Transcript of Interview with Dr. Palmer:

Dr. Palmer works on restoring streams, understanding the science of restoration, particularly in urban ecosystems and other ecosystems that are heavily managed, and agro-ecosystems as well.

ES: Thanks for talking with Earth and Sky today. Can you give me some background information about the Nature article on a new perspective in ecology from the Ecological Society of America.

MB: The article that was placed in Science, “Ecology for a Crowded Planet”:http://www.palmerlab.umd.edu/docs/Palmer%20et%20al_SCIENCE%202004.pdf was written by a group of scientists from multiple countries around the world, who were working on a project for the “Ecological Society of America”:http://www.esa.org/ to envision what kind of, what needed to happen over the next decade to try and enhance the extant of which ecological science influences policy, influences decisions that are made by everyday citizens, and even by scientists when they pick the topics they want to study that will help to move us more towards a situation that’s more environmentally sustainable. There’s no question that there was uniform agreement amongst all the members of that group that things aren’t going well now. We’ve basically had 30 years or more of conservation science, and yet a lot of things aren’t getting any better. If you look at the situation with the Pacific salmon, if you look at the Chesapeake Bay, as you look at rising carbon dioxide levels, I mean you can almost pick any kind of ecosystem, and in general, things are getting worse and worse.

And it was our view that part of the problem – it was really two-fold. One, it certainly is a scientific area that needs much more work, namely ecological sustainability, which is all about understanding how ecosystem services are provided, and how we can ensure that they can be sustained. So we do need more science to move in a more positive direction so that the world’s ecosystems can support people, and we don’t lose all the species that we have. But we also are very much aware that we need real changes in how scientists interact with the public and with policy makers, and on the level of ecological literacy by the public. And we really sort of put the blame on ourselves, namely that the scientists, and in this case it was a group of ecologists, had not been effective in conveying the importance of their work, raising the awareness of the fact that decisions made by individuals really do influence the outcome of the availability of services to them, things like clean water, the air that they breathe, etc… , but also for the world at large. And I think that those of us in the United States, of that group, felt a particular obligation because the United States has a disproportionate impact, globally, in terms of our resource consumption, and our release of carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, things that influence people all over the world.

So, we did two things. We developed an action plan for the Ecological Society of America that outlines what kind of initiatives need to be taken, not just by this society, but by this society in conjunction with a large number of collaborators. And we met with many of those people over a year and half period – it included representatives from every federal agency in the U.S. that deals with environmental issues.

We met with non-governmental organizations, advocacy groups, as well as just hundreds of scientists, and we put together a recommended agenda for what needed to happen to move us in a more sustainable direction that’s scientifically based. And that was organized in three different categories. One was building an ecologically informed public. The second was enhancing science for sustainability, which was largely the science of ecosystem services. And then the third was trying to promote cultural changes within the scientific community in a whole host of areas that would contribute to what we were trying to accomplish.

The second thing that we did, which is what was published in Science, The Ecology for a Crowded Planet, was really to explain the philosophical or intellectual reasoning behind the action plan that we recommended. And, what we lay out in that article represents not just our views, the committee’s views, but it represents how the committee expressed what was likely the consensus of a large number of scientists, ecological scientists, that we spoke with, and that was that for many, many years, ecologists have focused primarily on what they call pristine systems. And having gotten my degree 20 years ago, I certainly fall into that category. Up until maybe 10 years ago, I would drive two or three hours away from the University of Maryland, out west of Washington D.C. to find a watershed that I felt was not impacted – there was a lot of forest around it, etc. Working in systems like that is extremely important for understanding how ecosystems are put together, and what keeps them together, and, in fact that kind of work really has provided the kind of foundation upon which we’re able to do a lot of things with the knowledge that’s been developed. But the bottom line is that most systems aren’t like that. And the truth is that they haven’t been for a long time. Virtually all ecosystems are influenced by humans. There’s no such thing as a pristine ecosystem. Some are more impacted than others are. So we felt that it was time to acknowledge that, and begin to encourage a movement that has already begun, it’s been going on for 10 years, to recognize that human are part of the ecosystems.

All organisms modify their environment. Humans are no different in that regard. The difference is the extent to which they modify it. And so, the idea was to encourage more ecologists to take the view that studying systems that humans are included in, studies that include a social science perspective is probably the only way we can move towards a more sustainable future. That’s what most of the ecosystems are. If we don’t understand how they work with humans in them, and what kinds of science needs to be done to try and minimize the negative impacts that the huge human population has on those systems, and the ability of those systems to provide the services those people depend on – if we don’t do that science, then the trajectory of extinction of our species is simply going to be accelerated. The resources that we rely on are largely not renewable, it’s really a fallacy that technology can come in and we can find new and newer ways to prolong our over-extraction of resources, like water, which of course I study river systems and tend to focus on water.

