Right. My name is Paul, her of Arizona State University and we're
interviewing Cliff Barrett in Salt Lake City. Today is uh May 15th, 2017.
And I'm being assisted by Jen Sweeney and Josh mcfadden, both of Arizona
State University Cliff. Thanks so much for joining us today to talk about
your experiences. Um Could you start out by telling us your, your
positions that you've held with the Adaptive Management Program and the
Bureau of Reclamation and the years that you've been involved with the
Bureau of Reclamation. I uh I have a whole string of positions from my
whole career. Uh The ones that can apply this program probably were I was
assistant commissioner for planning and operations uh in Washington DC
while the bureau was studying, putting generating units on the outlet
tubes. And that study produced some pushback from a lot of environmental
groups, the boaters mainly because they didn't like the fluctuations and
flows on the river. And so we decided to stop that study and uh begin what
we call the Glen Kenyon environmental Studies. Glen Kenny, was it Glenn
and Dam Environmental studies? I forget the exact name but it was, there
was a studies, it was not an EIS it was an environmental studies thing and
this is how I was getting started. I transferred from uh Washington to
become regional director here in Salt Lake City. So that study was going
on while I was regional director. And uh and Dave Wagner was in charge of
those studies. We had hired him specifically do those studies.
And then in uh 1989 the studies are still underway just to getting to
pretty much being completed. I retired from uh the bureau and went to work
as executive director of the Colorado River Energy Distributors
Association.
And in the next few years after that, the uh is when legislation is being
written. Uh and we, we cooperated with George Miller in writing the
legislation, the Grand Canyon Protection Act. And that, and as a result of
that act then is when the G CD was put together. And uh that's how the
Adaptive Ma Program began was a result of that act. And that act required
the EIS to be done. So that, that took another several years to get the
EIS done. And as part of the EIS uh creator was kind of like a cooperating
agency in that whole thing. We attended all the meetings and helped with
the, with the drafting of the EIS and, and all, and all that work. And,
and then in 1993 before it was finished, you know, the Rod wasn't done on
the, not the, the uh the environmental impact study and the record
decision were done, I think until 1995 96 along in there. But in 93 I
retired from uh working from, for Creta. And since then I worked as a
consultant uh uh representing Creta uh initially on the AM wig for a short
time and then also on the uh the uh technical work group. Yeah. So you've
been involved both in AM Wig and Twig since 1996. Right. Up to this is the
beginning.
Yeah, there was two years. I dropped out. II I took a two year break and
did something else for two years and then came back. Do you still attend
any of the IW? Yeah, I do, I do all the Twig meetings. Well, the thing is
I don't like for some health reasons. I, I in my family, I, I cannot leave
home very often. So I do most of the twig meetings by phone. Throughout
the last year, I've done all the meetings and the, the things I've been
doing for the program. I've been doing my phone and internet and webinar
and stuff like that. So the um the Adaptive Management Program kind of has
three parts to it. There's a scientific research uh part, there's the
policy and management part and then there's the sort of public engagement
, the social and institutional components of it, which of those three
would you say you were most uh most involved in?
Well,
the Air Wing deals mainly with policy issues and things like that. And the
technical work group does mostly the science kind of things. And I've been
pretty deeply involved in both of those when you talk about, when we talk
about public outreach, I mean, uh well, the stakeholder engagement, uh the
development of the set of relationships between the stakeholders, the
evolution of that was kind of that was they kind of have both within twig.
And I think we all try to work together each other a lot. You know, you
go to a twig meeting and you sit around a table, there's Indian tribes
there, there's federal agencies, there, there's Creta, there, there's four
states and then there's uh the fishermen group and the park service, you
know, at the park service. But the park recreation people, there's a whole
group of and that whole, that whole effort I think is aimed at trying to
bring these people together and work together on all these issues. You
know, can you talk a little bit about how, how those relationships have
developed or evolved over time in the, in the years that you've been
involved?
Well, yeah, I think so. I think, you know, originally there was
uh a lot more contention and you might think there was a lot of country
where, where it was coming from, you know, and what were their bottom line
? And then why were they there to begin with? You know, and, uh over the
years we, we worked our way through a lot of that. I think in, with this
last, uh, the long, the LTEIS,
uh there was a little bit more conflict there anyway, because I think
basically because one of the things they had to do was decide what was the
goals of the new long term management program? Well, everybody had
different set of goals in mind, you know, and uh just an illustration, I
think during the development of the dep management program, one of the
early steps was to develop what we call the desired future conditions for
each resource. And we had quite a bit of conflict over some of that. We
finally got it all ironed out. And I, I tell you some of the conflict was
when we first started out on that, we tried to form a committee to
determine what the future goals for hydropower would be. And we were told
there was no future goal for hydropower flat out denied. So we fought that
a little bit and then, then we finally got hydropower put in the desired
future conditions. And then as we go into the L temp process, they were
trying to get ready to ignore that a little bit. From the hydropower
viewpoint, there's been a lot of push and shove, but also a lot of
compromise, you know, and uh in the end we got where we were but we ought
to be. What do you think is the reason for the success in overcoming
initial conflict and getting to a, a more cooper uh result in the end
listening to each other, uh listening to each other and talking and, and
you know, to review the law, review, the legislation, legislation even
says I your powers of source or resource, you know. So we, we had a lot of
things like having to deal with. But yeah, I think mostly it was a matter
of overcoming uh strong feelings of bias and uh I like a feeling of
thought that hydropower was hurting everything and therefore it shouldn't
be a goal at all. You know, and we kind of proved that it wasn't true. So
, um that seems to be the purpose of these um uh uh uh collaborative
efforts to get different stakeholders with different interests and values
together to talk to each other and hammer out compromises. So you feel
that, that, that effort worked out, it was successful. It, it's working.
Sure. You know, I think we had had that we would have been, the whole
program would have been in shambles, I think without that. Yeah, we would
have spent millions and millions of dollars on lawsuits, I think, and we
sit down and talk out, work it out.
That's, that's very helpful.
