May 1, 2000      Latest on flows from Glen Canyon Dam!

Low summer steady flow test releases from Glen Canyon Dam are taking place this year. Releases from Glen Canyon are scheduled to be 8,000 cfs from June 1, 2000 through the end of September as part of this test. These test releases are being made for the study and recovery of native endangered fish in the Colorado River below Glen Canyon Dam. Preparatory to these low summer
flows are 2 months, April and May, of relatively high releases. Releases since April 8 have been steady at 17,000 cfs. Beginning on May 3, releases will be increased to power plant capacity of approximately 31,000 cfs for 4 days.

Beginning on May 3, in the early morning hours, releases will be increased by 4000 cfs per hour until releases are at power plant capacity, approximately 31,000 cfs. Releases will remain at 31,000 cfs until the evening hours of May 6 when releases will be reduced by 1,500 cfs per hour. By 6 am on May 7, releases will have been reduced to 19,000 cfs.

May 01, 2000    Rare April Globe fire still burning!!

Despite having a third of their helicopters grounded, firefighters today contained an additional 10 percent of a fire eating away at the Sierra Ancha Experimental Wilderness north of Globe.

The fire, which has been burning since last Wednesday, covered 6,300 acres of land today, up a touch from Sunday night's 6,286 acres.

But the 520 firefighters on the scene were missing their two largest helicopters, which were grounded after a water-drop Sunday afternoon hit two firefighters, injuring both but neither seriously.

''The helicopters are grounded as part of our standard procedure,'' said MaryAnn Bufano, a U.S. Forest Service spokeswoman. ''We're having a team investigate the incident to make sure it doesn't happen again.''

Meanwhile, morning briefings included strict orders for firefighters to be at least 200 yards away from the site of an airdrop, and for pilots to make contact with someone on the ground before dropping their water or fire retardant.

The weather has been favorable for fighting fires over the last two days. Winds have eased off and temperatures have been in the low 80s. On Friday afternoon, gusting winds drove the fire to the north and the east, threatening the Murphy Ranch. But the ranch was spared after hotshot crews burned out the forest around it.

April 28, 2000 Condor update!! (from Sean of the Peregrine Fund)

The Peregrine Fund has released a total of 35 condors in AZ to date and  25 remain in the wild.

24 of those have been captured for lead testing (all but number 11, which has eluded them so far). Of those 24, one did test very high for lead, and is being treated at the Phoenix zoo. They're hoping soon to re-release it. The others have already been re-released.

The 10 other birds include 9 fatalities and 1 recapture due to interaction with humans.

The 9 fatalities:

#24 was shot in GRCA.

#16 died recently of lead poisoning, which is why the other birds had to be tested. It seems to have eaten lead sinkers used in fishing.

#42 & #97 seem to have been killed by golden eagles, which can be very territorial & aggressive during the mating season or around a carcass.

#77 & #69 appear to have been killed by coyotes.

#51 ran into a, power line.

#7 choked on its own regurgitation.

#28 disappeared. Not accounted for.

There are about 30 birds in the wild in CA, and a combined total of about 155 California condors remaining in the world.

April 27, 2000  Long, hot, dry summer pedicted!

Word is the North Rim lodge and Visitor Center will open early, on May 01, 2000. The Highway to the North Rim, Highway 67, has been open all winter! The first time anyone can remember that this has happened. The heaviest snow was only a few inches! There is already wildfires buring in Arizona. Arizona's burning season started in earnest Thursday, as a 500-acre fire northwest of Globe quickly tripled in size, its white smoke plume climbing to 2,000 feet, an enormous but solitary cloud in the blue sky. Hikers are advised to be careful using springs as many may be dry this year from the drought conditions!

April 27, 2000 Arizona Game and Fish hunt Coyotes north of the Canyon!

Ignoring the criticism of many environmental groups Arizona Game and Fish began hunting coyotes by helicopter this week. This will be the third year of the brutal hunt north of the Canyon, east of Flagstaff, and near the Petrified Forest National Park. Pat O’Brien, the Arizona Game and Fish spokesman said the hunt is necessary to protect baby antelope from the coyotes. However, Peter Galvin, biologist for the Center of Biological Diversity in Tucson, said, "gunning down coyotes is not a sane solution, it’s barbaric and cruel, and doesn’t need to happen. The public needs to step up and do something" All right, write your letters, and send that email!

