --> 00:50:50.017 because you have to wait for, you have to wait for answers and then does 00:50:50.050 --> 00:50:53.577 it politicize it more? Yes, 00:50:53.610 --> 00:50:55.655 absolutely. 00:50:55.688 --> 00:51:00.925 Can you think of any instances in which the local people like am wig or a 00:51:00.958 --> 00:51:05.787 group of decision makers, you know, worked something out and then sent it 00:51:05.820 --> 00:51:11.845 on up for approval and, and it got either stalled or stymied? Yes, for you 00:51:11.878 --> 00:51:17.006 , an example is desired future conditions for the Colorado route which are 00:51:17.039 --> 00:51:21.405 all pounded up by a, they all agreed to it and then over time it's been 00:51:21.438 --> 00:51:28.526 challenged from the top down. Hm. 00:51:28.559 --> 00:51:35.477 Any other examples that you can think of what would have taught my head 00:51:35.510 --> 00:51:40.307 when you were in Washington, you spent a lot of time focused on policy and 00:51:40.340 --> 00:51:45.057 budgets. And that's something we haven't talked about much yet today. But 00:51:45.090 --> 00:51:49.905 in your 1996 oral history, you talked about how important the budgeting 00:51:49.938 --> 00:51:56.706 process is for determining what gets done. Well, yeah, and that's true. In 00:51:56.739 --> 00:52:00.925 , in those days, I was with the Bureau of Reclamation's budget. You know, 00:52:00.958 --> 00:52:03.936 that's what I was working on it. And then we, we couldn't, it wasn't 00:52:03.969 --> 00:52:06.787 budgeted. You know, you had to get your budget and get the appropriate 00:52:06.820 --> 00:52:13.336 funds from Congress and move forward. Oh, and 00:52:13.369 --> 00:52:16.486 the magic program is a little bit different animal because it gets, its 00:52:16.519 --> 00:52:19.885 budget was set by law. It said you'll use power revenues and here's the 00:52:19.918 --> 00:52:22.727 ceiling and it indexes each year according to the CP I and all that. So 00:52:22.760 --> 00:52:28.066 they know how much money they got to spend. No, some of the agencies like 00:52:28.099 --> 00:52:31.925 IO the Bureau of Reclamation Parkour both are using other sources of money 00:52:31.958 --> 00:52:37.146 to do things they want to do, which they feed into the AM W program. And 00:52:37.179 --> 00:52:41.425 uh that works good. But budget is a big issue. It, it, it, it, it, it's a 00:52:41.458 --> 00:52:49.458 huge issue. Um So even though the AMW budget is set uh statutorily and 00:52:49.869 --> 00:52:55.037 it's reliably there. I imagine there must have been some debates and 00:52:55.070 --> 00:52:58.756 controversies over how to allocate that funding. What kind of research we 00:52:58.789 --> 00:53:02.135 have that every year we have that every year. Yeah, it's like I said, they 00:53:02.168 --> 00:53:05.977 put the budget 30% over the budget or the ceiling. Then you have to decide 00:53:06.010 --> 00:53:09.807 , well, what things we're not gonna do. And the technical working group, 00:53:09.840 --> 00:53:14.807 the Twig Group has a budget ad hoc group called the Bag Group, which have 00:53:14.840 --> 00:53:20.195 a member of the Twig B. I'm a member of the Twig B and we were working 00:53:20.228 --> 00:53:23.827 very hard on trying to get the budget put together for the next three 00:53:23.860 --> 00:53:29.115 years, especially next year. And uh in fact, we were kind of pushing the 00:53:29.148 --> 00:53:33.717 critic, I was pushing, let's do a one year budget and not 00:53:33.750 --> 00:53:38.077 settle on three year budget until we get more people on board from the 00:53:38.110 --> 00:53:42.486 administration. Because you know, the written, some of the thinking was 00:53:42.519 --> 00:53:44.986 you said a three year, but then you wouldn't change it for three years. If 00:53:45.019 --> 00:53:50.626 you year one year, two, year three were locked down, which takes away the 00:53:50.659 --> 00:53:53.526 the learning experience. What happened here? What should change? Year two 00:53:53.559 --> 00:53:56.316 should change? Year three, we kind of had a little trouble wrestling about 00:53:56.349 --> 00:54:02.956 that, but the whole the whole process