So, um what do you think have been the significant changes that have
occurred in the program over the years, it's gone through some
evolutionary stages. How do you see that evolution? Well, I think
two or three things, I think, I think the, the scientific knowledge which
is being developed has demonstrated some things aren't cast in country as
other people thought they were. You know, for example. Well, I think, for
example, the
uh that the hydropower fluctuating flows were completely destructive of
beaches and, and everything was initially, I think almost everything was
the fault of hydropower fluctuating flows. And we found out now that
that's not necessarily true. Anyway, we're still learning more and more
about that as we go along, we're, we're finding more and more so as the
science is progressing, we're getting answers that says, well, you know,
maybe things aren't as black and white as we all thought they were. That's
one reason that, that, that, that, that has changed, I think is the uh the
result of the science is showing you that's not, that's not necessarily
the way it is
any other. Uh you said there were three significant changes that you can
think of. One is the development of scientific information, that one and
another, another big change that took place pretty early on in the program
was originally the, the Grand Canyon Monitoring and Research Center was a
bureau of reclamation organization. Oh, it was, yes, I didn't know that.
Well, not many people do, but it's true. It was a bureau of reclamation
organization. And some of the group thought that, that put it huge bias on
it. And so
they pushed hard to have it taken away from the bureau and given to the
park service for somebody, us GS and it ended up being US GS. Yeah. And
that, that was a pretty big change because it changed the, changed the
makeup of the GCRC and their mission quite a bit, I think. Do you remember
when that was that they made that I'm trying to remember. No, it was, it
was pretty early on in the game. Uh, but the, the first couple of
directors of the GCRC, we Bureau of reclamation employees, not old time
bureau, but they were hired by the bureau of reclamation to do that job,
you know. And then, then it turned out they, they formed the GCMRC as a
part of the geologic survey and made it a, a branch of the, what's it
called? The Southwest?
Their headquarters go south with geo geologic something rather than anyway.
So they, they don't, they don't work for beer reclamation. I make quite a
difference. What difference did it make
people of people? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Its quite different, I think.
And then, uh the other things I think happened was,
uh
we're seeing now a lot of, I care for the words I use. We're seeing a lot
more input from Indian tribes than we had in the beginning. They're much
more interested in it than they ever were before. And there is a big push
for what they call, uh, don't use western
science, use what they call traditional ecological knowledge, I think,
which is their view of what happens in the Grand Canyon. And there's quite
a bit of, quite like it, I've seen in the last, in the last two years. Uh
, a big
push from them and a lot of support from the department on that. So I
think that, that we're seeing some changes there. We, we'll see more of
later on. I think, what do you think is resulting or might result from
that particular shift? I'm not quite sure what it's gonna do. It's gonna
be very hard, it's pretty hard for the scientists to deal with and people
like me who are all time engineers is a little bit hard for us to deal
with. But on the other hand, all those people have, uh they've gained a
lot of political strength they've not had in the past. You can see that in
a number of ways. But, uh, do you think that'll have any influence on the
operation, the annual operation of the river or the dam or the, I don't
know if it will or not. I don't know. I don't know. Well, see what we've
tried to do is to confine the whole program to what we think was what the
legislation said. You, you, you study the effects of damn operations and
uh, in, in a rather direct way, you know, and, you know, some of the
tribes are pushing, well, they want to go rim to rim on vegetation and
stuff like that. You know, we have no trouble with that. Frankly, we, we
have a lot of trouble with that because, you know, the funding of the
program is limited legislation such as sitting on much money and being all
paid for our power revenues by the way. But the it sets a ceiling on that.
And if we're trying to get studies done on what is the actual effect of
DMR operations on the river and the resources which are directly impacted
by the river. We have a little trouble seeing where to go, room to room on
vegetation and things like that. So there's, there's some struggle going
on there. Now,
can you think of any specific events that occurred over the years that had
uh that caused a significant shift in emphasis or policy or relationships
or, or the scientific research being done?
Well, I think one might be the selection of directors for GCMRC,
you know, uh Jack Schmidt, who was the one they had before they have now
came in and he has, he was deeply involved in settlement and settlement
transport and that was his, his strong suit. And I saw, I thought that a
little shift in the whole program towards that issue and away from some of
the other things. And then as he's now left. I think I'm seeing a shift
back because he, he was. But they don't think Jack Schmidt's a great guy,
but it was his focus. His focus was on the, I can remember going to am wig
meetings and him putting up his chart of the shoot of sand, going down the
river, you know, and uh he was just very big into that. So, um looking
back at the various directors of GCMRC, what kinds of emphasis do you see
that evolve with the changes of directors? We, we have the sediment.
Are they, have there been any other I assume? Well, job is because of the
Endangered Species Act, not because of who is director of GCMRC. And uh so
there's always, there's always a lot of emphasis on, on, on the Humpback
Chip. Uh So I don't think that's what would change.
Uh
Love but Love Parents, we saw online as an aside, we saw a website online
that had um before and after pictures of sand bars along the Colorado
river below Grand Canyon after the HFE. That was a really interesting.
Yeah. And then the HFE experiments are, are really interesting and that's
been, that's been a big push. And uh is that recent or? No? No, we did the
, I think we did. The first one was back in the, I'm trying to think when
we did the first HFE. It was quite a little while back, but it was a huge
press event, you know, news and dignitaries here watching. And, uh, and I
think that may be part of the charm of it. I think it, I'm being cynical
now
but there was so much fun. They did as a kid.
But, you know, 11 of the things about the HFES was the, was that they
hoped they would build beaches for campers,
uh, for, for boats to camp all that. They said, well, we, we're building
backwaters so Humpback chub can use these backwaters as breeding grounds
and it turns out the back job, don't use backwaters, but they still kept
going because they need the beaches anyway. You know, so you see a lot of
that, uh, but when you, when you really study those photographs, what you
find out is that when you do a big HFE about, I guess a little bit less
than half the beaches grow some, get smaller because of the flows and it
really not really last terribly long. That's why you have the, the annual
HFE push these days is to keep the beaches going. I think one of the
things we're seeing in the whole program is,
you know, the law required, you take care of the Humpback job and, and
those kinds of things.
But a lot of the program is aimed towards benefiting recreation and
boating, which is really good thing to do. But, uh,
I get pretty, I get pretty cynical here a lot of, a lot of, a lot of what
we do is hiding under the scared Dangerous Species Act where it's really
doing it for, for fishermen and boaters and they're becoming more vocal
these days too. And which is good. It's good. Let's get out and talk.
