Attacking a Balance of Power : Environment: Water levels in the Colorado River rise and fall dramatically as electricity is generated.

At 6 a.m., Mountain Standard Time, a secretary in Santa Fe, N.M., plugs in her hair dryer as a dairyman in Durango, Colo., starts his milking machines, and the water starts to rise and the fish to stir in the Colorado River below Glen Canyon Dam.

The water, stored in Lake Powell, has passed on demand through the eight generators deep inside the dam, a 710-foot-high marvel of engineering wedged between red Navajo sandstone walls that tower above it. From there, the electricity runs to seven Western states, and the water--its primary purpose served--flows on through the canyons and valleys to become a playground for fishermen and whitewater rafters, a life source for various creatures and part of a winter habitat for endangered Southern bald eagles.

Now, in the fourth year of the Western drought, there is concern about the river’s future, and anglers in the 15 1/2-mile trophy trout fishery from the dam to Lee’s Ferry, river runners from Lee’s Ferry through the Grand Canyon and environmental activists everywhere want a voice in how the water flows.

They say the severely fluctuating flows that change the level of the river by as much as 12 or 13 feet in a day are killing the river. At night, while power demands are low, the flow slows and fish are stranded in receding pools, some to die; then when the waters rise, beaches where rafters once camped overnight wash away.

For this, they say, the Department of the Interior must answer, and the subordinate Bureau of Reclamation, which operates the nation’s major dams, must make accommodations.

A coalition of those interests sued the Western Area Power Administration, which sells the electricity produced by the dam, requesting that an environmental impact study (EIS) be conducted on its marketing criteria. Then the coalition applied pressure on Interior Secretary Manuel Lujan to order an EIS--the Glen Canyon Environmental Studies--on the operation of the dam. Thirty years ago when the dam was built, nobody had heard of an EIS.

“It’s pure power vs. environmental (interests),” says Carm Moehle, a Phoenix lawyer who is the Arizona State Council chairman for Trout Unlimited, a national sportsmen’s lobby.

In 1989, Trout Unlimited rated Lee’s Ferry one of the country’s 100 best fisheries and one of the very best winter trout fisheries in North America, with rainbows running from two to six pounds and occasionally up to 20.

Glenn Tinnin, a professional guide on the river, says: “It’s the only place in the state where you can grow big (trout).”

Before the dam was built in the early 1960s, only four or five rafting outfitters operated on the Colorado River, and their business was limited to about 200 people a year. Now there are 20 taking 22,000 down the river each year, but Rob Elliott, vice president of the Western River Guides Assn., gives no credit to the dam.

“Whitewater rafting in the Grand Canyon would have taken place and grown at the same rate, with or without the dam,” he says. “The nature of the rafting is different than what it would have been.”

But the dam did create the trout fishery. Before the dam, the river to Lee’s Ferry and beyond ran muddy red, with no trout. Since the dam started filtering out the sediment and generated its first kilowatt on Sept. 4, 1964, the water has been ideally cool and clear, and trout have thrived.

Now, with limited water, releases have to be carefully restricted between peak power demand times, causing the river to rise and fall. Cynics might say: the dam giveth; the dam taketh away. The power customers come first.

But the coalition doesn’t buy that view--and neither, curiously, does Dave Wegner, who heads the Bureau of Reclamation’s two-year study, concluding next July.

Says Trout Unlimited’s Moehle of Wegner: “It’s like the fox guarding the henhouse. The Bureau of Rec is going to study the effects of its own operation on the environment? That’s ridiculous.”

True, the body is not high on any environmentalist’s popularity list. But Tinnin and Elliott see Wegner as the right man in the right place at the right time.

“He’s so incredibly talented and such a hard worker on this thing, they would be hard-pressed to find three men who could do the job he’s doing,” Elliott says. “I have utmost respect and faith in him. It’s at levels much higher that I believe the whole process is bogged down.”

Wegner, who has degrees in biology and biological engineering, left the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to take the job.

