Glen Canyon Dam Technical Work Group

FINAL Meeting Minutes 

May 18, 2005

Conducting:  Norm Henderson, Chairman

Committee Members Present: 

Mary Barger, WAPA

Kerry Christensen, Hualapai Tribe

Jonathan Damp, Pueblo of Zuni 

William Davis, CREDA 

Lloyd Greiner, UAMPS

Amy Heuslein, BIA

Rick Johnson, Grand Canyon Trust

John O’Brien, GCRG 

Chris Kincaid, NPS/GLCA

Dennis Kubly, USBR 

Glen Knowles, USFWS

Phillip S. Lehr, Colo. River Comm./NV 

Ken McMullen, NPS/GCNP 

Bill Persons, AGFD 

D. Randolph Seaholm, CWCB 

Mark Steffen, Federation of Fly Fishers 

Larry Stevens, Grand Canyon Wildlands Council

Michael Yeatts, The Hopi Tribe

Committee Members Absent: 

Steven Begay, Navajo Nation

Brenda Drye, So. Paiute Consortium

Robert King, UDWR 

Christopher Harris, CRB/CA

Don Ostler, UCRC 

John Shields, WY State Engineers Office

Bill Werner, ADWR 

John Whipple, NM Interstate Stream Comm.

Alternates Present: For:

Interested Persons: 

Gary Burton, WAPA

Lew Coggins, USGS/GCMRC

Kurt Dongoske, CREDA 

Helen Fairley, USGS/GCMRC

Pam & Dave Garrett, M

3 Research

Dave Harpman, USBR/Denver Office 

Susan Hueftle, USGS/GCMRC

Ted Kennedy, USGS/GCMRC

Josh Korman, Ecometric 

Mike Liszewski, USGS/GCMRC

Mark McKinstry, USBR 

Ted Melis, USGS/GCMRC

Anthony Miller, Colo. River Comm./NV

Barbara Ralston, USGS/GCMRC

Tim Steffen, Federation of Fly Fishers 

Linda Whetton, USBR 

Meeting Recorder:  Linda Whetton, USBR
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FINAL Minutes of the May 18­19, 2005, Meeting

Page 2

Convened:  10 a.m.

Welcome and Administrative Items.  The chairman welcomed the members, alternates, and

interested persons.  A quorum was established and attendance sheets distributed. Norm said

that Dave Garrett’s presentation on integration planning would be moved to the first item today 

as it will set the stage for work to be done in the AMP. He also informed the TWG that Jeff

Lovich resigned as GCMRC Chief on April 1, 2005.  Ted Melis is currently the acting chief for

120 days.  A vacancy announcement has been distributed.  Jeff will complete the SCORE

Report.

Review of Action items:

Planning Documents Integration. Dr. Dave Garrett distributed copies of his PowerPoint 

presentation (Attachment 1) and said a letter was prepared along with an Executive Summary 

on a prospectus for what the Science Planning Group (SPG) will be doing. Those documents 

can’t be released today until vetted through the AMWG.  Once the Secretary’s Designee

approves, it will be e­mailed to the TWG. He said the integration would involve four major plans: 

(1) a Strategic Science Plan, being developed by GCMRC, (2) a Core Monitoring Plan, (3) a

Research Plan, and (4) the 2007­08 Annual Plan. Dr. Garrett the said the SPG will meet in

Phoenix on June 22­24, 2005, and future meeting dates will need to be established. Questions/Concerns:

· I applaud the science advisors for developing the comprehensive approach. I see management

coming in at the end but don’t see a strong frontend input from the managers or managing agencies 

so you have a clear integration and acknowledgement of existing management programs. The

agencies have ongoing needs and work that contributes to the AMP. (Kincaid) · Doesn’t AMWG have to have approval? What is GCMRC’s job? Where is the $150K going to come

from? This seems like a lot of behind the scenes maneuvering. (Christensen) · This is an adaptive management process. Is there some way to ensure we don’t go backwards and

revisit things? (Seaholm)

MOTION:  Move the TWG recommend approval of the planning process outlined by Dave

Garrett and also formally advise the AMWG of this process. 

Motion seconded.  Discussion.  Voting Results:  Yes = 13 No = 0 Abstaining = 4

Motion passed.  Lloyd Greiner:  At this point in time I can’t vote because this is additional effort that CREDA 

representatives would have to participate in and because CREDA is facing a financial crunch,  we’ve been asked to pass on participating in some activities.

Kerry Christensen:  Abstained.  Mike Yeatts:  This item was not identified as an issue we were going to vote on in our normal 

procedures and this is the first time I’ve seen this and we didn’t have a chance to weigh in.  This 

will be an additional workload on all the people and we currently don’t have any money. I would 

like to talk to my AMWG representative about this. 

