A Pause for Reflection; On The Canyon's North Side

The Denver Service Center, along with the staff of Grand Canyon National Park, not only met the congressional deadline for reporting on whether the Kanab and Uinkaret plateau lands were suitable for retention in the Park, but used the period of 1975 to become acquainted with the larger reaches of the Canyon's North Side in the Arizona Strip. The immediate job would be to update and expand the recommendation for Wilderness, due on the President's desk in January 1977. However, the even larger task would be to come to know the lands from Kanab Canyon west to the Shivwits, in order to evaluate them as possible candidates for adding to the Park. Since these, called the Adjacent Lands, were under the administration of the Forest Service (most of Kanab Canyon) and the Bureau of Land Management (west side of Kanab, the upper ends of Whitmore and Parashant Canyons, and the grand back-country viewing platforms of the multi-fingered Shivwits). Sharing the BLM features (except for Kanab) is the Lake Mead National Recreation Area (part of NPS, of course, but for all that, a turf that would be defended by the NRA staff).

The matter of the Grand Canyon Wilderness was inextricably wound up in the question of removing motorized craft from the river, and that history has been told, all the way up to its sad denouement as the commercial river operators (whether motorized or rowers) banded together to protect their oligopoly and conservative river operations by pressing well-placed bureaucrats in the President's Office of Management and Budget to keep the excellent NPS Wilderness proposal away from Congress. (See my Hijacking A River: A Political History of the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon, 2003. It is available -- along with many other invaluable books on the Canyon, river running, and the Park -- from Vishnu Temple Press in Flagstaff, http://www.vishnutemplepress.com/.)

Study 1: The Park Suitability Report, February 1976

Due on 3 Jan 1976, the Secretary's findings & recommendation were contained in the report dated Nov 1975. Copies were distributed to the public in February. These came in the form of ordinary stapled paper report by NPS; the fancy leather-bound presentation copies were for Congress.

The cover letter to Congress, 23 Jan 1976, was signed by Ass't Secretary Nathaniel Reed, and made three major points:

1. Significant archeological resources, possessing exceptional value, may exist bringing information on the movement of prehistoric people, their changing lifestyles, and other unresolved problems.

2. Geologically, there were ancient drainage patterns on the Kanab Plateau that could lead to better understanding of the Grand Canyon's formation. Biologically, the communities would help in interpretation, as control areas for evaluating changes from human activities, and in analyzing the environment of prehistoric cultures.

3. Scenically, there is a sense of spaciousness in the sweeping plateau lands through which the Colorado has cut the Canyon, lending diversity to visitors' viewing experience.

   Furthermore, the areas could only benefit the local economy marginally in grazing, logging, & hunting activities. 

  The study concluded that the lands therefore are "not 'unsuitable for park purposes'", and ought to be retained within the Park. 

Study 1: Park Suitability of the former Monument lands on the Kanab & Uinkarets Plateaus

A reprise: The Grand Canyon National Monument (number 2) that President Hoover established in 1932 recognized the impact & remnants of volcanic action on the Canyon,  as well as the different and startling configuration of the Canyon itself -- a section where  geologic actions had brought a younger set of rocks to river level. NPS interest was definitely stimulated by features near the river. In the same period, there was considerable thought being given as to how to classify and dispose of or administer the public lands of the Arizona Strip west of Kanab Creek. The character of these lands, away from the river, moved from evidence of the volcanic-drowned nature of Toroweap Vally with its cliffs and old flows to the open, extensive reaches of Kanab Plateau, running on toward the Utah border. 

That being a time when NPS officials at GCNP were still learning what the Grand Canyon actually was, it can not be too surprising that GCNM2 was a big fella, taking in a big swath of the rolling, above-rim lands as well as those in and near the canyon. More detailed study to  come up with the most appropriate boundary was urgent because of the complaints of the dozen or so ranchers who ran stock there -- a task that Minor Tillotson, first as Superintendent and then Regional Director, dedicated himself to over the next 20 years. He got lots of advice from the residents of Arizona and Utah north of the Grand Canyon who were used to the Arizona Strip, all the way down to the Colorado, being their (free) grazing range. Negotiations through the 1930's did finally lead to a boundary brought closer to the river, but which still included lands to protect approaches to the side canyons, e.g. Tuckup, those flatter lands of the plateau that graziers wanted to continue to use. (The Grand Canyon National Monument #2 story in detail is told in several posts, Jan-Mar 2012.)

