GODPARENT FOR THE ANTHROPOCENE

THE GRAND CANYON:  

ENVIRONMENTAL ICON OF THE EARTH SYSTEM --

AND FOR US AS A PART OF IT

Let's stand at Mather Point on the Grand Canyon's South Rim, looking out over the world's most famous layout of this Earth’s geological epochs--

not all of them, but some of the earliest, and certainly the latest, the Anthropocene: the epoch of us, humanity’s own. Just a skim on the mighty schists of the Archean, the gigantic walls of the Mississipian Redwall, the white band of the Permian Coconino, yet here it is, our Anthropocene of the concrete and asphalt right under our feet :

and spreading south in acres of parking lots & sidewalks, metal protective railings and, off to our right, the sturdy tanks storing water brought from springs out of sight on the north side. through 12 miles of pipeline, crossing a steel suspension bridge over the Colorado way down at the bottom before climbing up the old walls beneath us.

Not too far off to the west, once even visible from nearby Maricopa Point, are the remains of a uranium mine, a 1500’ hole dug down through and behind the Canyon's walls to reach the mine's toxic treasure. These Anthropocenic evidences may rust and erode, but traces will remain to tease geologists in the far future with the power and glory of Homo sapiens, a species that wrote its passage into the stone for the ages, as we altered the Earth System, Gaia some call it, to burn its forests and melt the ice sheets remaining after the last glaciation's end, the event 12 millennia ago that set us off to populate, explore, tame, and exploit that System beyond its capability to support us.

Fortunately for those of us who consider ourselves advocates for, lovers & protectors of, the Grand Canyon, 50 years ago the United States, after a grand public debate, chose to abandon a grandiose Anthropocenic dream, a scheme that would have produced the most long-lasting and visible industrial artifact of them all -- the electrification of the Grand Canyon founded on two large concrete hydroelectric dams with all their accompanying powerplants & high-tension lines, highways, residential & commercial urban support sites, mass recreation facilities, etc., etc.

I've lived to see the day!!

Biggest US reservoir declares historic shortage, forcing water cuts across west

           --headline in today’s Guardian (and lots of other places):

"Officials issue first-ever declaration of tier 1 shortage at Lake Mead as it falls to lowest level since its creation"

And aren’t the shades of the 1960’s water warriors rising up in their righteousness at the declaration that the Colorado River is officially water-short in the lower basin:

There’s Mike Ely of California, elevated high above his grave chortling over his victory at securing the priority of California’s Colorado River allotment regardless of anybody else—no cuts for his masters.

And rumplestiltskin-like Wayne Aspinall of Colorado, hopping up and down—“I told you so! I told you so! I told you there wouldn’t be enough water.”

And Washington’s Henry Jackson serenely contemplating from on high the full-flowing Columbia, untapped by pipes from the Columbia to Lake Mead in order to service Los Angeles and Pinal County farmers.

And the Arizonans, as always at each others’ throats, roaring about how they were cheated of their fair share of the Colorado — “I got my canal; who cares if its not full”, boasts Carl Hayden, slapping down the states-righters. “We did the best we could”, chorus the Udall brothers — “It was those damn anti-dam people”; “It was those insatiable Californians." “It was the Northwest refusing to share its bounty — we’re glad its burning.”

And Floyd Dominy, roasting in his own special hot spot: “They should have let me build my dams; I would have saved the world.”

And David Brower, well, I bet he is off somewhere in the mountains, scaling still another peak. I hope so.

DOWN BY THE RIVERSIDE

 

Again, my take on the Park jurisdiction 

along the Hualapai Reservation

Lets see what we know. The Hualapai claimed the riverbed out to the middle of the river. The history of the 1975 GCNP Enlargement Act includes the desire of the principal sponsor to 1. unify administration and jurisdiction over river traffic in the Park Service at GCNP, and 2. to have nothing in the Act that would take Hualapai land without their agreement. The Act aimed to resolve any ambiguity in the 1883 Executive Order, and thus placed the Park boundary on the south bank, running along adjacent to the Hualapai boundary. Later on, (1976/1997), the Interior Solicitors said their opinion on the Hualapai claim was that “no”, the boundary did not go to the middle of the river; the 1883 Executive Order set the boundary at the high water level along the river.

