Climate change, both short term or in the long run, can exact changes on the landscape. Native wildlife can vanish, non-native species can arrive, things we have come to know over a lifetime of visits can be transformed, if not made to disappear altogether.
How we react to these changes can have significant impacts, as well as be telling as to our overall stewardship of the land.
At Glen Canyon National Recreation Area the ongoing drought has revealed fascinating canyon-country landscapes that long have been inundated by Lake Powell. Cathedral in the Desert, said to be one of Edward Abbey's favorite haunts, has reappeared, drawing Abbeyites and the curious.
While there have been long-running efforts to drain the lake entirely, they have been staved off and today Lake Powell is one of the Southwest's premier boating areas. But in recent years the regional drought has lowered Lake Powell. While that has opened up some fascinating canyon landscapes that had been under water, the drought also has created some logistical problems for boaters.
For years, you see, boaters have used the so-called "Castle Rock Cut" to shorten a 12-mile trip when heading to and from the Wahweap Marina to such areas as Rainbow Bridge, Padre Bay, and Warm Creek Bay. However, that shortcut is only possible when Lake Powell is at an elevation of 3,620 feet; currently the lake is right around 3,600 feet. Boaters have not been able to use the cut since the 2003 season, and in recent years they've been asking the Park Service to deepen the cut.
So how can this problem be solved? Well, NRA officials are thinking of digging the cut even deeper than it is, a solution last resorted to in 1992 when it was deepened by about 8 feet. Before that, the cut was dug deeper back in the 1970s. The current proposal -- which doesn't yet have a price tag attached -- is to dig another 15 feet deeper along a half-mile-long section of the cut. This slice also would be about 80 feet wide.
But perhaps a more important question that should be considered is, "Should the cut be deepened?" Is this how we should respond to climate change, or long-term drought, by just digging a little deeper? Have we become so omnipotent in our environmental stewardship that we haven't been confronted by a problem we couldn't engineer a solution to?
For now, the Park Service is getting ready to prepare an environmental assessment that will analyze the potential impacts of digging the cut deeper on the area’s natural and cultural resources and the quality of visitors’ experience.
To help the agency prepare that EA, the public is being invited to submit suggestions on how the situation with the Castle Rock Cut can best be addressed and what issues and alternatives the EA should consider. You can forward your thoughts to the Park Service online at this site or by mailing them at Castle Rock Cut EA, Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, P.O. Box 1507, Page, AZ, 86040.
Scoping comments must be received by December 4. Once the draft EA is prepared later this winter there will be another public comment period.
Comments
There are arguments on both sides of this fence...but one thing cannot be ignored by either side. The proposed Castle Rock Cut would SAVE LIVES!! That is one point that cannot be argued or ignored in all of this. Lives are lost each year by boaters having to navigate the "Narrows" at Lake Powell. Opening the cut would alleviate this problem. Not to mention enhancing the efforts of rescue operations at the lake. You cannot put a pricetag on human life.
Whoa there Lone Hiker, I sure didn't mean to send you into Diabetic Ketoacidosis! But I sure love to get a man's blood boiling.
Read carefully, I said science has a "history" of being "flawed." My point being that it doesn't provide all the answers and many of its conclusions become obsolete. I would never write off science, but I wouldn't but all my eggs in its basket either.
Besides, weren't you the one who brought up the very lovely point that art and aesthetics can play a role in planning that, at times, can rival the practicality of scientific facts?
I have doubts that science is capable a defining "unimpaired" because there really is no such thing. It's a human idea more than it is a quantifiable goal.
Sorry Frank, I love you too. But even if Edward Abbey's ideas aren't antiquated, quoting him to make a point about preserving the environment is.
Kurt, an interview with the management at Chickasaw would be a good perspective to have here regarding the Rec Area vs. Park Service issue, and whether these areas really belong under NPS. They seem to have perennial problems with rowdiness, litter, boozefests, weapons, and the like, and I'd wager that it's a common thread among other Nat'l Rec Areas too.
Science, history or RA management alternative issues may make for interesting conversation but dance around the issue of shoving accumulated silt out of a previously excavated channel. Which is all we are really talking about here. There are no sandstone cliffs involved. Only a salt cedar infested silt flat. Take another look at the photo at the page-head. And when one considers that this clean-out operation has already been performed in the past and the resulting channel has been historically flooded more often than not, it is truly amazing that the time and money expenditure for an EA is even required. As for the pros and cons of the proposal, the benefits are obvious to anyone familiar with the lower end of Lake Powell. If all other advantages are set aside, the annual savings in fuel consumed and exhaust gasses released by diesel powered tour boats and freight carrying commercial craft, gasoline powered NPS vessels, and recreational boaters, with up lake trips totalling numbers in the millions each year, should provide reason enough for supporting the proposal. To oppose the work would suggest the support of some alternative agenda beyond the facts on the ground.