“There are days when I wonder, ‘Why is an environmental type (working) within the Bureau of Reclamation?’ ” Wegner says. “I decided to go to work for the Bureau of Reclamation because I wanted to make some environmental changes within the management of the Colorado River.”

He oversees 140 scientists working full time on 40 technical studies. Flows are being regulated at scheduled rates from 1,000 cubic feet per second to 28,000 c.f.s., to determine a minimum flow that will strike an optimal balance between power and the living river.

“For 28 years, the dam has been operated to meet the downstream legal water delivery requirements and to make electricity that makes money,” Wegner says. “Glen Canyon Dam is the cash register. Right now, it is managed to make money. What we can do is to learn how to manage it in a more balanced approach.”

Locals say the fishing has declined at Lee’s Ferry since the mid-1980s, although Tinnin says the trout were “fat and sassy” in ‘88--the last year of high flows. This year, Lake Powell dropped to its lowest levels in 17 years, and the fishing fell off.

Joe Janisch, chief of fisheries for the Arizona Department of Game and Fish, says: “The river was steady at over 10,000 (c.f.s.) for three or four years. All of a sudden, they’re dropping it down to 1,000, up to 20,000, down to 1,000. We started seeing a drop in the condition factor of the fish. The extreme fluctuations were tearing up some of the algae, and the food base started to decrease.”

Algae provide food and habitat for the organisms that feed the fish. Left high and dry for too long, they die, and the result is fish competing for limited food.

An angler notices two things at Lee’s Ferry: While the fish are of similar length--up to 24 inches--some are fat, others are thin. Also, the water level changes rapidly. A rock exposed a minute ago is now underwater.

“The (fluctuating) flow is eliminating the food above 5,000 (c.f.s.),” Janisch says. “That’s one of the things that may be causing all the skinny fish.”

Fish compete for food, and the ones that don’t compete well starve. When the water recedes, Tinnin says, they stop biting because “they’re looking for shelter.”

Fishing at Lee’s Ferry is restricted to artificial flies and lures, and Arizona Game and Fish instituted a slot limit this year, calling for a two-fish limit with no keepers between 16 and 22 inches and only one over 22. Janisch isn’t sure that was a good idea. Now there are too many fish.

“The limited forage has put a real big kibosh on catch-and-release,” Janisch says. “There’s a large population of trout, and they’re starving themselves to death. (As recently as) March they were in fine shape.”

Tinnin says he may have to modify his strong belief in catch-and-release. “We’ve been at odds with Game and Fish on that, but in this case they may be right,” he says.

The fixed, low flows during the study are less than ideal--in a way, the fish are being studied to death.

Janisch says the study “is causing a negative impact on the fishery. (But) it’s also giving us a lot of good information to go back to the bureau with later on.”

This year’s Grand Canyon Protection Act would have provided some safeguards during the study. The U.S. House passed it overwhelmingly, but in the closing days of the legislative session, the Senate tacked it onto a reclamation reform bill that was defeated by opposition that included Sen. Pete Wilson (R-Calif.), governor-elect of California.

One proposal under consideration is to build an after-bay dam only 2 1/2 miles upstream from Lee’s Ferry, flooding most of the fishery to the dam but allowing consistent flows downstream to the Grand Canyon.

“It would totally change the Lee’s Ferry fishery from a river to more of a fluctuating lake,” Janisch says. “That would sacrifice Glen Canyon for the Grand Canyon.”

Wegner says: “I’m not sure the public would allow that.”

Meanwhile, Tinnin says: “I’m surprised the fishing has held up as well as it has.”

Last week, he guided some fly anglers from Orange County--Floyd Sabins of Fullerton and son Ed and daughter-in-law Wendy of Anaheim Hills. Using woolly buggers, each caught and released about 10 fish one day. The fish ran from 14 to 22 inches and most appeared to be healthy, so Lee’s Ferry hasn’t slipped too far to be saved.

Says Wegner: “I do believe we can find ways to bring that fishery back very quickly once the research flows are done next July. There is precedent: what was done up in the Northwest with the Columbia River Basin (after) the Northwest Planning Act of 1980 . . . managing ariver system. That’s where the Colorado is going to get to, also.”