Bill Davis:  I’m abstaining because these would be additional costs for CREDA. This was given

originally as a GCMRC responsibility and some of that work is now falling back onto the TWG 

and this science group.  CREDA would certainly like to participate but we’ve been told CREDA

doesn’t have the dollars to do this and we should not be participants.  I can’t say whether Leslie

would support this or not.
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FINAL Minutes of the May 18­19, 2005, Meeting

Page 3

Knowledge Assessment in Support of Experimental Planning. Ted Melis gave a brief 

overview of the next steps in the experimental process and moving toward embracing the

“hybrid” approach.  He gave a PowerPoint presentation (Attachment 2).

Summary on Hydropower Economics Associated with Experimental Flows. Dave

Harpman said his presentation would focus on hydropower and also the cause and effect 

relationships in terms of hydropower. He gave a PowerPoint presentation (Attachment 3). Questions & Answers:

Q: Modeling of economic return from power production seems to be a very complicated process and

sometimes takes many months to actually come to grips with how much a flow experiment costs. Are

those models improving or what’s the status of that capability? (Stevens)

A: The models are improving and as they do so amazingly enough they get more complicated so it takes 

longer to actually look at things and the real issues are data issues. It sometimes takes months before we

obtain the data we might require. Q: For each of our experimental flows in our compliance documents, how many post or pre estimates are

after the fact?

A: I’ve only worked on one which was in 1996. As a sort of an entrée, we are actually involved in a fairly 

large scale study from 1990 thru 2025 of past impacts to hydropower and also the projected future of that

based on what we know. The idea is to develop a comprehensive vision of what the cost to power users 

and other beneficiaries is as a result of environmental experiments and constraints. This won’t be

included in the SCORE Report. Q: Do you report on the annual revenue that the dam produces? (Persons)

A: The key issue isn’t really what did happen because we know that pretty well but what would have

happened in the absence of an experiment or what would’ve happened in the absence of the modified

low fluctuating flow. I think it’s fair to say that the revenue and the generation and the millions of other 

hydroelectric related variables we measure those in incredible detail and those are available for what did

happen. Q: The lost cost of power due to an experiment in Arizona might also be impacted by a drought on the

Columbia River system or a mine workers strike in Wyoming or anything else like that, you would have to

be able to tease that up too, right?

A: That’s correct. The skyrocketing price of oil, for example, has actually increased the cost of future

experiments.

Q: In looking at the options of putting turbines on the jet tubes to still produce electricity, is that feasible?

A: Depending on how much money and what we want to spend, it’s always feasible. The question would

be: How much would it cost to install and how often have we actually used it? And that I don’t know but I

could consult with some colleagues and maybe we could jointly give you an answer later. I’m not aware of

that kind of study at the moment.

Fundamental Uncertainty about Fish Responses to MLFF and other Flow Treatments.  Lew Coggins gave a PowerPoint presentation (Attachment 4). Q: Is it possible since you have basically an 8.23 maf release that you would like to see most of the time

to manage the fishery for that level of flow and take benefit during the high flow? (Seaholm)

A: I think there is a lot of ways managers could look at it but that would be one way.

Q: Some of your slides show the trout population around the LCR actually went down from 1990 to 1995

while another showed the catfish in the LCR as being very dominant during that period of time. You didn’t

actually point that out and I think you made it sound like trout had gone up ever since 1990. (Steffen)

A: The biggest increase was in the late 1990s time period and that’s what you’ll see relative to Lees 

Ferry.

Q: What accounts for the declining numbers of trout from 1990 to 1995? (Steffen)

A: Again, all I can do is speculate on the cause and effect relationships and I think you can speculate as 

well as I can. If that was a period of fairly low annual volumes and as we can all pick our pet factors that

might have been driving some trend, I’ve heard you talk about issues relative to the foodbase with

experimental flows in the early 1990s, perhaps that’s what you’re referring to.
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FINAL Minutes of the May 18­19, 2005, Meeting

Page 4

Q: If the trout were present there in low numbers at that period of time, and catfish were present in high

numbers (Steffen)

A: Those are species composition. They don’t reflect any kind of an abundance. There are relative

proportions of members that get captured in the catch and as I’ve told this group before, our gear is pretty 

poor at catching catfish in the Little Colorado. It’s one of the reasons why we haven’t aggressively gone

after a non­native removal program within the Little Colorado. We don’t have good abundance index 

information on catfish in the Little Colorado and you don’t want to misinterpret that as a measure of

abundance. Q: We can also remember what Carl Walters told us at one time that one catfish can do more damage

than 100 trout especially if it’s in the LCR where the trout don’t go anyway. Your first couple of slides 

showed the effectiveness of electrofishing compared to netting. Are there any particular fish that aren’t

susceptible to being caught with either method? (Steffen)

A: Yes. You’ll recall at an earlier AMWG meeting that I talked about what the characteristics were for fish

that were effectively captured with the various gear options that we have in the Grand Canyon for fishing

in the mainstem. In general, you can characterize them as either being fish that are closely associated

with shorelines, which rainbow and brown trout are particularly at night, as well as juvenile chub and other 

small bodied fishes or that they occupy slow to moderate current areas where we can fish trammel nets 

and not necessarily deep areas. There are a number of fish that are present at some level within the CRE 

particularly in more downstream locations like catfish that don’t necessarily fit those different

characteristics. Those are caught with lower efficiency and any time you look at a species composition

based on a particular gear type, you have to recognize that there are particular biases.