A "new" Park; A "new" Reservation. 1975: What is to be done with these creations?

Tritely enough, the Presidential signature marked the end of the gestation stage of the Grand Canyon National Park Enlargement Act and the beginning of its life as part of the living law that governs how the Grand Canyon and especially its National Park are to be treated in the political-legal framework of American society. That sentence is not only a trite metaphor but carries major ironies: Enlargement? Or shrinkage? Expansion of a national Park? or an Indian Reservation? And whatever the intent, it is all too clear 40 years later, that much of the Act has been ignored in letter, spirit or both. 

Helping Hands: The Navajo, The Secretary, And Saving The Grand Canyon

A proposal  to construct a tramway from the rim of the Grand Canyon at the far southern end of Marble Canyon to its floor at the Confluence of the Colorado and Little Colorado rivers would locate the structure on land of the Navajo Nation immediately adjacent to lands in Grand Canyon administered by Grand Canyon National Park. This scheme would be destructive of Navajo and Grand Canyon values and land alike.

An existing political mechanism authorizes the Department of Interior to work cooperatively with the Navajo Nation for the preservation and interpretation of the Grand Canyon and to enhance the Navajo environment and economy. This cooperative, resource-protecting approach to human activity in the eastern half of the Grand Canyon was directed by Congress almost forty years ago in the 1975 Grand Canyon National Park Enlargement Act, PL 93-620, sections 2, 3a, 5, and 6.

Pl93-620 Z. Jan 1975 & Later: Aftermath-- What We All Thought We Had Seen

Ben Avery, on 26 Dec, thought he had a Christmas present, saying President Ford had signed the bill while skiing in Vail, while he, Ben, had been given the low-down by Republicans Fannin and aide. For Ben, the "major action" was eliminating the northern additions. The Secretary could then study them for park values and ask for a new bill. He thought another study, that of the plateau lands in the old Monument, could result in a better boundary, eliminating from the Park "grazing and wildlife lands that have little or no park values". The River was put into the Park from the Paria to Grand Wash Cliffs. He thought the bill gave the Park jurisdiction over Lee's Ferry. There were a couple of small additions, but a big controversy was placing 185 kac in trust for the Havasupai. He correctly summarized some of the restrictions, including having the Secretary develop a land use plan with "step-by-step pubic review and comment".

  There was no change in dam status, but "by including all of Grand Canyon within the park, the Congress gave those who are opposed to building any more dams in the Canyon a strong fighting position, assuring the entire nation will be on our side." [What a different song he sings from ten years before.] "This is as it should be because the Grand Canyon does not belong to Arizona. We merely hold it in trust for all". A great debt is owed to those who worked so hard: Fannin, Steiger, & Bible, who took a strong stand "to make this bill truly a Grand Canyon bill, and not a hikers and backpackers bill as was sought by the Sierra Club." His tribute did not, he wrote, lessen my disagreement with Steiger over the dam, and does not take from Goldwater and Udall the great credit of being the original authors. "It was Barry who helped nurture the dream of putting all of Grand Canyon in the park". NPS now faces a tremendous task in planning & managing this huge area, "much of it so remote that it is seldom visited by man." It has two years to make a new wilderness proposal. 

PL93-620 Y. Jan-Jun 1975: Surprises in the Lost-&-Found: The Wilderness; the Hunters

When Goldwater-Emerson, in a snit about their bill being criticized in early 1973, revised it for Senate consideration, they dropped the provision for establishing a Grand Canyon Wilderness. One of our major goals in improving the bill in the House was a mandate for all the areas within the new Park boundary to be studied by the Secretary of the Interior for their suitability for preservation as wilderness. He was to report his recommendations to the President within two years of the Act. (As I noted before, accompanying documents spoke of reporting the recommendation to Congress within two years, but unfortunately, that major step was never put in the bill.) The provision was so obviously logical and appropriate that there was little or no debate over what then became section 11 of the House Parks Subcommittee bill, and it remained unquestioned when accepted by the Senate-House conference in Dec 1974. 

PL93-620 X3. Dec1974- Jan 1975: The Conference, Its Labor & Results

My journal ends with the conference, though I stayed on through the 18th during the writing of the conference report and its adoption by both Senate & House.  