So, the purpose of the article was to explain that viewpoint and to stress the areas that we felt were most in need of new science using that perspective. And those included, as I’ve already said, the science of ecosystem services. And by that we mean, how are the major services provided in systems that have large human populations? And this would include drinking water, clean air to breathe, pollination services, all the kinds of things that people largely take for granted. But, now that we’re starting to see those disappear, or it’s costing us more and more to provide than providing technological solutions, people are beginning to understand – well, you know what, we better figure out how ecosystems provide these, what it is that humans do that then disrupts the delivery of those services, and are there ways that we can then mitigate those impacts.

And, the second area, that is very closely related to, I guess, all of the sciences under the rubric of ecosystem services, is – we’re pretty blunt about stating that conservation should be the first option. It should be the first priority. But when it’s not an option, which, increasingly, it isn’t, we need to focus on restoring systems, or coming up with ecologically designed solutions to the problems that have been created by not being able to conserve those systems. And so what do I mean by ecological design? It sounds like sort of a frightening or a funny concept – designer ecosystems. But the idea is to sort of change our mindsets, so that if we have the particular need for some natural product, instead of thinking about how to extract that from the Earth using technology that may end up doing more damage, we began to use a mindset where we say, well are there ways that we can actually maximize nature’s ability to provide that to us even though we’re here and we’re using the land.

And I’ll give you an example. If you look at areas of large populations – like the Washington D.C. area where I live. Well, people are not going to move away from here. Population growth and expansion is not going to stop. So what happened over the last 20 or 30 years, largely after the Clean Water Act, is there was a recognition that putting all of this paved property, paving over lawns and putting all of these rooftops in, was causing real problems with our water quality. Basically, what happens is that when you pave over too much land, you accelerate the rate of movement of rainwater across the pavement, directly into rivers and streams, and into the oceans. And, in that path, first of all, gets to the rivers much faster. So you have these flash floods, and second, it picks up all sorts of nasty pollutants. So what do we do? Over the last 20 years, we’ve built all of these storm water ponds. And they were designed with gutters, which are along all of our sidewalks and in our streets, so that water quickly drains off our property into gutters, goes into a stormwater system, and moves into the pond. The pond fills up, and then slowly, that water moves out through a pipe to streams. Well, it turns out that was reasonably effective if the pond was designed right, too decrease the erosion in the stream. So it did slow the water down, but it didn’t do much at all for cleaning the water. So now, what we’re starting to see is some real innovative work being done around the country, and Maryland is actually at the forefront of some of these methods of using what we call “Low Impact Development”:http://www.lowimpactdevelopment.org/index.htm. Under this scenario, basically the manager sits back and says, “How can I help Nature do her work?” Well, how do we get that service of clean water to begin with? The way we get it is when it rains, and the water goes into the soil, it slowly infiltrates until it reaches the groundwater, and in transit, it’s cleaned through a natural filtering process. Some of it is physical, and some of it is microbial. So now, what’s happening, for example in Maryland, we have new stormwater regulations which went into effect in the year 2000, and instead of maximizing the rate at which that water hits the stormwater ponds, the idea is to minimize the need for stormwater ponds and to try and landscape areas with swells and other structures so that you get more infiltration. Get rid of the gutters. Try and get the water moving into the ground, not onto the street and directly into the stormwater system. That’s an ecologically designed solution. Basically stepping back and saying, how does nature do it? Can we have humans here, but figure out a way to simulate what nature does. That’s far more sustainable than a solution that requires water treatment plants and things like that. So that’s what we meant by ecological design. I could give you lots more examples.

The third area that we focused on was restoration. And again, I say third area, all these are under the general rubric of ecosystem services. But the idea here is that, we’ve talked for a long time about the need to need to restore ecosystems, and what that has meant for many, many years has been to try and return an ecosystem back to its former state. Well, immediately, you stop and think – former – what is “former?” Well, we typically think some pristine condition, or some reference condition. That’s highly problematic because, first of all, what point do you chose? I live in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, and we have more forests now than we had 150 years ago, when most of this was agriculture. So do we say, Okay, we want to go back prior to 150 years ago. You can see that’s a problematic concept. But beyond that, I think the more serious issue is that it’s impossible. Even if we could find a pristine system, in many, many settings now you can’t possibly restore a system back to some pre-disturbance state. And so we advocated viewing restoration more within the context of moving a system to a least disturbed state, given the context within that system is placed – whether or not it’s social constraints, because people don’t want certain things to happen in that area or to be done. Or it’s ecological constraints, due to things like, maybe it’s a very isolated region and species can’t disperse into that area. So that restoring those species there would be a sort of no-win situation.

