The annual meeting of the Glen Canyon Dam Adaptive Management Program was anything but ordinary this year. It opened with the announcement that the entire program is about to vanish. The news came as a shock to a crowd of scientists, river runners, and residents of Flagstaff.
Lynn Hamilton, director of Grand Canyon River Guides, stood up to express her dismay: "This whole situation so greatly flabbergasts me, and disturbs me, as I’m sure it does all of you."
Flagstaff is a hub of Grand Canyon science. For two decades this program has shaped the management of Glen Canyon Dam, finding ways to supply water and hydropower to millions of people, while still protecting the Grand Canyon’s ecology. It’s a landscape of cultural and spiritual significance...