April 27, 2000 Snowmobiles banned in National Parks! Finally!!

The Park Service and the Environmental Protection Agency banned snowmobiles in National Parks today. We’ll have to wait a bit to see if Acadia, Sequoia, Yellowstone and the North Rim of Grand Canyon are included.

April 26, 2000 Earthquake shakes the Grand Canyon at Nankoweap!!

Grand Canyon’s magnificent walls came alive for a few seconds early last week when a minor earthquake struck the area.

The quake occurred at 8:57 a.m. on the morning of April 10. According to Doug Bausch, a geologist with the earthquake information center in Flagstaff, the quake measured 3.1 on the Richter Scale and was centered 20 miles northeast of Grand Canyon in the Nankoweap Mesa area.

"In the Canyon region, it seems like we get a lot of small events every week," Bausch said. "But this was the first felt event since sometime last year."Following the earthquake, there were two measurable aftershocks later in the day which measured 2.5 and 2.7 on the Richter Scale.

"Arizona has a moderate rate of earthquakes, most of them centered in northern Arizona from the Grand Canyon region up into Utah," Bausch said. "We have a station right there at Grand Canyon Village, so we’re able to pick up most of the earthquakes."

Grand Canyon has a history of earthquakes. In the Grand Canyon Village area, there were "swarms of earthquakes," as Bauch described it, in 1987, 1989 and 1992. And back on April 29, 1993, the Cataract Creek earthquake occurred near Valle.

April 26, 2000  100 years of overlogging, fire suppression must end!!

U.S. Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt today praised research and efforts by Northern Arizona University and the Grand Canyon Forests Partnership to restore overgrown, unhealthy ponderosa pine forests in Arizona by thinning and reintroducing fire cycles.

Babbitt said the scientific foundation for restoration has been laid by NAU foresters and researchers and that the time to begin "scaling up" projects has come, despite criticism from some environmentalists who oppose any logging on public and private lands.

Generations of grazing, overlogging and fire suppression have jeopardized the health of nearly 200 million acres of forests in the inland West. Active restoration is needed to reverse the situation, Babbitt said.

Babbitt said besides returning the forests to healthier conditions, thinning and removing fire fuels is crucial in order to stop catastrophic fires from destroying congested forests. Western fires in 1994 that claimed the lives of 14 federal firefighters and the 1996 blaze north of Fort Valley that destroyed hundreds of acres near Flagstaff are proof positive that restoration is a public safety issue, he added.

Babbitt said the Flagstaff area project can be used as a model to improve forest health across the west. The Interior Secretary also likened the local effort to other restoration efforts across the country such as the plan to revive the Everglades and bring salmon back to the rivers of central California

April 26, 2000 Pumice Mine is a a sacrilege! It needs to be Closed! Lets Write letters!

U.S. Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt yesterday joined scores of Native Americans and environmentalists calling for the end of strip mining in the San Francisco Peaks and the closure of the White Vulcan pumice mine.

Struck by the immensity of the strip mining operation, Babbitt, who grew up in Flagstaff and graduated from Flagstaff High School, recalled that the last time he had seen the mine was in 1993, before he left for Washington for a cabinet post.

"As I look over this landscape, I must tell you that I had no idea that such a sacrilege had been perpetrated on this landscape ... I can't believe what's happening here," Babbitt said to an audience of 150 people gathered on the edge of the mine north of Flagstaff.

Babbitt, accompanied by reporters, activists and Native American leaders, strode to the very edge of the 100-foot-deep hole that stretches for thousands of feet and is visible from Arizona Highway 89, Sunset Crater National Monument and from prairie areas south of the current claim.

Babbitt promised that he would work with Forest Service chief Michael Dombeck to have the mine exempted from the Mining Law of 1872 that has allowed the Tufflite Co. to remove minerals from National Forest land. The pumice extracted from White Vulcan is used by the garment industry to make stonewashed blue jeans. The lightweight, gritty volcanic rock also is used in making concrete and for agricultural purposes.