We're already talking about here and make it public what we're already
talking about here. So I think that's,
and, and they got some really great people working for John Jordan and
John Hamel and that crowd, they, they're smart. John Hall was at one time
GCRC director. Yes. And now now he's uh a lot of spokesman for the
recreational fishing people and he knows what he's talking about and, and
that's good and we have a lot of respect for John and we, we, you know,
we're getting back what we already talked about what's going on. Instead
you in your oral history interview that the Bureau of Reclamation did with
you. Brit story did in 1996 there is a significant section in there about
the 1982 83 floods during that El Nino period. Oh, yeah. Do you think that
that flood had any impact on dam operations on the developing G ce S the
environmental studies program? Was that an event that caused some shifts?
I, I don't really think so. Not that much because it was, and that was,
that was not the fault of people operating the dam that was, that was
caused by this huge amounts of water had been passed through the dam in a
, in a, in a design fault in the spillway which caused a huge problem
which had to be corrected. And it was kind of a heroic effort, putting
that together and getting the job done and saving the dam. But I think the
impacts down the river were uh
is that equivalent to a high flow event?
Much more of a high flow, even more of a high event. Yeah, much more of a
high flow event. The big change in dam operations I think came as a result
of the uh the original eis you know, when, when they did the record of
decision and set ceilings on how much you could release from the dam, you
actually lost about a third of your generating capacity in the dam because
you just can't let that. You can't the generator area and you wouldn't
even let as much water go through the generators would hold because you
had the ceiling on it. And so why was that? What was the rationale for?
They, they want to cut down the fluctuations.
So they set a ceiling on how far you could go and see how low you can go
and then that reduces the amount of fluctuation.
Yeah, same thing in the, the rod for the L temp study is the same thing as
it's got, it's a different set of numbers and actually a little bit better
for us than they were before. But they're,
they didn't raise the ceiling. So you, we were still sitting with through
the generating capacity unused.
So um the high fluctuations and releases from the dam prior to the EIS
were designed to maximize benefits for the hydro power system to maximize
the value of the power. Yeah. Yeah. You did globe following. You generate
, you generate electricity when you need it, when you don't need it, when
you need it, you need. Oh, you can't to meet that need. Yeah. And so the
EIS then led to a situation in which um uh the dam operators had to stop
the parameters load following and well, they, they still do load following
but not as much as they did. Yeah, they, they still try to maximize their
power. There's and I think it when, when the, when the record decision for
this lament is fully implemented, we will have better low follow than we
had before but the top and the bottom are still set, you know, the, the
and, and some of that is not uh uh I'll give you an example that the uh
the maximum daily changes like I'm trying to think this now make, make
sure I get this right 8000 cubic feet per second
between these ranges and that 8064 hour period. Yeah, that 8002nd feet
daily change comes out in the environmental study which was done clear
back in the nineties for the, the original EIS based on the survey,
basically, recreationists don't want any more than 8002nd foot change
because it makes the water level up and down when they're trying to go
down the river. And, you know, I took a trip down the river with a bunch
of one time. Then they, they, they made it, they moved their point. That
was before we do the EIS. But, you know, they put their beaches on the
boat at night and they'd be high and dry in the morning. They're high and
dry. Yeah, that's, that's the issue. Yeah. So, well, that's uh, a lot, a
lot is driven by, driven by recreational interest. But just for
clarification, can you tell us how much capacity the dam can do? Is it a,
is it 16,000 or 20,000? I don't know, per second. And, and what a maximum
power? Like a big power day? What would you need? Well, I don't have those
figures in my head right off the top. I mean, I have no idea how it works.
So, you know, I, I'm trying to think like
it has two cubic feet per second and I'm thinking we could really go up to
about 35,000 CFS and we're down now to um, 20. So, yeah, so since you work
for Creta, you're familiar with the larger hydropower uh system. Um Do you
, can you tell us a little bit about how the larger power planners adapted
to having, you know, Glen Canyon dams operations constrained in terms of
their fluctuation to meet demand. But how did they make up for that? The
only thing you can do is more generation. You know, you, so you build coal
fired plant or oil fire plant and you build transmission lines to replace
it. You know, the, the I don't have the numbers in my head, but there's
some really good economic studies done in the, in the Lltebis about what
it cost to replace that power because you have to go out float bonds and
build another plant. And uh another thing that I think is changing is as
we get down the line a little bit is the impact that all that has on what
we're calling our global warming and air quality control because, you know
, uh hydropower is a renewable resource which does not produce any air
pollution and it is being replaced by coal or oil which does.
And uh there's some pretty good studies in the LFEIS on that issue. In
fact, there's a show some pretty dramatic numbers. I think. What, what the
, the tons of uh what was the bicarbonates, whatever it is that I was put
in the CO2. Yeah, or the result from decreasing generation and replacing
it with which, which is the most practical source of replacement. You know
, you can't replace Hyder with wind because you have to, something goes
all the time, you have to have a coal fired plant or oil plant to replace
that baseload. Yeah. So that, that's, that's part of the issue. I think
the Navajo the coal fired Navajo generating station was built in the 19
seventies and it was built to integrate with the existing hydropower
system. Do you know much about how those were integrated together? And?
Well, I think the,
the Navajo generating station basically was built to provide pumping power
for the Salt River project in Arizona and the central Arizona and the
Central Arizona project. Yeah. Yeah, because they, there's a huge pumping
plants down the lower river where they pump the water out and uh that's
what that was basically for. Yeah. What to do that with now that's just
AAA minority of the, of the power. Um although Nava Generating station is
slated to close down, shut down in here. Yeah, it's gonna shut down, you
know what they'll do to replace it. But I think, you know, the emphasis
that's coming these days on global warming and global climate control,
things like that. We'll find more and more uh thought being given to
regarding hydropower as a renewable resource, it not to be protected in
time.
You think decisions related to the management of the river are going to
begin to Reprioritize clean energy hydropower generation as clean energy
for. Well, what has that hope? I don't know if it'll work or not, but I
think you know, this administration I think is probably more open to that
than the last group was. We're kind of waiting to see who fills in all the
slots and department and see about that taking some time. Yeah. Yeah. Um
uh another question for you, uh can you mention uh or alert us to any key
reports or documents that you think were particularly important to the
development of the adaptive management plan? You've mentioned the EIS is
there anything else that we should be aware of that? Do you think was
significant in the development of the program? I can't open in my mind
right away? No. All right. And how about key individuals?
You mentioned uh the gentleman who was head of uh GCMRC as being
significant in shaping the direction of some of the research, any other
key individuals that really made a difference in the program?