So really, this article was all about being pragmatic about helping to move towards a more sustainable future, in terms of ecosystems. And by pragmatic, it’s admitting that population growth globally is not going to decrease for a long time, if at all. Certainly consumption rates show no signs of declining. So, we felt it was time for more ecologists – there already are many doing this – to step up to the plate and say, okay, first figure out what we can do given all these constraints. And we closed by recommending a focus on, particularly on three topics. And there’s a lot we could have chosen, but we felt right now that some of the most pressing issues that ecologists need to turn their attention to is urbanization, and how to slow the environmental impacts, which, again, directly influence the availability of clean water, clean air, food, etc… to humans. The second one, beyond urbanization, was the availability of enough clean drinking water for people. I think, in the U.S., we sort of thought for a long time that we’d never have problems with enough water, and that we could always have enough water technology to clean it up. We now know that that’s not the case. You don’t have to look too far. It’s not just the western U.S. that has water shortages. There are places in the East as well. Georgia’s had significant problems recently. And, if you look at the statistics, I think people don’t realize how many people, even in the United States, suffer from debilitating diseases, and some deaths, every year, because of tainted drinking water. And the third area that we recommended needs focus in particular is what we call ecological commerce. And that’s the idea – “Steve Palumbi”:http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/100/21/11927 has written about this, as has “Bruce Menge”:http://lucile.science.oregonstate.edu/?q=node/view/16 and other ecologists – the idea that we’re moving more and more toward a world in which materials are moving much more rapidly between ecosystems. And it’s partly due to how much human movement is going on. Some obvious examples are the movement of invasive species and disease are spreading more rapidly than they ever have. But there are other kinds of ecological commerce that is changing very, very dramatically. And that relates to the movement of goods, products. We’re changing the movement of materials that are in transport in the air. And then the flipside of all those things I mentioned is the “bad” kind of ecological commerce, if you want to use those words. There’s a lot of ecological commerce that is extremely healthy for ecosystems. If you think about nutrients moving down rivers to coastal systems, that has traditionally been viewed as helping to fuel coastal fisheries. What we’re seeing now, and we expect to accelerate in the future, is an alteration in that ecological flux, or that ecological subsidy, that is starting to have impacts on coastal fisheries. There are a lot of other examples of ecological subsidies or ecological commerce. And we just don’t know much about that.

So that pretty much summarizes what we tried to convey in the article. And we certainly hope to create a lot of discussion over this, because we think that that might stimulate the kind of work, not only research, but education and more interaction with managers and policymakers that we think is really needed right now. We’re at a pretty critical time.

ES: Well that’s quite a bit to think about. I guess to start with, the concept you mentioned previously – of ecological commerce – is the Dead Zone in the Gulf of Mexico an example of a place where ecological commerce is happening?

MP: Absolutely, that’s an excellent example where in that case, the movement of ecological materials, the flux of nutrients, has so vastly increased because of all the agricultural land in the Mississippi basin, that it’s causing major problems with fisheries there. But there are also places around the world where water extraction rates are so high, where groundwater is being pumped out much faster than it can be renewed, that rivers that go to the sea have dried up. Some of those rivers aren’t even flowing any more. So in those situations, the coastal areas are actually nutrient starved, and salinity is starting to go up. So there’s sort of positive ecological subsidies that we have let go to excess. And then there are ones that we’ve actually halted by our activities. And, one of the things that Steven Palumbi suggested, I believe that it was in an article he wrote to Nature, is that we might be able to actually use ecological subsidies to our benefit to help restore some ecosystem services. But this is an area that’s been so untapped, scientifically, that I can’t even tell you how we could do that, but it’s possible that we could manipulate or accelerate certain fluxes and interfere with others to try and help restore some of our services.

ES: In talking with Andrew Rosenberg recently, a fisheries expert, one of the concepts he conveyed to me was the need for a precautionary approach to managing ecosystems – that is, one of caution when it comes to changing ecosystems. How does what you’re suggesting differ from that?