Thirteen Indian tribes have rallied to close the mine because they consider the peaks one of four sacred mountains that delineate borders within which they should live. The Hopi Tribe, as well as the Navajo, Hualapai, Apache and Yavapai tribes all called for a halt to mining operations in the Peaks. They also applauded Babbitt's call for a change in the 1872 Mining Law, which allows companies to mine without paying royalties to the government for the minerals they get. The law also lets companies buy land for as little as $2.50 an acre.

"I met this morning with Native American leaders and everyone of them said to me that this is a sacred mountain," Babbitt said. Bruce reminded the audience that the San Francisco Peaks are the "center of Hopi cosmology" and are called by the Navajos as the "House of the Evening Light" and one of the four cardinal points of the Navajo universe. Babbitt also said that Apaches revere the mountains because they feature prominently in the great deluge recounted in their mythology.

"I didn't have to remind them that this mountain is sacred in my religion. The first Franciscan missionaries that came to this land in the 16th century saw this mountain from the Hopi mesas and named it after the founder of their order, after St. Francis, who is the patron saint of ecology ... who taught us as Catholics that the landscape is a direct manifestation of its creator."

The Forest Service also is considering banning new mining in 74,000 acres surrounding the White Vulcan mine. Babbitt said he's willing to seek eminent domain through court action if necessary to obtain such protection.

Ferrell Secakuku, former chairman of the Hopi Tribe, looked down on the strip mine, heavy machinery and massive pile of glimmering white pumice and then looked to snow-covered Humphreys Peak.

"This is a holy place for all Native Americans who live in the vicinity. This is the home to live game, the elk, the birds, the bugs. This whole mountain is a shrine for us," he said.

"This is the spiritual home of the Kachinas. When one dies, we believe that person turns into a Kachina and becomes a cloud. And that is how the Kachinas travel back and forth during the course of the summer and in the winter they come with the snow. "That's how they bring messages and bring good life to the people. We pray to them for a long life, a good life, abundance in our life and survival. That's how we communicate with them," Secakuku said.

Attending the demonstration were Coconino County supervisors Tom Chabin and Louise Yellowman. Chabin welcomed Babbitt home to Flagstaff. "You should know that we truly value you and consider you our greatest gift to the United States of America." said Chabin as the crowd of 150 applauded.

Chabin said the mining operation offends Native Americans and "violates their traditions, their values, their religion." He said the land the mine is stripping also belongs to "every citizen of the United States."

April 25, 2000   Canyon Clinic and Pharmacy might be closing?

The National Park Service and Northern Arizona Healthcare continued negotiations last week in an effort to keep Grand Canyon Clinic open. Both sides are working against a deadline by Banner Health Arizona, which said it would close the facility at the end of April.

April 24 2000 Canyon Forest Village is Just Too Much!"!!

The body of an unidentified adult male was recovered from below the south rim of Grand Canyon National Park on Wednesday, March 29th. The victim was recovered from approximately 450 feet below the Abyss on Hermit Rest Road. The victim's vehicle had been spotted 1000 feet
below the rim by the park's helicopter pilot during a routine administrative flight. Park rangers descended into the canyon and found no further victims in the vehicle or surrounding area.

In a separate incident, the body of a second unidentified adult male was also recovered from below the south rim of Grand Canyon National Park on Friday, March 31st. The victim was spotted from the air during a continuing search effort for a visitor that had been missing since February 20th. Park rangers completed a technical descent of the canyon wall and recovered the body. The victim was found several hundred yards east of the El Tovar Lodge and 250 feet below the rim.

President Clinton on Tuesday announced that, for the first time, limits will be placed on the number of flights tour airplanes and helicopters may make over Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona's premier natural wonder.

The decision angered air tour operators, who fear the rules will cut into their profits, and disappointed environmentalists, who contend there still will be too much noise in the Canyon.

The cap on the number of air tours, established jointly by the National Parks Service and the Federal Aviation Administration, will limit flights to 90,000 each year. Still, the cap allows nearly double the number of flights estimated in 1987, when Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., pushed through a law requiring the "substantial restoration of natural quiet" at the Canyon.