Q: When the Secretary put the Record of Decision in place, it required five changes in operations and

volume wasn’t one of the things that was changed. What types of speculations might you have of the five

criteria that were changed and how they may have impacted any of these species you’ve listed here?

(Greiner)

A: We can say with some level of certainty is the MLFF likely had a lot to do with the establishment of

spawning of rainbow trout in the Lees Ferry Reach. You’ll recall we went through suggesting the

experimental high fluctuating flows during the January­March time frame. The reason we advocated those

was that if you look back through the historical record in the no action period, you saw very little natural

reproduction in the Lees Ferry Reach. It was a fishery that was supported by stocking and following

MLFF, natural recruitment and spawning increased over time eventually to the point where stocking was 

no longer needed so that certainly is one fishery resource in the canyon that I think there is a reasonable

case to be made was affected by the MLFF. Q: You just made one cause and effect statement that you think is pretty well indicated or verified, are

there any other statements you would make concerning cause and effect? (Kubly)

A: The 2000 year class of rainbow trout which was a bumper year class as far as we can tell. Based on

the correlation of that year class with low steady summer flows and the work that Josh Korman has done

relative to suspicions about how fluctuating flows and large changes in operations between one month

and another, could impart mortality effects in various life stages of rainbow trout. I would say that is 

another one that I might feel somewhat confident as talking about cause and effect.

Factors Affecting Humpback Chub Population Dynamics in the Grand Canyon.  Lew 

Coggins said that in the context of the Knowledge Assessment he thought it would be important 

to try and present factors affecting humpback chub recruitment dynamics that are either known

or suspected and how consideration of some of those factors might lead one to think about 

experimental design.  He gave a PowerPoint presentation (Attachment 5). Questions & Answers

Q: Because of the way the graph (Decline in adult HBC...) is presented, it looks like the certainty is pretty 

comparable and the general assumption is there is some kind of pattern of a peak population sometime

back between the late 1970s and early 1980s. In 1977 the dam was almost turned off with the lowest

flows in post­dam time that year 1983 was the highest single flow that we’ve had. As people are

concerned with management issues, we need to know if the uncertainty is too large to reveal whether 

bare minimum flows or pre­dam annual peak flows are what need to be managed for chub recruitment. My suggestion would be to change the graph to better express that uncertainty because you’re showing a
GCD AMP Technical Work Group

FINAL Minutes of the May 18­19, 2005, Meeting

Page 5

peak around 1977 which were not good years for power production, trout, or anything else in the system 

and 1983 was a pretty disastrous year as well. A: The data suggests there were higher recruitments in the past. The uncertainty is relative to which one

of these formulations is correct, not within any particular formulation. That’s why we show all three

because it is a reflection of the uncertainty.

Q: Back to my previous question, of the five criteria that the Secretary changed in the ROD, which of

those five should be experimented with pertaining to the HBC? (Greiner)

A: As I understand it, this process now is going to involve this knowledge assessment where myself and

other people at today’s meeting are going to talk about fisheries resources over the context of other 

resources relative to the state of knowledge. There is going to be guidance given to the long­term 

experimental planning group on sideboards for what can be considered as treatments within an

experimental design. I think if you ask various people within the room what makes the most sense to

experiment with next, you’ll get different answers but it seems to me that the thing to do now is to wait for 

guidance on what range of options is acceptable. Q: For example, in my mind restriction on daily deviations probably has the greatest impact on power 

operations and that’s probably associated a little bit with the minimum. Does the deviation have any 

positive or negative impact on the chub? Or can you experiment around that to see what impacts there

might be if we relax the deviation? (Greiner)

A: I think it’s valuable to consider operations other than what we’ve done thus far and that’s one of your 

suggestions but as I tried to go through in the first presentation I gave, it’s difficult to be able to say what

effect MLFF had because we can’t contrast it against anything else. There was nothing else that was 

done for a long enough period of time to look at the effect of dam operations on HBC population

dynamics. One could say, well you would’ve experienced better HBC recruitment under the no action plan

during this period of time. We just don’t know because there was no other operation that was tried. The

other thing we have to consider is there is going to be variability in the brute strength of HBC in the Little

Colorado over multiple years and the other thing is the hydrology in the LCR is variable which influences 

the proportion of fish that gets transported to the mainstem vs. stays resident in the Little Colorado. You

have to have blocks of time that are long enough to try and deal with that variability but not so long where

you basically take a prescriptive type of operation. Mary Barger said she would like see the table show the numbers of the HBC and all the events 

and changes in flows that have occurred over the years.  Lew concurred and said the table

could be updated. 

