Glen Canyon Dam Technical Work Group 

Meeting Minutes

February 26-27, 2003

Conducting: Kurt Dongoske, Chairperson FINAL

Committee Members Present:

Perri Benemelis, ADWR

Kerry Christensen, Hualapai Tribe

Dave Cohen, Trout Unlimited

Wayne Cook, UCRC

Jonathan Damp, Pueblo of Zuni

William Davis, CREDA

Brenda Drye, So. Paiute Consortium

Lloyd Greiner, UAMPS

Norm Henderson, NPS

Amy Heuslein, BIA

Pamela Hyde, Southwest Rivers

Matt Kaplinski, GCRG

Robert King, UDWR

Dennis Kubly, USBR

Phillip Lehr, Colo. River Commission/NV

Bill Persons, AGFD

Nikola Ramsey, Grand Canyon Trust

D. Randolph Seaholm, CWCB

John Shields, WY State Engineer’s Ofc.

Michael Yeatts, The Hopi Tribe

Committee Members Absent:

Robert Begay, Navajo Nation

Christopher Harris, CRB/CA

Cole Crocker-Bedford, NPS/GRCA

Don Metz, USFWS

Nancy Hornewer, USGS

John Whipple, NM Interstate Stream Comm.

Clayton Palmer, WAPA

Alternates Present: For:

Timothy Begay Robert Begay, Navajo Nation

Jeff Cross Cole Crocker-Bedford, NPS/GRCA

Debra Bills Don Metz, USFWS

Wayne Cook John Whipple, NM Interstate Stream Comm.

Mary Barger Clayton Palmer, WAPA

Interested Persons:

Rebecca Cole, USGS NWHC

Jennifer Dierker, NPS/GRCA

Lee Failing, Compass

Helen Fairley, General Public

Denny Fenn, GCMRC/USGS

Steve Gloss, GCMRC/USGS

Glen Knowles, USFWS

Josh Korman, Ecometric

Lisa Leap, NPS/GRCA

Mike Liszewski, GCMRC/USGS

Ted Melis, GCMRC/USGS

Mark Owens, Biomark, Inc.

Dean Park, Biomark, Inc.

Craig Paukert, GCMRC/USGS

Randy Peterson, USBR

Jack Schmidt, Utah State University

Mark Steffen, Federation of FlyFishers

N. Scott Urquhart, Colorado State University

Carl Walters

Recorder: Linda Whetton, USBR

Meeting Opening and Administrative Items

Convened: 9:40 a.m.
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Minutes of February 26-27, 2003, Meeting Page 2

Welcome and Administrative Items: Kurt Dongoske welcomed the TWG members, alternates, and 

guests. All introduced themselves. A quorum was established and attendance sheets (Attachment 1) 

were distributed.

1) Randy said he has appreciated working with the TWG but announced he will no longer serve as the 

program manager as Dennis Kubly will now assume that responsibility. He will continue as an alternate 

to Rick Gold on the Adaptive Management Work Group and would also stay on as the vice-chair of the 

TWG, assisting with preparation of agendas and conducting TWG meetings in the absence of the 

chairperson, etc. He could also assist with any facilitation or mediation needs. 

2) Debra Bills introduced Glen Knowles who will replace Don Metz on the TWG when Don retires. 

Review of Action Items from Nov. 7-8, 2002 meeting. Item #3 - change $600,00 to $50,000. 

Review of Minutes from Nov. 7-8, 2002 Meeting. Bill Persons and Randy Seaholm will provide their 

edits to the recorder. Pending corrections and without objection, the minutes were approved.

Action Item: Denny Fenn will provide the TWG with the website address of the USGS FY 2004 budget.

Action Item: Randy Peterson will send a .pdf file of the USBR’s FY 2004 budget to the TWG.

Review of Action Items from Dec. 20, 2002 Conference Call. Change $600,000 to $50,000 on top of 

page 4.

Review of Minutes from Dec. 20, 2002, Conference Call. Bill Persons and Randy Seaholm will 

provide their edits to the recorder. Pending corrections and without objection, the minutes were 

approved.

John Shields asked if there were any further developments on the Grand Canyon Trust’s intent to sue. 

He said the 60 days have expired and he knows that Region 6 wrote a letter to the GCT indicating a 

willingness to meet with the GCT. He said he could provide copies of the Region 6 letter along with 

GCT’s response. 

Action item: John Shields will provide copies of the letter Region 6 sent to GCT indicating their 

willingness to meet with the GCT and GCT’s response.