Starting Dec. 1, the Canyon's flight-free zone will expand to 75 percent of the 1.1 million-acre park from 45 percent. The regulated airspace over the Canyon will rise to 17,999 feet from 14,499. The rise will mean more flights will be counted as regulated air tours rather than currently exempted training or transportation flights.

The new rules capping the number of flights do not include those nearly 30,000 annual training or transportation flights, such as those among Las Vegas, Grand Canyon Airport, and Grand Canyon Airport West on the Hualapai Indian Reservation.

In announcing the rules he first sought in a 1996 Earth Day address, Clinton said, "There may be no place on Earth more stunning than the Grand Canyon." "With this action, we can allow continued access to all, while also helping to restore the natural quiet of this timeless treasure," the president added.

Tom Robinson, spokesman for the Grand Canyon Trust, called the new rules, "a step in the right direction," but he said there are so many loopholes that McCain's requirement for "substantial restoration" of quiet will not be met, "It's still too many flights,". Grand Canyon Trust is critical of new rules that will allow so-called quiet aircraft to fly in flight-free zones. The measure is supposed to be an incentive to nudge the air-tour industry to switch to aircraft and engines that do not make as much noise. "They're not quiet, they're just quieter. There's not really a lot of improvement going on here," Robinson said.

Likewise, Rob Smith of the Sierra Club said the new rules continue to allow even more aircraft than when the 1987 law was passed. "To make progress on noise, you need to reduce the number of air tours, not keep them at the high level they are now," Smith said.

Some 250 people gathered March 13 and 14th on the campus of Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, and at the big dam, in Page.

During their sessions, participants from several Western states listened to stories, and sang songs of protest and celebration. Many support a proposal to drain Lake Powell by opening ducts at the bottom of Glen Canyon Dam and allowing the trapped Colorado River to run.

Other speakers elaborated. Bluff, Utah, geologist and river guide Gene Stevenson said that in the 40 years of the dam's existence, piles of silt - perhaps 100 feet or more - have settled on the canyon floor and in the side canyons and on the rocks, "and while we don't know how much, what we can be sure of is that we're talking decades, even centuries, before the canyon and the river will be fully brought back to life."

In 1996, federal officials did try to undo some of the damage when one March morning Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt opened up four floodgates at the dam and unleashed a torrent that washed down silt and rebuilt some beaches. Babbitt declared it "a new beginning for the Colorado River, a new beginning for the Grand Canyon ecosystem and a new beginning in dam management." But to those who got together here last week, that was just a drop in the bucket. They want the dam put out of business.

It seems to the layman too huge a project to be seriously considered. Yet, there is precedent for so many believing in the movement's eventual success. One speaker recalled that Barry Goldwater, the late U.S. Republican senator from Arizona who was a moving force in the building of the dam, eventually changed his mind. Before he died, Goldwater said that out of the thousands of votes he had cast in the United States Senate, the one he regretted, the one he would change if granted celestial opportunity, was the one in support of building Glen Canyon Dam.

In Goldwater's absence, however, another senator, Orrin Hatch (boooo!!), Republican from Utah, whose recent presidential primary campaign was unsuccessful, knows his conservative constituents would miss their water if he were to let their Lake Powell run dry, and has introduced legislation to prevent efforts by environmentalists to decommission the dam.

"I was ecstatic when the Sierra Club three, four years ago came out in favor of restoring Glen Canyon," said Ken Sleight, an old river runner from Moab. "Then, when Dr. Richard Ingebretsen, the professor over at the University of Utah, and the Glen Canyon Institute all came out in favor of this at the same time, well, it was what I've been waiting for all these years." Sleight, a friendly, generous, and very tough man, made his comments at a teach-in last Monday at the NAU campus. That event was organized by the NAU chapter of Free the Planet, an environmental outfit favored by young people around the world.