That was David Wagner in uh no, the CMRC director was Jack Schmidt Schmidt.
Yeah, Dave Wagner was, he was head of the Grand Canyon Environmental
Studies, which is the program. The bureau did those. Yeah. Yeah, he was
with the bureau then, then he left and went to work for some congressional
staffers. I think, I don't know where he is now. He's in Tucson. Yeah,
he's in Tucson. We're gonna interview him sometime this year. Uh
Any other big reports that you have to look at. I, I can't really tell off
the top of my head uh there's some interesting work that they, that the AM
wig did, which, which kind of influence the program on there. And I don't
know if they rewrote reports on that, but there was the whole stay on
desired future conditions that might be worth looking at. When was that?
I'm thinking that was in the
early stages of the, of the Deputy Management program. It was, it was
after I left and went to work as a consultant instead of drinking, it was
done after that. Uh So I would say um
9899 somewhere along in there. I don't know. But they, they did do a paper
on that. And there, there's a, there's a desired future Conditions report
which is fed into the study. Uh Was there only one of those, I think there
was only one, there was one for a lot of drafts, but the final, the final
one which was adopted. Yeah, it might be interesting. I think it was
adopted by the Air Wing by vote. It was a very future conditions thing.
Great. Well,
I can't think of any other one off the top of my head. There's something
interesting in economic studies done. Uh
you know, we thought that uh in the A T process that that power was being
pretty much undervalued
in the economic studies. And so Western administration
uh found out that the University of Oklahoma and some other people were
doing a study on the environmental and economic impacts of hydropower. And
that study is certainly worth looking at. I think it paints quite a
different picture than the old T did.
And then there's, uh,
I'm trying to think if there's anything else on the,
well, not right off the top of my head. I can't think of any. And since
some of the documents that might be useful to look at would be, uh, you
know, when they did the, uh when they did the regular decision, they had
to do a biological assessment, then a biological opinion on endangered
species, you know, endanger species. But those are kind of worth looking
at too because they put a little different spin on things. Yeah,
looking back at all the years that you've been involved. Um you, you said
that uh you were kind of a representative of Creta and the hydropower
interest. What do you think you were able to accomplish in those years as
a representative of that? Well, I think, I think Creta, uh I'm not trying
to pat myself on the back here because I, I think created a lot, a lot of
input into the George Miller's work on the Grand Canyon Protection Act. We
had quite a bit of input into that, which was from our viewpoint, pretty
successful. And then George Miller, he uh after it was all over here and I
shook hands and said this is, we, we did a good job here, you know, uh
what kind of influence or impact on the legislation itself? Did, did you
work on you and you talked about uh funding of the program? That's how it
came to be funded out of our revenues.
Oh, we talked about the need for, you know, the, the adaptive management
involving stakeholders in the whole program that was part of the effort we
had there. So I think it, it was a, an official relationship there. Yeah.
Do you think we should try to interview George Miller at some point? Do
you think he would have valuable uh in uh uh perspective on the? Well, he
certainly has a very powerful perspective on it. Yeah. Yeah, it was, it
was his push for the legislation. Yeah, he, he might give you some
different viewpoints that I'm giving you on it. But yeah,
and he was the key sponsor and the negotiation over what would go into the
bill was, you know, between him and his staff and what everybody in and
Ham wig or key people. Well, it was not an then because the major program
didn't exist after the legislation. That was part of that was part of the
good things, legislation. We, we got into, we got put into a major program
so it didn't get locked down tight forever in one piece of legislation,
you know, so that was a good piece of work. Uh But this, I think basically
involved in, in drafting legislation was the bureau was represented a lot
by David Wagner in US and in the Western Power administration was involved
in it. So, yeah,
but there were a park who was deeply involved also.
Was there anything that you hope to accomplish that you weren't able to
and why
we all know?
Uh That's some unrealistic hope. Yeah. But no, I think, no, I think it
came out about as good as I thought we could get it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah,
you've touched on this a little bit earlier. Um But I wanna ask you again
, what do you think has been the value of the program over time? The value
of the Air Weight program? I think it has produced a lot of
understanding and co-operation between people who have completely
different views. What ought to be happening? Blow the dam. Why the dam is
the way it is? You get involved. Four states actually involved. All seven
states are involved in the ma program. You know, because they,
the way the Cord River is operated is basically driven by the Cord River
compact, which is a compact between the bay and states that says that
decides how much water you can run down in a year. You know, those kind of
, you know, the, uh because they were compact and the uh the later interim
operating agreements and all those things. Uh They have a big impact on
what happens here and I think the AM would help bring all those kind of
people together a little bit more. Uh, he built a little bridge between
the upper base and the lower base on some of these issues. Oh. And I think
it also built some bridges between, uh, reclamation in the park service
who, at one time I think were not very much speaking to each other. Well,
they did but they weren't, they weren't listening to each other that a
better way of putting it. And then, and then bring in the, uh, the
fishermen groups and the boating groups because they, they all have a deep
interest which a lot of people don't understand and that gives them a
forum to lay out their, their issues and their problems. And then, then
you have, uh, in the Indian tribes who I think are listened to so much
more now than they were before. Uh, and, and so I think the, the program
has produced a lot of good in, in bringing people together and I think
it's working, it's working. I would really hate to see the fa thing kill
the Amway program. I don't think it will, but because I think cooler heads
will prevail, you know, fa being a federal advisory committee act, the
Trump thing you know about, we're gonna stop all the f activities until
September, which is really a problem because we were right in the middle
of putting together a budget for GCMRC and the Bureau for the next three
years. And we would like to at least get the next year done. But, you know
, their fiscal year starts in October and October 1 is beginning the
fiscal year and, uh, if they don't come up with something, they, they're
in deep trouble. And so this order from the Trump administration to
suspend the activities of amw for a while that is going to stop the
budgeting process. I don't think so because they have to go, they'll have
to go ahead without us. They'll have to go ahead without us. But I think
based on some conversations we've had, I think we're gonna, they're still
gonna talk to us about it. But we, we will, we will have a formal meeting
or formal webinars. But I think that they almost have to talk to us
because I'll tell you what GCMRC and the bureau came in with their first
draft budget. They were 30% over sealing for the first year, for the first
year 18. They are 30% over ceiling. So they got to reduce their budgets by
30%.