The Republic and the AP reports next day both headlined the Park; it was doubled, it was enlarged. The Phoenix paper, appropriately, had it as a "favorite" project of Goldwater and "steered through the Senate" by Fannin. The Park acreage was given; then the Havasupai's, mentioning the "strict controls". Fannin & Steiger were reported to have protested the restrictions, "demanded by … Foley", saying they would deny the Havasupai use of the land. Steiger tried to remove 15 kac (the reporter did not say they were for a whitefolk grazing allotment). And all it said about our tragic loss of the northern additions was that the conference managers used the original Goldwater boundaries (which was not true, for our defense of keeping in the old Monument plateau lands had altered that boundary).

The AP report was straight-foward: the Park was doubled, and its components were listed. The Havasupai reservation was "transformed". And although additions of the Shivwitz, Parashaunt, Kanab & Andrus had been dropped, the conferees stipulated they should be studied for possible future addition. Seemingly, the storm having broken, there was calm. 

PL93-620 X2. Nov-Dec 1974: To the Conference; Lobbying is Retail Sales

FIRST, SOME LONG DISTANCE GROUNDWORK

A lot of what transpired in November and up to the conference in mid-December was very much one-to-one. It consisted of many conversations, sometimes with those directly involved, more often with intermediaries, aides. What became a month-long effort was, perhaps, like a mosaic whose bits were laid not with a guiding narrative, but a variegated pattern that was concluded by the conference itself. If there is a guiding narrative theme, I am afraid it is one of narrowing possibilities. We did lay out and argue for overall compromises on the Havasupai question; but we could not get the political balance to tilt in our favor, so no one would take on the difficult task against the Arizona delegation's unity -- not to mention its (apart from Udall) personal anger and actively expressed disdain. So, by the time the conference neared, conversations were of a few tightening-up changes. On our additions, the opponents apparently felt so secure in having the allegiance of the Arizonans except Udall, that our arguments overall could gain no traction. Given our euphoria at the bill approved by the Parks Subcommittee 9 months earlier, the year had been a dispiriting one. So for triumphant narrative themes, one must go to the Havasupai and the hunters; for me, what follows is a story of day-to-day persistence under an increasingly lowering cloud. 

PL93-620 X1. Oct-Nov 1974: Working Toward the Conference

House passage of S. 1296 was variously reported in October. In the National Wildlife Federation "Report", the "House approves of Grand Canyon Proposal", saying that by a voice vote federal lands were consolidated into an enlarged Park and the Havasupai were granted 185 kac. It would now go to a Senate-House conference to reconcile the differences between the bills as passed by each chamber. Most critical had been the 180-147 vote on the Havasupai grant. Representatives Foley & Dellenback warned other lands would be opened to claims. The Arizonans spoke for the grant. The amendment to reduce the Park by 185 kac was rejected. Much debate was on development, Udall denying there could be trams or hotels on the rim. Rhodes indicated the Havasupai could benefit from tourist development, and questioners wanted to know why a give the Havasupai land if there could not be economic development for tourism. Another difference with the Senate version was "particularly opposed by sportsmen" -- "all" bighorn hunting area and "a large section" of Kaibab deer wintering range were added to the Park. When hunting was prohibited once a half century earlier, there was a massive deer dieoff. Although called the Park Enlargement Act, it was more a consolidation of various NPS and other federal lands. 

NEWS FLASH (40 years old, however). GCNP Boundary E: Havasupai: A Fourth Part To The Mystery Of The Beaver Falls Crossing

In my post of 10 Jun 2014 GCNP BOUNDARY E: HAVASUPAI (ADDITIONAL INFORMATION); BEAVER FALLS MYSTERY, IN 3 PARTS", I traced the current situation where the Havasupai have laid claim to Havasu Creek below Beaver Falls, a claim that appears on all maps I have found so far. 

However, in my recounting of the legislative history of PL 93-620, I uncovered (well, re-covered) the information contained in the Report of the House Interior Committee on S.1296, that the boundary of the Reservation, as described on the official map, is explicated this way:

"Such map, which shall delineate a boundary line generally one-fourth of a mile from the rim of the outer gorge of the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River and shall traverse Havasu Creek from a point on the rim at Yumtheska Point to Beaver Falls to a point on the rim at Ukwalla Point…" (my emphasis); the map having been named earlier in the Act as 113-20,021B, dated December, 1974.
AND in its Section-by-Section Analysis, the Report on page 11 reads:

"All of the lands to be transferred by section 10 are outside the perimeters of the main stem of the Grand Canyon; however, the boundary crosses one major tributary canyon at Beaver Falls. It is the intention of the Committee that in establishing the precise boundary for the park at this point that the Secretary should cross UPSTREAM from the falls in order to assure their protection as a part of the park." (my emphases throughout).

