Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and members of the Committee. My name is Dave Wegner. I am here representing the Glen Canyon Institute today. I am also the owner of a small business in Flagstaff, Arizona, called Ecosystem
Management International.
I have provided to the Committee my testimony, which again it is here. And also I didn't know it was going to be a show and tell, but we brought a book that you can have, also. So
please take it and look at it.
I am going to ad-lib a little bit because of all the comments that I heard today, and I have to commend my fellow panelists here and all the panelists today. I have known of
most of these gentlemen and ladies for years. We have worked on many issues together involving the Colorado River and Glen Canyon Dam.
For the past 22 years, I have been privileged to work for the
Department of Interior, to look at the issues associated with the Colorado River drainage. It is an area that I have studied extensively. I am a scientist by training. I am not a politician. I am not a businessman. I am
not a bureaucrat. All I am is a simple scientist trying to get to the facts. Those facts, gathered over the last 14 years that Mr. Hunter referred to, is that the Grand Canyon and the Colorado River are in serious need
of some restoration. We cannot sustain the environmental resources, the endangered fish and the endangered bird with the present level of effort and the operation of the river system.
Many good questions
came out today, and I really commend the panelists and the Committee for asking them. I guess as the author of the primary document, the proposal to develop the citizens' environmental assessment, we are going to use
every one of these questions that came up today. They are going to help us frame this whole document.
Let me give you a little brief history of Glen Canyon Institute. We are a volunteer organization. None
of us get paid. There is no—none of us get wages to deal with this. We are private citizens. We are scientists. We are environmentalists and boaters, but there is one common thread. We are all concerned about Glen
Canyon and the Colorado River.
The proposal to develop the citizens' EA, which flows out of the environmental studies that were done at Glen Canyon Dam over the past 14 years, is our way of trying to
document the science, document the information. Today we are here seeking wisdom, we are here in this place of power and trappings to look at how we can move forward with this whole proposal.
Yesterday at 6
p.m., I was on the Animas River, and I wish Senator Campbell was still here. This is a little water from his river. I was there talking to students about the value of our resources, about the value of our endangered
species.
Yes, Congressmen, it is all about water. It is about water that supplies not only development, not only power, not only recreation, but this is the lifeblood of the species that depend upon it.
And, yes, we are looking at diminishing species. The Upper Basin in particular is putting millions of dollars into endangered species programs. The single most important thing we could do would be to develop
more habitats for these endangered fish. If you develop the habitats, the fish and the birds will use them.
The system, specifically the Colorado River system, is compromised. The heart of the Colorado
River, Glen Canyon, has been drowned. It has been drowned for almost 35 years now.
The proposal that the Glen Canyon Institute is putting forth is not developed by a group of bureaucrats. We are not being
developed by corporations. None of us own river companies. We are just private people who are concerned about looking at the issues. What we do represent are people who are interested in the river, interested in the
canyon, and interested in finding ways not only for this generation but for future generations to protect our rich natural heritage.
We are people who believe in the resources. We are people who believe in
the fish. We are people who speak for the birds. We also are asking through this environmental assessment, which we are not asking a dollar from Congress for, to allow us the freedom of free speech that several of the
panelists have asked and talked about in the past to explore these issues.
We believe that the United States is founded on a democratic process of asking questions, gathering data, and evaluating the
information, and we want to do that successfully. And we invite anybody, anyone on the panels, any citizen, who wants to be involved to join us. Come on, let's talk about it; let's debate it.
Yes, it is all
about water. It is all about habitats. It is all about that area and that sense of place called Glen Canyon. And I wish to heck David Brower was here today, because he is much more eloquent at expressing those
particular ideas.
We need to—no, let me rephrase that. We must ask the question of what are we going to do with these dams for the future? Not only for us, but for the future generations, our kids, our
grandkids, their grandkids? We are committed to the process. We are committed, most importantly, to the resources.
We are not here today asking you for money. We are not here asking you for wisdom. We are
not even asking you for validation. All we are asking is for the right to look at it, to look at it with a citizens' environmental assessment and to move forward with the issues for the future.
Thank you
