Thursday, March 06, 2008

You Cannot Placate The Environment

A rapid release of water from the Glen Canyon Dam is a great thing for the wildlife in the Grand Canyon....but only if it is part of a comprehensive plan to sustain the practice yearly with other water releases through the year. Unfortunately Dirk Kempthorne and the Bush Administration would rather make a good showing in the press and placate environmental groups instead. Um, Dick, no one is buying it.

From The International Herald Tribune:

The 60-hour release, being presided over by Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, was the latest chapter in a long-running tug of war between the department's Bureau of Reclamation, which controls the two major Colorado River dams, and the National Park Service over how to balance the Southwest's need for hydroelectric power against the needs of an endangered fish, the humpbacked chub, for water flows that mimic the natural rhythms of the river.[...]

But the superintendent of Grand Canyon National Park, Steve Martin, argued that if such high flows were not repeated several times in the next five years, the overall water management plan was very likely to impair rather than improve the fish environment.

After this week's release, the rate of flow through 277 miles of the Grand Canyon is set to rise and fall for six months in a pattern that the United States Geological Survey is calibrating to match the demand for hydroelectric power in cities like Las Vegas, said Randall Peterson, a regional manager with the Bureau of Reclamation.[...]

This week's event was publicized by the Interior Department, to the anger of environmental groups, which said the attention masked the rarity of this occurrence. Ideally, some sediment scientists argue, high flows should be annual events.

"This experiment, this celebration, is a charade," said Nikolai Lash, senior program director of the Grand Canyon Trust, a private environmental group. "It was a glamorous event staged for the media that shows the Bureau of Reclamation is doing something for the environment, when in fact there's a lot more to do."


I wonder why the Dept. of the Interior even bothers with the rapid release. If they aren't committed to doing it right, then why do it a......oh wait, thats the official mantra of the Bush Administration, if you are going to do something then royally f-it up. Why should preserving the environment in one of America's national treasures be any different than how the government mismanages the war, the economy and everything else.