Regarding the November flows, Dennis said only half the story was reported by the media.

When the experiments were designed in 2002 and the high flow was intended to occur in

January, the action agencies interjected a conservation measure into the proposed action that 

involved translocating small HBC near the mouth of the LCR where they would likely wash out 

into the mainstem and be lost to up above Chute Falls, not knowing whether they would survive,

establish a population, survive for a period of time, get carried downstream, etc.,  Even though

the mitigation effort was successful, the media did not reported the positive side of the story. He 

reaffirmed that the Secretary asked the right questions and the experiment would not have been

carried out if that mitigation had not been in place.

Effects of 2003/2004 GCD Enhanced Fluctuating Flows on the Early Life History Stages of 

Rainbow Trout in Glen Canyon. Josh Korman said his presentation would focus on the

January­March 2003 fluctuating flows on rainbow trout principally in Glen Canyon although a lot 

of the results are transferable downstream. He said the draft report is currently being reviewed

by GCMRC and should be available by early summer. He gave a PowerPoint presentation

(Attachment 6). Q: That August­September flow change that’s killing the small trout, isn’t that the same period of time

when we’re supposed to be protecting the small HBC? Is the same thing happening to the HBC? (Steffen)
GCD AMP Technical Work Group

FINAL Minutes of the May 18­19, 2005, Meeting

Page 6

A: It’s very possible. I don’t know what size they are by then or what habitats they’re using. Glen Canyon

is very wide so I think the impacts are going to be more severe in Glen than they will be in narrower 

reaches. Lew, what’s your opinion?

Lew: A couple of things. What would really be nice is if we knew that HBC did or didn’t follow shorelines 

the way that you’ve been able to show. There is literature that describes the habitat that juvenile chub

utilize. When I think about the places where we monitor HBC downstream in the Little Colorado, most of

the habitat we sample is tallous slopes and those are places that might not be impacted very much by 

those kinds of flows because they are the opposite of what Josh described. We don’t have the kind of

high resolution information about habitat use that Josh has been able to tease out with juvenile trout.

Lees Ferry Trout Fishery Status and Trends Update.  Bill Persons gave a PowerPoint

presentation (Attachment 7).

Aquatic Food Base Research and Monitoring – what do we know, and what don’t we

know.  Ted Melis distributed copies of “A Review of the GCMRC Aquatic Food Base Science

Program” completed by the science advisors (Attachment 8a). He then introduced Ted

Kennedy who gave a PowerPoint presentation (Attachment 8b).  Dr. Kennedy said they are

gearing up for another food base initiative and will be soliciting for research proposals.  A copy 

of the solicitation will be posted on GCMRC’s web site or people can go to www.grants.gov for

more information. Q: Given the situation with HBC appearing to be pretty dependent on the food base in the LCR, it would

seem like that it would be a pretty important part to include that right up front. (Johnson)

A: I imagine that would be heavily emphasized that we need to understand what is ultimately driving

production of chub at downstream sites and given that chub spend a significant portion of their time

during juvenile life stages in the LCR, that would be a big part of the study.

Temperature Measurements in the Near Shore Environment – 2004. Josh Korman said his 

PowerPoint, “Gradients in Near Shore Temperature Aug­0ct 2004” (Attachment 9) would focus 

on nearshore and offshore temperature gradients in the mainstem. It was prompted by some

work done by Bill Vernieu at GCMRC during the 2000 low steady summer flow experiment. Bill 

deployed a series of loggers from the nearshore and offshore environment and measured the

temperature gradients that occurred in these areas that are somewhat isolated from the

mainstem. Q: One of the questions the Service posed a long time ago had to do with what winter mortality and if the

inception at winter is a reflection, then the amount of growth during summer is a big question. (Kubly)

A: That’s a totally reasonable hypothesis. The fact that you have really warm temperatures now would be

good to measure growth, wait a few years until the reservoir fills up and you have some cooler water 

coming out of the dam and faster water, and then compare the growth of those two years and you’ve got

a field based estimate of what you might expect under TCD. It’s only growth. It’ not survival.