Therefore, the full House, in accepting the Havasupai land grant amendment in Section 10, without any discussion of the boundary, implicitly accepted the interpretation of the Committee of the upstream crossing of Beaver Falls.

The story I am telling of PL 93-620 has now progressed to the Senate-House Conference, which took up the differences between what the two houses had passed, debated them, and fashioned the legislation in its final form, as I tell elsewhere. That Conference produced its own report. It is dated 17 Dec 1974, and was taken up and agreed to by the House on the 18th. Here is the relevant section of the "Joint Statement of the Committee of Conference" on page 6 under "(3) Havasupai Reservation Enlargement":

"The House amendment included a provision for an immediate enlargement of the reservation and specified that the boundaries would be located on the plateau one-quarter of a mile from the rim of the canyon except where it crosses Havasu Creek from Yumatheska (sic) Point to the top of Beaver Falls to Ukwalla Point; thus granting trust title to approximately 185,000 acres of national park, monument and forest land to the Havasupai Tribe." (my emphasis)

It is significant that the Conference did make some modifications to Section 10 but the boundary was not the subject of discussion. It thus was accepted by both the House and Senate Managers and recommended to their respective bodies. That is, to belabor the point, first the House Committee, then the full House, then the Conference, then the House and Senate each considered and approved, with explicit statements in the two Reports, that Beaver Falls was to remain in the Park.

I would go so far as to say that those legislators of , oh, so long ago, insisted on, were adamant about, Beaver Falls staying in the Park. And even though we have all moved on and are more enlightened, pleasant, and of sweeter disposition than 40 years ago, the National Park Service administrators of Grand Canyon National Park ought now to obey the law and assert the Nation's ownership of Beaver Falls, doing whatever is necessary to assure public access, and at the same time, removing and preventing any vandalism to this land, that, even had it been under Havasupai supervision, the legislation said should be "forever wild".



Sources: Various congressional documents as indicated

GCNP Boundary: E Havasupai (additional Information): THE BEAVER FALLS MYSTERY, IN THREE PARTS

PREFACE

I did think of some other titles:

Theft or Gift?

Possession is Nine Tenths of the Law ; But Where is the First Part?

Map Games: Who Gets to Draw the Line?

Ignored and Forgotten 

The Buried & Lost Havasu Creek Crossing

Anyway, on with the story...

PART I: THE MYSTERY DEVELOPS, SLOWLY

Beaver Falls is not so much a singular drop as a cascade of travertine terraces, extending along a quarter mile of Havasu Creek. It is a landmark on the boundary between the Grand Canyon National Park and the Havasupai Indian Reservation. 

PL93-620 W6. 10 Oct 1974: The Biggest Debate: The House Argues, and Decides

The House of Representatives met in the evening of October 10th (though the Congressional Record has it as legislative day 11 Oct) to consider "Further Protecting Outstanding Scenic, Natural, and Scientific Values of the Grand Canyon". That record ran from p. H10436 to p. H10451, 16 pages worth of the most public debate the legislation would receive in its two-year history.

 The principals were, in order of speaking, Representatives: Pepper of Fla, Quillen of Tenn, & Gross of Iowa, on the rule to govern debate; then on the bill: Taylor of NC, chair of the Parks Subcommittee, Seiberling of Ohio, Steiger of Ariz, leading the Republicans, Yates of Ill, Hosmer of Calif, Rhodes of Ariz, Udall of Ariz, Foley of Wash, Dellenback of Ore, Ketchum of Calif, Meeds of Wash, Regula of Ohio, Skubitz of Kan, Dingell of Mich. 

 Of course, members of the House have the right to revise and add to their remarks in the Record so all that is printed is not necessarily exactly as spoken. Sadly I was not present, so can offer no personal views on the content & manner of the debate. Many members only came when it was time to vote, as indicated at points during debate.

  In any case, following the main discussion, the bill as sent over by the Senate was read until Taylor moved the reading be dispensed with and the bill opened for amendments. Each was read, then agreed to, or debated and then voted on, all being voice votes except for the Havasupai transfer on which there was a roll call. The amending process completed, the House passed the amended bill by voice vote. 