Legislative Updates – Randy Peterson said there has been some movement on the energy bill 

discussed in Congress last year but no final action. It’s his understanding that while the bill was in 

conference the issue of a national electrical utility policy was still being considered. That issue was a 

source of great contention with the last energy bill and it’s expected that contention will continue during 

this Congress making it equally difficult to pass an energy bill this year. The HR number that was put in 

place last year has been superceded and he’s not aware of a new bill number. 

There are two bills that have been introduced: (1) H.R. 238, “Energy, Research, Development,

Demonstration, and Commercial Application Act,” which contains some hydropower and (2) S.424. 

“Tribal Energy Self-Sufficiency Act,” which also contains hydropower characteristics but is limited to the 

Missouri River. It talks about incremental increases from the use of hydropower but doesn’t focus on 

increasing generation at any specific facility. It’s more in terms of increasing the use of renewable fuels 

by the tribes. For more information, go to http://thomas.loc.gov.

TWG Operating Procedures (Attachment 2) – Kurt said the impetus for putting this item on the agenda 

is that he is longer associated with the Hopi Tribe and in reviewing the Operating Procedures, it’s not 

clear whether the chairperson needs to be affiliated with a stakeholder group. He is now an employee 
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Minutes of February 26-27, 2003, Meeting Page 3

with the Pueblo of Zuni and has had talked with them about making him the TWG alternate. He asked 

the TWG if they wanted to discuss further and whether or not he should remain the TWG Chairperson. 

After a brief discussion, it was decided to retain Kurt as the TWG Chairperson and not make any 

changes to the Operating Procedures. 

Humpback chub Ad Hoc Group Update - Sam Spiller said one of the things he asked the AMWG to 

support when the HBC AHG was established in January was that it include TWG members, GCMRC 

staff, and also science advisors. He distributed a copy of the attendance roster (Attachment 3a) from 

the meeting held on February 12 and asked if there were other individuals who needed to be included. 

He reported the Feb. 12 meeting minutes (Attachment 3b) were e-mailed to the members as well as 

posted to Reclamation’s web site (http://www.uc.usbr.gov/envprog/amp/amwg/mtgs/03mar28/mtga4_00.html). 

Sam said that Steve Gloss gave a very good presentation on the status and species. The ad hoc group 

also developed some action items (Attachment 3c). They had a meeting the following day sponsored 

by the Arizona Game and Fish Department to address future requirements with respect to taking fish and 

knowing when people (fishermen) would be in the canyon. A concern was raised about the actual status

of the humpback chub in that it appears the numbers reported may be incorrect: 1,100 or 2,000. Steve 

Gloss will review the data and report back to the HBC AHG. Sam said the purpose of the March 12 

meeting will be to finalize the recommendations and discuss the biological status. 

Steve Gloss announced that Carl Walters would be available this evening if any of the TWG and/or HBC 

AHG members want to participate in an informal discussion on HBC status and trends.

Target Setting – Ted Melis said that while people have been working on the Strategic Plan and other 

assignments over the past two years, GCMRC staff have perceived an interest in “target setting.” As 

such they asked Josh Korman, Carl Walters, and Lee Failing to make a presentation at today’s meeting 

on a proposed way for the GCMRC to assist the TWG with the concept of setting targets, the idea of 

trying to establish ways of evaluating how well the program elements are working/not working with 

respect to the management objectives and information needs. 

Josh Korman said he and Carl got involved with the AMP in 1998 with a conceptual modeling exercise. 

There were three objectives for developing that model: (1) highlight the data gaps, (2) use the modeling 

exercise as a policy screening tool, and (3) use the model as a data tool. Their presence today will be an

extension of that original conceptual modeling exercise and the need for target setting. Josh said he met 

Lee Failing through work with EC Hydro. He was working as a modeler on a water use planning process 

similar to what is being done by the TWG but on a much smaller scale. Lee would take the results to the 

stakeholders to help them make a decision about different flow alternatives. He found her to be really 

effective at the methods she was using. She is a mechanical engineer and is going to present a plan on 

how it could be organized and Carl will provide a demonstration of the Grand Canyon model because 

that will be one of the primary tools to be used. 

Lee Failing said the reason they were asked to make a presentation to the TWG was based on a need to 

establish quantitative targets to guide management and assess progress over time. She proceeded with 

a PowerPoint presentation, “Multi-Attribute Evaluation of Key Resources in GCDAMP” (Attachment 4). 

When asked where the targets come from, Lee said that once the management alternatives have been 

determined, then the targets can be defined. At that point, some modeling has been done or there are 

some empirical results that would suggest: (a) it’s a reasonable target and there is some scientific basis 

for being able to achieve it, (b) that the set of targets collectively are not completely in congress, or (c) 

the stakeholders have decided it is desirable to do. She said one has to choose the management 

alternative based on comparison with other alternatives. 