Adjourned:  5 p.m.
GCD AMP Technical Work Group

FINAL Minutes of the May 18­19, 2005, Meeting

Page 7

Glen Canyon Dam Technical Work Group

FINAL Meeting Minutes 

May 19, 2005

Conducting:  Norm Henderson, Chairman

Committee Members Present: 

Mary Barger, WAPA

Kerry Christensen, Hualapai Tribe

Jonathan Damp, Pueblo of Zuni 

William Davis, CREDA 

Lloyd Greiner, UAMPS

Amy Heuslein, BIA

Rick Johnson, Grand Canyon Trust

John O’Brien, GCRG 

Chris Kincaid, NPS/GLCA

Dennis Kubly, USBR 

Glen Knowles, USFWS

Phillip S. Lehr, Colo. River Comm./NV 

Ken McMullen, NPS/GCNP 

Bill Persons, AGFD 

D. Randolph Seaholm, CWCB 

Mark Steffen, Federation of Fly Fishers 

Larry Stevens, Grand Canyon Wildlands Council

Bill Werner, ADWR 

Michael Yeatts, The Hopi Tribe

Committee Members Absent: 

Steven Begay, Navajo Nation

Brenda Drye, So. Paiute Consortium

Robert King, UDWR 

Christopher Harris, CRB/CA

Don Ostler, UCRC 

John Shields, WY State Engineers Office

John Whipple, NM Interstate Stream Comm.

Alternates Present: For:

Interested Persons: 

Gary Burton, WAPA

Lew Coggins, USGS/GCMRC

Kurt Dongoske, CREDA 

Helen Fairley, USGS/GCMRC

Pam & Dave Garrett, M

3 Research

Ted Kennedy, USGS/GCMRC

Josh Korman, Ecometric 

Mike Liszewski, USGS/GCMRC

Mark McKinstry, USBR 

Ted Melis, USGS/GCMRC

Anthony Miller, Colo. River Comm./NV

Barbara Ralston, USGS/GCMRC

Pam Sponholz, USFWS

Tim Steffen, Federation of Fly Fishers 

Scott Wright, USGS/GCMRC

Meeting Recorder:  Linda Whetton, USBR
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FINAL Minutes of the May 18­19, 2005, Meeting

Page 8

Convened:  8 a.m. Welcome and Administrative Items.  The chairman welcomed the members, alternates, and

interested persons.  A quorum was established and attendance sheets. Mechanical Removal 2003­04 Update ­ Barbara Ralston said Lew Coggins would talk about a

non­flow experimental approach about mechanical removal which was initiated in January 2004.  She said if there was time they would go over the results of the high flow test on juvenile chub in

the mainstem.  Lew gave a PowerPoint presentation (Attachment 10). Q: Have you tried to separate out recruitment to the electrofishing vs. recruitment or is some of that as 

the fish grow, they become vulnerable to sampling? (Persons)

A: I have actually stratified the depletion estimates by size to look at differences in catchability amongst

sizes and basically what you see is that fish under about 250 millimeters are only about 60% as 

vulnerable to the larger size class of fish. Q: What’s your ultimate hope with the dietary data? Are you going to be able to eventually say how many 

HBC are being eaten by rainbow trout and therefore have estimates of chub production to look at

efficiency of this kind of effort vs. habitat modification? (Stevens)

A: Yes, that kind of work has been done especially in the cost benefit realm. We will certainly have most

of the pieces of information to do that with the exception that we have to go to the literature for basically 

digestion rates. Rather than that, I’m more interested in looking at overall contribution of mortality source

from those two dominant non­native fish but could certainly take it to that level.

Rick Johnson asked about the status of the Park Service work on Bright Angel Creek and if 

there were any conclusions. Mark said the Park Service got a little carried away with going after

the entire rainbow trout population when the original proposal was to go after the brown.  However, the Park Service then to go after rainbow and brown trout throughout the entire creek, 

residents as well as migrating fish, and that was more than what the AMWG wanted and the

public thought that was excessive. 

NOTE:  Future Agenda Item. Dennis suggested a presentation be made at the June TWG 

meeting and potentially at the AMWG meeting in August. He said there was a suggestion made

at the Budget AHG meeting last September and it was reinforced at a recent meeting by Jan

Balsom that ancillary projects need to be brought to the program at least for information needs.

Hoopnet Sampling Results (as part of the above presentation). Lew went on to explain the

hoopnet sampling results.  This was to look at trends of juveniles in the mainstem.  The data is 

highly dependent on cohort size in the LCR and then whatever the flooding activity in the river is 

as fish eminate from river into the reach. In thinking about experimental planning, Lew said the

TWG needs to consider the confounding factors.

Follow­up discussions on results of the May 18

th Knowledge Assessment I. Josh Korman

said it would be good to bring the managers and scientists together in making decisions.  Ted

questioned if there were some treatments outside the management realm and wondered if there

was enough certainty or cause and effect.  Josh suggested the TWG think about what 

treatments would be needed.  He recorded the following suggestions on a flip chart:
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FINAL Minutes of the May 18­19, 2005, Meeting

Page 9

Flow  Non­Flow 

MLFF  (last 14 years) MR 

No Action Power  TCD 

SASF  Turbidity enhancement 

EQMV­MLFF 

Steady 

Run of River

EIS – Subset 

EFF (exp fluc. flow)

Comments:

· Suggest we use the technology we did at a previous AMWG meeting in which everyone (AMWG, TWG, Science Advisors) would vote using keypads to understand the variance among the groups as 

to whether or not they have different thoughts about the level of uncertainty. (Kubly) · It would be interesting to evaluate the flow range and how resources would respond to a natural flow

regime. (Johnson) · The no action is historically the way we implemented the MLFF alternative in the ROD. There are

other ways to implement MLFF one of which is the SAFF but there may be other ways still within the

ROD. (Henderson) · Having more than three alternatives would be good when it comes to trying to present the results 

graphically. My expectation is that in doing a slightly more complicated analysis, you’ll end up with big

surprises that are not intuitive given the present set of assumptions about how the system works.