PL93-620 W5. Oct 1974: Preparing the House Floor

McComb went back to DC to watch the debate. sending off a local letter to the editor, once again attacking the Havasupai transfer. This brought the tart response that he was "callous and exploitative". He and I, in Tucson, had theretofore been involved long distance in whatever conservationist anti-Havasupai lobbying effort had been mounted. I continued to rusticate, not called upon to help out in the final effort to beat down the Havasupai provisions.

PL93-620 W4. Aug-Oct 1974: The Real Threat -- Hunters on the Warpath

The long story of hunter-love for the Kaibab Plateau has its place here insofar as it contributes to knee-jerk opposition to anything that might possibly be construed as a threat to their freedom to hunt there -- and knee-jerk distaste for Grand Canyon National Park's (occupying the southern end of the Plateau) being closed to hunting. Before picking up the story in Aug 1974, it may be worthwhile to add some background. 

PL93-620 W3. Sep 1974: The Committee Reports

Given what great changes the Udall-crafted legislation had undergone from the bill the Senate had produced, future understanding of what the House Committee had finally approved and its justifications therefor would be heavily based on the 36-page Report document that Committee staff produced on 25 Sep 1974. In the floor debate, and later in conference with the Senate, what the Report said would both set the lines of discussion and provide markers should there be changes in conference--which would, of course, produce another report. 

Here is the document's header:

           

The text of the amendments followed, then a short statement of purpose. Much longer were the discussions of Background, Legislative History, and more important, the Section by Section Analysis. Following the Committee recommendations, reports were reprinted from Interior (submitted November 1973) and Agriculture (July 1973, plus an addendum from April 1974), and the President's statement recommending the Havasupai reservation enlargement (May 1974). A dissenting view on the Havasupai transfer was written by Reps. Foley, Seiberling & Dellenback, while Steiger and Idaho's Symms lamented the failure to approve a dam. The Report ended by printing changes in existing law.

PL93-620 W2. Sep-Oct 1974: Troubles, Uncertainties, Waiting

[ General comment: A lot of what follows is just so much hot air; people gassing to pass the time until a definitive step was taken. Like much of DC chat; it needs now, and at the time, to have a lot of salt shaken on it. Entertainment? Trying to prove worth? So after I clear this away, I will take up the content of the Committee Report in a separate entry. I will then go on to summarize the hunter/AG&F effort. Then finally, we get to the floor debate of 10 Oct.]

If the government was trying to prove it could not help the Havasupai, then information I picked up supported that notion: grazing was limited by the cost of pumping water. They could only sell their cattle cheap. There was no forthcoming appropriation for an electric line. Work on improving Hilltop wasnt done because there was no initiative. The attitude toward helicopters and any tramway was adamantly negative. 

The Club's McCloskey reported to Evans that he had talked with Congressman Taylor, who suggested Udall was getting cold feet, and would not fight very hard if we pushed further amendments, maybe even being willing to shrink the transfer boundary. Hunt's office visits in DC were finding less & less sympathy in the Senate. Pontius was meanwhile trying to be soothing about the land use plan and the report.

PL93-620 W. Aug-Sep 1974: A Re-focussed Battle; Attacking the Precedent

Udall had demonstrated his leadership that had led to a bill, complete with some compromises, that could command a majority in the committee against the opposition of the forces determined that federal land should not be transferred to the Havasupai (or any tribe, by implication). There had been an even larger majority for the other changes he had made in the Senate-passed version.

The next necessary accomplishment, not in any way automatic, would be to bring this bill to the floor of the full House of Representatives, maintaining the bill's content while building another majority for it. There were technical steps: The Committee had lacked a quorum on the 31st, and so had to reconvene for the vote. The Committee Report & minority views had to be written, and the package presented to the Rules Committee, the body that determined what procedures were to be followed during floor debate & voting. The day for floor action could then be scheduled -- in this bill's history, no mean feat given how often it had been delayed and postponed.  These preliminary steps to full House action took up August, September, and half of October.

PL93-620 U2f Jul-Aug 1974: Outside My Grand Canyon Bubble

It is amazing, and I had completely forgotten the simultaneity of events,  that anything was accomplished that July and early August, 1974, since it was the time when the House Judiciary Committee debated (on tv) and voted articles of impeachment against President Richard Nixon. 

