Lead Scientist on Grand Canyon Flood Quits, Says Government Slack

Tuesday, Nov. 26, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

After more than 20 years with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, Dave Wegner said he believes the department is not carrying out its promise to make similar changes at other dams. Proof, he said, was when it disbanded the research group he oversees.

Since 1982, the Glen Canyon Environmental Studies group has studied the effects of the Glen Canyon Dam on the Grand Canyon and the Colorado River. It is the nation's premier source of research and information on the impact of dams on the environment.

Wegner, who officially resigned Friday, said eradication of the Flagstaff-based group contradicts the department's public position that it has transformed the way it runs dams so as to lessen damage to the environment.

Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt repeated that commitment this spring at a highly publicized, manmade flood at the Grand Canyon. Babbitt said the West had entered a "new era" in dam management, with dams more closely mimicking nature with spring floods and winter lows, rather than having daily extreme fluctuations that have suited power companies for decades.

"What upsets me is that we had been led to believe we would be taking our expertise, our technology and applying it to other rivers and dams and other systems through the U.S.," said Wegner. "There are a lot of people who don't like the fact that our studies have resulted in changes. The water and power communities aren't happy that changes have been made."

Reclamation Bureau officials said Wegner's department was disbanded because its mission - revamping the way Glen Canyon is run - had been completed. In its place will be the Grand Canyon Research and Monitoring Center, which will oversee new operations at Glen Canyon.

Rick Gold, the bureau's deputy director of the upper Colorado Region, noted that dams around the West have been experimenting with new flows for years in an effort to minimize damage to endangered species. Among them are the Flaming Gorge on the Green River, the Ruedi Dam on the Frying Pan River and several dams on the Gunnison River - all in Colorado.

Representatives of regional power companies, the Interior Department and environmental groups have agreed that dams have greatly altered their rivers' natural habitats, threatening endangered species as well as native vegetation.

But formally and permanently altering the way a dam is run - as at Glen Canyon - is a lengthy and expensive project, Gold said.

"We're doing studies, we're looking at changes, but we haven't made those decisions. It took five or six years at Glen Canyon, so there's no reason to think it would be a 1-year process anywhere else," he said. "But at virtually every river system in the nation, there is an ongoing examination of how we run things."

Environmental groups said Monday they were willing to trust Babbitt that changes are coming, but they said getting such changes will require constant pressure on the government.

"I think there still has to be a tremendous amount of pushing. You have so many different interests who don't want these changes," said Dan Luecke, regional director of the Environmental Defense Fund in Boulder, Colo. "It's like trying to push a rope."

Wegner said he and others from the now-defunct Glen Canyon Environmental Studies plan to open a private consulting firm for states and power companies. The firm will provide scientific testing to quantify the impact of dams.

"When things are said in public, they're not necessarily 100 percent," he said, referring to Babbitt's news conferences on the Grand Canyon flood. "I've learned a big lesson here, but I'm not going to back down on what I believe in."