And how we, how do they pick which ones to keep, which ones to let go? If
they don't ask this, if they don't ask the stakeholders, they're gonna be
in real trouble, I think, and I think they will, I think they will ask us
about that. In fact, I, we see some indications that they'll be willing to
talk to us about it because, but they have to move forward. They can't
just stop the program
as much as some parts of some might want that some budget concerns.
Basically, this, I think a lot of the f stuff they were thinking this is
wasted money, you know. But, uh in, in this instance, is not wasted money.
This is, in fact, most of, most of the people fund their own
participation. We don't, we don't get paid to do that by the federal
government. We get paid by the power users for me to go to it and the
voters pay for their guy to go to it. The fish guys pay for their guys to
go to it. So it's not costing the government a whole lot of money except
some federal employees who are involved in it. But their total budget is
pretty high. But I think people just don't realize that's, that's the
document program, not the, not the federal committee program. Right.
That's all the research and monitoring taking plan which has to take place.
You have to research and labor. Yeah, you can't learn
otherwise.
Um, if there are any, uh you have a fairly positive view of the, of the
program and its accomplishments. Um, are there any key limitations that
you'd like to see? I mean, uh, overcome, is there anything any changes
that you'd like to see in the program in the future that would make it
work even better?
Hm. Yeah.
But right off the top of my head. I, I just can't, you know, it's, it's,
it's working, give, give what you have to work with, you know, what the,
what the challenges are. I think it's working pretty well. Uh So,
so you're hopeful about the future of the program? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
About the future of Bureau of reclamation, the future of management of
the Colorado River. Step back a little bit. Any, are you optimistic or
pessimistic about the larger picture about Colorado river management in
the seven basin states?
I try to be optimistic but I think, you know, there there is
as we come down and, and this is not, this is not a Glen Canyon Dam issue.
This is more a color river operations issue as you come down if, if the
drought continues and it turned out to be a long term permanent shift in
how much water we're gonna have. I think there's gonna be some real issues
on the Colorado River. And I think the States are gonna have to work that
uh States in Mexico, they are involved in all that. And uh that could be a
real challenge. It could be a real challenge because there's, you know,
the upper basin is not using all their water but they save it. Glen Canyon
Dam in case they want to use it in the lower basin states. They're using
every drop of water and running short. So you may sometimes see some
shifts in,
I really hate to think that happens. But one solution that we renegotiate
the car of the basement compact. You know, I don't know if that will ever
happen or not, but there is a lot of, uh, there's a lot of things there
and then also the use of power revenues to support these studies, uh is
very deeply impacting the upper Basin States because they, they, they get
under, under the, under the Colorado Basin Project Act, uh, they have
projects which are authorized or could be authorized, which are entitled
to a share ba revenues. Well, the basin revenues go down because there's
no power generation and there's no way for them to share. And that could
be, that could be one huge issue someday. I don't see it happening anytime
soon. But if you're looking way down the line, there could be some real
problems. Yeah. Any lessons in, um, the success of a way. Are there any
lessons in there that could be applied to, um, the, the states negotiating
over shortages on the Colorado River? I think it's a different kind of
program all together. I think the states have done a pretty good job of
negotiating out their, their colors and things like that. You go back to
the, the days that they were negotiating on the compact and in 19 forties
, I think it was when they did all that and they work together very, very
well. And I think they they can still do that. They, they just have to
recognize it, dude, somebody has to win. Somebody has to lose, you know,
but is the United States together? We're winners. You know, I've seen, you
know, do you have any advice for um new members who would be joining Am
Wig or twig? Those one of the things we're gonna produce is an orientation
packet for new members so they can come up to speed on on the program and
progress. Uh Do you have any key pieces of advice you would give to
somebody joining the program?
I was to just say, listen carefully and be patient with each other because
you,
I see it. You know, the people I work for, there's a lot, a lot, there's
some impatience with other people in the, in the end week. And I want to
be like, wait, you know, where these guys come, where they're coming from
on this. Yeah, I think we just need to have a little bit more
understanding and a little bit more patience. And uh again, I think 11 of
the real challenges we're gonna have in the not too distant future is
accommodating the Indian tribes and their whole different approach to this
whole thing. And I think we just really have to sit down and listen and
not be so quick to judge
and uh may, may, maybe we can work this out. I don't know. It, it's hard
to tell can you expand on that? And you mentioned traditional ecological
knowledge earlier and can you expand on maybe some ways that? Well, but
those two different ways of thinking about science can be in the natural
world. Well, yeah, because I I'll give you an example that kind of jumps
out. But every third meeting we have is, you know, one of the, one of the
things that brown, the brown trout, which is not a native species in the
rainbow trout, which is definitely not a native species or killing
in some situations, they go downstream and eat the baby humpback chub. So
the immediate reaction from the western science perspective is, well,
let's just get rid of the rainbow trout, brown trout and control them. And
when there's too many of them, we'll have electro fishermen take them out
of the river and they won't go down each out, back up, which makes a lot
of logical sense. Western science viewpoint. But the Indian tribes say,
wait, you're taking life in the Grand Canyon and the Grand Canyon to them
was a very holy and spiritual place and you don't go down there and kill
things.
No. What do you do?
Yeah. But something has to be done because you can't, you can't just
ignore them
an interesting conundrum. It is, it's tough. And, and, but you find those
and they say, well, the archaeological sites, you know, they'll say, uh,
the archaeology sites are being destroyed. Well, we say who's destroying
it. Well, the campers coming in and walk around and kick the stones over.
You know, now that's a, that's a stretch of it. People going to look at
the archaeological sites hurt the archaeological sites, like we say, well
, why is that an effect of damn operations?