I certainly remember watching the late July proceedings of that committee, yet these incredible events had no echo or seeming influence on my journals concerning the House Interior Committee and its consideration of the Grand Canyon bill. The Nixon demise is almost a separate set of memories; for me set in and with the family of Brock Evans, in whose house I stayed during that period. I do remember vividly the commuting exercise necessary to get from that house to the capitol district.

Nor was this the only "distraction" that I failed to record, for I spent a fair amount of time in the National Archives on Pennsylvania Ave--my first Researcher card is dated Oct 1973-- reading through and typing up notes on all the government papers I could find relevant to the  (particularly XIXth-century) human history of the Canyon -- maps, Forest Service, Park Service, Geological Survey,  Bureau of Indian Affairs, et al., the foundation of what I ambitiously hoped might someday become the Canyon's comprehensive political history. 

PL93-620 U2e map JUL 1974 The Map at the Top of the Hill

 Here is the official map of the Committee's deliberation. 

Since parts are hard to read, I will list important map text going clockwise from the upper right corner:

"Navajo Bridge": The Park boundary is at the mouth of the Paria River, though the text refers to the bridge a few miles downstream.

   [One way to think about some of these notations is that they were more relevant in an earlier part of the legislative history.]

"MARBLE CANYON EAST   Proposed Boundary on Canyon Rim   Note: Subject to Concurrence of the Navajo Nation" : Goldwater & NPS wanted a rim boundary, but the Navajo would not agree (and still do not), so this notation wistfully suggests it is "proposed", a dream. One might ask then, if the rim is "proposed", where is the "real" eastern boundary?

"COCONINO PLATEAU": Just above the text are the 3 partial sections moved from the Forest to the Park.

The two existing parts of the Havasupai Reservation were labelled. Cross-hatching shows the Use Area; diagonals the Reservation addition.

"BOUNDARY: approx ¼ mile back from canyon rim." This refers to the Havasupai Reservation addition's northern boundary; additional information on crossing Havasu Creek was in the body of the bill.

"164.8 RIVER MILE" AND "273.1 RIVER MILE" identify the points on the Park boundary described as "Boundary on South Bank of Colorado River (River Mile 164.8 to 273.1)"

"Boundary on Canyon Rim" appears twice on the north side to show that the Park was only to include canyon, not any rim land in the Kanab, Whitmore, Parashant-Andrus additiions. 

"MARBLE CANYON WEST   Boundary on Canyon Rim": No proposed or concurrences here; the land was all federal to begin with, and the boundary was emphatically on the rim.

PL93-620 U2e Jul 1974: The Committee Does Its Work

The House Interior & Insular Affairs Committee met the morning of 31 Jul 1974 to debate and vote on HR5671/S1296. The rules allowed the action to be witnessed by an audience, and we were there in the first row, the committee ranged on its dais in an arc facing us, Democrats on our right.  In an earlier post, I listed the names, states, and parties of all 41 members. Of course, not all voted, spoke, or even attended.

PL93-620 U2d Jul 1974: On to the Interior Committee; Sweating Out The Wait

The Narrative, July     (Note: the ad depicted below was added 12 May 2012)

At the beginning of July, after his visits, McComb thought the Committee was evenly divided between "pro-Park worriers, who were not anti-Havasupai" and "Pro-Havasupai who were as much pro-Udall or Steiger or Kennedy".  He continued his function of supplying Udall & his staff with data, particularly on the acreages involved, measuring what the Park would lose right down to the last acre (I always preferred rounding off). His newsletter of 2 Jul highlighted the transfer, just mentioning the dam threat and pro-Park additions. He expected action on 10 Jul, but shortly after we heard that strip mining legislation had caused a postponement. 

Brock Evans, Club DC Representative, considered John to be pessimistic, and to muddy the waters, intended to turn up the burners the week of 17 Jul (sic my journal). He involved another of the DC's office's lobbyists, and went to see Congressman Foley, a leading opponent of any transfer. Although my notes are not conclusive, it appears that he recruited or worked with at least half a dozen allies, and made contact with the whole range of conservation groups. This determined attitude was expressed in a 3 Jul letter from the Club Executive Director to those Club members who were in the districts of Representatives on the Committee, asking them to show concern for the Havasupai, but keep currently protected lands in the Park. Interestingly, the NWF, national group of hunters, wrote to subcommittee chair Taylor against the Havasupai (precedents, again), but said nothing about the additions, which were then stirring up AWF members, as I wrote about in post U2c.