There might be ecological advantages to having higher fluctuating flows for example and it will work 

out in different arenas and also having enough variability in the treatments to getat the non­intuitive

results. (Stevens) · We need to look at the flows in the EIS because there are different types of fluctuating flows that were

analyzed. When the long­term experimental group met in July 2004. They came up with some

proposed flows that included one called EFF (Experimental Fluctuating Flow) but the equivalent was 

5­20. In Sept. 2004, the group met again and came up with some management actions that were

options and they were more extensive. (Barger) · We have MLFF and have learned certain things that don’t work. So if we’re going to change, which

pieces would we change? We’ve learned some things about sediment, etc. You have Run of the

River but you need to remember we still have the Law of the River. (Seaholm)

ACTION ITEM:  TWG will send comments to Ted Melis and Barbara Ralston by June 8, 2005 of 

alternatives they would like to be considered for the Experimental Plan.  Josh will send the list to

the TWG by the end of the next TWG meeting (June 21, 2005). Geomorphology Workshop Update.  Helen Fairley gave a PowerPoint presentation

(Attachment 11) on the Geomorphology Workshop that was held February 8­10, 2005. It was a

very productive interaction and she believed everyone felt it was a worthwhile effort.  The

workshop was recorded and she may try to present in a written report but that is dependent 

upon funding.  Helen said the presentations were put on a CD so if anyone wants one, they 

should contact her.

Experimental Flow/Sediment Trigger Update.  Norm said he requested information from Mike 

Gabaldon as to why nothing further was done with the last sediment trigger. Mike told him that 

the Department didn’t want to pursue anything else and that it was more topical in February. 

John O’Brien said he thought it would be helpful for the TWG to discuss and said he didn’t 

know if anyone has considered if another scenario occurs like it did in the mid­1980’s and that 

the TWG needs to get away from being in a “react” mode.  He said it was a very finite example
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FINAL Minutes of the May 18­19, 2005, Meeting

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of how we get to 95% of where we need to be but then don’t go further. John said his concern

was what happened in the first sediment trigger so we didn’t know exactly who was going to

swing into action and perhaps allowed more politics to enter into the process.  If the data hasn’t 

been processed and looked at from the first experiment, then the experiment is still on.  There

was cost savings in being able to use the survey from the end of the first trigger as the

beginning of the second trigger. It was like free research and that can’t be passed up in a

reduced budget era. He feels the AMP needs to figure out how to use the dam to make the most 

of the sediment that comes in from the tributaries, that’s going to stop a lot of talking about 

sediment mining in upper San Juan and Delta and the power costs associated with that as well

as the NEPA costs. He would like to see us go the extra 5% and get it spelled out with the

Bureau with what we want to do and why. 

Larry said the November flood was claimed as a success for sediment but it was a flood

conducted at the wrong time and some members weren’t happy with the solution. He would

hope that in the July meeting there is an honest critique of the amount of experimental planning

­ the time that went into that event, the tradeoffs in the short amount of time, how to manage

high flows better, what the AMWG/TWG knows/doesn’t know about high flow management, and

the long­term picture of high flows. 

Dennis reminded the TWG that Mike Gabaldon made a report at an AMWG meeting which 

included an evaluation by the Solicitor’s Office on whether or not a provision be made in the

budget and the water for the flow.  It was pretty clear to the solicitor that the compliance didn’t 

preclude doing it but the program hadn’t accommodated a second flow either in dollars or water

so it was pretty hard to do for that reason. He suggested that if anyone wants to prepare for the

next event, they should contact the Roles & Responsibilities Ad Hoc Group (comprised of Mike 

Gabaldon, Norm Henderson, Randy Peterson, and Dave Garrett).  He asked Ted if before the

experiment was moved from January to November if anybody was contemplating two events in

one year.  There wasn’t a provision for water and no allocations made in the budget.

