Representatives of Grand Canyon National Park’s $30 million commercial river outfitting industry are discussing a bill for Congress that would exclude the Canyon’s river corridor from wilderness designation. If enacted, this would be a significant blow to efforts to restore the Colorado River in Grand Canyon National Park.
At issue is the use of outboard motors by the majority of Grand Canyon river outfitters. Motorized pontoon boats can accommodate 32 people and whisk them through the Canyon. The designation of wilderness would likely lead to a phase-out of motors, forcing the companies to revert back to smaller oar-powered rafts and traveling at river pace.
This is a major issue now being addressed by Grand Canyon National Park through a revision of its Colorado River Management Plan. Concerned that the outcome of this process might cause their motors to be destined for the scrap heap, the outfitters are considering help from Congress. The Grand Canyon River Outfitters Association is discussing a wilderness bill that only includes the terrestrial portion of Grand Canyon.
"This is a hollow bill which has nothing to do with protecting Grand Canyon and everything to do with preserving profits," says Jo Johnson of River Runners for Wilderness, a project of Living Rivers. Johnson’s group and the Grand Canyon Wilderness Alliance, of which they are a part, is concerned that should such a wilderness bill pass, neither the Park Service nor Congress will be willing to challenge outfitters and pursue protection of the river corridor in the future.
"It’s unimaginable that the soul of the Canyon would be excluded," says Roderick Nash, author of Wilderness and the American Mind. "This wild corridor of deep time, unique on this planet, deserves the most wilderness-conscious regulation our political system is capable of providing." Certainly the biggest loser would be the Canyon’s unique native ecology. According to Kim Crumbo, former wilderness coordinator for Grand Canyon National Park and now with the Arizona Wilderness Coalition, "Designation of wilderness would give the National Park Service a much stronger legal mandate to restore the river corridor back to its pre-Glen Canyon Dam state."
Although Glen Canyon Dam has caused extensive impacts to the river, this in no way precludes the river corridor from wilderness designation, as the criteria for inclusion into the wilderness system is a much lower standard than the criteria for how wilderness is managed once designated. In 1978 Grand Canyon National Park recommended the river corridor as potential wilderness, but it has yet to seek designation, largely due to pressure from outfitters.
According to the Wilderness Act, wilderness designation would compel the Park Service to work toward managing the river corridor in an "unimpaired state," and, "seek to sustain the natural distribution, numbers, population composition, and interaction of indigenous species." Such a mandate would allow the National Park Service to challenge the Bureau of Reclamation to go much further in its efforts to mitigate the impacts of Glen Canyon Dam on Grand Canyon. With four of the Canyon’s eight native fish gone, and three more just hanging on, such designation, "would be a welcome tool," adds Crumbo.
One conservation group, the Grand Canyon Trust, feels it’s inappropriate to pursue wilderness in the river corridor at this time. "We must first work to get the outfitters on our side, then work for wilderness on the river," stated the Trust’s president, Geoff Barnard, at a meeting of Grand Canyon activists in November. But according to Johnson and Crumbo, this will never happen. "The outfitters will only get stronger and more set in their motorized ways if we continue to let them off the hook," says Johnson.