it has to be worked out and then 00:54:02.989 --> 00:54:05.986 budgeting is very important because it doesn't, it doesn't control what 00:54:06.019 --> 00:54:12.396 research we're gonna do, we have research uh 00:54:12.429 --> 00:54:17.717 that directly applies to the, to the Grand Canyon program. And then, but I 00:54:17.750 --> 00:54:21.365 think the same researchers are also finding the really interesting studies 00:54:21.398 --> 00:54:27.345 they love to do and uh interesting and scientifically valid and important 00:54:27.378 --> 00:54:33.997 , but we don't impact Grand Canyon Dam operations. And so what they, we, 00:54:34.030 --> 00:54:38.037 we find some money in their budget to do that, then we squeeze each other. 00:54:38.070 --> 00:54:43.967 You, you shouldn't be doing this. But uh have there been any significant 00:54:44.000 --> 00:54:48.557 debates over funding since you've been involved that you can recall or 00:54:48.590 --> 00:54:52.845 significant issues that had to be resolved over how funding decisions 00:54:52.878 --> 00:54:56.577 would be made? Well, I think, well, what happens the way the process is is 00:54:56.610 --> 00:55:02.606 that uh the technical working group recommends a budget to the a wig and a 00:55:02.639 --> 00:55:06.186 wig recommends a budget to the secretary. So there's, there's that process 00:55:06.219 --> 00:55:08.595 here. So how we decide what we're going to recommend to the secretary? 00:55:08.628 --> 00:55:11.876 That's what it comes down to and you try not to, right. You shouldn't 00:55:11.909 --> 00:55:14.936 recommend the secretary. I think it's over budgetary general because he 00:55:14.969 --> 00:55:18.077 has got any money to do that with. So it's saying, how do we decide what's 00:55:18.110 --> 00:55:21.166 more important to put the budget than, than other things? And there's some 00:55:21.199 --> 00:55:27.865 debate about that certainly. Yeah. How long has it been since uh the 00:55:27.898 --> 00:55:31.077 Secretary of Interior had to approve the budget? Was there ever a time in 00:55:31.110 --> 00:55:36.385 which the budget was managed autonomously not for this program. No. Well, 00:55:36.418 --> 00:55:40.276 I think that would actually, no matter what agency you work for the 00:55:40.309 --> 00:55:44.557 process is you, you draft your budget, the secretary recommends to OMB. 00:55:44.590 --> 00:55:48.115 Omb decides that comes back down feedback, you know. And so there's always 00:55:48.148 --> 00:55:53.086 lays over oversight but uh 00:55:53.119 --> 00:56:00.546 could the, the administration sweep those funds and, or, um, say that you 00:56:00.579 --> 00:56:05.227 can't spend them or is that authority not there because of this? The law, 00:56:05.260 --> 00:56:10.546 I'm not sure. I think the law says the law says that the program 00:56:10.579 --> 00:56:14.456 authorizes money to spend on it. So I'm not sure they could. I still think 00:56:14.489 --> 00:56:16.425 you say we're not going to spend the money you authorized for us. We're 00:56:16.458 --> 00:56:20.345 gonna put in the bank and save it or do something with it. But like, I 00:56:20.378 --> 00:56:24.526 don't see that happening. I don't see that ever happening. Do you think 00:56:24.559 --> 00:56:29.686 the change in administrations in Washington DC at any point since you've 00:56:29.719 --> 00:56:34.506 been involved, have a significant spillover effect on the local level of 00:56:34.539 --> 00:56:41.006 management? Or are, are you kind of ins, is, am wig sort of insulated from 00:56:41.039 --> 00:56:45.945 , you know, presidential changes? I don't think they're included from it. 00:56:45.978 --> 00:56:50.477 No, I don't know because they were changing the secretary. The change of 00:56:50.510 --> 00:56:54.655 the deputy secretary directly impacts the program because the person in 00:56:54.688 --> 00:56:59.227 charge of the Amway program is the secretary's designee he's appointed by 00:56:59.260 --> 00:57:01.416 the secretary. 00:57:01.449 --> 00:57:05.845 Can we go back and look at those presidential changes and have you? I mean 00:57:05.878 --> 00:57:12.365 , when, when Obama came in, uh, and new people were uh appointed to 00:57:12.398 --> 00:57:20.398 interior. What kind of changes do you remember seeing as a result? 