Perri Benemelis questioned how the reliability of information for one attribute influences the outcome. 

For example, the attribute for rainbow trout is abundance. Since there is a fairly large population of RBT,
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Minutes of February 26-27, 2003, Meeting Page 4

the survey data would probably be reliable but because it is being compared to HBC (really small 

numbers in a huge system), the reliability of those numbers is questionable. Lee said she really 

oversimplified for this presentation but agreed that uncertainty creates problems with the numbers. She 

said there are different ways of dealing with the uncertainty and she would like to have some detailed 

discussions on how to do it. 

Carl Walters said that most of the TWG were involved in the GCM model. In fact, the initial development 

of that model fit into a series of workshops and was presented in a slide show. He said if one is going to 

build a computer model that looks at the past and future of the Grand Canyon ecosystem, there are a 

million different ways to do that: look at one tiny backwater area and every single blade of grass or look 

at a much larger scale time perspective. There is no way to get started without bringing a group of 

people together to determine what is wanted and if there is a program that could help them. He 

proceeded with a PowerPoint presentation entitled, “Grand Canyon Ecosystem Model.”

Carl said the model has a real way of clearing the air about the target, variables, uncertainties and 

research needs. The models are easy to use and often there emerges over some period of time a 

shared vision about how a system should be managed and how to live with the tradeoffs. What they 

found happening in some of the modeling exercises is there develops a shared vision about policy 

alternatives that are win-win alternatives and might end up doing better for everybody. One of the key 

ideas behind the modeling is being able to play with the model and see if one doesn’t just get lucky. 

Virtually every exercise they’ve been involved with on major riparian ecosystems and other large 

ecosystems around the world have resulted in a shared vision. He feels the shared vision might scare a 

lot of people, for example, going back to very much higher fluctuating flows and letting the river go down 

to about 3,000 cfs and up to 25,000 cfs. The model says it would pump a lot more sand up on the 

beaches rather than stirring it up and carrying it down through the system. It would end up being better 

for beaches. It’s badly needed for the rainbow trout population. That population is grossly overstocked 

and the densities are about five times higher than they ought to be. It would probably keep the rainbow 

trout away from the chubs in the lower part of the system save having to go in there and electroshock 

them. The idea behind these models is to be able to stand back from what has happened in the system 

and move progressively toward more restrictive policies with respect to water management, collimate the 

most steady flow and see whether or not the policy in the canyon has got the channel too narrow or 

whether broader alternatives ought to be considered.

Carl said that there is still a lot of work that needs to be done on the model. They haven’t had time to 

bring in the most recent time series estimates on humpback chub population trends or the most recent 

rainbow trout assessments so there is a lot of detail work that needs to be done. Carl explained there is 

an interface within the computer that is reaching down inside the computer to two things: (1) one is a 

bunch of huge spreadsheets of data that were put together on the historical physical characteristics of 

the river and to some degree on what they’ve been able to put together on historical biological 

characteristics of the river. These are essentially the forcing inputs to the interface. The computer reads 

in very complicated riverware simulation results from the big hydrologic walls that are used to plan water 

management release schedules up and down the Colorado basin. It brings in economic evaluation data 

from the power system as well. (2) A lot of rules were programmed into a language called visual basic 

that expressed what they think are some of the process linkages between the big physical spreadsheet 

databases and some aspects of the ecology of the system. Inside the model everything in the canyon 

gets divided into 12 reaches and the canyon bottom is divided into a depth layers going up outside of the 

channel along each of those and a lot of the calculations are done that way. To look over time, they try 

to recreate abundance over a 50-year period. He then demonstrated how the model ran. The model is 

capable of looking at in considerable detail in space that is down the river by river reaches and over time. 

In some ways the information is too complicated. 

TWG Questions/Concerns: 
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Minutes of February 26-27, 2003, Meeting Page 5

• With a lot of other issues (budget, HBC, TCD), what is the best timing for this process?

• Can the process help with the HBC?

• Need for a shared vision in assisting with policy decisions

• Look at tradeoffs for resources

• Possibility of holding a one-day target setting workshop 

Asian Tapeworm - Steve Gloss introduced Rebecca Cole. She is a parasitologist with the National 

Wildlife Phelps Center which is an organization in Madison, Wisconsin that works on fisheries and wildlife 

diseases all around the country. They’ve been doing some work in the last several years to try and shed 

some light on the Asian tapeworm in the Lower Colorado River. Rebecca distributed copies of the paper, 

“Parasites of Native and Non-native Fishes of the Little Colorado River, Grand Canyon, Arizona” 

(Attachment 5a) and then made a PowerPoint presentation (Attachment 5b). 

