GCNM 4 The Secretary’s View, 1998-2000

Prelude: Back to Life

It was my good fortune to visit the northwestern segments of the Canyon early after my Western migration. From Toroweap westward to the Shivwits Plateau, from the rim to, and along, the river, I learned what a wonderfully varied landscape it was. When the time came, in the mid-1970’s, to change the Park boundaries, I was hopeful that this region would take its appropriate & logical place in a complete Grand Canyon National Park. Good news; bad news. 

GCNM 4 Better called the Grand Confusion — 1998-2000

The Fourth Grand Canyon National Monument — better called the Grand Confusion — 1998-2000

Having gone through the materials I have on the creation of the Grand Canyon - Parashant national Monument in 2000, and then gone through them again, one thing seems clear: born perhaps in confusion, it certainly went through changes and phases that at the end brought a product that, in terms of its original conception, does not make sense. Let me see if I can tell the story…straight. 

Reflections Of A Monument; My Interview With Bruce Babbitt

Reader beware. I recorded my September 27, 2012, interview with former (1993-2001) Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt, and then transcribed it. This post is that material, gathered into topics. My goal was to produce his words, smoothed, ordered, and connected for reading purposes, but trying to keep his voice. I did not use quotation marks or paraphrasing. 

My main focus was his personal role in, and reflections on, the establishment of the Grand Canyon - Parashant National Monument (the fourth for the Canyon). What I like about this material is that it became a mini-essay on governance in a society in which openness and participation are central values. When "I" is used, that is Babbitt in smoothed quote. Material in parentheses is explanation or bridging for smoothness. In an exchange, B is for B.Babbitt, J for me.

A Short History of the Origin of a Short-lived Monument, Marble Canyon, 1964-9

The story of Marble Canyon National Monument is a facet of one aspect of the mid-1960’s conflict over whether to build dam(s) in the Grand Canyon. (Pieces of this story are in other blog entries, e.g. Dams, The Navajo Boundary, but the material in the Stewart Udall archives makes it worthwhile to bring the pieces together.)

That aspect was the effort by the Arizona Power Authority (APA) to gain a license to build and operate a state, as opposed to a federal, hydroelectric dam in the reach of the Grand Canyon upstream from the northern boundary of the National Park. The federal plans were on hold through the 1950’s until 1964 due to a legal contest between Arizona and California over Colorado River water rights. This contest included a hold on federal Reclamation development in Arizona involving the dams and the Central Arizona and other projects. Some Arizona politicians, disgusted at this delay in federal activity, decided to bring about River development using state agencies, notably by the APA pursuing a state-funded dam in Marble.

2016: A Grand 50th in My 80th

Well, so, my 80th year seems like one of those special times to reflect and project. This year, moreover, is the 50th anniversary of immensely significant events in the Grand Canyon’s political history, and in my involvement with it, as a place for exploration and adventure and as a locus of learning about and attempting to influence the American political landscape. 

  1966. A splendid year. For me; for the Grand Canyon. A year of beginnings, of promise.

  2016. A year for remembering, yes, but also with promise. The Canyon is asking more of us.

        ======    THE DAMS

Fifty years ago, building two hydroelectric dams in the Grand Canyon, the major step in its industrialization, was a cresting dream for many in the West and the U.S. From the beginning of the XXth century, schemes and plans and research had been aimed at emplacing concrete plugs & holes in stairsteps along the Colorado River to extract every possible kilowatt. One dreamer’s map:

The federal government, through the Bureau of Reclamation, was ready by the end of World War II to proceed. Rivalry over control of the Colorado’s waterflows plus complications in Reclamation’s legal arrangements stalled construction for 20 years. By the mid-1960’s, when the dams’ true believers were again ready, the U.S. had changed, politically and in our burgeoning understanding that a healthy people and a healthy economy require a healthy environment to flourish.

A Grand 50th Birthday — No Joke!

Though off by one day — for it was on March 31, 1966, that Representatives Saylor, Reuss, & Dingell introduced the very first bill in history to create a COMPLETE (sic) Grand Canyon National Park. 

My post of 20 April 2012 gives the details, but in recognition of that birthday, here is some context. The first such proposal was in 1910, spear-headed by F. Dellenbaugh. In 1963, the Sierra Club called for extending the Park from Lees Ferry to Grand Wash Cliffs, and reiterated that position in 1964. No legislation was prepared, however.

In February 1966, the middle of the fight over the dams, then Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall suggested to (needled?) Bill Zimmerman, Club DC Representative, that the Club should do something positive about a dam-opposing Park expansion. And meanwhile, on our own, Dave Brower, Martin Litton, & I were cobbling together a proposal that, odd as it looked, tried to deal with the patchwork of land jurisdictions, and still create a Park that took in the entire length plus significant plateau land and side canyons — a Grand Canyon watershed, if you will, although in topographic fact, of course it was not, as no proposal can ever be (think Little Colorado River!!)

The map of that 50-year infant is here.

As a teen-ager, the concept behind that map was the foundation for our 1970’s effort to expand the National Park significantly, though that effort was thwarted by hunters fearful of losing game land.

The watershed idea sparked Interior Secretary Babbitt in 1998-2000 to sponsor what is now called, for no good reason, the Grand Canyon - Parashant National Monument (fourth in the series).

And currently, much of the eastern portion of the Canyon region is the subject of proposals and legislation by Representative Raul Grijalva and a collection of environmental groups. 

What all this will work out to over the coming years (decades?) is not predictable, but one thing is sure: The Grand Canyon continues, as it has since the 1880’s, to inspire those who revere this earth that nourishes and supports us, and who wish to honor the Canyon for the environmental icon that it, perforce, is.

Happy Birthday — and we are not just fooling around. 

Out of Fight, Out of Mind: How We Keep Mislaying the Grand Canyon

The Grand Canyon has the wonderful charisma that the first view each of its visitors has is so beyond expectation that it is the opposite of deja vu: That first time is like nobody had ever seen anything like this before. 

Over more visits, we may become comfortable with the Canyon’s ability to strike awe, even as we learn more and more about just how far-reaching the Canyon is — geographically & chronologically extensive, and spiritually intensive.

The urge to reach out, explore, and re-visit grows. That urge may transmute into a desire to celebrate the Canyon, to introduce others to it, to cherish & protect it even as it nourishes our  sense that our Earth is a generous home.