Hey HH-
Glad I could be of service. But let's say it was more of a heavy simmer than a rolling boil. I'll try harder next time.
Many scientific conclusions, as well as the ever popular public opinions, are apt to be drawn from flawed information. That's why, as mentioned by your's truly in post after post, I'm a BIG proponent of "good science", which lends itself to a far lesser degree of misinterpretation of data than do bad data and general opinion, but still ain't perfect by any means. Science is not now, nor ever was a source of perfection, in no small part due to the fact that we're constantly dealing with a state of flux in our knowledge base. As techniques and tools develop to assist in collection of additional volumes and more accurate evidence, hypothesis have to be amended, and that is a good thing. It goes a long way towards lending "street cred" to our field, showing our ability and willingness to admit errors were made that were based on previous sampling, but that these previous conclusions were the best we could do at the time, based on the evidence that was available at the time. Now, as access to better methodology evolves, we readily (and sheepishly) admit our past ineptitude, and take a stand behind the new, cleaner, more substantial body of evidence. That new stance will remain, until the next generation of technology and enlightenment bring us to the next intellectual level and we are able to scale the next mountain. All science is capable of is the best it can do at any given time with what it has to work with, just like every other facet of our society. I don't think that makes us evil-doers, or the products of a "flawed" system. If we are to be labeled as such, then every other aspect of our character is likely equivilently flawed as well. I seem to recall a story about a certain group of people about 2000 years ago, who killed someone in a rather barbaric manner, and almost immediately upon achieving their goal, some say, realized their mistake, and all anyone could say was "oops". In the current scientific climate we try and limit the "oops" factor to the best of our ability, but there are still folks out there who have a notion that publicity is more desireable than accuracy, and run off at the mouth long before enough evidence is gathered to render a competent verdict.
I'm not one to utilize a sole source of information to formulate my stance on any issue either. Science is nothing other than one arrow in the quiver. Limited scope produces limited and fundamentally skewed results. I'm in the discovery business, and we can't afford the "blinders on" view of the world.
By the by, I don't think it was I who endeavored to resolve the term "unimpaired" for you. I can list the "official" Funk & Wagnalls for you, and I have my own addendum to their terminology based on the focal point of the discussion, but I'm fairly sure I'm innocent of all charges on that topic. But you're right, even our path to the stars isn't unimpaired, what with all those little nuisances orbiting the globe these days. In a purist sense, they qualify as "annoyances" since you'd have to schedule departure so as to avoid them, so your point is well taken.
Next time I promise to really make your day and allow myself to achieve full-blown case of "The Bends"!!
Haunted Hiker said: Devil's advocacy aside, the NPS seems to have much more urgent problems than to spend precious funds "planning to plan" in order to open a channel up to boaters."
As long as the process dictates that the NPS perform an EA to undertake what is specifically removing a couple of feet of silt and rock from the now dry lake floor, then so be it. The Castle Rock Cut widening project is a win for the environment (less gas and carbon generated by boaters) and safety (shaves at least an hour off first responder times). The NPS process has been perverted by environmentalist to slow down (aka preserve) the status quo at NRAs. In the case of Lake Powell, the Castle Rock Cut issue gives them hope that if the drainers stop this project, they can eventually get the Glen Canyon Dam removed. Pipe dream of the Abbey followers for a long time. It is time they get a clue, boaters have rights to the NRA they recreate in and we are going to make sure our requirements for safe/quick passage are recognized by the NPS in what should be a trivial administrative process to get the CRC open to boaters at 3600’
I fail to see why anyone would be against this project. It's a win for "Environmentalists" in fuel savings and reduction of exhaust emissions. It's a win for boaters and fishermen. It's a win for the NPS and the over all safety of those using the area in greatly improved response time to emergency and potentially life-threatening situations. What's not to like?
All we're really talking about here is the removal of some silt accumulation from a channel that has been deepened twice in the last 30 years. No virgin sandstone deposits are being threatened and there is no impact on either the paleontology, geology, or historical sites of the GCNRA. I say, "Git 'ur done!"
The only reason I can think of why anybody would oppose deepening the "CRC", is someone who has never been to Lake Powell. Someone who has never traveled up-lake through the "Maytag Straits" on a busy day in the summer. Someone who has never been hurt or injured (or heard stories about the same) up-lake and waiting that extra emergency response time for medical assistance.
The "CRC" has no cultural or historical significance. It has been deepened twice previously. When (or if) this prolonged drought ends, it will not be seen again. There will be no visible "scar" on the landscape.