MP: Well it’s interesting. Instead of saying cautious, I would emphasize much more that we are trying to push a thoughtful approach, an ecologically or environmentally thoughtful approach. Because in our view, what’s happened is that a lot of systems have become managed or impacted sort of without an explicit recognition that that’s occurring. So it’s the idea that even when we don’t make a decision to do something, we’re making a decision. And often times, that has been more problematic in terms of impacts on the ecosystem than the decisions that we make with great care. And so, we’re really saying, think about everything that’s going on. Think about the fact that right now, our administration, we have not signed on to the Kyoto Protocol, because we’re being so cautious in terms of, we need more research, we need more research,… well perhaps what’s needed is to actually think about the fact that we’re making a decision not to reduce releases of carbon dioxide, and NOS. It’s not that we’re saying that we’re not doing anything, we’re actually making a decision not to do it. And I would advocate that it’s not a very thoughtful decision.

ES: One thing I wanted to ask you about was the interactions of different groups of people in making decisions about our environment.

MP: You know that was the one thing that I was going to say that I had not touched on before. I think that everything that I outlined, that is, different approaches for trying to move us towards a more sustainable future, none of it will work unless it involves everyone. It is essential that stakeholders be involved in deciding what they want the future to be, what’s acceptable to them, and what’s not, and the role that scientists can play is to give them a sense of what options there are.

No single group has the right to say what the future should hold. And that’s not at all what we as scientists are interested in doing. The idea is more to have stakeholder groups, which includes citizens that live in the region, if you’re talking about managed ecosystems in a certain area, citizens, policy makers, all the people that have some vested interest in winning in a region, should work together to make decision about how to be the best stewards of their ecosystems.

So we’ll say, for example, you put together a stakeholder group in the Chesapeake Bay. And you go to that group. You have moderators, and you basically ask them to envision a sustainable future for themselves. What do they want their local world to look like in 20 years? What kinds of things do they want to have access to, etc… And then that can be brought back, and the scientists can actually take those ideas, those desires, and say okay, what would we need to do, in terms of either conserving areas, cleaning up ecosystems, setting aside parks, putting in new kinds of designs. What would we have to do to make it the way they want it, to insure that it’s going to be that way. That can then be brought back to the group and say, okay, here’s some science behind the provisioning of those things that you would like to have, and you’d like your children to have. And then the stakeholders can chose, and say, well, you know we’re not really willing to quite give up as much as we’d have to to get that. So how about we’re willing to accept x, y, or z, which is maybe a slight compromise on their part, but in the process they’ve been educated about what would be required to get what it is they want. The scientist could go back to the table and say, okay, they’re not willing to set aside 40% of their land to conservation, and that’s what we thought was needed to be able to do so and so, so what can we do given that they’re only going to set aside 20% of their land. What’s the best we can do to provide them with clean water and clean air, etc… So the idea is that the groups work together, that it’s iterative, it’s stakeholders that make the decisions about the policies and outcomes that will get where they want to go. But the scientists work with them to provide that information. And, quite frankly, I think that’s the only way that we’re going to move towards a more sustainable future. The public has to have ownership of their ecosystem. And they have to understand how ecosystems provide those services they depend on. And I think, only when that happens, are we going to see significant progress.

I gave a talk at the AAAS last February, there was a section on futures. And I talked about the environment, someone talked about security, someone on health. And at the end of the session, there were panels that spoke in-between our talks, etc…, at the end of the session, one reporter stood up and said. You know, I think what I’m hearing from all three of the speakers is that most of the science we need to have a better future in these three areas, we already know. It’s just not being acted upon. And I think that’s very true. A lot of what we need is not rocket science. Sure, we need more work on how to restore and how ecosystem services are provided. But we already know a lot. It’s simply not being used in a lot of areas.

And the example I gave in the Science article is a classic one. In the Chesapeake Bay, the oyster population and the blue crab population are at just fearfully low levels. I mean they’re almost locally extinct. Now for the oysters it’s complicated because there’s multiple diseases. But for both the oysters and the blue crabs, a large part of the decline, if not the majority, is due to poor water quality. And so the public’s beginning to recognize that we have inadequate infrastructure to clean our waste materials, that is the sewage treatment facilities, and so forth. And so in some states in the Bay they’re putting in extra taxes to help increase that and clean up the water. But what hasn’t been recognized yet is that even if you do all that, you’re still going to have significant problems in the Bay because of the way that we’re using the land – clearing the trees, paving over surfaces. And so we understand that we need to minimize sprawl and change the way that we develop. But we haven’t yet developed the policies to do that. We understand that, scientists do. I don’t think the public largely knows that.