Physical Component of the Summer 2000 LSSF – Ted Melis said the context of Jack Schmidt’s 

presentation would be on the integrated physical science results from the Low Steady Summer Flow 

(LSSF) 2000 Experiment. The two major results of that project included: (1) a backwater study report 

which is currently being reviewed with a final to be released shortly and, (2) the final overall report which 

GCMRC is currently reviewing and should be finalized in spring or summer. Several groups who have 

been involved with monitoring and research of sandbar storage issues over the past decade or longer 

came together under an integrated proposal in 2000 which Jack led. Results will be from at least two 

components of USGS involvement as well as data contributed by Northern Arizona University and Utah 

State University. 

Jack Schmidt gave a PowerPoint presentation entitled, “Effects of Low Steady Summer Flow and Habitat 

Maintenance Flows in 2000 on Sediment Transport in Marble and Upper Grand Canyons” (Attachment 

6). 

Update on Integrated Coarse-Sediment Monitoring and Modeling – Bob Webb said he would talk 

about what he’s been involved with since he started doing research in the Grand Canyon. He proceeded 

with a PowerPoint presentation, “Modeling Debris-Flow Sediment Transport in Grand Canyon” 

(Attachment 7). 

Flow Modeling Graphical Interface – Ted Melis said there were two major modeling efforts that went 

on during the GCES phase, one was referred to as STARS which was an attempt by the Bureau of 

Reclamation to develop a stage and travel time prediction model for the Colorado River below the dam 

that was led primarily by Denver Office (Tim Randle). It was fairly complete and functional by 1987. It 

turned out that it didn’t do a very good job of predicting travel time but did a good job of predicting 

stages. Later in PhaseTwo the USGS came in and made another effort to get the travel time concept for 

modeling down. Steve Wiele was able to close that loop in 1996 and they verified those models and 

results during the 1996 flood which resulted in both a travel time model and a stage prediction model but 

two separate models developed by two separate agencies at two different times. They were both 

functional and considered operational but people couldn’t access them readily. They decided to pursue 

development of a graphical user interface (GUI) in 1999 and Ecometric was able to assist. The goal was 

to come up with a GUI that combined both of the models in one package, could be run on a laptop 

computer, and would be available for any stakeholder or any member of the general public. The goal 

was that a discharge from the power plant could be routed through the system, stages could be predicted 

at hundreds of locations through the system, and the travel time of the diurnal wave could be estimated 

actively throughout the whole system. Ted introduced Josh Korman who gave a PowerPoint 

presentation (Attachment 8). 

New PIT (Passive Integrated Transponder) Tags – Steve Gloss said PIT tags have been used for 

about 15 years and now the technology for marking fish has advanced considerably beyond what 

GCMRC is using in the canyon and so they wanted to ask Mark Owens and Dean Park from Biomark, 
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Minutes of February 26-27, 2003, Meeting Page 6

Inc., to make a presentation on the newest technology. Steve said if they implement the new tags for 

this year, it will cost around $60,000. Steve said Mark and Dean spent some time yesterday with 

GCMRC’s fishery cooperators. 

Mark explained that a PIT tag is a micro circuit encapsulated in a bioglass capsule and is typically 

implanted inside the animal. Biomark is essentially the marketing and research aspect of the 

manufacturer’s effort to distribute the technology. It’s also being used in the companion animal market. 

Following the presentation (Attachment 9), Steve asked the TWG if they would approve the purchase of 

the PIT tags for the GCMRC. There was a general feeling of concurrence among the members and 

Steve said he would place an order with Biomark.

Adjourned: 5 p.m.
Glen Canyon Dam Technical Work Group

Minutes of February 26-27, 2003, Meeting Page 7

Glen Canyon Dam Technical Work Group 

Meeting Minutes

February 26-27, 2003

Conducting: Kurt Dongoske, Chairperson Convened: 8:15 a.m.

Committee Members Present:

Kerry Christensen, Hualapai Tribe

Wayne Cook, UCRC

Jonathan Damp, Pueblo of Zuni

Brenda Drye, So. Paiute Consortium

Lloyd Greiner, UAMPS

Norm Henderson, NPS

Pamela Hyde, Southwest Rivers

Matt Kaplinski, GCRG

Robert King, UDWR

Dennis Kubly, USBR

Bill Persons, AGFD

Nikola Ramsey, Grand Canyon Trust

D. Randolph Seaholm, CWCB

John Shields, WY State Engineer’s Ofc.