Well, we have to take care of it anyway because it's within the, you know
,
so there's all kinds of things that need to be worked out. And I would
suggest that in the next few years, we need to have a lot more patients
understanding and trying to understand that because they, like I said, the
, the Zuni and some other tribes are just really coming out of their boxes
and talking about this and wanting to do stuff about it. And the
Department and the Bureau of Reclamation are trying to accommodate them as
much as they can. And uh so you just had to go along with that and, and
help with that situation
that reminds me of um the shift that occurred in the 19 seventies and
eighties in terms of um managing the Colorado River. Uh in your oral
history interview with Britt's story in 1996 you mentioned that prior uh
to the 19 seventies, at least it was kind of a family affair. And uh
people with the Bureau of reclamation would talk to representatives from
the States and decisions would be made pretty quickly and efficiently
about how to manage the river to meet the needs of, of the States,
etcetera. And, and you mentioned that uh sometime in the seventies and
early eighties, that there was more and more pressure from
environmentalists to insert themselves and broader publics into the
process. And I think you even mentioned that you had kind of misjudged
that, that change as it was coming along. And can you talk a little bit
about that, that important shift? And, well, I guess how it happened, I
think it just, it will,
I think is
over time that we developed water projects to develop an economy in a
society which was developing and, and, and they wanted the water really
bad because they need to have their farms, they need to have their
factories, they need to have their electricity and all that. And then as a
society, we got all these things, we get more comfortable. Then we now
have time to say, oh, but you know, maybe we need to worry about the
Humpback chub now and maybe we need to worry about these other things now.
And I just really never really fully grasp in those earlier years, the
impact that would have on the program, how, how strong those things would
be. But I think it's because
I had a good way to put. This is when you, when you solve a problem that
people don't have to worry about that problem and they can worry about the
next one. And they're not so worried about the water anymore because they
got all the water they need and they get all the electricity they need and
they got food and they've got money. So now we can worry about these other
things. But when you start worrying about those things, the things that
are making the, making it possible are also hurting these other things and
you need to go back and rethink some of those things. And I think, I think
our, as a society, our, our whole society is much more oriented towards
environmentalism and, and uh protecting these things. I'm not saying
that's bad, but that's just the way it is. They're much more oriented
toward out than they were before. And you and we have learned to deal with
that. It sounds a little bit like um the, the same thing is happening now
with the growing influence of the tribes that it wasn't a central part of
the decision making process before. Now. It is. And there's this
adjustment period, we can afford to do it now that we could, we could do
it before you. I think that's right. Yeah. Is there anything else that you
think we're not paying attention to yet that we're gonna have to start
paying attention to that? But right off top my head, I know we got too
much to pay attention to now. Yeah. So I think it's gotten pretty
complicated. It has got very complicated. Yeah. We talk about that a
little bit. How has decision in your mind? Um, you know, there's pros and
cons to every change. Some people win, some people lose. We have more
participation, more voices, more values represented. What's the downside
to that? Is, is it all good or have we lost something in the process of
that?
Well, yeah, you talk about the decision making process. I think what, what
, what I'm seeing happening is decisions that used to be made at the
bureau level in the Park Service level. If you like sir level now raised
up, they're being made at the assistant secretary level or the secretary's
designee level, you know, like uh am Wing submits its suggestions to the
Secretary of Interior, not to the commission of reclamation or the
Director of Park Service. So you've seen a centralization, centralization.
It's a, it's a centralization of power. Yeah. Is that good or bad? What
are the pros and cons of that slows things down quite a bit I think
because you have to wait for, you have to wait for answers and then does
it politicize it more? Yes,
absolutely.
Can you think of any instances in which the local people like am wig or a
group of decision makers, you know, worked something out and then sent it
on up for approval and, and it got either stalled or stymied? Yes, for you
, an example is desired future conditions for the Colorado route which are
all pounded up by a, they all agreed to it and then over time it's been
challenged from the top down. Hm.
Any other examples that you can think of what would have taught my head
when you were in Washington, you spent a lot of time focused on policy and
budgets. And that's something we haven't talked about much yet today. But
in your 1996 oral history, you talked about how important the budgeting
process is for determining what gets done. Well, yeah, and that's true. In
, in those days, I was with the Bureau of Reclamation's budget. You know,
that's what I was working on it. And then we, we couldn't, it wasn't
budgeted. You know, you had to get your budget and get the appropriate
funds from Congress and move forward. Oh, and
the magic program is a little bit different animal because it gets, its
budget was set by law. It said you'll use power revenues and here's the
ceiling and it indexes each year according to the CP I and all that. So
they know how much money they got to spend. No, some of the agencies like
IO the Bureau of Reclamation Parkour both are using other sources of money
to do things they want to do, which they feed into the AM W program. And
uh that works good. But budget is a big issue. It, it, it, it, it, it's a
huge issue. Um So even though the AMW budget is set uh statutorily and
it's reliably there. I imagine there must have been some debates and
controversies over how to allocate that funding. What kind of research we
have that every year we have that every year. Yeah, it's like I said, they
put the budget 30% over the budget or the ceiling. Then you have to decide
, well, what things we're not gonna do. And the technical working group,
the Twig Group has a budget ad hoc group called the Bag Group, which have
a member of the Twig B. I'm a member of the Twig B and we were working
very hard on trying to get the budget put together for the next three
years, especially next year. And uh in fact, we were kind of pushing the
critic, I was pushing, let's do a one year budget and not
settle on three year budget until we get more people on board from the
administration. Because you know, the written, some of the thinking was
you said a three year, but then you wouldn't change it for three years. If
you year one year, two, year three were locked down, which takes away the
the learning experience. What happened here? What should change? Year two
should change? Year three, we kind of had a little trouble wrestling about
that, but the whole the whole process it has to be worked out and then
budgeting is very important because it doesn't, it doesn't control what
research we're gonna do, we have research uh
that directly applies to the, to the Grand Canyon program. And then, but I
think the same researchers are also finding the really interesting studies
they love to do and uh interesting and scientifically valid and important
, but we don't impact Grand Canyon Dam operations. And so what they, we,
we find some money in their budget to do that, then we squeeze each other.
You, you shouldn't be doing this. But uh have there been any significant
debates over funding since you've been involved that you can recall or
significant issues that had to be resolved over how funding decisions
would be made? Well, I think, well, what happens the way the process is is
that uh the technical working group recommends a budget to the a wig and a
wig recommends a budget to the secretary. So there's, there's that process
here. So how we decide what we're going to recommend to the secretary?
That's what it comes down to and you try not to, right. You shouldn't
recommend the secretary. I think it's over budgetary general because he
has got any money to do that with. So it's saying, how do we decide what's
more important to put the budget than, than other things? And there's some
debate about that certainly. Yeah. How long has it been since uh the
Secretary of Interior had to approve the budget? Was there ever a time in
which the budget was managed autonomously not for this program. No. Well,
I think that would actually, no matter what agency you work for the
process is you, you draft your budget, the secretary recommends to OMB.