Ted said that Dave Topping had concluded from historical data that it was a relatively infrequent 

winter event that would happen and had just barely made the trigger in the fall. He said the

TWG should feel good about the fact that a real time monitoring system for sand production in

the Paria River was put in place and it worked flawlessly.  GCMRC watched a hydrograph

response on the January 12

th and 13th  and ran the models that Dr. Topping had developed.  They had an estimate for what the sand input was before the hydrograph session was even

finished.  They informed Reclamation and then briefed Tom Weimer the following morning.  Once the information was transferred, it was up to the Secretary to make her decision.  Dennis 

said there was an objective evaluation and dollars and water weren’t there.  He said there was 

very close communication with Tom Weimer and Bennett Raley.  Bennett was present in real 

time and gave his recommendation to the Secretary right up until the day before the experiment.

FY06 Budget Process. 

Dennis provided some background history:  The BAHG met in December 2004 to take a look at 

the first 2­year budget cycle for the FY06 budget.  The process had been accepted by the TWG 

but when the group looked at the time and the funds available, it was clear they couldn’t put it 

together so they advocated with GCMRC to embark on another one­year budget and that it be

viewed largely as a transitional year with no big changes. They went to work and developed a

preliminary budget and work plan that was presented to the TWG in February. It was a

constrained budget and it had no experiments. There was a reaction in the TWG that one

component, mechanical removal, should be considered. They came to the AMWG with a slightly
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FINAL Minutes of the May 18­19, 2005, Meeting

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revised budget that included mechanical removal. The AMWG’s determination was that they 

wanted to see a non­experimental and an experimental budget work plan, two different sets.

Everybody went back to the drawing board. They held a conference call and the agreement was 

reached to remove mechanical removal from the budget and consider that a non­experimental 

budget. The opinion shared by most individuals was to look seriously at making that money in a

non­experimental budget available for carry forward for ensuing experiments because it became

very clear to them that with a constrained budget, they did not have the money in the future in a

single year to develop the kind of experiment they’ve had in the past which Ted estimated at 

about $1.5 million.  There have been several conference calls since and there are now four or

five projects they’re still juggling between the Budget AHG and GCMRC and GCMRC is revising

their budget.  However, there has been a new twist and Ted will explain further. He feels that 

because of having to send out the budget information prior to the June TWG meeting, the

Budget AHG will not be able to give it the level of review they’ve performed on previous 

budgets.

Ken McMullen said as a member of the BAHG, he wondered if the TWG is aware of what the

BAHG does and whether the communication they’re receiving is sufficient. He doesn’t see a

whole lot of communication between the group and the TWG and feels a litttle uncomfortable 

with some of the decisions.  Dennis said that the BAHG doesn’t make decisions but rather

recommendations to the TWG and they need to be viewed in that context. He said that often

times the BAHG discuss significant budget issues via e­mail and conference calls and that if any 

of the members are interested in seeing those e­mails, he would be happy to include them in

the mailing.  Larry said that ad hoc groups are designed to address specific issues and that if 

anyone is interested in being engaged, they should let Dennis know. Bill Persons said he has 

felt some discomfort in the past and didn’t feel the BAHG was well represented by the full TWG.  He feels the ad hoc groups should provide regular updates at TWG meetings in an effort to

keep the TWG better informed. 

Ted said about a week and a half ago, it became clear to him that the appropriations request in 

the USGS director’s budget for $750,000 specific to the GCMRC budget had left the House and

that part of the request had been struck. That’s unfortunate but it could still be restored by the

Senate. He asked Chris Beard what it means if it isn’t restored by the Senate. The appropriaions request in their budget actually showed up at $1million even. It turned out that in the

Congress it was only $750,000.  GCMRC was being optimistic to begin with and the budget 

the TWG and the AMWG saw had an appropriations request placeholder of $1 million and that 

wasn’t even what was officially being requested. The idea was that if that money was approved, 

it would come to GCMRC and help them balance their cost share dollars so they could continue

getting the discounted overhead rate of 15% on the science dollars with a special potential for

pass through rate on maybe $2 to 2.5 million at 6% for things like cooperative agreements, etc. 

That’s how they’ve been functioning for FY03 and FY04 and even that was quite different than

what they were functioning in 2001­2002 when they had the Mark Schafer special dispensation,  no bureau level assessments on those science dollars. When that ended, they were notified by 

their director that they have to cover some indirect costs and it would hopefully be no more than

15%. Without those appropriations to offset the cost share, Chris Beard told him they will have

to deal with the full cost rate for entire science budget. J.D. Kite thinks next year it could be 37% 

so there might still be the opportunity for a special pass through rate on some portion of the $8+ 

million, maybe $2 or $2.5 million but everything else would be subject to as much as 37.5% 

indirect rate. In response to that information and what that meant to budget bottom line, it 

creates a $2.5 million deficit at the worst, and at the best a special pass through rate for some of 

the money but it could still be a $1.9 million deficit. Denny Fenn immediately sent a 2­page e­ mail message to Chip Groat summarizing the current events.  As of today, Ted hasn’t heard
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FINAL Minutes of the May 18­19, 2005, Meeting

Page 12

anything back from Denny or Chip and doesn’t know how to revise the FY06 budget without that 

information.  He would like to keep it down to two versions, one without experimental treatments 

and one with experimental recommendations. 