Michael Yeatts, The Hopi Tribe

Committee Members Absent:

Robert Begay, Navajo Nation

Perri Benemelis, ADWR

Christopher Harris, CRB/CA

Cole Crocker-Bedford, NPS/GRCA

Amy Heuslein, BIA

William Davis, CREDA

Phillip Lehr, Colo. River Commission/NV

Don Metz, USFWS

Nancy Hornewer, USGS

John Whipple, NM Interstate Stream Comm.

Clayton Palmer, WAPA

Alternates Present: For:

Timothy Begay Robert Begay, Navajo Nation

Jeff Cross Cole Crocker-Bedford, NPS/GRCA

Debra Bills Don Metz, USFWS

Wayne Cook John Whipple, NM Interstate Stream Comm.

Mary Barger Clayton Palmer, WAPA

Interested Persons:

Nancy Coulam, USBR

Jennifer Dierker, NPS/GRCA

Helen Fairley, General Public

Denny Fenn, GCMRC/USGS

James Garrison, AZ SHPO

Steve Gloss, GCMRC/USGS

Ann Howard, AZ SHPO

Glen Knowles, USFWS

Lisa Leap, NPS/GRCA

Mike Liszewski, GCMRC/USGS

Ted Melis, GCMRC/USGS

Craig Paukert, GCMRC/USGS

Randy Peterson, USBR

Mark Steffen, Federation of FlyFishers

N. Scott Urquhart, Colorado State University

Recorder: Linda Whetton, USBR

Meeting Opening and Administrative Items

Welcome and Administrative Items: Kurt Dongoske welcomed the TWG members, alternates, and 

guests. All introduced themselves. A quorum was established and attendance sheets were distributed.
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Minutes of February 26-27, 2003, Meeting Page 8

Target Setting Workshop – Kurt asked the members what direction they wanted to give GCMRC about 

holding a target setting workshop. He questioned whether they wanted to do a pilot workshop in 

conjunction with a TWG meeting to see how doing resource comparisons and making tradeoffs would 

work. Based on that outcome, a decision would be made whether to have a more involved workshop 

and possibly invite the AMWG. After some discussion, the TWG agreed the model should be updated 

and a one-day meeting should be scheduled around the May TWG meeting. Linda will send an e-mail 

message to the TWG requesting their availability for a workshop/TWG meeting during the month of May.

Action Item: Linda will send an e-mail message to the TWG polling them for their availability at a

combined workshop/TWG Meeting in May. 

Core Monitoring, Research, Experimentation – Steve Gloss said because of the uncertainty around 

the budget, experimental flows, and some other things, the GCMRC thought it would be a good idea to 

get a sense from the TWG of what their expectations are about core monitoring - what has to be 

available from core monitoring with respect to making decisions. The GCMRC has been involved in core 

monitoring for the past couple of years but would like to get a better sense of how people feel about it. 

This would also coincide with a science advisors workshop being held on March 21-24. He said their 

approach would be to do a short presentation of what they’re doing in core monitoring using the FY03 

work plan. They have asked Scott Urquhart from Colorado State University to make a presentation that 

talks a little bit about the assumptions that need to go into monitoring programs from a statistical 

sampling point of view and from a reliability of information point of view - what kind of inferences are 

appropriate/ inappropriate to make about the status and trends of resources depending upon the time of 

monitoring, design, etc. He proceeded with a PowerPoint presentation (Attachment 10a) and then 

asked Ted Melis to present the last four slides. 

Mark Steffen asked how often the aerial overflights are conducted. Ted said they have been done 

annually for support of the entire program, and not just the FIST. He went on to explain that the FIST 

requires a fairly specialized type of overflight for the 11 reaches, approximately 10% of the whole river 

system, and must be done once every two years. Ted said they are developing some digital terrain 

models from the dataset. Mark asked if they needed four days of 8,000 cfs flows. Mike Liszewski 

responded that in the last couple of years they collected for 10 days and needed all that time to complete 

the aerial overflights primarily because they drastically reduced the time available for the aircraft to 

actually fly over the canyon in order to minimize shadowing. The annual overflight of 10 days is a fair 

number. For the special flight Ted was referring to as the FIST, only a couple of days are needed. Mark 

questioned if it was something that had to be done every other year. Mike said that question has been 

raised before and is being addressed as part of the remote sensing initiative. However, he said that not 

all the data needs to be collected at the same time. Mark said that in the past there have been lower 

levels (5,000 cfs) that were required to do the overflights and it’s pretty obvious of what it does to the 

river at that level. It also prevents anything from living above 8,000 cfs level. Mike said that about four 

years ago they deviated from the strictly 8,000 cfs level to actually divide into two and how they did that 

was to say in low volume years, it would be 8,000 cfs and in high volume years, it would be 15,000 cfs. 

