This week’s scheduled meeting of a group focused on the management of Glen Canyon Dam was canceled by the Trump administration. It's one of many scientific conferences and federal meetings that have been canceled or indefinitely postponed.
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation says the meeting will be rescheduled to ensure new Department of the Interior and Reclamation leadership are “fully briefed” on the Glen Canyon Dam Adaptive Management Work Group. The group advises the Secretary of the Interior on how best to manage Glen Canyon Dam in keeping with the 1992 Grand Canyon Protection Act.
Matt Rice of American Rivers says that involves balancing the needs of water and hydropower users with cultural, environmental, and recreational values.
"And this group is the forum to balance and make management decisions based on all those values, to protect those values. So massively important."
The program was funded by hydropower revenues until 2018, when the first Trump administration reallocated that money to the U.S. Treasury. It’s now funded by Congressional appropriations.
The canceled meeting comes amid a funding freeze that has stalled Colorado River conservation projects and amid layoffs at the U.S. Geological Survey, National Park Service and other federal agencies.
Reports of other canceled meetings come from the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and NASA.