A video, "The Cracking of Glen Canyon Dam," made in 1981 and starring the late Edward Abbey, whose spirit hovered over the two day celebration, was shown on Monday. In it, Abbey encouraged a small group who gathered back then to drape a black cloth "crack" over the side of the dam, to first exhaust the political approach, and, he said, "if that doesn't work, then sabotage." No one on Monday or Tuesday advocated sabotage. In fact, a major selling point for draining the reservoir is the claim that the dam cannot hold. It was, said several speakers, built in a bad place - on weak sandstone; a sponge that is and has long been leaking. And in June of 1983, a big water year but not one of the biggest, the dam almost was lost - 29 million acrefeet of water blasting down the Colorado River toward Hoover Dam and Lake (Reservoir) Meade; two years of full flow, running free, wild and with no good intention.

So, sabotage is only a word and a thought that is beneath thinking. Although it might be mentioned that in this, the 25th anniversary of Abbey's death, a commemorative edition of his "The Monkey Wrench Gang," which did embrace sabotage, is set for a June publication. It's already back-ordered.

Can Glen Canyon Dam be decommissioned, Lake Powell drained?

No one at the gatherings appeared to harbor any unreal dreams of when the reservoir would be emptied. Not on Monday at NAU, not on Tuesday, the International Rivers Day of Action, at Glen Canyon, when a declaration was adopted swearing to fight for lifetimes to restore the canyon - and further to make sure no other dams are built. Sierra Club early supporter

David Brower, standing tall but clearly weak, tired from a long trip from his home in Berkeley, Calif., near-sea level, to over 7,000 feet, acknowledged that the Sierra Club, of which he was then director, supported the plan in the late 1950s as Congress was considering the construction of Glen Canyon Dam. "I even wanted to build it 50 feet higher," Brower said. But he had never seen Glen Canyon. Few had.

The Sierra Club compromised, sacrificing the Glen to save Echo Park, in Dinosaur National Monument where the Bureau of Reclamation, the agency in charge of building and maintaining dams, wanted to build another one.

"When I saw the Glen, I realized our mistake," Brower said. "I began working, and we had the votes in Congress to kill it. But I neglected to bring along my (Sierra Club) board, and without the club's backing, Congress let it go ahead." Brower saw the place and, like Barry Goldwater, changed his mind. He has spent the last 40 years (the dam was built in 1963), trying to correct what he sees as an enormous mistake.

Brower noted that he will not live to see the Glen restored, but Ken Sleight, his old friend and a warrior who has fought right alongside, said Tuesday that he considers the drive to restore Glen Canyon "an ongoing battle, one we're in until we die."

Grand Canyon National Park should scrap its confusing system of scheduling private river runners, which keeps some off the Colorado River for a decade while letting others on every year, Superintendent Rob Arnberger said Friday.

Arnberger is under fire from environmentalists for recently halting a long-term environmental study at the Canyon, said retooling the river-running schedule is one of several problems he intends to solve.

People who know how to work the system, he said, are on the river every year while others wait for years for a slot. "The present waiting list doesn't work very well," he said.

Of the nearly 170,000 user days the National Park Service allocates each year for river trips, 68 percent go to the 16 companies that lead organized expeditions through the Canyon.

Private river runners, who provide their own boats, equipment and provisions, get the rest of the user days, defined as one person on the river for one day.

River trips through the Grand Canyon last five to 30 days and usually average about one week, so the 170,000 user days translates to about 25,000 to 30,000 river runners each year.

But although the commercial river runners usually fill nearly all their slots, as many as 30 percent of private river runners, even though they may have been on a waiting list for up to 10 years, cancel their trips.

Private river runners with the flexibility to run the Canyon at a moments notice can pick up the canceled dates, but that system leads to inequities, Arnberger said.

Arnberger scrapped the impact statement effort last month, citing cost and deep differences among various groups that park officials say might not be resolved until Congress officially designates the Canyon as wilderness.

Such a designation by the Republican-controlled Congress is considered highly unlikely. And such a designation is opposed by the Grand Canyon River Outfitters Association.

Mark Grisham of Flagstaff, executive director of the group, said wilderness designation for the park could mean a ban on motorized river rafts and boats. Banning motors would make the trips through the Canyon almost twice as long, reducing the number of people who could enjoy the experience each year, he said.

Park officials say existing motorboats could be grandfathered into a wilderness designation. But Grisham believes such an exception would compromise the intent of wilderness, which bans motorized travel, any building or any other permanent trace of human activity.