Ted said the basis for that came from a meeting held in 1997 in which the foodbase people that during 

the wet periods it was an artificial treatment. So they asked what could specifically done and the 

foodbase people said that in periods where the hydrology drives weekend operations to go down as low 

as 5,000 – 8,000 cfs, it doesn’t really matter because the system is already being hammered but during 

wetter periods where the flows would normally never go below 10,000- 12,000 cfs, they decided to look 

at the hydrology and over the course of 10-20 years of overflights, will either use 8,000 or 15,000 as 

baseline rather than artificially imposing something on the ecosystem that is only being done to 

monitoring. Mark said he feels it is important to keep in mind that whenever the river is left at 8,000 cfs 

or lower for longer than an overnight period or a short period, there is going to be serious damage. He 

said if they are doing it for the entire weekend simply because there is no power generation, that’s a 

problem too but since it’s being done for aerial photography, it is going to cause some problems. Steve 
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Minutes of February 26-27, 2003, Meeting Page 9

said that not all staff at GCMRC share the same opinion, some people feel they need to develop an 

attitude because we’re going to manage the river in a way that it recognizes this capacity to produce 

things for us in terms of aquatic foodbase and so forth and ought to be actually set at that level of 5,000-

8,000 cfs and anything that happens above that is a bit of luxury because it’s almost inevitable that we’re 

going to into an experience like we are now in a 8.23 maf release years and it’s going to be this way for a 

long time and that’s going to really set the limits on what this system can do in terms of aquatic 

productivity. Steve said he took exception that they are doing damage to the system. Mark said that 

while they may not be doing damage to the system, there will be increases in the variables which cause 

increases in the overall carrying capacity which will vary throughout time and you will have damage occur 

if you increase the carrying capacity and then you drastically reduce it back to where you want it to be 

anyway. There will be that impact, that fluctuation of overall biomass in the ecosystem. Steve 

distributed copies of the “Inventory of all aerial photographic and digital imagery available through the 

GCMRC library” (Attachment 10b).

Jeff Cross commented there is a lack of focus on recreation and a limited focus on cultural resources. 

They are priorities in the Strategic plan, but he doesn’t see them reflected in core monitoring. 

Scott Urquhart said it’s very important to understand that monitoring is not necessarily research and 

when you get researchers involved in monitoring, often times they lose sight of the monitoring function 

and get too involved in the “how” and “why.” In the university community, they teach people how to do 

research and in that context, how and why is very important. Monitoring is concerned with what 

happened and not as much why it happened. He mentioned that in some earlier contract work with the 

GCMRC, Mike Kearsley did some pretty intensive studies of vegetation that required a lot of time at a 

single site and resulted in the development of a vegetation index. It’s something that can be done quite 

quickly and effectively and overcomes a lot of the variation problems. Adaptive management may 

require both of these to some extent but managers need to look critically at what research does in the 

sense that it can be linked and can it be managed. Scott proceeded with a PowerPoint presentation 

(Attachment 11). 

Dennis said he doesn’t believe there is good communication between scientists and managers for 

assessing and managing risk. He thinks the managers suffer the risk but the scientists tell the managers 

how much it costs to increase or decrease that risk. He asked Carl if he had a similar portrayal that Scott 

has on the vegetation to assess trends for managers, how many years it will take to detect a certain 

amount. Carl said they set up the program to do basically the power calculations under an alternative 

design and evaluated a lot of the alternatives and designs but to do that you have to have as pre-sample. 

They got burned pretty bad by BioWest. The variance in the historical data was much lower than it 

should’ve been due to systematic fine scale selection of sample sites. They were running down the river 

and went where they could find fish and that reduced the variance. They tried to correct for that but they 

didn’t realize just how efficient the boatmen had become in finding fish. The variance turned out to be 

one-fifth to one-tenth of what should’ve been source sample sites prior but was grossly underestimated, 

the sample site requirements were also grossly under estimated. 

NPS Monitoring Program – Lisa Leap said she would report on what the NPS has been doing since 

1992, their ability to identify change, some of the techniques they’ve used, and some of the 

implementations they’ve done based on their observations. She gave a PowerPoint presentation

entitled, “Cultural Resources Monitoring Grand Canyon National Park“ (Attachment 12). 

Norm asked what the status was on the Historic Preservation Plan (HPP). Lisa said the Programmatic 

Agreement (PA) Group drafted a HPP in 1997, but it had not been finalized and the Protocol Evaluation 

Panel (PEP) called for a number of subplans that would comprise the HPP. Norm said he thought that 

when Ruth Lambert was working for the GCMRC, a number of components were sent out and the PA 

was going to get started on those. Lisa said that she didn't think anything had been done but thought 

they were working on a consultation plan and research design. Nancy Coulam reported that the HPP is 
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Minutes of February 26-27, 2003, Meeting Page 10

just about complete. The first component of the new HPP will be Loretta Jackson's tribal consultation 

plan. The tribes have been working very hard on completing this as part of the HPP and the AMP 

Strategic Plan and they are on the ninth draft. It will be distributed to the federal agencies for their review, 

then to the other stakeholders in the AMP (because this will also be an appendix to the Strategic Plan.) 