00:57:21.070 --> 00:57:26.477 Well, I think you will find a lot more environmentally sympathetic 00:57:26.510 --> 00:57:31.717 administration than we did under, like under the Bush administration. And 00:57:31.750 --> 00:57:35.425 what would that mean? What, what's, what it means? You, you, when you put 00:57:35.458 --> 00:57:40.615 together your, your program, you, you, you say, well, we're gonna 00:57:40.648 --> 00:57:45.376 concentrate more on Humpback chub than we are on power. Um, something like 00:57:45.409 --> 00:57:49.865 that, you know, and so under the Bush administration, you feel that there 00:57:49.898 --> 00:57:54.086 was a little more emphasis on power, they weren't quite as strict. That's 00:57:54.119 --> 00:57:58.126 what they weren't quite as hard learners, they weren't quite as vocal. Uh 00:57:58.159 --> 00:58:03.307 , but I think in the, in the Obama administration we had some people who 00:58:03.340 --> 00:58:08.276 were pretty, pretty hard hardliners. How about the Clinton administration 00:58:08.309 --> 00:58:15.566 ? What, what was the character of? I don't remember that far back. Yeah. 00:58:15.599 --> 00:58:19.836 All right. So I won't go back to the first Bush. Don't go back to the 00:58:19.869 --> 00:58:27.405 first Bush or Carter or any of those people. All right. Um, the whole 00:58:27.438 --> 00:58:32.166 concept of adaptive management that the AM wig is based on was kind of an 00:58:32.199 --> 00:58:37.925 artifact of the 19 nineties, late eighties and early nineties was a time 00:58:37.958 --> 00:58:43.186 in which, um, scholars and resource managers sort of floated this idea of 00:58:43.219 --> 00:58:49.896 flexible adaptive management. Do you remember when that first came in as a 00:58:49.929 --> 00:58:54.836 management paradigm? And what did you think of it? And how easy was it to 00:58:54.869 --> 00:58:58.606 remember the first time I had ever really thought about it or got involved 00:58:58.639 --> 00:59:02.767 in it was, was, was with this program, was with this program. And, and I 00:59:02.800 --> 00:59:09.586 remember, oh, did it seem to make sense to you at the time or did it? No, 00:59:09.619 --> 00:59:13.646 it makes sense to me and it still does make sense to me. It's a lot better 00:59:13.679 --> 00:59:16.856 than just drawing the line and this is what we're gonna do no matter what. 00:59:16.889 --> 00:59:19.396 OK, we, we'll experience with this and see how it works. If it doesn't 00:59:19.429 --> 00:59:23.336 work, we'll change it. We'll try to get what works best. That makes a lot 00:59:23.369 --> 00:59:29.166 of sense to me. Yeah, you, you adapt your management to do uh to reach the 00:59:29.199 --> 00:59:32.945 goal we want to set. And that's, that's the tricky part of setting your 00:59:32.978 --> 00:59:38.956 right goals. What was the nature of decision making prior to this embrace 00:59:38.989 --> 00:59:42.356 of adaptive management? 00:59:42.389 --> 00:59:49.925 Like you just decide what you're gonna do? And that's it. I mean, and 00:59:49.958 --> 00:59:53.077 I don't think we were, we were planning on experimenting and, and letting 00:59:53.110 --> 00:59:55.876 people from the outside come in and say, well, we, you should try this and 00:59:55.909 --> 01:00:00.236 it was the stakeholder involvement wasn't that great and a little 01:00:00.269 --> 01:00:05.217 flexibility wasn't there. Yeah. Do you think ne a the National 01:00:05.250 --> 01:00:08.456 Environmental Policy Act in 1969 01:00:08.489 --> 01:00:15.166 had a significant impact on public involvement and environmental analysis 01:00:15.199 --> 01:00:21.646 um or was it not until G ce S came in that really anything began to change 01:00:21.679 --> 01:00:26.695 and how the Colorado River and Glen County Dam were operating. When you 01:00:26.728 --> 01:00:30.566 talk to Carl Room, Lincoln, your name was probably G ce S is what did it, 01:00:30.599 --> 01:00:35.816 you know? That's what that. Yeah. Yeah, I think so. I can remember as 01:00:35.849 --> 01:00:40.247 regional director, we did