Federal scientists admit failure of Grand Canyon endangered fish recovery

[phantom power]

In a draft paper circulated last week, lead scientists for the federal program overseeing endangered fish recovery in Grand Canyon National Park noted that their principal approach has been a "failure".

For more than ten years dam managers have been emphasizing a specific flow regime from Glen Canyon Dam asserting that it would reverse the decline of the endangered humpback chub. Instead, the declines have averaged about 14 percent annually since the early 1990s the draft paper says.

"While they may still tinker with the details of their paper, the word failure will continue to ring loud and clear," says Owen Lammers, Living Rivers/Colorado Riverkeeper executive director. "We've been arguing for years that the Bureau of Reclamation heed the advice of the Fish and Wildlife Service and implement flows more consistent with the river's natural hydrograph if they want to stop the decline of native fish populations, but instead, even after admitting failure, they want to head further in the wrong direction."

The paper advocates moving away from what has been called Modified Low Fluctuating Flows, which restrict dam operators to water releases between 5,000 and 25,000 cubic feet per second. Restrictions were also place on the hourly rate for increasing and decreasing flows from the dam, not to exceed 4,000 and 1,500 cubic feet per-second per-hour respectively.

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