Meanwhile, the nation's leading park watchdog group, the National Parks and Conservation Association, is criticizing Arnberger's decision to end the impact statement process, as well as Congress' failure to designate the Canyon as wilderness.

"Grand Canyon National Park needs a congressional wilderness designation and a river-use allocation system that is fair to all Americans," said David Simon, the association's Southwestern representative.

"The Park Service has punted the wilderness issues to a Congress that hates the word 'wilderness.' And unfortunately, halting the river plan revision simply demonstrates the grip that some commercial interests have over some of America's national parks."

He said he currently is completing an agreement with the Hualapai Tribe over a long-running boundary dispute; completing an agreement with Lake Mead National Recreation Area over management of Separation Canyon, at the park's western end.

The first of what may be many lawsuits has been filed challenging Grand Canyon National Park Superintendent Rob Arnberger's decision to halt work on the Colorado River Management Plan.

Nine residents of New Mexico, Maryland and Colorado on a 20-year waiting list for a permit to raft down the Colorado River through the Canyon, filed suit March 7 in federal court in Albuquerque alleging the Park Service favors commercial outfitters over private boaters when allocating river permits.

The Colorado River Management Plan was supposed to resolve decades of controversy over the allocation of permits on the river, which currently favors 16 commercial outfitters with 70 percent of the permits.

Private boaters claim the $27 million annual commercial rafting industry put pressure on Arnberger to "derail the planning process."

The boaters say that the waiting list for a private permit is now 6,500 names long and growing.

Commercial outfitters say they are willing to continue the planning process but warned that the lawsuit may chill ongoing negotiations.

The lawsuit filed by Wells asks the federal court to:

Reallocate the percentage of permits between commercial outfitters and private boaters.

Halt the Park Service from negotiating new contracts with commercial rafting companies until a more equitable allocation system is established.

The Colorado River Management Plan was also expected to implement regulations protecting wilderness values in the park, which environmentalists hoped would result in the banning of motorized craft on the river and ensure preservation of canyon ecosystems.

Wells' lawsuit is supported by the Grand Canyon Private Boaters Association, which has been harshly critical of Arnberger's decision to suspend work on the management plan.

Arnberger says he's caught in the middle of the conflict between commercial operators and private boaters over use permits and environmentalists calling for a ban on motors.

He said the park's hands are tied until Congress passes legislation establishing wilderness areas in the park and settles the motors versus oars issue once and for all. Staff time and funding would be wasted if the management plan sparked numerous lawsuits, he added.

Meanwhile, The Wilderness Society is watching the Wells lawsuit and is still considering filing suit against the Park Service to force Arnberger to resume work on the management plan, said Rose Fennell, a Society spokesperson.

Fennell said Arnberger is violating National Park Service policy that requires him to manage proposed wilderness areas despite the pending wilderness designation.

The Wilderness Society and other environmental groups expected the river management plan to include a ban or phasing out of motors in the Canyon to preserve wilderness values.

The Sierra Club, Grand Canyon Trust and other environmental groups would like to see the Canyon free of motorized rafts altogether.

One week before Canyon Forest Village's expected rezoning approval from Coconino County, the Grand Canyon Chapter of the Sierra Club announced it had filed a lawsuit in an attempt to stop the multimillion-dollar development.

The Sierra Club claims in the lawsuit, filed Thursday in federal court in Phoenix, that the U.S. Forest Service should not have permitted CFV until the developer made good on promises not to use groundwater that might flow into the Grand Canyon. In addition, the club claims the massive project is not good for the national park.

"Building northern Arizona's largest shopping center at the entrance to the Grand Canyon is simply a bad idea," said Sharon Galbreath, state conservation chair for the Sierra Club. "The development's use of underground water could threaten the existence of springs and streams within the Grand Canyon itself."

The Sierra Club is also challenging the Forest Service's decision to approve CFV because the agency has not allowed the public to review essential information. In a prepared press release, the Sierra Club says the development's covenants, which will govern the project, have not been made publicly available.

The proposed CFV development would take up 272 acres of what is now national forest land near the south entrance to Grand Canyon National Park. The area is nearly three times the size of the existing 100-acre Tusayan community, which includes an existing complex of hotels, restaurants and shops. In its proposal, which was modified by county supervisors and planning and zoning commissioners, CFV would build 1,140 hotel rooms and 240,000 square feet of retail space.