I tend to be an optimist, and I actually think that if the average homeowner were aware that leaving more plants in their yard, not keeping a very finely pruned grassy lawn, but adding swells to the lawn, low lying areas, ridges, and troughs, and having lots of plants, and not over fertilizing – which the average homeowner fertilizes something like four or five times more than they need – I think if the average homeowner knew that they would actually act on it, and change things. So some of this is public education, and I think that until stakeholders begin to recognize that, you know, what they get out of their ecosystem is really what they put into it, that we’re not going to see a whole lot of change. So I cannot emphasize enough the need for broad involvement by most constituencies.

ES: What happens when these groups can’t agree about what to do, in regards to making decisions about our environment? I mean, let’s just say, for instance, that I love highly manicured lawns (I don’t), and raise a stink about my neighbor’s overgrown, shaggy lawn. Where is that line drawn between standard of living and sustainability?

MP: There’s no question that those conflicts exist, and they’re only going to be accelerated. And the key point to make there is that it’s not up to scientists to make that decision about which way it goes. There are certainly advocacy groups out there. And some scientists who act as advocates on behalf of species or sufficient water in a stream to support that ecosystem, even if it impacts humans. But that is not the majority opinion. The majority of scientists fall into the category of, the public has to make those decisions. For example, I think you made a real reasonable point and that is, to you, you like manicured lawns, you think that’s a high quality of life. And I can actually understand that. However, if it was put to you that you could have that or, you could have clean water eight months out of the year, but you might have a few summer months that, becuase of the way your lawn is manicured, you probably should buy bottled water, you may make a different decision. And so that’s why we’re stressing the need for thoughtful decisions and informed decisions. There are things that I really like that sometimes I do but I know I shouldn’t, you know, like using a lot of paper towels, or occasionally discarding something that can be recycled, so I don’t want to pretend that I don’t love a lot of those creature comforts. But we’ve gotten ourselves in a situation, particularly in the United States, where the average person is not aware of the cost that these things place on society, these decisions, these comforts. And, it’s catching up with us, and it’s only going to get worse in the future. Whether or not the cost is real money or it’s, in human lives, or in quality of life. You know, there’s more children now with asthma than there’s ever been. There’s no question that air quality is contributing to that. So, there’s cost to all of these things, and somehow we have to make sure that the public understands those, and then makes a decision. And if the public decides that it’s more important to make sure that they have their needs met, then the needs of a particular species, whether or not it’s an oyster or something else, I think that that’s okay. The public has the right to make that decision. And that’s where I differ I think with a fair number of ecologists, in that I do take a pragmatic approach, and I’m willing to accept the need to compromise on some things, because we live in a complex society, where there’s a lot of different views on things.

ES: Okay, getting back now to the concept of designer ecosystems – some of them appear to be very innovative – like rooftop gardens in Germany or the sand dune lakes in the Netherlands.

MB: Well, yes, the idea here is that those are good examples of ecologically designed solutions that really have a great benefit if they’re done at a large enough scale, and they’re just very creative. Someone has been extremely thoughtful about ways to use nature to provide services that help to take care of problems. In the case of water in the Netherlands, the large cities in the Netherlands have been water stressed for decades and decades. And it didn’t take long before they were pumping all of the groundwater out that was fresh enough to drink, and they started getting salt water out, because they were near coastal areas. And so some very clever people began to realize that maybe we can divert water from rivers into lakes, and then pump that water into large sand dunes that already exist in this area, and as it moves deep into the aquifer, the salts and the impurities are cleaned out. Now what I will say is that project was not done without cost. There were some environmental problems associated with it. But, overall, there was a net gain, both for the ecosystem and for the people. In the case of what we can do in urban areas, planting on roofs and decreasing planting trees and vegetation on roofs instead of just having asphalt, or tar roofs, and putting in small rain gardens, which are just groupings of plants throughout parking lots, instead of just having the entire thing one paved surface, you can actually move the water into those areas, let the water infiltrate into the soil instead of going straight into a gutter. So there are lots of small things that can be done. Some parts of the country are starting to recognize that planting trees can provide cooling benefits. One of the problems in large cities is that you get this urban island heat effect, where everything heats up a lot. So in some cases, trees are being put in simply to deal with heat problems. Nature can do a lot of things for us if we’re clever about thinking about some of those solutions. And in general, the rule of thumb is, the less engineered the solution, the more likely it is to cause fewer problems in the environment, and also to be less costly. So when possible, soft paths should be taken – not hard engineering approaches.