Loretta Jackson is in charge of the consultation plan and should have it done by September. The next 

component is the research design, and it was jointly contracted by GCMRC and Reclamation. It is being 

reviewed now by the PA Signatories and the author is actually attending the TWG, Ms. Helen Fairley. 

The data plan called for by the PEP has been integrated into GCMRC's planning process for their 

computerized database and the archaeological sites are being plotted on a GIS data layer, along with 

various flow lines. This base map should be completed by mid-summer. The only major component of 

the HPP will be the treatment and monitoring plan. This could not be contracted until the research design 

was completed, but it should be contracted during FY04. The only other component is a public outreach 

plan, which we had hoped to integrate with the AMP plan. 

Matt Kaplinski asked what a SHPO was. Nancy Coulam responded that the Arizona SHPO was in the 

room, and it means State Historic Preservation Officer. They represent the interests of the state in 

historic preservation and review agency compliance. In addition to SHPOs, there are THPOs, or Tribal 

Historic Preservation Officers. THPOs assume the responsibilities of SHPOs on Indian land. Zuni, 

Navajo, and Hualapai all have THPOs who have the authority to make determinations of eligibility of sites 

for the National Register and to negotiate how to resolve adverse effects of undertakings on historic 

properties. 

Matt also said an economic analysis of recreation, both of the trout fishery and the river rafting industry, 

is missing from the program. He suggested it may be worth looking at if the TWG proceeds with a target 

setting workshop. 

Mechanical Removal and Beneficial Use – Steve Gloss said the second mechanical removal trip 

would be coming off the river tomorrow. They electroshocked and euthanized about 2,000 rainbow trout 

on the second trip compared to 4,000 on the first trip. They are going to be delivering 11 15-gallon 

carboys to the Hualapai Tribe tomorrow for their continued use in their organic gardening. They have 

distributed the ton of material they provided a month ago in composting piles in Peach Springs as well 

some of their gardens and also distributed some of the material in the gardens they maintain down by 

Sedona at property owned by the Dansen family. They have at least two or three more tribal members 

who want material for their gardens out of tomorrow’s trip. Everything seemed to go fine on the second 

last trip. The numbers are roughly half of what they got the first time which suggests that there is some 

immigration of fish back into this area because they are tagging fish upstream and the numbers of the 

immigrating fish seem to be relatively small so this handling of the catch is about what they predicted 

based on a standard depletion approach. It will continue to go down on the next trip which launches 

fairly soon. It’s been pretty demanding for the GCMRC biology program. They are going to take a threemonth hiatus and resume trips in July-Aug-Sep and see what re-population is around LCR at that time. 

Rain hasn’t caused a lot of turbidity but has enhanced the electrofishing. 

The stranding project is being done by EcoPlan. They are monitoring stranding in the entire 15-mile 

reach between the dam and Lees Ferry two days a week. They switch the times they do their 

observations. Right now they’re averaging 6-7 dead fish a week so over the first six weeks of the 

fluctuating flow experiment, they estimate they have killed 38 rainbow trout. There are roughly 135 

additional fish that get stranded in pools but they are pools that aren’t de-watered to the extent where 

there is any mortality so there is some additional isolation of fish. The average size is 15” and most 

males and females are ripe. There is also some indication that scavengers are getting some of the fish. 

Carl Walters reported that this program, along with better statistics, is showing two surprising things: (1) 

the total number of fish in the canyon is much less than was previously estimated, and (2) there is a 

much stronger gradient of fish abundance in the canyon than was thought. The older picture was that 
Glen Canyon Dam Technical Work Group

Minutes of February 26-27, 2003, Meeting Page 11

there was a changeover going down the canyon from native to non-native fishes but there was still a lot 

of fish. You get below the LCR and the total number of fish of all kinds is less than the number between 

the Paria and the LCR. There is a huge drop in productivity. The aquatic system really is living on the 

primary productivity from the Lees Ferry Reach and some variable productivity contribution between the 

Paria and the LCR. 

Matt added that they have gone in and surveyed the redds and found them in the water at 5,000 cfs all 

the way up to 18,000 cfs and are starting to get active on the gravel bars and coming up into the higher 

end of the fluctuations. If they’re getting up there in a couple feet of water at 20,000 cfs, then they could 

come completely out of the water at normal operations (6,500 – 9,000, or 12,000 cfs). 