"Canyon Forest Village would make crowding at the Grand Canyon worse because it will bring in even more people," Galbreath said.

Earlier this winter, a federal lawsuit was filed in Washington, D.C., by the Tusayan-based Grand Canyon Improvement Association, the City of Williams, the City of Flagstaff and the Northern Arizona Council of Governments. That lawsuit against the U.S. Forest Service challenges the land exchange.

Releases through March 24, 2000, will average about 11,300 cfs. Weekday "on peak" releases (late afternoon and early evening) will be about 14,000 cfs. Weekend on peak releases will be about 12,000 cfs. "Off peak" releases (late evening and early morning) will be 8,400 cfs on all days.

On March 25, releases from Glen Canyon Dam will be reduced to steady flows of 8,000 cfs. Releases will be held steady at 8,000 cfs through April 5 (12 days), during which time aerial photography of the Colorado River corridor from Glen Canyon Dam to Lake Mead will be collected. From this aerial photography, high resolution (one meter) topographic base maps of the Colorado River corridor will be developed to suppor tthe scientific study and monitoring of the river corridor. It is possible that this aerial photography work may be completed in less than 12 days. If this is the case, releases will be increased from 8,000 cfs prior to April 5.

Water year 2000 began very dry. October, November, and December 1999 were months with much below average precipitation. Snowpack in the Colorado River Basin on January 1, 2000, was only 43 percent of average. However, January and February were months with above average precipitation, however. Snowpack in the Upper Colorado River basin as of March 9, 2000, has increased to 85 percent of average.

The March final inflow forecast issued by the National Weather Service is forecasting 6.0 million acre-feet (78 percent of average) for April through July inflow to Lake Powell.

The Bureau of Reclamation is now considering testing low steady releases from Glen Canyon Dam this summer. For more information on these test flows, please visit Reclamation's web page at www.uc.usbr.gov/pao/.-

A comprehensive planning process for Wilderness management and the Colorado
River within Grand Canyon National Park has been scrapped by Grand Canyon
National Park Superintendent Robert Arnberger.  The result?  The American
people have been cut out of the process to shape Grand Canyon Wilderness
management, and Wilderness values will continue to decline.  Let Interior
Secretary Bruce Babbitt know how you feel at
http://www.wilderness.org/ccc/fourcorners/grca_plan.htm

BACKGROUND
More than 20 years have gone by since 1.1 million acres of Grand Canyon
National Park were proposed for Wilderness designation -- which only
Congress can make.  At the same time, motors have continued to proliferate
on the Colorado River within the Park, in stark contradiction to the
Wilderness Act, as well as the National Park Service's own policies to
manage proposed wilderness as designated wilderness. The potential
wilderness proposed for the river would require the NPS to remove such a
"non-conforming" use.

The motorized concessionaire industry has great influence with the Park
Service at Grand Canyon.  The industry claims it will lose profits if it
has to switch to oar-powered trips.  Non-commercial, private boaters have
to wait up to 20 years for a permit to raft the river.

Now, the only "plans of record" to guide Wilderness management on the
Colorado River in the Park are two inadequate management plans that have
not been updated in over 11 years, and do little to manage for Wilderness
values.  Since then, motorized use of the river has continued to escalate;
and increased visitation, pollution, and congestion, have further
deteriorated  Wilderness values in the Park.

In 1998, Superintendent Arnberger decided not to finalize a Draft
Wilderness Management Plan in order to come up with a comprehensive
planning process that would include the Colorado River. Now, he's pulled
the plug on the latest planning process, at a time when even President
Clinton has moved to protect the Grand Canyon ecosystem by designating the
Grand Canyon-Paranshant National Monument, adjacent to the Park.

