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Wells
take and nothing gives back
to Grand Canyon's ancient aquifer
By
Steele Wotkyns
for Headwaters News
There are few places in the West where such a diversity of life
occurs in such stark contrast to its surroundings than at the Grand
Canyon's seeps and springs.
But some biologists, geologists, hydrologists, and conservationists
are worried about the continued existence of these biological Gardens
of Eden.
Scientists and rare visitors to the lesser-known of these many microcosms
bear witness to the red bud and hop trees, damselflies, crane flies,
robber flies, dance flies, sunflowers, ferns, orchids, cottonwoods
— to name just a few inhabitants.
In a recent photo essay in the Plateau Journal, "Water From
Rock," author Ann Walka notes that one of Grand Canyon's top
ecologists, Larry Stevens, identified more than 30 bird species
one morning at a single spring, and that Canyon springs harbor a
density of plants 500 times greater than the spare upland terrain
nearby.
The pure sense of survival is palpable to human visitors to the
Canyon's springs, especially during summer months. Hiking through
Indian Garden or up Havasu Canyon — the latter a sacred place
for the Havasupai Tribe — one's whole being is thankful for
the cooling water.
As the mist wisps over your face, one cannot help but be moved by
this water's essential presence here in the surrounding inferno.
Below
Grand Canyon's South Rim, springs are fed mostly by water from the
Redwall-Muav aquifer. This Arizona sea of ancient water persists
between 2,000 and 3,000 feet below the surface.
However, at present, six wells south of Grand Canyon pump a collective
150 million gallons per year from this aquifer, a fact well-established
by hydrologists at Errol L. Montgomery & Associates: "…
ground water pumping from the ... aquifer will eventually result
in less discharge at the principal springs … along the South
Rim of Grand Canyon."
As complex as most environmental issues are, this one features a
palette loaded with shades of gray. For example, without an alternative
water supply for the park and businesses, (and others using the
aquifer at Grand Canyon), shutting down South Rim wells is difficult
at best.
Alternative water supply schemes have the potential to bring other
problems — such as unintended growth along a supply route —
that add to that complexity.
Even so, a dialogue about alternative supplies, water conservation,
and demand-side management is necessary to explore water supply
solutions for both Grand Canyon National Park and the Greater Grand
Canyon region.
Recent efforts in the Grand Canyon State to protect ground water
may add layers to this complex mosaic. Arizona environmentalists
filed a lawsuit claiming the state is not protecting streams and
other watercourses, and that ground water pumping has drastically
lowered water tables.
Any decision on this lawsuit would apply statewide.
Several groups are working to gain a better understanding of the
dynamics of ground water systems in the Greater Grand Canyon region.
This work includes details about aquifer capacities in the area,
delineating capture zones of springs with ground water models, and
figuring out relationships between springs and other surface water
systems.
Notably, Abe Springer at Northern Arizona University's geology
department reminds us that this aquifer, about twice the size
of Delaware, exists in a region where most locales receive less
than 12 inches of annual precipitation, and where there are no regenerating
perennial streams.
The aquifer that feeds these Grand Canyon seeps and springs was
not pumped until 1989, and wells tapping it must be 2,000 to 3,000
feet deep, so that water does not come cheaply.
Other unique hydrogeology characteristics, says Springer, include
the fact that every drop that comes out of the aquifer can be measured,
and that anything that is pumped out is going to affect the springs'
flow.
So, while key facts and figures are known about human use of Redwall-Muav
aquifer water, little if any is known about this aquifer's recharge.
At a place called Vaseys Paradise, a familiar stop for Colorado
River runners in Grand Canyon, the federally endangered Kanab ambersnail
is holding its own and, apparently, this population is doing well
enough that the smaller-than-dime-sized land snail can be relocated
by biologists to try to recover the ambersnail population at similar
habitat at other springs.
Arizona
Game and Fish data show that this 10,000-year-old late Pleistocene
Ice Age relict species lives in association with watercress, monkeyflower,
cattails, and rushes along with a few more common mollusk species.
Although the Kanab ambersnail story is a different, complicated
one, the snail's ecology is an example of the complexity of managing
Grand Canyon's seeps and springs.
