American Whitewater Gives Voice to Recreation in Grand Canyon

Grand Canyon, Arizona

In August, American Whitewater staff traveled to the south rim of the Grand Canyon to meet with agency leaders and nonprofit partners about the future of the Colorado River and the Grand Canyon. We advocated for:

• A more comprehensive approach to reservoir management that considers impacts to the entire basin
• For higher minimum flows in the grand canyon
• For river recreation to be fully and holistically considered as part of management, and considered when examining the impacts of different flow regimes in the future

The Grand Canyon Protection Act of 1992 established the Glen Canyon Dam Adaptive Management Program and Work Group. Many of our partners sit on this working group, an advisory committee charged with making recommendations for reservoir management and allocating funding for monitoring and research in the Grand Canyon. 

During the regular meeting of the Grand Canyon Adaptive Management Work Group, we provided stakeholder comment in support of:

• Additional funding for research on river recreation, sediment (beaches), and socioeconomics in the Grand Canyon 
• Emphasized the importance of understanding how long-term operations will affect flows in the river on a monthly and daily basis
• A more cohesive process between the Post-2026 Reservoir Operations plan and the updated Long-Term Experimental Management Plan 

A very likely outcome of long-term operations in the Grand Canyon is lower river flows during certain times of year. We will continue to be at the table to ensure river recreation opportunities aren’t disproportionately affected and that river managers fully understand the importance of the Colorado River Basin’s recreation economy. 

We anticipate that the Bureau of Reclamation will release a draft operations plan in late 2024, or early 2025, determining water cuts and potentially only annual water delivery amounts. We have continually pushed to see more granularity in the analysis, so that the public can understand how river flows will be affected on a monthly and daily basis, but it is very likely that Reclamation will punt a more detailed analysis to a subsequent review process known as, the Long-Term Experimental Management Plan.