TAKE ACTION
We're calling on the National Park Service and Interior Secretary Bruce
Babbitt to reverse this decision.  Please take a couple of minutes to send
a message from http://www.wilderness.org/ccc/fourcorners/grca_plan.htm.  
Tell Sec. Babbitt that the Wilderness planning process for Grand Canyon
National Park should be restarted.  Specifically:

- Halting the planning process has removed the American people from having
a role in shaping a new vision for Grand Canyon Wilderness.
- The remaining management "plans of record" for the Park are inadequate
and don't actually address Wilderness management on the Colorado River.
- Without a planning process, motorized use will continue on the Colorado
into perpetuity, continuing the atmosphere of chaos on the river and
further eroding Wilderness values.

On February 27th, park staff were advised that Dr. Gregory Rotz, 41, was two days overdue from a solo, four-day hike in the canyon. Rotz, an anesthesiologist, failed to show up in Las Vegas for a medical conference.

The park began a search the following morning, utilizing two NPS helicopters, ground searchers, and river patrol rangers. Search efforts were concentrated in the area between Indian Garden and the Hermit Creek drainage. Rotz was found in the upper section of the drainage, where he'd bivouacked after becoming lost. He'd started a small brush fire the previous day in an effort to attract attention. Hikers found him when they went to the site to suppress the fire.

February 18, 2000 Bruce Babbitt says Protect the West or lose it!

If Westerners want to protect their landscapes, they must act now and think big, Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt said.

"What is it we want to see 50 and 100 years from now?" Babbitt asked a group of about 350 at the University of Denver Law School. "There is a sense of urgency in the West because it's filling up."

Babbitt has traveled the West the past year drumming up support for a dozen massive landprotection proposals. Three of those are in Colorado and would protect land adjacent to the Colorado National Monument west of Grand Junction, Hovenweep and Mesa Verde in the Four Corners area, and the Great Sand Dunes National Monument in the San Luis Valley. Americans should stop looking at land preservation on a "postage-stamp" basis and envision protecting entire ecosystems, Babbitt said. That's the thrust behind his latest efforts.

"What we do is look at ecosystems and not visitor platforms," Babbitt said, referring to previous park designations that led to protecting pieces of land with pretty views. On the Western Slope, the idea is to protect approximately 140,000 acres stretching from the western boundary of the Colorado National Monument to the Utah border, he said.

Babbitt wants to designate the new lands National Landscape Monuments and have the Bureau of Land Management oversee them. That will change the role of the BLM, which has traditionally overseen lands that held little public interest, Babbitt said. However, these won't be parks in the traditional sense, he said. While mining wouldn't be permitted, hunting would be, and in some cases grazing would be allowed, Babbitt said.

"The purpose is to protect these landscapes, not to sever all activities." Another difference is that there won't be visitor centers, gas stations or other amenities that are found in existing parks. People will be able to hike, camp, hunt and fish with fewer restrictions. Basically, they will be on their own. "There won't be anyplace to make a reservation," he said. "This will be a lot more of an adventure."

The National Landscape Monument concept is evolving, and Babbitt said he's worked hard to build support for the protections among people who live near the lands, saying that nearby communities should have a voice in how the lands are managed. The best scenario would be for Congress, with community support, to take action to preserve these areas, but that isn't happening, Babbitt said. Land protection measures are controversial and typically get tied up for years in political debate.

Just last month, President Clinton, using his powers under the Antiquities Act, designated for protection 1 million acres contiguous to Grand Canyon National Park. He used his presidential powers only after lawmakers introduced legislation that claimed to protect the land but left it open to mining and other industries, Babbitt said.

"We offered to engage Congress, and what we got in turn was a piece of sham legislation," he said.

Colorado's congressional delegation has said it wants to act, but time is growing short, said Babbitt, who left Denver immediately after his speech to attend community meetings on the Western Slope regarding the land west of the Colorado National Monument.

"The hour is late. . . . The West is becoming an urban place," Babbitt said. "We're now in the seventh inning, and this team isn't just going to walk off the field, he said, indicating action is needed before the end of Clinton's term. If Congress won't protect these lands, he said, he'll make sure they are preserved one way or another. "I'm prepared to go back to the president and implore him to use his powers under the Antiquities Act and say to him, "If they don't (act) and you do, you'll be validated' " by future generations.

February 18, 2000 Babbitt vows to preserve lands around Colorado National Monument!!

January 07, 2000 Glen Canyon Dam releases reduced!

January 01, 2000 Driest stretch since 1974