Omb decides that comes back down feedback, you know. And so there's always
lays over oversight but uh
could the, the administration sweep those funds and, or, um, say that you
can't spend them or is that authority not there because of this? The law,
I'm not sure. I think the law says the law says that the program
authorizes money to spend on it. So I'm not sure they could. I still think
you say we're not going to spend the money you authorized for us. We're
gonna put in the bank and save it or do something with it. But like, I
don't see that happening. I don't see that ever happening. Do you think
the change in administrations in Washington DC at any point since you've
been involved, have a significant spillover effect on the local level of
management? Or are, are you kind of ins, is, am wig sort of insulated from
, you know, presidential changes? I don't think they're included from it.
No, I don't know because they were changing the secretary. The change of
the deputy secretary directly impacts the program because the person in
charge of the Amway program is the secretary's designee he's appointed by
the secretary.
Can we go back and look at those presidential changes and have you? I mean
, when, when Obama came in, uh, and new people were uh appointed to
interior. What kind of changes do you remember seeing as a result?
Well, I think you will find a lot more environmentally sympathetic
administration than we did under, like under the Bush administration. And
what would that mean? What, what's, what it means? You, you, when you put
together your, your program, you, you, you say, well, we're gonna
concentrate more on Humpback chub than we are on power. Um, something like
that, you know, and so under the Bush administration, you feel that there
was a little more emphasis on power, they weren't quite as strict. That's
what they weren't quite as hard learners, they weren't quite as vocal. Uh
, but I think in the, in the Obama administration we had some people who
were pretty, pretty hard hardliners. How about the Clinton administration
? What, what was the character of? I don't remember that far back. Yeah.
All right. So I won't go back to the first Bush. Don't go back to the
first Bush or Carter or any of those people. All right. Um, the whole
concept of adaptive management that the AM wig is based on was kind of an
artifact of the 19 nineties, late eighties and early nineties was a time
in which, um, scholars and resource managers sort of floated this idea of
flexible adaptive management. Do you remember when that first came in as a
management paradigm? And what did you think of it? And how easy was it to
remember the first time I had ever really thought about it or got involved
in it was, was, was with this program, was with this program. And, and I
remember, oh, did it seem to make sense to you at the time or did it? No,
it makes sense to me and it still does make sense to me. It's a lot better
than just drawing the line and this is what we're gonna do no matter what.
OK, we, we'll experience with this and see how it works. If it doesn't
work, we'll change it. We'll try to get what works best. That makes a lot
of sense to me. Yeah, you, you adapt your management to do uh to reach the
goal we want to set. And that's, that's the tricky part of setting your
right goals. What was the nature of decision making prior to this embrace
of adaptive management?
Like you just decide what you're gonna do? And that's it. I mean, and
I don't think we were, we were planning on experimenting and, and letting
people from the outside come in and say, well, we, you should try this and
it was the stakeholder involvement wasn't that great and a little
flexibility wasn't there. Yeah. Do you think ne a the National
Environmental Policy Act in 1969
had a significant impact on public involvement and environmental analysis
um or was it not until G ce S came in that really anything began to change
and how the Colorado River and Glen County Dam were operating. When you
talk to Carl Room, Lincoln, your name was probably G ce S is what did it,
you know? That's what that. Yeah. Yeah, I think so. I can remember as
regional director, we did the G CE S and then we actually modified some of
our operating criteria for the dam to what we thought helped. And I
remember meeting my office hall here where your group environment. So why
don't you do an E I si said, why do we do an EIS? They said, so you can
change your operator as we did change the operation, you know, so I didn't
see much need for you to go to because the EIS is a long, complicated,
expensive process. I thought we, we, we made the changes necessary, but
they were pushing very hard for an EIS because it gives them a forum, you
know, when you, when you do an EIS publishing the government Federal
Register and everybody has the chance to talk about it. And so it really
opened up the forum for, for them and then they pushed for it. I think if
I've done their side, I would have done the same thing. How did the G CE S
program get started?
Like I said, we, we, we were looking at the results of the study we did to
put power plants on the outlet tubes and the environmental impacts of
those were causing some concern. And so we decided we will do an
environmental study of the impacts of Glen K day. That was a Bureau of
Decision. Uh that was not pushed by a statute, that was a bureau that was
a bureau decision. Did, um I think I remember hearing something about
James Watt was a little bit involved in authorizing that or? Yeah, I think
that, yeah, I that's true. And, and he, he was interested in, in that
because
environmentalists were putting a lot of heat on the interior department
and Bureau of reclamation. I think so at the time. So this was
accommodating an interest group that was becoming more powerful at that
time. Uh huh. And how did that evolve? They were environmentalists were
pushing for an EIS, you guys were saying we could do the same thing
without all the complication. So they went to George Miller and got the
Grand Union Protection Act authorized which requires an EIS.
That was 1992. Yeah. So the G ce s started around 1982 8283. So how did it
develop to the point where an Act of Congress finally intervened? Well, I
think the environmental were pushing it because we said we did, we were,
we thought we'd made the changes we needed to make and they wanted more
changes. I think that was what it was. So they went to George Miller.
That's how it happened.
Well, do you guys have any additional questions you'd like to ask? I've
gone through my list and added some to it.
Well, I mean, how do you feel? Do you, it's been over an hour, do you want
to? Oh, all right. We can, ok, we can continue. Do you have a gender?
Mhm.
I think we covered a lot of the big structural issues and what, what these
different agencies do and what just personally, what's your,
you're still involved, really involved? Which is, which is pretty neat.
And
I guess maybe what do you see as a, as a role for, for consultants, people
like yourself now? Um Are you just one more voice from one agency? You've
got a lot of history with this and, well, I think we're writing a history.
What can we, we have a different input but you've got a lot of experience
to share. I think the role of consultant is to represent his people at the
table, you know. Yeah. And uh I believe in doing that
actually at, at the technical working group. I'm not a representative of
Creta. I'm a representative Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems, which
is a Creta member and that's how power gets its two people at the table.
What is the person Leslie? Oh, well, the actual and actually appointed
guy is uh Bill Davis who's a consultant to create it. Also. He, he's a
fish and wildlife biologist. He's a fish biologist really. So, we have a
mixture of two kinds of skills at the table there. But we, we basically
take our direction from Rita and, and, uh, and Lily James, you, you've met
Lily James, I think, haven't you? I think she's executive director. Creed.