the G CE S and then we actually modified some of 01:00:40.280 --> 01:00:44.845 our operating criteria for the dam to what we thought helped. And I 01:00:44.878 --> 01:00:50.247 remember meeting my office hall here where your group environment. So why 01:00:50.280 --> 01:00:53.756 don't you do an E I si said, why do we do an EIS? They said, so you can 01:00:53.789 --> 01:00:57.356 change your operator as we did change the operation, you know, so I didn't 01:00:57.389 --> 01:01:00.126 see much need for you to go to because the EIS is a long, complicated, 01:01:00.159 --> 01:01:04.236 expensive process. I thought we, we, we made the changes necessary, but 01:01:04.269 --> 01:01:08.925 they were pushing very hard for an EIS because it gives them a forum, you 01:01:08.958 --> 01:01:12.787 know, when you, when you do an EIS publishing the government Federal 01:01:12.820 --> 01:01:16.155 Register and everybody has the chance to talk about it. And so it really 01:01:16.188 --> 01:01:18.956 opened up the forum for, for them and then they pushed for it. I think if 01:01:18.989 --> 01:01:23.506 I've done their side, I would have done the same thing. How did the G CE S 01:01:23.539 --> 01:01:26.405 program get started? 01:01:26.438 --> 01:01:29.845 Like I said, we, we, we were looking at the results of the study we did to 01:01:29.878 --> 01:01:33.706 put power plants on the outlet tubes and the environmental impacts of 01:01:33.739 --> 01:01:38.287 those were causing some concern. And so we decided we will do an 01:01:38.320 --> 01:01:41.497 environmental study of the impacts of Glen K day. That was a Bureau of 01:01:41.530 --> 01:01:45.945 Decision. Uh that was not pushed by a statute, that was a bureau that was 01:01:45.978 --> 01:01:49.796 a bureau decision. Did, um I think I remember hearing something about 01:01:49.829 --> 01:01:55.166 James Watt was a little bit involved in authorizing that or? Yeah, I think 01:01:55.199 --> 01:02:03.115 that, yeah, I that's true. And, and he, he was interested in, in that 01:02:03.148 --> 01:02:05.486 because 01:02:05.519 --> 01:02:09.747 environmentalists were putting a lot of heat on the interior department 01:02:09.780 --> 01:02:13.486 and Bureau of reclamation. I think so at the time. So this was 01:02:13.519 --> 01:02:16.936 accommodating an interest group that was becoming more powerful at that 01:02:16.969 --> 01:02:23.175 time. Uh huh. And how did that evolve? They were environmentalists were 01:02:23.208 --> 01:02:27.686 pushing for an EIS, you guys were saying we could do the same thing 01:02:27.719 --> 01:02:30.217 without all the complication. So they went to George Miller and got the 01:02:30.250 --> 01:02:34.916 Grand Union Protection Act authorized which requires an EIS. 01:02:34.949 --> 01:02:42.949 That was 1992. Yeah. So the G ce s started around 1982 8283. So how did it 01:02:44.418 --> 01:02:49.436 develop to the point where an Act of Congress finally intervened? Well, I 01:02:49.469 --> 01:02:52.445 think the environmental were pushing it because we said we did, we were, 01:02:52.478 --> 01:02:55.796 we thought we'd made the changes we needed to make and they wanted more 01:02:55.829 --> 01:03:01.925 changes. I think that was what it was. So they went to George Miller. 01:03:01.958 --> 01:03:04.876 That's how it happened. 01:03:04.909 --> 01:03:08.717 Well, do you guys have any additional questions you'd like to ask? I've 01:03:08.750 --> 01:03:15.296 gone through my list and added some to it. 01:03:15.329 --> 01:03:18.456 Well, I mean, how do you feel? Do you, it's been over an hour, do you want 01:03:18.489 --> 01:03:26.206 to? Oh, all right. We can, ok, we can continue. Do you have a gender? 01:03:26.239 --> 01:03:29.126 Mhm. 01:03:29.159 --> 01:03:34.816 I think we covered a lot of the big structural issues and what, what these 01:03:34.849 --> 01:03:40.486 different agencies do and what just personally, what's your, 01:03:40.519 --> 01:03:45.046 you're still involved, really involved? Which is, which is pretty neat. 01:03:45.079 --> 01:03:47.296 And 01:03:47.329 --> 01:03:51.787 I guess maybe what do you see as a, as a role for, for consultants, people 01:03:51.820 --> 01:03:56.796 like yourself now? Um Are you just one more voice from one agency? You've 01:03:56.829 --> 01:04:00.086 got a lot of history with this and, well, I think we're writing a history. 