Meanwhile, conservationists have pointed to gaps in complicated
water laws, including the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, federal reserved
water rights, and Arizona's Groundwater Management Act.
The Wild and Scenic Rivers Act and federal reserved water rights
doctrine are not yet applicable to seeps and springs because it
is difficult to prove effects of ground water pumping on individual
springs.
Arizona's ground water law does not provide the means for protecting
springs.
These law and policy gaps are big enough that it is possible that
much of the diversity of life at the Canyon's seeps and springs
will be lost.
It brings to mind the credo: First, do no harm. There is something
intuitive and basic about protecting places where great biological
diversity and an abundance of life occurs.
At the Grand Canyon, these hot spots are its seeps and springs.
Steele
Wotkyns is communications manager for the Grand Canyon Trust.
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Hot
tip for Western speculators:
Invest in water
By
Greg Lakes, editor
Headwaters News
April 3, 2002
Water has always been a hot-button issue in the West,
and as more people choose to live and make a living in a region
that is mostly desert -- technically or practically -- water is
quickly becoming an even more valuable commodity.
On the Hopi
Reservation in Arizona, 1,000-year-old springs sacred to the
tribe and essential to its agricultural lifestyle are drying up.
An ongoing drought is certainly a factor, but tribal leaders are
convinced that the 1.3 billion gallons a year that Peabody Coal
Co. pumps from the aquifer each year is the cause.
Peabody pays the Hopi and Navajo tribes $3.5 million a year for
the contract, a deal critics say is no deal at all, if it drains
the aquifer.
Farther north, the headwaters of the Colorado River are likely to
get only 70 percent of average snowpack, worsening the downstream
drought and further shrinking Lake Powell and Lake Mead.
Lake Powell is already 51 feet below full pool, Lake Mead is 47
feet shy, and the desert
cities that depend on the river for their supplies are getting a
little anxious.
Nevada, for the first time, expects to draw its full allocation
from the Colorado. But turbidity and algae increase with lower levels,
and Las Vegas officials are concerned about the rising cost of making
the water drinkable.
Southern California stands to suffer most. A critical shortage would
trigger emergency measures in the historic "4.4 Plan"
engineered by then-Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, cut off surplus
water deliveries to California and "make the energy crunch
of 2001 look like child's play," according to one irrigation
district official.
Complicating the picture for upstream states, a deal decades in
the making would give northern
Arizona tribes control of more than 1 million acre-feet of water,
enough to satisfy the entire state but the only source available
for future growth in urban Phoenix and Tucson.
In the Idaho Panhandle, the aquifer
that underlies rural Rathdrum Prairie north of Coeur d'Alene
drains westward and becomes the sole source of drinking water for
the Spokane Valley.
Three companies have applied to draw a total of 20 million gallons
a day from the aquifer for their proposed power plants. Idaho agencies
at first seemed pliant but have stiffened their demands for more
study
after an outcry from Spokane-area businesses, industries and
officials.
In Reno, the region's 20-year growth-management plan would permit
enough new houses to exhaust
ground water supplies, according to a recent report. The aquifer
could supply only 55 percent of the demand at build-out, the report
said, although some local officials said the shortfall could be
made up with contracts for river and stream flows.
Alberta is running out of surplus water, although government officials
ultimately rejected as too expensive their plans for a new dam and
reservoir near the Saskatchewan border.
Parts of Montana are the driest
in a century, the effects of the drought that has parched a
broad swath south to Texas.
Arizona's winter was the fourth dry one in a row, leaving reservoirs
near record lows. Utah officials are preparing water-use restrictions,
and forest officials in Colorado
and New Mexico say conditions are already more appropriate for July,
and some areas are as dry as the catastrophic summer of 2000.
An editorial
in the Spokesman-Review was aimed at the power companies maneuvering
for a stake in the Rathdrum Prairie aquifer, but it could also apply
to a dozen hot spots in the region now and an untold number in the
near future:
The need for water will not change, nor will the
supply. Communities need water to support human life, and also
to support commerce. Water is as essential to modern industry
as it was to the farm economy of our past. We'll need more of
it. Will it be there? Or will the holders of water rights have
it all locked up?
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Post it now.
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