It is my opinion that reconciling any ambiguity raised by the two desires of the sponsor means that “high water level” must be construed to favor the Hualapai and thus take none of the south bank above the high water level as marked by the usual diurnal rise and fall of the river caused by normal operation of Glen Canyon dam. This point is reinforced because that is the high water level at the time the Park boundary was set by the 1975 Act, as the sponsor knew. This construction is further reinforced by Hualapai-controlled riverside activities such as the Whitmore helispot and use of Diamond Creek beach. The sponsors, I am sure, would have been strongly negative about the Park Service asserting jurisdiction over the south bank to that extent. 

We are left then with river traffic use of rocks and trees along the shore to tie up and scout the river ahead being a legitimate use for river traffic. Beyond that, lunch stops (which can include moving away from the river, up the beach), overnight camps, hiking etc., are all to be construed as taking place on Hualapai land and therefore are under their jurisdiction. This, of course, also includes the helispot and Diamond Creek beach. That is, if the Hualapai wish river travelers to secure a permit and to pay for the privilege for stops of the latter sorts, it is their right as the land-owners (sovereigns) to do so. I firmly believe this would be the opinion of the sponsors of the legislation, based on my memory of conversations, meetings, and actions with them and their staffs in the 1972-5 period of the legislative history. 

While it is true that referring to the high water level in 1883 can be defended in some strict sense of the law, such an interpretation runs counter to the 1975 Act and the 1883 Executive Order when they are construed in favor of the Hualapai. Bluntly put, to insist on an 1883 high water line would be theft of the Hualapai’s land, given the history. It is enough to deny their claim out into the river; we need not then turn around and advance beyond the river’s edge to stake any larger claim to their territory. 

I was reinforced in this point by something I came across, traced back across the centuries to the Institutes of Justinian in the 6th century:

The public use of the banks of a river, as of the river itself, is part of the law of nations; consequently every one is entitled to bring his vessel to the bank, and fasten cables to the trees growing there, and use it as a resting place for the cargo, as freely as he may navigate the river itself. But the ownership of the bank is in the owner of the adjoining land, and consequently so too is the ownership of the trees which grow upon it. 

No one therefore is forbidden access to the sea­shore, provided he abstains from injury to houses, monuments, and buildings generally; for these are not, like the sea itself, subject to the law of nations. 

This may sound antiquarian, but the principle of it has lasted.

The administration of Grand Canyon National Park would be well advised to follow the intent of the 1972 Act and previous initiatives of Park administrators and seek to work with the Hualapai for harmonious and pro-environmental oversight of use of the Colorado River in Grand Canyon.

No, Its Byron Who is Stuck -- Up On the Facts

 The fun of working over this old history stuff (and yes! it does matter) is it is like beachcombing, walking back and forth, picking up and turning over what looks like nothing much, and finding: Oh! wow, what about this?

My main charge against Byron Pearson’s history (2 books, 1 cranky anti-environmentalist hypothesis) is that even with the additional 20 years between his first and the re-tread, he still never did the major research he needed to do: No Colorado archives, none from California, none from Washington, and so on.  Does that matter? Try this:

Stuck With Byron

I suppose I am stuck with Byron Pearson. 

Well, rather, the literature about the Grand Canyon, and specifically attempts to authorize dam-building in it, is stuck with Byron Pearson. I admit I am culpable; I should have written the necessary rebuttal when he published Still the Wild River Runs in 2002, four years after he had been awarded his Ph.D. upon completing the dissertation that led to the book. 

A CLASS ON THE RIVER

A while ago, I wrote a book tracing the great effort the Park Service made in the 1970’s to sculpt a Grand Canyon National Park river traffic management plan that would solve the various crises besetting the Colorado and its riverine environment.* 

As the sixties ended, river traffic was out of control, numbers  increasing hugely; the river with its beaches and shores, being soiled, trashed and re-trashed;  the experience of a wild river trip, a wilderness river trip, battered and shattered by more and more motorized push-em-thru shortie thrill rides; the Park Service bewildered by this ravenous new profit-making invasion.