01:04:00.119 --> 01:04:04.146 What can we, we have a different input but you've got a lot of experience 01:04:04.179 --> 01:04:08.686 to share. I think the role of consultant is to represent his people at the 01:04:08.719 --> 01:04:14.956 table, you know. Yeah. And uh I believe in doing that 01:04:14.989 --> 01:04:18.865 actually at, at the technical working group. I'm not a representative of 01:04:18.898 --> 01:04:22.626 Creta. I'm a representative Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems, which 01:04:22.659 --> 01:04:27.537 is a Creta member and that's how power gets its two people at the table. 01:04:27.570 --> 01:04:33.526 What is the person Leslie? Oh, well, the actual and actually appointed 01:04:33.559 --> 01:04:38.385 guy is uh Bill Davis who's a consultant to create it. Also. He, he's a 01:04:38.418 --> 01:04:43.155 fish and wildlife biologist. He's a fish biologist really. So, we have a 01:04:43.188 --> 01:04:47.046 mixture of two kinds of skills at the table there. But we, we basically 01:04:47.079 --> 01:04:52.497 take our direction from Rita and, and, uh, and Lily James, you, you've met 01:04:52.530 --> 01:04:57.057 Lily James, I think, haven't you? I think she's executive director. Creed. 01:04:57.090 --> 01:05:00.606 She's the AM wig member from Crete 01:05:00.639 --> 01:05:05.736 Leslie James is Yan wig member from Creta. Uh, Ted Raton is the wig member 01:05:05.769 --> 01:05:11.106 from UAs. And if the twig I represent, Ted Bill Dave represents Lizzie 01:05:11.139 --> 01:05:16.077 James, that's how it works. And as we all sing off the same chart, so 01:05:16.110 --> 01:05:22.017 there's no, we talk to each other. You plan to keep doing it. Well, you 01:05:22.050 --> 01:05:25.945 know, the guy has to have something to do and I had my 84th birthday in 01:05:25.978 --> 01:05:33.557 February congratulation. But uh my mom just turned 84 in April. And uh III 01:05:33.590 --> 01:05:40.506 I don't know how much longer I do. I do this but it, I have deep interest 01:05:40.539 --> 01:05:44.807 in it and it's, it's exciting and fun. And like I say, I asked us to do, 01:05:44.840 --> 01:05:47.546 you know, my neighbor cuts his lawn three times a week. I just got back 01:05:47.579 --> 01:05:52.365 from the meetings. It's different, but I like it better. 01:05:52.398 --> 01:05:58.267 Is there anybody else? Um uh like Leslie James or others who are more 01:05:58.300 --> 01:06:04.727 knowledgeable about the uh the power side of, of this, you know, Amway 01:06:04.760 --> 01:06:08.896 that we should interview. I think Lizzie James is probably the power 01:06:08.929 --> 01:06:13.026 person. You need to, to, she involved for, from the beginning she took my 01:06:13.059 --> 01:06:17.546 place when I left, she took my place. Well, there was one other guy in 01:06:17.579 --> 01:06:20.517 between there for about a year and a half but she's basically been the 01:06:20.550 --> 01:06:24.626 driver of Creta for 01:06:24.659 --> 01:06:29.526 interview her. Where does she live? She live in Phoenix. Really? Yeah, 01:06:29.559 --> 01:06:32.675 that's convenient. 01:06:32.708 --> 01:06:37.546 Is that where Creta is based? That's what the office is. You know, you 01:06:37.579 --> 01:06:42.767 know, the officers here until I left and then, uh, they hired Leslie James 01:06:42.800 --> 01:06:46.577 and they moved the office to Phoenix. That's where she lived. 01:06:46.610 --> 01:06:50.195 She has deep history and power. She was Salt River project person for a 01:06:50.228 --> 01:06:55.517 number of years. 01:06:55.550 --> 01:06:58.686 Anybody else who's been around a long time that would have an interesting 01:06:58.719 --> 01:07:01.997 perspective that we should interview 01:07:02.030 --> 01:07:08.635 is felt in the state of Colorado that I would suggest you interview. Uh, 01:07:08.668 --> 01:07:12.736 it's gonna take a minute to Dave Garrett. No, Dave Garrett. He was one of 01:07:12.769 --> 01:07:18.405 the science advisors. I'm talking about the UEO. They represent. Even Don 01:07:18.438 --> 01:07:24.606 Twigg from Colorado. Oh, I can't think of his name. That's my fault. I 01:07:24.639 --> 01:07:28.236 can't, I can't think of people's names anymore. 