She's the AM wig member from Crete
Leslie James is Yan wig member from Creta. Uh, Ted Raton is the wig member
from UAs. And if the twig I represent, Ted Bill Dave represents Lizzie
James, that's how it works. And as we all sing off the same chart, so
there's no, we talk to each other. You plan to keep doing it. Well, you
know, the guy has to have something to do and I had my 84th birthday in
February congratulation. But uh my mom just turned 84 in April. And uh III
I don't know how much longer I do. I do this but it, I have deep interest
in it and it's, it's exciting and fun. And like I say, I asked us to do,
you know, my neighbor cuts his lawn three times a week. I just got back
from the meetings. It's different, but I like it better.
Is there anybody else? Um uh like Leslie James or others who are more
knowledgeable about the uh the power side of, of this, you know, Amway
that we should interview. I think Lizzie James is probably the power
person. You need to, to, she involved for, from the beginning she took my
place when I left, she took my place. Well, there was one other guy in
between there for about a year and a half but she's basically been the
driver of Creta for
interview her. Where does she live? She live in Phoenix. Really? Yeah,
that's convenient.
Is that where Creta is based? That's what the office is. You know, you
know, the officers here until I left and then, uh, they hired Leslie James
and they moved the office to Phoenix. That's where she lived.
She has deep history and power. She was Salt River project person for a
number of years.
Anybody else who's been around a long time that would have an interesting
perspective that we should interview
is felt in the state of Colorado that I would suggest you interview. Uh,
it's gonna take a minute to Dave Garrett. No, Dave Garrett. He was one of
the science advisors. I'm talking about the UEO. They represent. Even Don
Twigg from Colorado. Oh, I can't think of his name. That's my fault. I
can't, I can't think of people's names anymore.
Uh, I can look that up. A twig rep from Colorado. Been around a long time
. A long time. Yeah. Yeah. Randy. Randy Sea. Randy Seho. You, how do you
spell his last? She's dead.
How do you spell his last name? Seaholm? I think Chol is like you said it
, you know. Yeah. He's been around a long time.
All right. If there are no more, do you have any stories you'd like to
tell us? Like, for example, we're all really interested in, um, the drama
of 1982 83 when you had to put the plywood up so you could raise the dam
some more. And it was scary. Ok. That was the scariest time. Well, if you
want. Yeah. Well, tell us that story. We'd like to. Well, it was, yeah,
there's a couple of videos I know, but it was, uh, I think it was a design
mistake because they did it. They really, everybody thought about it, I
guess. But as the water goes over to spill away, it creates little bubbles
and then the bubbles explode and they pop the concrete and chip out the
concrete and when you have a huge flow like they had, we had there and for
so long a time it, it, it causes the cavities in the concrete spillway.
And, you know, you started seeing red water come out the end, which means
there's a lot of sandstone in the water and it was, it was a scary time.
It was, it was really scary. How long did that last days or weeks? Weeks.
And then we, we put the, we put the plywood up so we could close the
spillway gates and shut them off. And we went down there and, uh, I
actually took one of the little trips down there, a little cart on a cable
to see what was going on down there. And we had some magnificent design
people in Denver who forgot what was going on. They figured out how to fix
it. And we, we got an emergency contractor in there, we got the whole darn
thing fixed. And before the next season, before the next flood started. So
it was, it was an amazing piece of work. It really was. And I don't take
much credit for that because I didn't do any of them. All I did was sit at
the top and say, yeah, go do this. You know, it was not my work. It was
somebody else's work. It was a scary time. You did a little bit of uh if I
remember correctly, some design work on stress test design work in your
early, very early career. My first job with the bureau was on designs of
Glen Canyon Dam. Uh Yeah, the actually the, the, the design of the dam of
the arch structure itself, which at that point in time, the first one I
built was Hoover Dam, a thin arch dam and we thinned them down a lot since
then. But it was still a so a very interesting thing. It was kind of that
one. Any of the brains behind those days, we use martial calculators and
computers, you know, and uh we, we were computing the stresses in the, in
the dam as it was being designed. And uh one of the most famous dam
designers in the world, a fellow named Merlin Coen, worked for the bureau
then and he was in charge of designing the dam itself. And then I worked
for him directly for him. And I just, just had to look into that job.
Actually, I think you turn this thing off. I was hired to work in Earth
dams. Should I? No, it's all right. This is, this is not really, I was
hired by the bureau to work in the Earth Dam section because I was really
interested in earth mechanics because I studied that when I was in the
Army, the Corps of Engineers. And uh II, I interviewed the guy who was
head of the Earth Earth Department. He hired me and, but when I reported
for work, they said, well, we've changed our mind and put you in the
concrete dam section. Why? Well, because that's where we have a vacancy
for you. So I went to work. It was like the best thing that ever happened
because I got to meet with this man, Run Cope and he was, he was something
of a whiz. He knew what he was doing and we had damn deserves all over the
world, come to Denver to visit Berlin Cope. And he would invite me to sit
in the meetings with them. He liked me for some reason and I did that for
about uh about a year. And then I, then I moved on to something else you
mentioned earlier in the interview that there was a design flaw in the uh
uh the outflow. Uh I don't say it's a design flow. It's just, they didn't
know, you know. So it was, they, they then since they've created design,
which, which, which avoids that. Right. When we rebuild it, we build it to
a new design that I was well, six flaw. That means like, sort of made a
mistake that that isn't really true. They just did the best they could
with what they knew as large as you had at the time. That's what they do.
It's like adaptive management. You do the best you can and then you go to
work and then you, once they found they were in the process of modifying
dams to create that kind of spillway were being modified. Flaming gos has
been modified. Linane has been modified, several others have all been
modified to, to, to that new, to do that new design to avoid that problem.
It's interesting if you had stayed in Earthen dams, you would have been at
the center of the storm when Teton Dam blew out. I kind of was because
where I was in Washington at the time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Teton dam blew up.
Yeah, it's true. What kind of impact did that have on the bureau? Quite a
bit, quite a bit. That was a real shelter for everybody in the bureau.
Like one of our dams fields, you know, that, that's, you don't like that.
And, uh, it had quite an impact, quite an impact. Did you change design?
The whole design of dams has changed since then and they've gone back and
modified almost all the major earth dams were, have been modified to, to
solve that problem. There's not a problem.
Is this still going? It is. Would you like me to turn it off? Shut it off
?
Oh, I'm sorry.