PL93-620 U2c. Jul 1974: Hunters Awake

This long narrative (over 50 posts in almost two years) is, I admit, heavily inflected by my having been a long-time advocate for an expanded, a complete, Grand Canyon National Park. So less-Park-friendly advocacies usually feel like intrusions to me; non-Park issues trying to climb aboard the Park bandwagon. In trying to make a comprehensive legislative history, I have preferred to present these other claims -- Havasupai land transfer, pro-dam action, e.g. -- in lumps of their own rather than as companion strands in a common tapestry. Another now needs to be dropped on the table -- the Arizona hunters' lobby, a group that heavily affected the legislation at its history's climax when they appeared in their natural guise as opponents of any Park expansion.

At the very beginning of 1973, when McComb & I were attempting to shape an "Arizona" bill that Goldwater could introduce as a broad compromise, we met with Arizona Game & Fish Dep't officials. Accommodating our desire for a broad Canyon designation and their desire not to lose any hunting grounds (indeed, to gain some), was a major impetus behind the concept of the zone of influence. However, our attempt got so mangled by Goldwater's office that we felt no compunction in using the 1973 Senate hearings to return to our original maximalist position. The failure of our excursion into consensus-building, and our subsequent advocacy of an optimal Park, was the subject of some misunderstanding and even grief. The hunters (organized in the Arizona Wildlife Federation, AWF) and the Arizona Game & Fish Dep't (AGF), among others, did not fully register this change.

Pl93-620 U2b. May-Jul 1074: On to the Interior Committee; Summer Heat

The Narrative, May

The story picks up from a low point for us, as we searched around for ways to counter the gains made by the Havasupai forces led by Sparks. 

Pontius let me know, 10 May, that Seiberling had talked with Udall and given him our map showing the nearby private land and ranch. Seiberling had argued the Havasupai position was just too much of a giveaway of National Park land. Pontius did worry that a shift in position could lead to Udall and Steiger taking differing positions. To help clarify the issue,  Mo had volunteered to fly over the area with McComb and Sparks on the 26th, though the latter had been clear that he was not in favor of considering private land for the Havasupai. 

PL93-620 U2a. May 1974: On to the Interior Committee; The Havasupai Lock it Down

Udall's story, and ours will now get recombined, preparing for the Committee mark-up in July 1974. There will be some repetition of items mentioned  in my post "T3…Championing the Havasupai". My journal furnishes the main time line in this entry.

Udall and staff were receiving mail and petitioners. We were circulating among the congressional offices, talking up our viewpoint, and trying to stoke letters, while other lobbyists were certainly doing the same. The Hualapai were not only lobbying for their dam, but in April their governing body had passed a resolution to join with the Havasupai to request Congress to return to the latter in trust the 215 kac they had been using under their free permit (Res. 16-74, 4/24/74). Whatever the circumstances that had led to that action, it would have been over-shadowed several days later by Sparks' success working with presidential staff, when President Nixon landed at Phoenix' Sky Harbor and announced his support for the Havasupai reservation enlargement on 3 May. 

PL93-620 V. 1920's-1976: The Dam is Dead. Long Live the Dead

The argument over wording in the Park bill referring to the dam was one, a late, incident in the 60-year history of the dam dream. 

THE SHORT OF IT 

After a decade of intense promotion, in 1968 the Arizona Power Authority, a public power provider in conservative Arizona, lost its ideological struggle to build a state dam (then to be located in Marble Canyon), when Congress enacted the Colorado River Basin Act with a provision forbidding any dam, federal, state, or private, in the Grand Canyon without congressional authorization. It was a bitter, crushing blow to a strange fantasy, which lived on because the Hualapai, their lawyer Royal Marks, and the APA had lost touch with environmentally concerned public policy making, and kept talking up a Grand Canyon dam as a "clean method to meet power shortages". So in 1972-4, when Congress was legislating the expansion of Grand Canyon National Park (and the Havasupai's reservation), the Hualapai and the APA showed up in Washington to lobby Congress to add to the park legislation a provision striking down the 1968 dam ban and allowing the state & Hualapai to build a dam (to be located just upstream of the reservoir behind Hoover Dam).