Dennis said that customarily the Federal Government does a walkdown table in which you start 

at a full allocation and then reduce it by percentages depending upon what items are cut under

certain conditions. He suggested that some of the stakeholders may want to get in touch with

their state senators and lobby for restoration of the funds.

Roles and Responsibilities AHG (Roles AHG) Update.  Norm said that Mike Gabaldon asked

some members of the Roles AHG (Dave Garrett, Randy Peterson, Denny Fenn) to address 

concerns raised at the AMWG Retreat. The issues revolve around the AMWG/TWG interaction,  AMWG­TWG as a deliberating body and how it interacts with GCMRC, the role of the

Secretary’s Designee, streamlining the decision making progress, handling work within the

GCMRS, and contracting issues. The group will develop some draft recommendations and

present at the next AMWG meeting.

Humpback Chub Comprehensive Plan Update.  Glen Knowles said he sees the HBC 

Comprehensive Plan AHG charged with revising the plan so that the actions that were taken to

specifically benefit the humpback chub are more integrated in approaching how the AMP is 

going to turn around the decline in the HBC. The AMWG wants them to be more prescriptive 

and asked the TWG to come up with crisis criteria. They also need to integrate the HBC Plan

with the other plans currently in development.  He sees the HBCCP AHG doing that and

working closely with the science advisors and GCMRC to make sure there is a good exchange

of  ideas.  He said Tom Czapla (USFWS) distributed a draft copy of the Draft Genetics 

Management Plan which is being reviewed by the HBC AHG meeting and will be distributed to

the TWG at the June meeting. He gave a PowerPoint Presentation (Attachment 12) and

reviewed a schedule for future meetings.

Approval of February 2­3, 2005, Draft Minutes.  Without objection, the minutes were

approved and adopted by consensus.

Core Monitoring Plan Update.  Helen Fairley distributed copies of the Provisional Core

Monitoring Plan and Future Planning Process (Attachment 13a), the Provisional Core

Monitoring Plan Final Draft (Attachment 13b), and then gave a PowerPoint presentation

(Attachment 13c).

Comments:

· The AMWG adopted a definition and that needs to be used as a guideline in developing the CMT. Criteria by the Park Service and everything we do has to comply with some laws and it’s important to

state that everything will be addressed within the law and inside the program. (Seaholm) · The cultural sites should be included in the core monitoring program. The PEP that was done and the

concerns have been addressed. The site condition monitoring to be included in the Core Monitoring

Plan. (Kincaid)

Action Item:  TWG to provide comments on the Core Monitoring Plan to Helen Fairley and the

CMAHG by June 8, 2005.

Step­down Process for Evaluating the Core Monitoring Components of the Downstream 

Water Quality Project.  Ted said he wanted to present a process that the Core Monitoring Ad
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FINAL Minutes of the May 18­19, 2005, Meeting

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Hoc Group would go through in understanding how work is done on a specific project.  For this 

purpose, they are using the downstream integrated water quality project. He introduced Scott

Wright who is in charge of the project. Steve Wiele was also asked to join the discussion

because he has been the lead principle investigator on the sediment modeling project that went 

on between 2002 and 2004 which is now in its final phase. Steve has been trying to developing

a predictive capability for routing flow and sediment through the ecosystem from the dam. Scott

gave a PowerPoint presentation (Attachment 14).

Comments:

· You’ve been collecting data at the upstream point. That is one of those points that falls outside the

program and should be funded by other sources. (Seaholm) · This program should show compliance or change the standards. The State of Arizona has a station

at Mile 226. As a program, we can’t violate the standards. We may need to consider changing those

standards. (Davis)

· There is a concern by management to be able to see a cross­section of data that makes sense to

them. They can do a quick read and determine where we are with the resources. I think we have to

develop some sort of criteria and index and some type of matrix that one can actually make sense of

the information. (Garrett)

Schedule for upcoming meetings.

Dates Meeting

June 21­22 TWG Meeting in Phoenix 

June 23­24 Science Planning Group (SPG) Meeting in Phoenix 

July 5­8 Knowledge Assessment in Flagstaff

July 27­28 SPG Meeting

August 30­31 AMWG Meeting in Phoenix 

Sept. 1­2 SPG Meeting

October 25­27 Science Symposium 

Adjourned:  3:10 p.m.

Location for June 21­22, 2005 Meeting:

Bureau of Indian Affairs 

2 Arizona Center

400 N. Third Street, 12

th Floor

Conference Rooms A & B

Phoenix, Arizona
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FINAL Minutes of the May 18­19, 2005, Meeting

Page 14

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/Habitat­Building 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

MRAP – Monitoring and Remedial Action Plan

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 – U.S. 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)