ES: Another thing I wanted to touch on was the idea of pristine ecosystems. In a talk I had with Daniel Pauly, a fisheries expert, he explained to me that one of the reasons why the public hasn’t noticed the depletion of fish in the ocean is because of what he calls a shifting baseline, where the reference point to what is normal keeps changing from generation to generation, to where we can’t remember what the pristine system was like, and only maintain what there is now. How would you speak to that?

MP: I know the whole concept of the baseline, the bar being lowered further and further, is a disturbing one. It doesn’t make me happy to say that an ecological baseline that’s a pristine system is no longer reasonable. It doesn’t make me happy to say that, but I actually believe that that’s the case. I think that when scientists say that we have to go back to how we were in the 1600s, or whatever, first of all, I think that they’re actually forgetting what it was actually like at that time. Life wasn’t so easy. But secondly, the only option, the only way that we can go in that direction is if we vastly decrease world population size. All populations now, globally, cannot sustain ecosystems at the level that they were back whenever you want to say, the baseline was wonderful, the bar was set so high. We cannot do that. So, if you accept that all data, all evidence, and there have probably been four or five articles in Science and Nature this year alone, in population growth, all estimates indicate we’re looking at maybe 80 billion people on the globe over the next several decades. To me, it’s irresponsible to pretend that we can go back to pristine baselines. It’s just not reasonable. So my view, and that of the group that wrote the article, is, what can we do? What’s the very best we can do given the reality and the constraints? We would like to conserve, we would love to go back to pristine baselines, but in the meantime, since it’s not happening, we’re not going there, what can we do? And so my view is that you work with people. You work with the fact that population growth is expanding. You educate people, hopefully to slow population growth. But, you know, in the United States, population growth has slowed dramatically. But look at our consumption rate of natural resources. It’s terrible – it’s so high.

It’s getting to where you see a nice park, and it’s like, nature, instead of actually being in a forest somewhere that’s a huge area.

ES: Is there anything else you’d like to share with the listeners of Earth and Sky, and with the public?

MB: It’s really important that we start to think about the way ecosystems have functioned historically. The ecosystems survive and continue to produce those things that we depend on because we allow them to be dynamic. They have some natural resiliencies that allow them to deal with pressures and disturbances and still bounce back. And so if there’s anything I’d like to see happening, is to allow nature to be more variable than humans have historically wanted it. We want to channelize our water. We want to fix things, make them static. Populations will not survive if we manage them in that direction. And so I think that management and restoration for resiliency – so that the system can withstand some disturbance, because it’s going to happen. It’s a lot smarter than trying to make nature work the way we want her to, harness her and so forth.

When you think about it, right now some of the biggest success stories in terms of environmental issues have been related to the Endangered Species Act, and it’s very important on the other hand, is focused on management of single species. And, it’s not focused on ecosystem management. And for that reason, many of the things that have been done, have in the long term, failed. Because the whole concept is that ecosystems are what support those species, wasn’t really taken into account. And so a movement toward managing and restoring ecosystems so that they’re resilient, if we can get that mindset and do that, we’re more likely to have those species that we want in the future. I’m on the Scientific Advisory Board for the Grand Canyon, Colorado River Restoration Project. And Glenn Canyon Dam was put in in the 60s. And now, looking what is happening to try and prevent the extinction of endangered species like “humpback chub”:http://www.enature.com/fieldguide/showSpeciesSH.asp?curGroupID=3&shapeID=988&curPageNum=10&recnum=FI0337, it’s almost frightening that attempts are being made to renaturalize floods to some level, to heat up the water, that’s been cooled down by the presence of the dam releases, and maybe, in the future, to add some sediment back that would have been moving downstream had the dam not been there. So we’re trying to mimic what nature used to do before we put the dam in. And at some point, you have to simply say, well, which thing do we really care about the most? And if that is the fish, maybe we need to take more of an ecosystem perspective, which would probably mean breaching the dam. But, this idea that we’ve engineered it, we’ve so boxed it in, that we now need to add temperature control devices to it, and sediment slurry pipes, you know, if you were from another planet, you’d just look at this and say it’s insane.

The following person was interviewed for today’s program. Our thanks to:

Margaret Palmer
University of Maryland
Professor of Entomology and Biology
Stream Ecologist