Amid Colorado River crisis, a massive surge spells 'bright spot' for the Grand Canyon

May 7—For 72 hours at the end of April, people on or around Glen Canyon Dam say they could feel it shaking, hear it roaring. "Intense" and "awesome" went some descriptions. Turbines and bypass tubes blasted water at such a volume and such a rate — 39,500 cubic feet per second — that Larry Stevens observed a hurricane-sounding wind below. The mightiest of boaters would not dare approach.

It was "like a lot of elephants stampeding by every second," recalled Stevens, who since the 1970s has frequented the water the dam keeps, Lake Powell, and the wonder of the world downstream: the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon.

Known as "Mr. Grand Canyon" by some associates, Stevens has been among scientists and environmentalists who for years have called on the event they finally saw happen as April turned to May. Water rocketed from Glen Canyon Dam as part of what regulators call a high-flow experiment. These experiments simulate floods from snowmelt in Colorado's mountains and ranges down the watershed that naturally, beneficially flowed through the Grand Canyon before the dam's 1963 construction.

The Bureau of Reclamation last oversaw a high-flow experiment in the fall of 2018. This more natural version, one in the spring, had not been seen since 2008.

The releases have been hard to come by while the focus has been on keeping Lake Powell up during an all-time drop. The Grand Canyon separates Powell and Lake Mead, two reservoirs responsible for giving water and hydropower to more than 40 million people in seven states.

And so Stevens cherished those 72 hours the water gushed. He thought back to the '80s, the last time he was boating through the Grand Canyon under such rollicking circumstances. He thought of rapids returning, sandy beaches restored and invasive vegetation cut back — the river alive and loud again in what has been a quiet, parched age of climate change and a broken system of management on the Colorado River.

The high-flow experiment was celebrated by Stevens and others for only so long; the Grand Canyon would not be saved in those three days, they knew. Larger questions loomed.

Virtual meetings continue this week and next over the Bureau of Reclamation's Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement. The stage is to be set for operations across the Colorado River Basin at a crucial time of lower supply and higher demand.

It's a crucial time, too, for one of the seven natural wonders of the world. At least for the Grand Canyon, there has been "a wonderful day," as Lynn Hamilton called it.

"It can't be gloom and doom all the time," said the executive director of Grand Canyon River Guides. "It's nice to have a bright spot."

Her nonprofit comprises advocates inside and outside the recreation industry. After the high-flow experiment, those inside the industry are celebrating the restoration of beaches historically used for launching and docking boats and camping.

A primary aim of the experiments is to rebuild those shorelines with sand and sediment pushed from the Paria River, less than 20 miles from Glen Canyon Dam's turbines and bypass tubes.

The Paria was identified in the years following the dam's construction, as observers found silt rushing down with snowmelt was getting trapped in Lake Powell. Water coming down through the Grand Canyon was coming out clear — unnatural to the river called Colorado, derived from Spanish for "colored red."

"And so for decades, that sediment-starved water has eroded a lot of the beaches and sandbars all the way through the canyon," said Durango-based Sinjin Eberle, a southwest point person for advocacy group American Rivers.

Without the sandy, cobbly surges of spring, the river floor has not been naturally scoured, allowing algae to proliferate. Native plant life has struggled against invasive species, altering insect life and the food chain. Native fish populations have vanished, including the pikeminnow, gone in the '70s, hardly 10 years after the dam.

Also in the absence of sand, tribes have expressed worry over cultural sites being degraded, exposed and put at risk of pilfering across the canyon.

"There has been evidence of some becoming uncovered because there's less windborn sand blowing" to protect them, Eberle said.

It has all contributed to his organization recently declaring perhaps America's most iconic river as also the most endangered.

That's on the heels of increased concern regarding smallmouth bass, which were stocked in Lake Powell in the '80s. They swim toward the warm, top part of the lake. The top has plunged to never-before-seen levels during this megadrought, down to where the notoriously hungry predators can exit for the warming river. It's believed they would wreak havoc on the native populations remaining.

"Smallmouth bass can start spawning certainly by 60 degrees," said Jim Strogen, a Grand Canyon lead with Trout Unlimited. "We're well within the tolerance of them spawning and, the way it is right now, for them to take off."

Also amid Powell's historic drop, onlookers have eyed the position of those bypass tubes that blasted last month's release, below the powerful turbines. There's a scenario where those tubes could be primarily relied upon, should Powell's level continue to fall, to pass water downstream to Lake Mead. But, given the tubes' lower capacity, that would mean less water traveling through the Grand Canyon.

"That's pretty scary when you're talking about an ecosystem as important as this," Eberle said.

In the face of several competing interests — farming and urban life as we know it — the importance of that ecosystem is tested when high-flow experiments are decided.

Central to this latest decision was the projected boosts to lakes Powell and Mead, which have both hovered around a quarter full as of late. Recent forecasts have called for Powell to be 50 feet higher year-to-year by October and a 22-foot rise for Mead by the same time — still far from capacity.

While environmentalists have pushed for high-flow experiments, power distributors have warned of water leaving without generating electricity. That can mean higher expenses to harness it in other ways, hence higher costs to consumers.

"This particular (high-flow experiment), we modeled and projected to cost us $1.4 million in lost energy," said Brian Sadler with Western Area Power Administration, one of the four power marketing administrations under the U.S. Department of Energy. The company's customers are spread across 15 states over the plains and mountains.

Hydropower is increasingly precious, Sadler said. "But as far as this experiment and the environment, that's really important to us, too. Even though this has an impact financially and operationally and somewhat indirectly to our customers, we're on board with this."

That, he said, was in accordance with the 2016 Long Term Experimental and Management Plan, a federal guideline on when and how high-flow experiments can be greenlit. That plan sprung from the 1992 Grand Canyon Protection Act, which dictated Glen Canyon Dam be operated to "mitigate adverse impacts" and "improve the values" of the Grand Canyon.

"That's what we keep pointing to," said Hamilton, with Grand Canyon River Guides.

That's what she'll keep pointing to as talks continue over the Bureau of Reclamation's Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement.

The question of Stevens, or Mr. Grand Canyon as Hamilton knows him: "Do we want to try to manage the Grand Canyon in a natural, hydrological fashion? Is that something we value? What's the value of that to each of these stakeholders?"

After seeing that joyous sight last month, he can only speak for himself and others who've spent much of their lives in the canyon.

"It's our home," he said. "That wild nature and awe and wonder ... It's an amazing experience."