01:07:28.269 --> 01:07:32.017 Uh, I can look that up. A twig rep from Colorado. Been around a long time 01:07:32.050 --> 01:07:38.706 . A long time. Yeah. Yeah. Randy. Randy Sea. Randy Seho. You, how do you 01:07:38.739 --> 01:07:42.546 spell his last? She's dead. 01:07:42.579 --> 01:07:47.727 How do you spell his last name? Seaholm? I think Chol is like you said it 01:07:47.760 --> 01:07:55.760 , you know. Yeah. He's been around a long time. 01:07:57.148 --> 01:08:00.436 All right. If there are no more, do you have any stories you'd like to 01:08:00.469 --> 01:08:06.227 tell us? Like, for example, we're all really interested in, um, the drama 01:08:06.260 --> 01:08:12.606 of 1982 83 when you had to put the plywood up so you could raise the dam 01:08:12.639 --> 01:08:16.317 some more. And it was scary. Ok. That was the scariest time. Well, if you 01:08:16.350 --> 01:08:23.885 want. Yeah. Well, tell us that story. We'd like to. Well, it was, yeah, 01:08:23.918 --> 01:08:30.166 there's a couple of videos I know, but it was, uh, I think it was a design 01:08:30.199 --> 01:08:33.226 mistake because they did it. They really, everybody thought about it, I 01:08:33.259 --> 01:08:38.546 guess. But as the water goes over to spill away, it creates little bubbles 01:08:38.579 --> 01:08:42.206 and then the bubbles explode and they pop the concrete and chip out the 01:08:42.239 --> 01:08:47.217 concrete and when you have a huge flow like they had, we had there and for 01:08:47.250 --> 01:08:51.687 so long a time it, it, it causes the cavities in the concrete spillway. 01:08:51.720 --> 01:08:55.425 And, you know, you started seeing red water come out the end, which means 01:08:55.458 --> 01:08:59.187 there's a lot of sandstone in the water and it was, it was a scary time. 01:08:59.220 --> 01:09:04.515 It was, it was really scary. How long did that last days or weeks? Weeks. 01:09:04.548 --> 01:09:08.506 And then we, we put the, we put the plywood up so we could close the 01:09:08.539 --> 01:09:12.506 spillway gates and shut them off. And we went down there and, uh, I 01:09:12.539 --> 01:09:16.376 actually took one of the little trips down there, a little cart on a cable 01:09:16.409 --> 01:09:20.376 to see what was going on down there. And we had some magnificent design 01:09:20.409 --> 01:09:23.687 people in Denver who forgot what was going on. They figured out how to fix 01:09:23.720 --> 01:09:27.206 it. And we, we got an emergency contractor in there, we got the whole darn 01:09:27.239 --> 01:09:31.506 thing fixed. And before the next season, before the next flood started. So 01:09:31.539 --> 01:09:34.765 it was, it was an amazing piece of work. It really was. And I don't take 01:09:34.798 --> 01:09:38.425 much credit for that because I didn't do any of them. All I did was sit at 01:09:38.458 --> 01:09:42.385 the top and say, yeah, go do this. You know, it was not my work. It was 01:09:42.418 --> 01:09:47.296 somebody else's work. It was a scary time. You did a little bit of uh if I 01:09:47.329 --> 01:09:52.336 remember correctly, some design work on stress test design work in your 01:09:52.369 --> 01:09:56.265 early, very early career. My first job with the bureau was on designs of 01:09:56.298 --> 01:10:00.317 Glen Canyon Dam. Uh Yeah, the actually the, the, the design of the dam of 01:10:00.350 --> 01:10:04.496 the arch structure itself, which at that point in time, the first one I 01:10:04.529 --> 01:10:09.296 built was Hoover Dam, a thin arch dam and we thinned them down a lot since 01:10:09.329 --> 01:10:17.329 then. But it was still a so a very interesting thing. It was kind of that 01:10:18.350 --> 01:10:22.876 one. Any of the brains behind those days, we use martial calculators and 01:10:22.909 --> 01:10:27.305 computers, you know, and uh we, we were computing the stresses in the, in 01:10:27.338 --> 01:10:32.246 the dam as it was being designed. And uh one of the most famous dam 01:10:32.279 --> 01:10:35.885 designers in the world, a fellow named Merlin Coen, worked for the bureau 01:10:35.918 --> 01:10:40.756 then and he was in charge of designing the dam itself. And then I worked 01:10:40.789 --> 01:10:43.836 for him directly for him. And I just, just had to look into that job. 01:10:43.869 --> 01:10:49.246 Actually, I think you turn this thing off. I was hired to work in Earth 01:10:49.279 --> 01:10:55.246 dams. Should I? No, it's all right. This is, this is not really, I was 01:10:55.279 --> 01:10:59.406 hired by the bureau to work in the Earth Dam section because I was really 01:10:59.439 --> 01:11:03.107 interested in earth mechanics because I studied that when I was in the 01:11:03.140 --> 01:11:07.956 Army, the Corps of Engineers. And uh II, I interviewed the guy who was 01:11:07.989 --> 01:11:11.506 head of the Earth Earth Department. He hired me and, but when I reported 01:11:11.539 --> 01:11:14.076 for work, they said, well, we've changed our mind and put you in the 01:11:14.109 --> 01:11:17.635 concrete dam section. Why? Well, because that's where we have a vacancy 01:11:17.668 --> 01:11:20.765 for you. So I went to work. It was like the best thing that ever happened 01:11:20.798 --> 01:11:24.967 because I got to meet with this man, Run Cope and he was, he was something 01:11:25.000 --> 01:11:29.857 of a whiz. He knew what he was doing and we had damn deserves all over the 01:11:29.890 --> 01:11:34.055 world, come to Denver to visit Berlin Cope. And he would invite me to sit 01:11:34.088 --> 01:11:38.796 in the meetings with them. He liked me for some reason and I did that for 01:11:38.829 --> 01:11:43.756 about uh about a year. And then I, then I moved on to something else you 01:11:43.789 --> 01:11:48.946 mentioned earlier in the interview that there was a design flaw in the uh 01:11:48.979 --> 01:11:52.976 uh the outflow. Uh I don't say it's a design flow. It's just, they didn't 01:11:53.009 --> 01:11:56.687 know, you know. So it was, they, they then since they've created design, 01:11:56.720 --> 01:12:00.656 which, which, which avoids that. Right. When we rebuild it, we build it to 01:12:00.689 --> 01:12:05.286 a new design that I was well, six flaw. That means like, sort of made a 01:12:05.319 --> 01:12:08.675 mistake that that isn't really true. They just did the best they could 01:12:08.708 --> 01:12:12.765 with what they knew as large as you had at the time. That's what they do. 01:12:12.798 --> 01:12:16.675 It's like adaptive management. You do the best you can and then you go to 01:12:16.708 --> 01:12:21.616 work and then you, once they found they were in the process of modifying 01:12:21.649 --> 01:12:26.217 dams to create that kind of spillway were being modified. Flaming gos has 01:12:26.250 --> 01:12:29.286 been modified. Linane has been modified, several others have all been 01:12:29.319 --> 01:12:35.750 modified to, to, to that new, to do that new design to avoid that problem. 01:12:36.168 --> 01:12:38.168 It's interesting if you had stayed in Earthen dams, you would have been at 01:12:40.208 --> 01:12:45.237 the center of the storm when Teton Dam blew out. I kind of was because 01:12:45.270 --> 01:12:50.626 where I was in Washington at the time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Teton dam blew up. 01:12:50.659 --> 01:12:54.836 Yeah, it's true. What kind of impact did that have on the bureau? Quite a 01:12:54.869 --> 01:12:57.845 bit, quite a bit. That was a real shelter for everybody in the bureau. 01:12:57.878 --> 01:13:02.897 Like one of our dams fields, you know, that, that's, you don't like that. 01:13:02.930 --> 01:13:08.786 And, uh, it had quite an impact, quite an impact. Did you change design? 01:13:08.819 --> 01:13:12.116 The whole design of dams has changed since then and they've gone back and 01:13:12.149 --> 01:13:17.897 modified almost all the major earth dams were, have been modified to, to 01:13:17.930 --> 01:13:22.586 solve that problem. There's not a problem. 01:13:22.619 --> 01:13:26.326 Is this still going? It is. Would you like me to turn it off? Shut it off 01:13:26.359 --> 01:13:29.135 ? 01:13:29.168 --> 01:13:31.789 Oh, I'm sorry.