Mechanical Removal Update. Steve Gloss said his staff has been very busy with the mechanical 

removal. They haven’t started doing any stomach analysis but thinks that activity will begin in April. He 

said 4,000 stomachs were taken on the first trip and at last count they have about 6,000. They won’t be 

doing detailed diet analysis on all of those but will look at every one to see if they have any native fish in 

them. Steve added there were 20 HBC taken on the second trip and almost all were juveniles.

Upcoming Agenda Items. Kurt asked if there were any agenda items for the next TWG meeting. The 

following were provided:

• 2004 budget and USGS overhead

• Protocol evaluation panel will be ready for presentation

• On January AMWG agenda on progress of Oracle database – do in next several months

• present preliminary canyonwide vegetation map done last year

• ACHIO update

• GCMRC - remote sensing initiative and finalizing all reports and a summary report 

• HBC AHG report

Adjourned: 12 noon

Next TWG Meeting: 

May 28 (1-5 p.m) and May 30 (8-noon)

Location: 

Bureau of Indian Affairs

2 Arizona Center, 400 N. 5th Street

12th Floor, Conference Rooms A&B

Phoenix, Arizona
.

General Key to Adaptive Management Program Acronyms

ADWR – Arizona Dept. of Water Resources

AF – Acre Feet

AGFD – Arizona Game and Fish Department

AGU – American Geophysical Union

AMP – Adaptive Management Program

AMWG – Adaptive Management Work Group

AOP – Annual Operating Plan

BA – Biological Assessment

BE – Biological Evaluation

BHBF – Beach/Habitat-Building Flow

BHMF – Beach/Habitat Maintenance Flow

BHTF – Beach/Habitat Test Flow

BIA – Bureau of Indian Affairs

BO – Biological Opinion

BOR – Bureau of Reclamation

CAPA – Central Arizona Project Assn.

cfs – cubic feet per second

CRBC – Colorado River Board of California

CRCN – Colorado River Commission of Nevada

CREDA – Colorado River Energy Distributors 

Assn.

CRSP – Colorado River Storage Project

CWCB – Colorado Water Conservation Board

DBMS – Data Base Management System

DOI – Department of the Interior

EA – Environmental Assessment

EIS – Environmental Impact Statement

ESA – Endangered Species Act

FACA – Federal Advisory Committee Act

FEIS – Final Environmental Impact Statement

FRN – Federal Register Notice

FWS – United States Fish & Wildlife Service

GCD – Glen Canyon Dam

GCMRC – Grand Canyon Monitoring and 

Research Center

GCNP – Grand Canyon National Park

GCNRA – Glen Canyon National Recreation 

Area

GCPA – Grand Canyon Protection Act

GUI – Graphical User Interface

HBC – Humpback Chub (endangered native fish)

HMF – Habitat Maintenance Flow

HPP – Historic Preservation Plan

IEDA- Irrigation and Electrical Districts 

Association of Arizona

IN – Information Need

IT – Information Technology (GCMRC program)

KAS – Kanab ambersnail (endangered native 

snail)

LCR – Little Colorado River

LRRMCP – Lower Colorado River Multi-Species 

Conservation Program

MAF – Million Acre Feet

MA – Management Action

MO – Management Objective

NAAO – Native American Affairs Office

NAU – Northern Arizona University (Flagstaff, 

AZ)

NEPA – National Environmental Policy Act

NGS – National Geodetic Survey

NHPA – National Historic Preservation Act

NPS - National Park Service

NRC - National Research Council

NWS - National Weather Service

O&M - Operations & Maintenance (USBR funding)

PA - Programmatic Agreement

PEP - Protocol Evaluation Panel

Powerplant Capacity - 31,000 cfs

Reclamation - United States Bureau of Reclamation

RBT – Rainbow Trout

RFP - Request For Proposals

RPA - Reasonable and Prudent Alternative

SAB - Science Advisory Board

Secretary(=s) - Secretary of the Interior

SWCA - Steven W. Carothers Associates

TCD - Temperature Control Device (for Glen

Canyon Dam water releases)

TCP - Traditional Cultural Property

TES - Threatened and Endangered Species

TWG - Glen Canyon Technical Work Group (a 

subcommittee of the AMWG)

UCR - Upper Colorado Region (of the USBR)

UCRC - Upper Colorado River Commission

UDWR - Utah Division of Water Resources

USBR - United States Bureau of Reclamation

USFWS - United States Fish & Wildlife Service

USGS - United States Geological Survey

WAPA - Western Area Power Administration

WY – Water Year (a calendar year)